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T H I S W E E K No. 6344 November 1 2024 the-tls.co.uk UK £4.50 | USA $8.99 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 Find us on www.the-tls.co.uk Times Literary Supplement @the.tls @TheTLS To buy any book featured in this week’s TLS, go to timesbookshop.co.uk 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) Correspondence and deliveries: 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF Telephone for editorial enquiries: 020 7782 5000 Subscriptions: UK/ROW: feedback@the-tls.co.uk 0800 048 4236; US/Canada: custsvc_timesupl@fulcoinc.com 1-844 208 1515 Missing a copy of your TLS: USA/Canada: +1 844 208 1515; UK & other: +44 (0) 203 308 9146 Syndication: 020 7711 7888 enquiries@newssyndication.com The Times Literary Supplement (ISSN 0307661, USPS 021-626) is published weekly, except combined last two weeks of August and December, by The Times Literary Supplement Limited, London, UK, and distributed by FAL Enterprises 38-38 9th Street, Long Island City NY 11101. Periodical postage paid at Flushing NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: please send address corrections to TLS, PO Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834 USA. The TLS is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation and abides by the standards of journalism set out in the Editors’ Code of Practice. If you think that we have not met those standards, please contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk. For permission to copy articles or headlines for internal information purposes contact Newspaper Licensing Agency at PO Box 101, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1WX, tel 01892 525274, e-mail copy@nla.co.uk. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail sales@newslicensing.co.uk TLS NOVEMBER 1, 2024
page 3
H I S T O R Y Dynamic, not doomed Taking the British Revolution out of the Restoration’s shadow I N C A M E R A S T O C K / A L A M Y © JONATHAN FITZGIBBONS REPUBLIC Britain’s revolutionary decade, 1649-1660 ALICE HUNT 512pp. Faber. £25. THE FALL Last days of the English republic HENRY REECE 464pp. Yale University Press. £35 (US $65). OLIVER CROMWELL Commander in chief RONALD HUTTON 480pp. Yale University Press. £25 (US $35). The Restoration of 1660 gave rise to the powerful and enduring myth that monarchy has always been Britain’s destiny. Charles Stuart’s escape via an oak tree after his defeat at Worcester in 1651, which might have been the conclusion of a 1 ,000-year experiment in monarchical rule, became instead the prelude to a story of the king’s inevitable homecoming to popular acclaim after an unwanted, decade-long “interregnum”. Modern scholarship has tended to perpetuate the notion that Britain’s republic was doomed from the start. The execution of Charles I in 1649 was the high point of a revolution that quickly fizzled out; the return of Stuart monarchy was a matter of when, not if. Alice Hunt’s Republic and Henry Reece’s The Fall both tackle these tired narratives head-on, examining the republican era on its own terms to reveal its dynamism and vigour. Republic is a “biography” of the revolutionary decade – a fast-paced and enjoyable year-by-year survey of events from 1649 to 1660. The lively narrative, interspersed with wry asides, presents a plethora of rich vignettes of notable episodes and personalities that bring this exhilarating period to life. John Milton and Thomas Hobbes jostle alongside lesser lights such as the polymath Samuel Hartlib and his circle of reformers, who promoted such out l andi sh i deas a s c re at i ng a universal language and the decimalization of currency. Hunt shows convincingly that the 1650s was not a decade NOVEMBER 1, 2024 of inevitable failure, but an era of new ideas and possibilities in religion, society and politics. Culture flourished, imperial horizons expanded, scientists began to view the world in new ways. The republican future looked bright; many came to accept that “monarchy no longer suited England”. Only in retrospect was this period an interregnum. Hunt has a keen eye for the ceremonies and symbols of power, providing dazzling descriptions of the set-piece displays by which the kingless governments of the 1650s were promoted: the “headless English still knew how to put on a good show”. She also provides a compelling corrective to notions of Oliver Cromwell being a “king in all but name”. The Lord Protector may have “looked somewhat royal ... but this was royalty with a difference”, setting the pace for the constitutional monarchy familiar to us today. Parliament’s offer of the crown to Cromwell in 1657 promoted a “radical version of kingship”, “a new kind of monarchy” shorn of the hereditary principle. Even after he refused that offer, Cromwell appropriated royal ceremonies, but in the process transformed them. His second inauguration as Lord Protector was no “mock coronation”: it took place in Westminster Hall, not the Abbey, and was presided over by parliament’s Speaker rather than an archbishop. There was no crown, holy oil or, for that matter, coronation chair. The “differences mattered”: the ceremony was more secular than sacred, Cromwell’s “legitimacy rested on his oath, and on a written constitution”. Whatever the Protectorate was, it was not a retreat to old ways: it was “something else, something still emerging”. The republic’s vitalit y, and the Restoration’s consequent lack of inevitability, is also a key theme of Reece’s The Fall, which focuses exclusively on the period from the accession of Oliver’s son Richard Cromwell in September 1658 until the Restoration of May 1660. The author is not the first to focus on the story of the republic’s final months, but most p rev i ous a c c ounts have been bur i ed i n introductory chapters of books on the Restoration, compounding the sense that these months were the prelude to monarchy’s inevitable return. The Fall is the first modern study to ignore the “long backwards shadow” of the Restoration, producing a narrative that is not “constantly distorted by the end result”. Rather than being a “comprehensive” account, it focuses on “major turning points” and the decisions, or indecisions, of key personalities in TLS A portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Robert Walker, c.1649 Jonathan Fitzgibbons is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Lincoln. His books include Cromwell’s Head, 2008 parliament and the army. It is impeccably researched and makes an intriguing, sometimes compelling, case for the feasibility of the various republican regimes of the later 1650s. The problems facing Richard Cromwell as Protector, including agitation by the army, a shortage of money and a faction-ridden parliament, were “manageable if challenging”. While it would be an overstatement to say that Richard’s regime was popular, it was tolerated by a swathe of the political nation for the stability it seemed to afford. Their feeling is best summarized in the speech of the lawyer and MP Samuel Gott: “Any government is better than no government”. More controversially, Reece does not believe that the military presence in 1650s Britain was an intrinsic roadblock to settlement. The size of the army fell during the Protectorate, as did the overall tax burden; further economies might have been made with time. Rather, it was the failure of Richard and his civilian advisers to meet soldiers’ concerns while moving “too far and too fast against the army” that sealed the Protectorate’s fate. Likewise, the re s tored Rump Parliament a f ter Richard’s resignation in 1659, despite being “greeted with little enthusiasm by much of the political nation”, was a perfectly workable regime. Even if it was not universally loved, the Rump was able to raise sizeable militia forces totalling almost “15,000 men” to secure the Commonwealth when it came under threat from ri sings that summer. The regime’s durability rested on its ability to attract a “significantly sized bloc of adherents that was committed to its survival, if for no other reason than as a bulwark against the return of monarchy”. It was the misguided and heavy-handed at tempts by politicians to bring the army firmly under civilian control that l ed to the Rump’s second forced expulsion in October 1659 and the establishment of a military-led Committee of Safety. Reece’s emphasis is on the “significance of human agency in determining political outcomes”. While much blame falls on politicians, he rightly highlights the faults of the generals as well, including Charles Fleetwood, a man whose godliness matched that of his father-in-law Oliver Cromwell, but whose leadership skills did not. After the army seized power in October 1659, the regime drifted under Fleetwood’s “fatal mix of piety and indecision”, allowing the ousted Rumpers to regroup and George Monck to mobilize – the crucial decision that led, a few months later, to the Restoration. The author’s thesis is that the failure to reach a settlement in the 1650s was due largely to bad choices, long memories and short tempers, rather than any inherent or “structural” weaknesses. Yet while the army could have been brought firmly under c iv i l ian control by more understanding politicians willing to pay serious attention to its material grievances, there remained a wide, perhaps unbridgeable gulf between the army’s priorities for a settlement that worked for the godly nation and the aims of civilian politicians seeking to reconcile the nation at large. The feeling among the soldiery that the people’s representatives could not be trusted to do what they felt was in the public interest had led them both to purge the Long Parliament in 1648 and to expel the Rump in 1653. So long as these soldiers retained a sense that they were God’s instruments, justified in taking extreme measures whenever they felt that politicians failed to follow what they took to be the divine path, they surely remained a latent threat to settlement. While The Fall is largely about high politics, some of its more striking sections reveal a wider population sunk in apathy, inertia and apparent lack of commitment. People spoke increasingly of their bewilderment and confusion; many sat back and waited to see how things played out before committing themselves. There was no apparent popular appetite for monarchical rule in 1659: Sir George Booth’s rising in Cheshire attracted only a ragtag body of Presbyterians and royalists, and was quickly routed. The exuberant public celebrations that reportedly marked Charles II’s return are often 3

