I am getting used to finding nonsense in the Daily Telegraph – when I still look at it.
Whether it is an absurd claim that the Rosenbergs were innocent – a claim made in an obituary of someone who was involved with them, and based upon the sainted authority of the New York Times of all people. Or a claim that Fox News (amongst other wicked things) characterizes Mrs Obama as a “golliwog”, a claim based on a far left smear site – as actually watching Fox News before writing about it would be beneath the dignity of the correspondents the Daily Telegraph sends to the United States.
And, of course, the endless favourable coverage for Comrade Senator Obama himself.
However, I am still capable of being shocked and I was shocked by Andrew O’Hagan’s despicable article on Solzhenitsyn in the same issue of the Daily Telegraph (Tuesday, August 5th) that carried Solzhenitsyn’s obituary – indeed on the very page before the obituary.
No doubt O’Hagan would defend his article (if he bothered to defend it) as light-hearted and basically supportive.
“Light-hearted” being English in this part of the world for “I can get away with being a swine, if I pretend it is all a joke” and “basically supportive” meaning kicking someone when he is down. The reader is told that Solzhenitsyn was not a great writer. Well Mr O’Hagan is entitled to his opinion, although it was odd day to choose to state it – with the man not even being buried yet. But the article went a lot further than that.
The reader is told that it is impossible to read the works of Solzhenitsyn – not just the very late works, but any of them. And then there is weird rant that trying to read Solzhenitsyn drives people to “banjo playing, feeling sympathy for Stalin” and various other stuff. No doubt this would be defended as being “amusing”.
Almost needless to say there was no mention of the tens of millions of people murdered by the Marxist/Leninists in what was then the Soviet Union, or the tens of millions of people the Marxists (the side of such people as the Rosenbergs and Saul Alinsky and his modern followers) have murdered in other parts of the world.
Instead Mr Andrew O’Hagan says that “We didn’t read him, but his thinking changed ours”.
Who “we” might be is not explained (although I think I know), as for “his thinking changed ours”, I have seen no sign of that in Mr O’Hagan himself.
Solzhenitsyn had flaws (as all human beings do), but he had a great respect for truth and Mr O’Hagan has no respect for truth at all. He, like so many at the Telegraph group now, sees his role as pushing ‘progressive’ propaganda at a once conservative newspaper – and if the truth does not fit the propaganda line, too bad for the truth.
I remember well him waxing with rage about how the wicked rightwing Bush and his evil cronies had denied New Orleans money after Katrina. One can rightly attack all layers of government for their messing up at the time of Katrina, and readers of this blog will know how much I despise George Walker Bush. But the O’Hagan picture of a skinflint Bush denying people money years after the event, did not fit well with my knowledge of President Bush as a spendthrift – so I checked. In reality, the Federal government had thrown billions of taxpayer Dollars at New Orleans and much of the money had vanished – as anyone who knows much about the place would have expected.
But O’Hagan had visited the place and so facts were not important – only his empathy with the suffering masses.
Solzhenitsyn would not have had the same opinion. He was no ardent friend of the West – but he was no lover of criminals either. Neither the ‘honest thieves’ (the open criminals with their ‘thieves law’ of the gang) or the ‘bitches’ – the trusties, or local government people and ‘community activists’.
“But the majority of the population are not thieves” – quite so, they are victims and will continue to be so whilst the criminals, both open criminals and government and community activists, continue to rule so many cities.
Lastly I apologize for any slight errors there may be in my account of Mr O’Hagan’s article – I am writing from memory [good thing you have an editor to embed the links for you, Ed.]. After looking at his article in the library I could not bring myself to buy the Daily Telegraph even to get the obituary of Solzhenitsyn – so I bought a copy of The Times instead.
I have never read Solzhenitsyn but my wife (a Russian Graduate) was sad to hear of his death and that’s enough for me.
Was he a great writer? I don’t know. Was he an important writer? Hell, yes. Of course he was. Did that ultimately matter more? Hell, yes.
The Telegraph is not the only organ of the media to damn him with faint praise. No friend of the West? Well, he was a Russian to the roots of his Tolystoian beard,. D’oh! The BBC were appalling. They said that he saw the world in “black and white” with all the implication of naivety that that carries.
Of course he was naive to object to the slaughter of the Ukranian peasants and his own eight years in the gulag. Obviously he didn’t see the big picture and understand that sacrificing people for “the people” was a necessary evil. What a fool!
I shall not rest easy until Marx, Lenin, Stalin (and the fucking rest) are generally consigned to the lowest pit of Hell. Our double standards towards socialism and fascism are stunning. I mean the far “right” rightly are seen as obnoxious beyond description but the far “left” are at worst seen as “misguided” with their heart in the right place but, ya know, just a bit too much or something.
