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The Metamorphosis of the Novelist

By Julia Turner
Updated Friday, Oct. 24, 2003, at 2:23 PM ET
New Republic

New Republic, Nov. 3
Zadie Smith's nonfiction is as lucid, lively, and persuasive as ever. She considers why Franz Kafka has so few literary descendants, and why those he has—Borges, W.G. Sebald—so rarely write straight novels. "How does Kafka lead novelists away from the novel?" He was unable to stomach, understand, or tell the "necessary social lies" that are the fodder for so many novelists' work. … Ryan Lizza makes the case for Wesley Clark. Sure, his campaign has weathered a passel of squabbles and gaffes in its first month, but the retired general has a canny strategy. Portraying himself as someone who is "the opposite of an ideologue," ready to seek out pragmatic solutions, practically "the candidate of the scientific method," Clark presents an alternative to what some see as President Bush's act-now-figure-out-why-later tactics. … TNR's editors apologize for allowing TNR.com blogger Gregg Easterbrook to post an anti-Semitic comment last week, then defend him as "a good individual" who "said a bad thing."

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Oct. 26
Lisa Belkin writes that many professional women are leaving the workplace to spend more time with the kids. Belkin's well-educated subjects blend self-satisfaction with hand-wringing when pondering a "life not with one pot boiling but with a lot of pots simmering." "Oh, God, would you listen to these domestic analogies?" cries a leave-taking TV reporter. "Are they really coming out of my mouth?" ... James Atlas profiles Dale Peck, the book critic who once sneered, "Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation." While Peck positions himself as a righteous defender of novels, Atlas wonders whether his reviews—which he concedes are often more entertaining than the novels they eviscerate—add anything constructive to literary discourse. And what does Peck think of his own oeuvre? "Maybe I am a jerk, but the books I've published are among the best books published in the last 10 years."—J.L.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, Oct. 27
Who forged the phony Niger documents? One of Seymour M. Hersh's intelligence sources ("a former senior CIA officer") says it was the work of disgruntled former CIA officers who were steamed about the way the Bush administration handles intelligence, and hoped the obvious fakeries would expose the weakness of the Bush team's analyses. This may or may not be true, but intelligence sources agree that the administration too often "bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence," Hersh reports, and the fact that many at the CIA buy the disgruntled-former-officers story is testament to the extreme frustration of those who work there. The piece also suggests that CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice are to blame for Bush's reliance on raw, unverified data. (Hersh's critique of Tenet sounds more like the New Republic's recent critical profile than this Fortune piece from last month.)

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, Oct. 27
Where'd the words "under God" come from? Congress didn't insert the phrase into the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, in what they saw as a stand against atheistic communism. But where'd they get it? James Piereson thinks they pinched it from Lincoln, who used it in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln argued that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom"; Piereson contends that Lincoln tossed in the phrase because those present at the nation's original birth of freedom, in allowing slavery to persist, failed to recognize what Thomas Jefferson later argued: that God made all men free.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 27
Newsweek's first-ever design issue highlights scads of attractive objects, from Reach toothbrushes to Eames chairs. These days, good design is "accessible" and puts "the fun back in function," the cover story contends. Interestingly, the layout of the package itself is less than user-friendly: Numerous scattered items on neat-looking chandeliers and pens obscure overarching points about new trends in design.

Coke is to New Coke as the SAT is to … Time sat in on College Entrance Examination Board meetings as the group designed the New SAT. Coming in 2005 to tense, overheated classrooms near you, the revised test measures achievement rather than aptitude. The new exam will have three parts—reading, mathematics, and writing—and a high score of 2,400; the writing portion will include an essay, and analogies like the one above will be deep-sixed. College board president Gaston Caperton III hopes the test will prompt curricular change in American schools.

Loans, but no savings: U.S. News notes that a growing number of colleges have bid adieu to the Department of Education's direct-loan plan. Instead, they've signed up with private lenders, including Sallie Mae, who have worked hard (and spent much) to woo schools and government officials alike. "The development is costing the U.S. treasury perhaps as much as $250 million a year," the magazine reports.

Wesley Clark and Waco: Insight Magazine and CounterPunch have questioned whether Wesley Clark, who was stationed in Texas during the 1993 assault on the Branch Davidian compound there, had any role in the affair. Newsweek reports that one declassified Pentagon document identifies Clark, by title, as someone who "provided 'training, equipment and material' to law enforcement agencies for the operation." Clark campaign: Their man played no direct role.

—Josh Levin also contributed to this column.

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Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor. You can e-mail her at .
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