T H I S W E E K

No. 6344

November 1 2024

the-tls.co.uk

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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

Jonathan Fitzgibbons The English republic | Richard Lea In search of flying saucers Tom Seymour Evans Tim Winton’s eco-revenge tale | Miranda France The Dutch Booker entry

Scare stories Michael Saler, Elizabeth Dearnley and Mark Storey on modern horror

© Tom Williams/Roll Call/Gett y Images

In this issue

A sked why he liked horror films, or terror films as he preferred to call them, Kingsley Amis wrote: “like Mark Twain on a dissimilar occasion, I have an answer to that: I don’t know”. He viewed horror as purely “harmless” entertainment. That explanation might sati sf y teenage addic ts, but moralists, psychologists and literary critics are inclined to examine the bloody entrails of the genre to divine deeper truths.

Moralists diagnose a sick society; psychologists detect celluloid sublimation of hidden fears and neuroses; highbrow critics interrogate plots for political commentary and allegory. Writers and filmmakers are happy to oblige them – they welcome the free publicity – producing horror movies that critique race, class and consumer culture or reflect fears of ecological apocalypse, nuclear war or i n f ec t i ous d i s e a s e post - A i ds . Je remy Dauber ’s American Scar y, according to reviewer Michael Saler, also informs us that horror, from the arrival of the Puritans to the present, has always been central to American culture, particularly as a means of expressing the return of the repressed. We’ve got the message – today only a foolhardy traveller would stay in a remote hotel built on ancient Native American burial grounds. As for slasher films, in which a killer targets young men and women on the cusp of adulthood, the connection between sex, guilt and death is hardly disguised. These gory flicks provide another instance of life imitating “art”. The slasher anticipates the rise of the “incel”, the digital misogynist who pours out sexist bile because no woman in their right mind would ever give him the time of day. All these dark mysteries and more are explored by Saler, Elizabeth Dearnley and Mark Storey in this week’s TLS Halloween special.

Charles III’s throne seems quite secure, despite his ill-omened name. His predecessor Charles II was a secret pensionary of a hostile superpower for much of his reign. And while, at his execution, Charles I “nothing common did or mean / Upon that memorable scene”, many of his former subjects thought good riddance. In his lead review Jonathan Fitzg i b b o n s c h a l l e n g e s t h e p r e v a i l i n g v i e w t h a t “monarchy has always been Britain’s destiny ”. Books by Alice Hunt and Henry Reece argue for the feasibility of the republican regimes of the late 1650s. Ronald Hutton’s life of the regicide Oliver Cromwell, however, presents the king as wrongly maligned “by the army and historians”. Fitzgibbons is sceptical of the claim, but HM’s head may lie more easily ...

MARTIN IVENS

Editor

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2

3 HISTORY

5 JOURNALISM

JONATHAN FITZGIBBONS Republic – Britain’s revolutionary decade, 1649–1660 Alice

Hunt. The Fall – Last days of the English republic Henry Reece. Oliver Cromwell – Commander in chief Ronald Hutton

JAMES ROBINS

Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied – Claud Cockburn and the invention of guerrilla journalism Patrick Cockburn

6 LETTERS TO THE

EDITOR

7 BIOGRAPHY

LARRY WOLFF JACOB MIKANOWSKI

Goethe and the death penalty, National literatures, Medieval manuals, etc

Augustus the Strong – A study in artistic greatness and political fiasco Tim Blanning Izabela the Valiant – The story of an indomitable Polish princess Adam Zamoyski

9 HALLOWEEN

MICHAEL SALER

ELIZABETH DEARNLEY

MARK STOREY

American Scary – A history of horror, from Salem to Stephen King and beyond Jeremy Dauber. Feeding the Monster – Why horror has a hold on us Anna Bogutskaya 21st-Century British Gothic – The monstrous, spectral, and uncanny in contemporary fiction Emily Horton. The Fiction of Dread – Dystopia, monstrosity, and apocalypse Robert T. Tally Jr Fiction for geeks and freaks – The decades before horror became respectable

14 ARTS

EDWARD ALLEN ANNA ASLANYAN

Il trittico Giacomo Puccini (Bologna, Turin, Cardiff ) The Fear of 13 Lindsey Ferrentino (Donmar Warehouse, London)

16 FICTION

MIRANDA FRANCE COSTICA BRADATAN TOM SEYMOUR EVANS The Safekeep Yael van der Wouden Too Great a Sky Liliana Corobca; Translated by Monica Cure Juice Tim Winton

18 RUSSIAN LITERATURE ERIC NAIMAN

BARBARA HELDT

Zhizn’ tvorimogo romana – Ot avanteksta k kontekstu “Anny Kareninoi” Mikhail Dolbilov The Talnikov Family Avdotya Panaeva; Translated by Fiona Bell

20 POETRY

22 SCIENCE

24 IN BRIEF

RORY WATERMAN PHILIPPA CONLON

RICHARD LEA

KATE BROWN

26 SPORT

27 AFTERTHOUGHTS

28 NB

KATE HEXT

REGINA RINI

M.C.

Devotions – The selected poems Mary Oliver Ash Keys – New selected poems Michael Longley

After the Flying Saucers Came – The global history of the UFO phenomenon Greg Eghigian. Imminent – Inside the Pentagon’s hunt for UFOs Luis Elizondo Into the Clear Blue Sky – The path to restoring our atmosphere Rob Jackson

Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists – Ilf and Petrov’s American road trip Lisa A. Kirschenbaum. Edith Holler Edward Carey. How Not to Be a Supermodel – A Noughties memoir Ruth Crilly. Bambino a Roma Chico Buarque. Private Revolutions – Coming of age in a new China Yuan Yang. Melancholy Undercover – The book of ABBA Jan Gradvall; Translated by Sarah Clyne Sundberg. Gemeinsinn – Der sechste, soziale Sinn Aleida and Jan Assmann

To the Limit – The meaning of endurance from Mexico to the Himalayas Michael Crawley

Some momentary discomfort – How metaphysics relieves anxiety

Triggered by triggers, Shakespeare in Downing Street, More literary desks

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) Assistant to the Editor LISA TARLING (lisa.tarling@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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NOVEMBER 1, 2024