That they are the same thing passes neatly overhead. Of course they are. North Korea is about the most racially homogenous country on the planet. It is also about the most socialist. Hitler would be proud. I, as an ethnic Brit (which means a mix of Celtic/Saxon/Viking/Hugeonot etc*) couldn’t emigrate to that particular worker’s paradise. Seeing as I would rather amputate my own legs with rusty cheese-wire than move to North Korea is not the point. Socialism taken that far is fundamentally racist. It is fundamentally fascist. And Gordon Brown making speechs about “British Jobs for British Workers” is the road to hell paved with bad intentions. Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t quite Comrade Kim or Pol Pot but it’s ickling in that direction.
*Mainly, I suspect, Viking and Celt which is a hell of a combination. I grew a beard recently and the missus said I looked like I’d just come off a bloody long-ship and had rape and pillage (and quaffing) in mind. The sequel is (rightly) censored. But I warn you. Steer clear of monasteries in Northumberland for the foreseeable.
Andrew O’Hagan is a twat. This article is actually one of the less objectionable things he has written at the CameronGuff.
Comment articles are there to be provocative. It’s the “progressive” / statist drivel now routinely published as “news” (particularly about the USA) that really marks the decline of the paper since the Barclay brothers took it over.
Alas, Paul, the O’Hagan chappy represents a trend in present day journalism where empty headed and usually physically unattractive individuals can vent their frustration on their fellow humans who don’t share their levels of unattainment and unattractiveness. Once upon a time in academia the pecking order had the ed school contingents in the lowest of the low places on the smarts totem pole. Now it’s journalism school denizens at the bottom with law school next before one gets to the former occupants, teachers to be. As for reading The Times – well there’s a lot to admire in your stands on this and that but reading The Times….!
FYI , Fox News and 99% of all Americans have no idea what a Golliwog is.
What do you make of Republican voting Americans complaining about Mexicans taking their jobs? Closet communists?
Perhaps we could retire the, ‘my party number is’,
reference to despising the President. President Bush
is, like it or not, the preemenent Statesman in the
world today. As a moral figure on the the Pope plays
in his league.
AS’s fault, in the eyes of the Cathedral – apart from documenting the evils of the Soviet Union – was to insist that they were not just Stalin’s personal aberrations, but were built-in from the beginning by Lenin and his fellow conspirators.
M, it is the Democrats “complaining about Mexicans taking their jobs”. The Republicans are complaining about Mexicans taking our redistributed tax dollars and using (other) Democrats to force the use of Spanish language onto our businesses and government. Please keep your parties sorted.
I didn’t read the article till today Paul.
That passes for witty writing does it?
Jesus!
There’s hope for me yet.
I have read Solzhenitsyn, and yes he is hard going, and not the worlds greatest literary stylist, but that was not my reason for reading him.
I dont read the Times Law Reports, a tract on Economics or even my credit card return for the deathless prose. I read them for information that I need.
Agree with everything Nick M said.
Mention Hitler and you get Hollacaust and the figure 6 million murdered.
Mention Stalin and you get Uncle Joe and lame excuses, never the figure of 20 million murdered.
I have a friend who went to Oxford the same time as Howard Marks (which may account for it)
Who keeps telling me that Communism hasn’t really been tried properly yet.
Shit is that so? I say back.
Just needs a bit of fine tuning does it?
Fuck! let’s give it another go then!
Let’s see how many million we can kill this time!
Hmmm – an un-researched topical opinion piece that uses mild shock tactics and somewhat insensitive timing to add some kind of interest to what is basically one semi-talented writers uninteresting opinions on someone both more talented and more interesting.
Looks like newpapers are *finally* learning from blogs.
Taylor is correct; I had no idea what a “golliwog” is until I Googled it. Now I know that the term is racially tinged (so what isn’t these days?).
Claude Debussy wrote a short piano piece called “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”. Now I know what that means, too. In the name of political correctness are we going to have to Bowdlerize that name?
First Perry is quite correct.
My approach of walking out in disgust (and with an breathing problem, perhaps brought on by rage) would have been a prolem – had he not been there to catch the ball.
steve-roberts – quite so. The left like to pretend it was this bad person “Stalin” who was responsible for everything – not the basic nature of socialism.
RAB:
Technically Commumism (total material equality – as well as collective ownership) was not tried under “Stalin”, it was tired under “Lenin”.”War Communism” was not intended to be temporary – the Reds retreated when everything started to fall apart so much that their hold on power was threatened.
It was next tried by Pol Pot and the other Communists in Cambodia.
Before anyone points it out….
I am aware that there are egalitarian communities (both secular and religious), however there is a big difference between a small and VOLUNTARY community and trying to impose egaliratianism (as well as collective control fo the means of production, distribution and exchange over a whole country).
