In which John Bucher, Martin Schneider (currently on Austrian holiday), and I review the high points and discuss the particulars of the issue you may just be getting to. We occasionally carp, but mostly we celebrate.
I never read thrillers growing up, unless you count the Hardy Boys. And no spy novels, apart from John LeCarré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which I had to read for a fourth-year class on espionage—the class I was in, incidentally, when the attacks of September 11 took place. I didn’t play with G.I. Joes, and, frankly, never understood the ecstasies my Egyptian friend Kareem found in them, flinging himself, and the figurines, around the pool deck at his Toronto home, spittle flying from his mouth—rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, Snake Eyes…noooo!!!
So I was unprepared, at least in a literary sense, for Jon Lee Anderson’s ducking, barrel-rolling, ricocheting account (audio here) of American opium eradication efforts in Afghanistan, “The Taliban’s Opium War.” About midway through the piece, the prose turned all And then we heard an explosion over the ridge; there were shell casings and bone fragments all around. We poked our head out of the foxhole, and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t reading a paperback I’d found wedged between two bus seats. And just seconds after that admittedly disparaging thought, I had another: Shit, the guy got shot at, for four hours, in Afghanistan. He’s got more street cred—field cred, whatever—than Fifty. —JB
I’m a fan of David Sedaris, and in part because the Greyhound bus system and I have recently been excessively intimate, I’ve been catching up on old episodes of This American Life. I’m always glad to hear a Sedaris segment is coming up; I relish his clever, absorbing, self-aware, drolly delivered spoken monologues. So maybe that’s why “This Old House” went down the wrong way—it’s quite possible I’ve just hit my Sedaris quota for the month. But I think it might have more to do with Sedaris’s characterization of “Rosemary Dowd” (a needlessly unkind, and comically unnecessary, pseudonym), his antiques-obsessed landlady. She’s the hero of the story, then she’s discarded as evidence that Sedaris still had some growing up to do. I was sad for poor Rosemary, the crumbling symbol of remembrance. And it reminded me again that I would love to see more of these personal histories and reflections from people who are ladies themselves. —EG