Immortality or Bust, &c.

On Homer, Tolkien, Reagan, Trump, Obama, Benét, Millay, and more

Homer, Tolkien (Wikimedia Commons)

If I hold a distinction among writers in America, it is this: I have not yet written about the new Odyssey movie. I have not seen it. Should that stop me from writing about it?

I would like to make a single point.

For the past couple of weeks, people have been arguing over the movie, and arguing over Homer’s epic poem. More than arguing, they have been fighting.

At The Bulwark, Joshua Tait published a long, searching essay on J. R. R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings. People have been arguing, and fighting, over that one too. Interpreting it this way and that. Claiming it.

Okay, my point: What more could a literary artist want than to have people arguing and fighting over his work, down the generations, down the centuries?

My gosh, what an achievement.

***

When I mentioned The Lord of the Rings on social media, Garry Kasparov commented that he had used the book “as an example of how we accept the existence of pure evil in fiction but hesitate even to use the word in real life.”

Yes.

Kasparov is a chess champion and a democracy champion, as you know—a Russian dissident.

His words reminded me of Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” speech in 1983. That rocked America. Many people thought it was appalling. Other people said, “About time a leader said this out loud.”

Henry Steele Commager, the eminent historian of the U.S., said, “It was the worst presidential speech in American history, and I’ve read them all.”

I’ll tell you something that George Shultz told me in an interview. We were talking about the “evil empire” speech, and Shultz recalled an exchange between a Democratic senator and Paul Nitze, the venerable diplomat, who was a particular expert on the Soviet Union.

The senator said something like, “How can you work for an administration whose president is so crude as to call the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’?” Nitze answered, “Have you ever considered the possibility that it’s true?”

Reagan and the Reaganites were clear—unillusioned—about the Soviet Union. I have no doubt they would be the same way today about the Russian assault on Ukraine.

***

Maybe we could go back to literature for a second. A few days ago, I was looking into a piece by Norman Dello Joio, the American composer (1913–2008). He wrote a work called “Song of Affirmation,” setting Western Star, by Stephen Vincent Benét.

It came to me: All my life, I’ve sort of mixed Stephen Vincent Benét and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’m sure I’ve said “Stephen St. Vincent Benét.”

Has anyone else had this problem, embarrassing as it is? Also, I can’t figure out what the accent is doing in Benét’s name …

***

Back to world affairs, and the question of clarity versus cloudiness, and recognition versus delusion.

Last week, President Trump said, “I trust them.” He was referring to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. “I don’t think they want to have me disappointed,” he said.

You know, we Republicans and conservatives weren’t perfect pre-2016. But we were not dopes, we were not naïve, especially in the face of anti-American dictators.

***

Here is a message from the Republican National Committee:

Yes, Barack Obama’s middle name is “Hussein.” Did you know that? The RNC is *emphasizing* it. Does it shake you up?

Again, we Republicans weren’t perfect, before 2016. But we weren’t total bozos. We weren’t schoolyard louts.

***

Obama made some funny remarks about his middle name. Here he is at the 2008 Al Smith dinner:

Many of you know that I got my name “Barack” from my father. What you may not know is “Barack” is actually Swahili for “that one.” And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.

And here he is at the 2012 dinner:

… tonight is not about the disagreements Governor Romney and I may have. It’s about what we have in common—beginning with our unusual names. Actually, “Mitt” is his middle name. I wish I could use my middle name.

***

In recent years, I’ve written a lot about populism and a lot about language. (Well, I’ve been writing about language my whole career.) Those two subjects come together in Haley Stevens, the congresswoman from Michigan who’s running for her party’s Senate nomination. (Stevens is a Democrat.)

She featured in a column I wrote about language last week. And here she is the other day, in a campaign speech:

There’s those cool kids on the Internet. They’re doin’ the cool-kid chatter. Some of ’em might be the coastal elites, makin’ fun o’ how I talk. … But let’s be real: they’re makin’ fun of Michigan. They’re thinkin’ they’re better than us. And what they don’t know is, I am your voice. And their jokes, and their criticism, only makes me fight harder.

Pure, unalloyed populism: “They’re thinkin’ they’re better than us.”

Wouldn’t it be something if MAGA were beaten at their own game—their game being populism? Shtick countering shtick (and shtick is all it is, trust me).

***

A reader of ours writes in response to something I said in that above-linked column—the one about Haley Stevens and language. I wrote,

When I was growing up, I didn’t realize we Michiganders had an accent. Ours was a neutral American speech—anchorman English. Then I moved around a little and discovered this was not quite right.

Our reader tells me,

I am originally from Michigan and had the same sense that we were accentless. I had been in D.C. for a number of years and called Lansing in search of a birth certificate. The sound of the woman on the other end of the line brought enlightenment and a flood of nostalgia.

I have had similar experiences.

***

A friend of mine sent me this quiz, from the New York Times. It is a “dialect detector.” They ask 25 questions. Then they show you on a map where you’re (likely) from.

I answered the 25 questions. And those people zeroed right in. They placed me in southeastern Michigan. They practically gave my home address, of yore.

How the Sam Hill did they know?

Anyway, you may enjoy taking the quiz yourself.

***

A friend of mine sent me an article from Time magazine, published in September 1950. Listen:

Senator Burnet Maybank, in shirt sleeves and red-eyed with fatigue, marched across a deserted Capitol corridor and pounded on a chamber door. It was long after most Congressmen had gone home. There was a muffled response from inside the room. In a molasses accent, South Carolina’s Maybank shouted: “Aw right, we-ah ready.”

Love it.

Hang on, let’s have a peek at Burnet Rhett Maybank—in October 1939, leaving the White House, after a talk with President Roosevelt:

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Nice to see you, my friends. Thanks so much. Talk with you soon.