Mille Woods.
Sadly as a short and bald man I have no standing to point out other people’s physical unattractiveness – but what you rings true.
Simon Jester.
Yes O’Hagan is a twat. And, yes, the Telegraph’s coverage of the United States is pathetic.
As for the Barclay twins.
Sark.
Mille Woods:
I used to think as you do about the Times.
But I have not bought a copy of it in years – till Tuesday 5th August (when I bought the newspaper for the obituary of Solzhenitsyn).
There were many interesting articles in the newspaper – not just on Solzhenitsyn (in which he was neither whitewashed – but was not treated in an insulting and “lighthearted” way either), but also such things as a front page news story about the vile British pact with the Mahdi “army” in Basra.
Yes the Times is not as good as the Daily Telegraph was in better days, but it is clearly the better newspaper now.
Nick M:
Not just that, but the general public is grossly ignorant even about the basic facts about the sheer scale of crimes committed by Stalin and Mao, especially when it comes to how they compare to the other totalitarians of the 20th century. If you ask the typical person of the sort that passes for an intellectual these days to rate various 20th century leaders on the scale of evil, I’m sure that many of them would honestly rate Stalin as less bad than George W. Bush, and the majority would surely rate him as far better than, say, Mussolini, Franco, or Pinochet, even though by any objective measure, the latter’s crimes combined are minuscule compared to what Stalin did. (And please don’t let anyone misconstrue this statement as some sort of endorsement or praise for any of the mentioned personalities!)
Have you noticed how in recent reports about Solzhenitsyn, the BBC reporters keep saying that his claim to fame is that he exposed “Stalin’s prison system”? Just Google for examples (Link). What a nice way to sugarcoat good old Uncle Joe’s role in history without resorting to outright lies! Yeah, if only his “prison system” had been a bit more humane, he might have been a perfectly honorable great leader. And anyway, just look at the brutality of the U.S. prison system — how can these Yanks be so hypocritical to chide Uncle Joe?!
Note also how BBC informs us that Solzhenitsyn’s writings against Stalinism “sparked a furious backlash in the Soviet press”, as if the Soviet press had been a platform expressing people’s independent thoughts rather than the party line of the day. What’s next, informing us that the activities of Hans and Sophie Scholl or the attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944 “sparked a furious backlash in the German press” at the time?
Sorry for the rant, but whenever this issue comes up, I really feel the need to vent…
Solzhenitsyn “difficult to read”???
He was one of the most readable ‘serious’ writers I know. Much like Orwell, he was able to infuse wry humour, irony and sarcasm into the darkest of subject matter without ever losing the force of his argument.
Clearly O’Hagan has no clue….but i guess we all knew that before….
I have always been a voracious reader so my opinion may not be generally true, but I read Cancer Ward as a young teenager and still rate it as one of the best novels I have ever read in well over 40 years of reading.
I never got around to another one but maybe will one day (recommendations anyone?).
As I keep saying to my son who loves reading probably more than I do, “so many books, so little time”.
Arcane gollilog lore – wasn’t there a marmalade – Robertson’s I believe – with a smart little gollilog logo which had to go the way of all things that offend the so easily offended these days.
Oops – that should be golliwog – subconscious pc mind control must have taken over my keyboarding.
Recommendation for Doc Bud: The First Circle. Like Cancer Ward, it’s immortal.
Thanks for taking the time, Gray Hat. I shall add it to my word document entitled books that must be read.
I have not respected O’Hagan since he defended the anti-semitic, sexist, foul-mouthed ravings of Mel Gibson when the actor was busted for DD in California. The guy is a louse. If ever the Telegraph is edited by wiser counsels, they must fire this jerk immediately.
That they got this guy to write about one of the most heroic figures in Russian, indeed world history, says it all. Could they not get a serious scholar of the Soviet Union, for heavens sake?
I don’t accept the basic premise – O’Hagan is an outstanding writer by any criteria. Why, just a few weeks ago, R4 broadcast a series of readings from The Atlantic Ocean, his new collection of essays examining the special relationship between the UK and the US, and how US culture has impacted on, and informed, ours.
O’Hagan is a fearless purveyor of truth, no less than was Solzhenitsyn: I don’t know of a single other writer who’s tackled the too-long-buried subject of the Americanization of our culture, so if anyone’s earned the right to criticize Solzhenytsin, it’s surely O’Hagan.
Wibble?
The left in this country seem to go on about very little else. Jonathan Freedland’s redeeming feature was that he used to point out that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I would post a snarky comment about how it should be spelt “Americanisation” – but as someone using a pseudonym pinched from an American author’s book partly inspired by the American war of independence, I probably shouldn’t…
Irony, Simon, Irony.
I was trying, somewhat cackhandedly I admit, to highlight O’Hagan’s complete lack of credentials to be any sort of critic.
