T H I S W E E K

No. 6268

May 19 2023

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T H E T I M E S L I T E R A R Y S U P P L E M E N T

Edward Chancellor The return of inflation | Jonathan Wolff Doing justice to John Rawls Michael Hofmann Heaney’s translations | Ann Lawson Lucas The greatest Italian novel

Portrait of a marriage

Andrew Harding on the Mandelas

Nelson and Winnie Mandela, 1990 © TT News Agency/ Alamy

In this issue

A t first glance the country looked like an earthly paradise. Earlier this year my table in a Cape Town restaurant had a view of Table Mountain across lush, well-ordered gardens. The crisp white wine and the food were cheap and delicious. Then suddenly came the reality check. Phut – out went the lights, until the back-up generator clicked into l ife. Most poor people don’t enjoy the luxury, enduring hours of blackouts daily, or “load shed- ding”, as it is euphemistically termed. Welcome to South Africa, where the ruling party, the ANC, has wrecked the power company and much else. Just the other year tens of thousands of dollars were found down the back of the new “reformist” presi- dent’s sofa. The fall of the revolting apartheid regime and the triumph of Nelson Mandela seemed to her- ald a happy future. But even at this bright beginning in the 1990s there was a ray of gloom, says Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a marriage, reviewed for the TLS by Andrew Harding.

Steinberg’s account draws on 15,000 pages of taped conversations with Mandela, some conducted on the record, others bugged. It reveals that Mandela’s marriage to Winnie was a nightmare, marked by mutual infidelity and soured by her violent, drunken behaviour while he languished in prison. Winnie’s sponsorship of a gang of thugs called the Mandela United Football Club led to the deaths of a number of innocents. On his release Mandela and the ANC fixed Winnie’s trial for her involvement in the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy. The serpent was present in paradise at the Creation.

I n t h o s e h a ppy d ays we s t e r n gove r nments thought that “the Goldilocks economy” – moderate growth balanced by low inflation – would last for ever. Smart central bankers, independent of malign political interference, would see to it. Alas, as Stephen D. King’s We Need to Talk about Inflation suggests, unelected financial wizards can get it wrong too. Inflation is roaring away again. The bankers blame the “transitory” shock of the pandemic and war. King’s book, reviewed by Edward Chancellor, argues that they “turned a blind eye to the soaring money supply”, victims of their groupthink. The Bank of England was the worst offender of the lot.

Daniel Chandler’s Free and Equal asks what a fair society would look like, based on the egalitarian liberal principles of John Rawls’s celebrated work of political philosophy, A Theory of Justice. We need to hang all lobbyists for the rich, Chandler implies, before we can start building our earthly paradise.

MARTIN IVENS

Editor

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2

3 ECONOMICS

6 LETTERS TO THE

EDITOR

7 TRANSLATION

9 LITERATURE

10 BIOGRAPHY &

POLITICS

12 CLASSICS

13 POEM

14 ARTS

16 FICTION

19 MYTHOLOGY

20 RELIGION

22 ENVIRONMENT

24 IN BRIEF

26 TRAVEL

27 AFTERTHOUGHTS

28 NB

EDWARD CHANCELLOR JONATHAN WOLFF We Need to Talk About Inflation – 14 urgent lessons from the last 2,000 years Stephen D. King Free and Equal – What would a fair society look like? Daniel

Chandler

Donatello and Vermeer, Patrick O’Brian, Monsters, etc

MICHAEL HOFMANN HILARY DAVIES

The Translations of Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney; Edited by Marco Sonzogni The Foreign Connection – Writings on poetry, art and translation Jamie McKendrick

ANN LAWSON LUCAS The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni; Translated by Michael F.

Moore

ANDREW HARDING JAN PLAMPER

Winnie & Nelson – Portrait of a marriage Jonny Steinberg The Return of Resentment – The rise and decline and rise again of a political emotion Robert A. Schneider

T. COREY BRENNAN KATE COOPER

The Lives of a Roman Neighborhood – Tracing the imprint of the past, from 500 BCE to the present Paul W. Jacobs, II The Lives of Ancient Villages – Rural society in Roman Anatolia Peter Thonemann

KIM OK

Friendship; Translated by Ryan Choi

PETER STOTHARD JAMES HALL

Luxury and Power – Persia to Greece (British Museum) The Ugly Duchess – Beauty and satire in the Renaissance (National Gallery). The Ugly Duchess – Beauty and satire in the Renaissance Emma Capron et al

MICHAEL CAINES NORMA CLARKE JULIAN EVANS NICK HOLDSTOCK PAUL GRAVETT

Enter Ghost Isabella Hammad The Ghost Theatre Mat Osman Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv Andrey Kurkov; Translated by Reuben Woolley The Turban and the Hat Sonallah Ibrahim; Translated by Bruce Fudge Your Wish Is My Command Deena Mohamed

ELEANOR ROSAMUND BARRACLOUGH The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think Carolyne Larrington

PAUL ALLEN CALLY HAMMOND

Augustine and Tradition – Influences, contexts, legacy David G. Hunter and Jonathan P. Yates, editors Queens of a Fallen World – The lost women of Augustine’s Confessions Kate Cooper

CAROLINE MOOREHEAD KATE SIMPSON YVONNE REDDICK When the Mountains Dance Christine Toomey A World in a Shell Thom van Dooren Hothouse Earth Bill McGuire

Croire – Sur les pouvoirs de la littérature Justine Augier. From the Battlefield to the Stage – The many lives of General John Burgoyne Norman S. Poser. Of Cattle and Men Ana Paula Maia. Taking Flight – The evolutionary story of life on the wing Lev Parikian. The Hurting Kind Ada Limón. Travels with Tocqueville – Beyond America Jeremy Jennings. Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Britain, sport and the 1980s Roger Domeneghetti

JAMES MCCONNACHIE The Turning Tide – A biography of the Irish Sea Jon Gower

IRINA DUMITRESCU

Taking advice – A few medieval tips

M. C.

Celebrating the Hudson Review, Simon Cutts and the small presses, Shakespeare’s rarities

Editor MARTIN IVENS (editor@the-tls.co.uk) Deputy Editor ROBERT POTTS (robert.potts@the-tls.co.uk) Associate Editor CATHARINE MORRIS (catharine.morris@the-tls.co.uk) Editorial enquiries (queries@the-tls.co.uk) Managing Director JAMES MACMANUS (deborah.keegan@news.co.uk) Advertising Manager JONATHAN DRUMMOND (jonathan.drummond@the-tls.co.uk)

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TLS

MAY 19, 2023