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T H I S W E E K

No. 6344

November 1 2024

the-tls.co.uk

UK £4.50 | USA $8.99

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

Find us on www.the-tls.co.uk Times Literary Supplement

@the.tls @TheTLS

To buy any book featured in this week’s TLS,

go to timesbookshop.co.uk

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)

Correspondence and deliveries: 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF Telephone for editorial enquiries: 020 7782 5000 Subscriptions: UK/ROW: feedback@the-tls.co.uk 0800 048 4236; US/Canada: custsvc_timesupl@fulcoinc.com 1-844 208 1515 Missing a copy of your TLS: USA/Canada: +1 844 208 1515; UK & other: +44 (0) 203 308 9146 Syndication: 020 7711 7888 enquiries@newssyndication.com

The Times Literary Supplement (ISSN 0307661, USPS 021-626) is published weekly, except combined last two weeks of August and December, by The Times Literary Supplement Limited, London, UK, and distributed by FAL Enterprises 38-38 9th Street, Long Island City NY 11101. Periodical postage paid at Flushing NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: please send address corrections to TLS, PO Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834 USA. The TLS is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation and abides by the standards of journalism set out in the Editors’ Code of Practice. If you think that we have not met those standards, please contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk. For permission to copy articles or headlines for internal information purposes contact Newspaper Licensing Agency at PO Box 101, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1WX, tel 01892 525274, e-mail copy@nla.co.uk. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail sales@newslicensing.co.uk

TLS

NOVEMBER 1, 2024

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