But when you write, “The left in this country seem to go on about very little else”, you kind of make the point for me.
As to words in “-ize”, that is the “proper” spelling, and I think you’ll find that the OED tends to agree.
Solzhenitsyn’s work is not all long-winded. I reread Matryonin Dvor (Matryona’s Home) every few months. It’s a short novella. Also some aspects of Solzhenitsyn in a nutshell can be found in his lyrical prose poems.
If you think O’Hagan is bad, try the vile Mark Steel at the Independent.
For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of golliwog, here is a short précis on its social status in my neck of the woods:
http://archive.herefordtimes.com/2006/3/13/74216.html
Americanisation of British culture? You must be bloody joking! This exactly the same nonsense that our own Leftists here Down Under are spewing in their pathetic attempt to vent their frustration deriving from their own failure to produce anything waluable and useful that the otherwise primitive Ozzie would find attractive. That can only be called CRETINISATION of British or Australian culture; the proces for which we ourselves, and only ourselves, are responsible. Miv Tucker, you are, along with Hagan, blaming the Yanks the same way the alcoholic blames the bottle or the liqour shoppe, or the drug addict blames the dealer and newer himself.
D’oh! Cluebat connected.
Although I don’t have the OED to hand, from memory they say that either -ise or -ize are acceptable variants for most such words in both UK and US English, but -ise tends to be more common in the UK, and -ize in the US.
Thanks for the clarification, Miv Tucker. I’m afraid the irony was too subtle for me, too.
I’m truly amazed that the sophisticated readers of this blog don’t recognize tongue-in-cheek writing when it walks up and shakes them by the hand. I honestly thought I’d left enough clues, but evidently not.
Come on, guys! The theme of O’Hagan’s book is a staple of lazy journalists, writers and broadcasters from Land’s End to John O’Groats: for instance, listen to any edition of Front Row or Saturday Review for a luvvie/Guardanista sneerfest on the crudity of American culture and the superiority of ours.
And ask yourselves if that’s just possibly why O’Hagan’s book was chosen as a Book of the Week on R4 (with the great man himself reading from it)?
Well, I have a Golliwog. A much loved childhood toy. That any fucker can get upset over such things is…
The writer of that article needs a holiday in Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
Why is multiculturalism so wonderful until one of those cultures is American culture?
Mr Tucker, there was no irony of any evident sort in your posting. Sorry, but it looked like you were dead serious!
Part of the problem is that anti-Americanism is so rampant in Europe that it is hard to spot the fake variety.
When I read Miv Tucker’s comment I assumed that his over-the-top praise for the pathetic Andrew O’Hagan was ironic.
For once I made my “detect irony” roll.
I just read “One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich” and found it engrossing and extremely readable. It seems that the opinion sections of newspapers have become the equivalent of the YouTube comments section.
When I read Miv Tucker’s comment I assumed that his over-the-top praise for the pathetic Andrew O’Hagan was ironic.
For once I made my “detect irony” roll.
Posted by Paul Marks at August 8, 2008 01:54 PM
Thank you, Paul.
I got the irony, too – surely this part was a dead giveaway?
And as for the -ise/ize suffix; if I remember rightly, wasn’t the original form -ize? Modern British English has widely changed to -ise, whilst American English has kept the original?
These days, the distinction is a useful opportunity for alpha-pedants to display their superiority. The common-or-garden variety pedant will correct -ize to -ise whenever they stumble across it, which gives the uber-pedant a most welcome and satisfying opportunity to humble their lesser counterparts by correcting them back to -ize.
“but I read Cancer Ward as a young teenager and still rate it as one of the best novels I have ever read in well over 40 years of reading.”
I will second that.
Which literary style would Solzhenitsin’s literary critics prefer ? That of Time’s “best novel of the 20 century” – Ulysses?
Agreed that practically no Americans would have the tiniest notion what was meant by calling someone a “Golliwog.” I’ve never run across the term except in the title to the Debussy piece, and I had no idea until I looked it up just now that it referred to a blackface minstrel doll. Over here, if someone wanted to make a similar point, he’d have to use the term “Sambo” or “Aunt Jemima” to have any chance of being understood.
Say what you like about Fox News, it’s no obscurantist or elitist outpost given to using terms that fly over its audience’s heads. If someone one Fox had called Michelle Obama such a thing, most listeners here would have said, “Huh?” And really, no one who’s spent much time listening to Fox News could even imagine one of their broadcasters saying such a thing. I have never heard a racially tinged remark coming from a Fox commentator. Ever.
On the subject of Solzhenitzyn’s literary gifts, I always took it that his value was in the shocking revelation, not the art. He’s a whistleblower more than a novelist. No reflection on his contribution as a whistleblower, which was tremendous.