The leader in this week’s New Statesman warns that the window of opportunity for a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is increasingly imperilled. Many figures on both sides of the debate have moved towards favouring a single binational, secular state. In the Critics section, Geoffrey Wheatcroft reviews Peter Beinart’s book The Crisis of Zionism, which charts the former New Republic editor’s increasing disenchantment with Israel - typical of the problematic relationship between American Jews and Israel. Wheatcroft writes: “The settler and Palestinian populations are now so mixed up that a rational and fair partition is practically impossible.” Beinart remains a Zionist who believes that “the Jewish people deserve a state dedicated to their protection in their historic land” and as such, Wheatcroft observes, makes for a rather unlikely dissident. But a gulf has opened, Wheatcroft writes, “between the broadly liberal Jewish-American mainstream and the ferociously, uncritically pro-Israeli official “Jewish establishment””. In many ways, the reaction to Zionism means we have come full circle, Wheatcroft writes. “A hundred years ago Zionism was an esoteric doctrine, little understood by most Gentiles and of little appeal to most Jews”. Wheatcroft notes that Beinart belongs to a line of thinking which believes “that there was a decent Zionism and a decent Israel in the state’s early decades when it was ruled by Labour” – a view that Wheatcroft is keen to dispel.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the crisis of Zionism, Stuart Maconie on the Smiths, Helen Lewis on Fifty Shades, Kate Mossman on pop music's nerds and John Sutherland on English studies.
Wheatcroft also examines Norman Finkelstein’s Knowing Too Much. Finkelstein writes that the problem for American Jews is that they “can no longer reconcile their liberalism with what they have come to know about the Israel-Palestine conflict”. Wheatcroft finds that Finkelstein makes for a vexing writer, “who treats fraught or delicate topics such as Zionism or what he calls the 'Holocaust industry' in a sarcastic and rebarbative tone”. But Finkelstein does remind us that “the triumph of Israel was once not only a source of healing pride for American Jews but paradoxically made it easier for them to remain American”. “Gradually, from being a boon, Israel has become a burden for many Jews,” Wheatcroft observes.
Also in Books, Stuart Maconie reviews Johnny Rogan’s Morrissey and Marr: the Severed Alliance – 20th Anniversary Edition. Rogan’s 1992 biography of the Smiths “astonished most with its Herculean endeavour”, despite having one especially prominent critic – Morrissey. Twenty years later, Maconie still finds the book “the definitive if daunting account of the most romantically mythic band of those times”. Given Morrissey’s mythologising approach to his upbringing, Rogan takes an almost paleontological approach to the Smiths’ prehistory, tackling the group’s family histories in detail. And while Morrissey’s brushes with scandal today border on the absurd, “Rogan reminds us of how genuinely subversive the Smiths were at the time, both musically and ideologically”. Most telling, perhaps, is how the Smiths’ “tortured, arcane financial arrangements underpin the whole narrative”. Far from a story of artistic detachment, “there is much that reads like accountancy here,” Maconie writes, with “many a page given to bank statements, receipts and the labyrinthine ways that the money was (unevenly) split between the members”.
Also in the Critics, John Sutherland wonders if change has been good for university English studies. “Centrality is the principal issue,” Sutherland writes. “Departments of English now occupy a position in the university constellation comparable to Uranus in the collar system.” Universities caused political alarm through the 1960s and 1970s as centres of protest. “One way to bring them to heel was to use funding as a short leash drawn throttlingly tight”, Sutherland observes, “less for frugality than to show who was in charge”. Extra-departmental management followed, aimed at introducing “that idolised thing at the time, 'competition'”. The mandatory PhD for entry-level academics and field specialism have produced a shift in which “a subject that had hitherto fostered the undoctored jack of all trades gradually fragmented into a mosaic of doctored specialists”. Heavy undergraduate fees have merely capped off what Sutherland sees as the inexorable deterioration of English studies.
In this week’s Critic At Large essay, Helen Lewis looks at how E L James's erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey can be better understood as a throwback to the 18th century. Lewis looks back to 1740, with the publication of Pamela by Samuel Richardson – the first bestseller. Just as James’s work began life in the “slash fiction” genre, with its inferior and feminine associations, Richardson worked “in the upstart novel genre at a time when the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope were regarded as literature’s finest form”. And in many ways, the tame sex and minimalist plotting make Fifty Shades a deeply conventional story. “The “mummy porn” label applied by the media might not be as dismissive as it initially sounds”, Lewis writes.
Also in the Critics, Kate Mossman looks at how a generation of nerds is writing music for grown-ups. “Interesting things happen at the point where ambition meets anonymity”, Mossman writes, “you can be a fully formed artistic product before the world even knows you exist”. Mossman examines the Belgian-born Australian singer-songwriter Gotye, responsible for the biggest-selling song in the world this year – “Somebody That I Used To Know”. Gotye spent his twenties living in a former family home in Melbourne “rent-free, tooling around with vintage synths to his heart’s content”. Gotye, along with Kimbra and Monáe – musicians who sound like 1980s pop stars – have been defined above all by an isolated upbringing. The reach of the internet and laptop technology mean “there’s a new route for the old-fashioned pop star”. It’s all about perfectionism, Mossman argues: “The more nerdy you are, the more artistic control you retain. The penniless, jack-of-all trades musician can take punk’s DIY ethic and reach the world with it now”.
Elsewhere in the Critics: Suzy Klein on the great conductors; Yo Zushi on the rise of David Bowie; Leo Robson on Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia; Rachel Cooke on Wallander; Antonia Quirke on the final broadcast from Bush House; Ryan Gilbey reviews the latest Batman film, and Will Self is seduced by his new smartphone.