Harper's Magazine March 2024

Current Events Marzio G. Mian’s travelogue of the Volga River [“Behind the New Iron Curtain,” Letter from Russia, January] bears a profound sense of despair, well known to those of us who grew up in Russia. His piece considers the perplexing questions: How can a nation long known for its resilience against evil carry out so terrible an attack on its neighboring state? How can Russians rest while their government drops missiles on the homes of innocent Ukrainians? To these seeming conundrums Mian offers several plausible explanations. One is a lingering Soviet imperial syndrome; another is a deep-seated resentment of the West. Just as pervasive is a dismal resignation, a feeling of helplessness against a certain doom. Even the apparent pride of Russian farmers, ostensibly indifferent to the war and…

If you had asked ten-year-old me about my favorite author, I would have replied unhesitatingly that it was J. R.R. Tolkien. The experience of reading The Lord of the Rings had been the most significant of my young life. It was a forbiddingly long book, and I was given to carrying my battered copy around, so that people knew I’d finished it. More importantly, it was my first exposure to a truly expansive quest narrative, and I was filled with wonder that a single person could imagine an alternative world so thoroughly. It was, in that sense, my first model of authorship, of the strange magic trick of producing something from nothing. Tolkien’s aesthetic seemed to draw from some deep well of meaning, resonating with inchoate feelings about nobility and…

[Essay] GIMME WELTER By Becca Rothfeld, from All Things Are Too Small, which will be published next month by Metropolitan Books. “All things/are too small,” begins a poem believed to be written by the thirteenth-century Dutch mystic Hadewijch of Brabant. She goes on—“to hold me”—but she did not have to. All things are too small—not just to hold me, but to hold anything. Cups are too small, which is why they demand such relentless refilling. Bodies are too small to encompass more than a sole inhabitant, except in rare cases of mysticism or possession (or the more familiar but no less astounding case of pregnancy). Books can be big—most of the best ones are—yet even the most encyclopedic affairs are too small to encompass the whole of the world’s wild…

From AI-generated explanations of New Yorker cartoons created for a study published in July 2023 in Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. The scene is a humorous take on the biblical story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God at Mount Sinai. In this case, God is depicted wearing Groucho glasses, a comedic disguise, while advising Moses that “it’s all in the timing,” which is actually a famous principle in comedy. In this scenario, a deceased husband has been escorted home by angels and his hands are emitting flames, which implies that he is holier or more virtuous than his wife. However, the wife is not impressed and calls him out for having a “holier-than-thou” attitude, a phrase used to describe someone who…

By Marguerite Duras, from My Cinema, which was published by Another Gaze Editions in January. Translated from the French by Daniella Shreir. No longer any use in the make-believe of socialist hope. In the make-believe of capitalist hope. No longer any use in the make-believe of future justice, be it social or fiscal or any other kind of justice. The make-believe of work. Of merit. Of women. Of the youth. Of the Portuguese. Of the Malians. Of intellectuals. Of the Senegalese. No longer any use in the make-believe of fear. Of dictatorship over the proletariat. Of freedom. Of your nightmares. Of love. No longer any use. No longer any use in the make-believe of cinema. We must make cinema from this knowledge: from there no longer being any use in…

From letters written from and to Terry Lynn King, who has been an inmate on Tennessee’s death row since 1985. The correspondence was included in Death Row Welcomes You, by Steven Hale, which was published this month by Melville House. TERRY KING TO A WOMAN WHO WAS PARALYZED AT AGE TWENTY-TWO I hope and trust this letter finds you doing well. As for me, I am doing great. As you may know last night I had the privilege of meeting your father and brother. We had an awesome visit. I wish you could have been there. I hope I get to meet you someday. I would like to begin this brief letter by saying I know what it is like to feel as if life is over with. When I…