Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This week on nybooks.com: Two visions of American education, the letters of William Gaddis, women in India, the Icelandic writer Sjón, Verdi’s Joan of Arc, Bill de Blasio’s New York, Nicole Holofcener’s comedies, Obama and the Constitution, Gregor Samsa in dance, and images from the Syrian exodus.
America’s Best Unknown Writer Jonathan Raban After being suspended from college, William Gaddis worked in the fact-checking department at The New Yorker for a year before motoring south with a friend to Mexico City, hoping for an opening in journalism. What he found instead was his vocation as a novelist, and a self-prescribed curriculum for a literary education more intense and driven than his Harvard studies.
India’s Women: The Mixed Truth Amartya Sen It has been argued that India has an extraordinarily high frequency of rape. To what extent is this the right way of thinking about India’s problem? Rape and brutality against women are not exactly unknown around the world. One question is whether rape is relatively more common in India than elsewhere, despite the increased attention it is now getting in Indian news reports.
A Magus of the North A.S. Byatt Every now and then a writer changes the whole map of literature inside my head. The most recent has been the Icelander Sjón, whose work is unlike anything I had read, and very exciting. I think of Icelanders as erudite, singular, tough, and uncompromising. Sjón is all these things, but he is also quicksilver, playful, and surreal.
The Two Faces of American Education Andrew Delbanco To read Michelle Rhee and Diane Ravitch in sequence is like hearing a too-good-to-be-true sales pitch followed by the report of an auditor who discloses mistakes and outright falsehoods in the accounts of the firm that’s trying to make the sale. Both books are driven by hot indignation.
					Also in this Issue Fintan O’Toole remembers Seamus Heaney, Cathleen Schine on Wilton Barnhardt, Charles Simic on Ian Buruma, Maya Jasanoff on steamboat imperialism, Robert Gottlieb on Elena Tchernichova's life in ballet, Darryl Pinckney on Frederick Bruce Thomas, Garry Wills on the letters of J.F. Powers, Nicolas Pelham on Libya’s revolution, and more.
Dancing Kafka Laura Marsh				Images of the Syrian Exodus Hugh Eakin and Alisa Roth
Verdi vs. the Fanatics Garry Wills The Chicago Opera Theater’s new production of Verdi’s Joan of Arc is another case of the music triumphing over a director’s most energetic pretzel-twistings.
How Different is de Blasio? Michael Greenberg If his popularity holds Bill de Blasio will be the next mayor of New York. Socially, he represents a radically different picture than Mayor Bloomberg. If he is elected, what can reasonably be expected to change in the city?
Nicole Holofcener’s Beautiful Imperfections Francine Prose Funny and romantic on the surface, tough-minded and often sharply satiric underneath, Nicole Holofcener’s comedies remind us, as few Hollywood films do, that people work for a living; they support themselves and their families, they pay their rent and their bills.
Clogging the War Machine David Cole Critics have called President Barack Obama weak, indecisive, and rudderless for not ordering an immediate military strike on Syria. He should have just launched the missiles. That’s what a real American president would have done. In fact, what Obama did was adhere to the Constitution—and by doing so, he has now opened the way for a much better resolution.
Rex Whistler: A Talent Cut Short Geoffrey Wheatcroft on a precociously gifted artist whose work “belongs to no category.”		‘The Last Time I Saw Macao’ J. Hoberman: João Pedro Rodrigues’s story of a doomed diva can be viewed three different ways…		John Ashbery Collects An exhibition exploring the poet’s lifelong collection of art, furniture, pottery, textiles, bric-a-brac, toys, and other objects.		Also in the Calendar The film scores of John Zorn, poet Patrizia Cavalli at 192 Books, the collages of Mark Strand, Damion Searls and Ben Lerner read from Robert Walser’s A Schoolboy's Diary, the Houston Ballet's Pacific, Lorrie Moore on watching television, Fritz Stern and Elisabeth Sifton on Nazi resisters, Artemis Cooper discusses Patrick Leigh Fermor, and more.