Slate's Bizbox
the book club: New books dissected over e-mail.

Caldwell and Scott

the book club
entries
12345678
from: Christopher Caldwell

. . . A Double Feature

Posted Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999, at 4:35 PM ET

Dear Tony,

Perhaps you do give Harris too much credit, but your allegorization of the characters makes a lot of sense. And as we were taught in high school, anything conducive to "symbolic" meanings is literature, and anything not . . . is not.

In particular, your point about Zinaida and "primitive accumulation" is just beautiful. As you obviously remember, back when the existence of a natural-resource-looting, ex-KGB-employing bank mafia became undeniable, it was not the Marxists but the Westernizing forces--the Anatoly Chubaises of the world--who used the "primitive accumulation" trope to explain it away as a natural and transitory stage.

While we're on the subject of literary stereotyping, my favorite instance from le Carré is Yevgeny's praise for his native Mingrelia:

Mingrelian peoples are pure peoples. Other Georgians got so many invasions they don't know if their grandmothers was raped by Turks, Daghestanis or Persians. Mingrelians was smart peoples. They protect their valleys. Lock up their women. Get them pregnant first. Got brown hair, not black.

As Miss Malaprop said: Men can be such Bavarians! This kind of stage-ethnicity is something that's never bothered me too much, but certainly it results in malapropism-barrages unheard-of outside "The Family Circus."

Any unfinished business? Yes, we have to cast le Carré. Nigel Hawthorne as Tiger Single. Colin Firth as Oliver. Ben Kingsley as Yevgeny. For Aggie, whoever the tallest actress in Trainspotting is.

Your last letter made me laugh and laugh. We'll have to pursue this later.

All best,

Chris

the book club
entries
12345678
from: Christopher Caldwell

. . . A Double Feature

Posted Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999, at 4:35 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Christopher Caldwell is senior writer at the Weekly Standard. A.O. Scott is a senior editor at Lingua Franca. This week they discuss Archangel, by Robert Harris, and Single & Single, by John le Carré.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Over the Line
Harold Ford Jr. | I know what it's like to be smeared by your opponent.
: The Positive in Negative Ads
PLUS » Milbank: The President's Lullaby