In the end, only okay. Enjoyed for a while but it kind of petered out and in the end was somehow both muddled and heavy-handed and obvious. I read James Woods's review in the New Yorker after finishing the book and while I liked it more than he did -- e.g. I didn't mind the kind of silly dialogue, which irked him -- I agree with some of his objections.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
slouching toward bethlehem
To paraphrase myself in a recent email: Didion is an absolutely wonderful writer. The essays are so closely observed. And it's amazing to think that she was right about the age I am now when she was writing these. She seems somehow more mature and composed than a 28 or 30-year-old has any right to be.
And boy, she sure did look down on the hippies.
Eula Biss and Didion are very different stylistically and temperamentally but Biss is also a tremendously insightful and thoughtful essayist so I'm finding it hard not to compare them.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
ghettoside
Fabulously well-reported and well-told, compelling, frustrating and sad, important. Makes the argument that black communities are plagued not just by intrusive and unnecessarily violent policing of small crimes, but also by massive underpolicing of violent crimes. Catching and punishing criminals who commit violent assaults, goes the argument, in effect creates law and order.
The state monopoly on violence does not currently extend to many majority-black neighborhoods in big cities, and so segments of those communities police themselves, as people living outside the reach of a strong state have ever since strong states became a thing. Violent gangs are a symptom, not a cause. To end the grip that gang violence has on places like Watts and Compton, the state must decide that it cares enough about victims of that violence to aggressively pursue and imprison perpetrators of major violence. It's very hard for it to do so now because its historical indifference and underattention to major violence and heavy-handed approach to minor crimes and policing, especially of young black men, has created serious and well-founded mistrust of the criminal justice system.
It would be really interesting to explore the parallel between the quasi-tribal/familial gang system in many US cities with the tribal systems in places like southern Afghanistan.
The state monopoly on violence does not currently extend to many majority-black neighborhoods in big cities, and so segments of those communities police themselves, as people living outside the reach of a strong state have ever since strong states became a thing. Violent gangs are a symptom, not a cause. To end the grip that gang violence has on places like Watts and Compton, the state must decide that it cares enough about victims of that violence to aggressively pursue and imprison perpetrators of major violence. It's very hard for it to do so now because its historical indifference and underattention to major violence and heavy-handed approach to minor crimes and policing, especially of young black men, has created serious and well-founded mistrust of the criminal justice system.
It would be really interesting to explore the parallel between the quasi-tribal/familial gang system in many US cities with the tribal systems in places like southern Afghanistan.
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