I’ve got a bit of catching up to do on “The Believer,” both in terms of “reading of” the magazine and “writing about” the magazine. So, let’s get down to brass tacks.
Highlights included:
Stephen Phelan’s “Ninjas I Have Known” discusses how, exactly, one might go about becoming a ninja. Phelan discusses this process despite openly comparing ninjas in Japan to Robin Hood of England – more folk myth than true story. Yet, because there is such a demand for ninja paraphernalia, a rich fake-cultural market for ninjas exists.
“A Glimpse of the Unplumbed Depths” discusses Annie Julia Wyman’s interest in an anachronistic book of literary theory. Perhaps the most charming article in the issue, Wyman’s writing is witty enough to stay light while at the same time discussing complex issues of the depths of knowledge and the potential to ever know all there is to know about a specific subject.
The Believer interview with Daniel Clowes – underground comics legend and creator of “Ghost World” – was thoroughly enjoyable. I was surprised (though I probably shouldn’t have been) at how artistically and intellectually he was able to discuss the comics industry.
Weak points included:
Lev Grossman’s “The Death of a Civil Servant” discusses how Leonard Woolf (eventual husband of modernism pioneer Virginia Woolf) met up in Ceylon with another British man who wrote early fantasy fiction. The article would have been good, despite its massive length, if it didn’t feel so darned long.
In “A Sunburst Above a Receding Road: How I Ruined Lolita for Myself,” Namwali Serpell parallels her repeated readings of the book with the different phases of her love life. Although well-written, the main idea behind it – interpretations of a book changing with life experiences – isn’t terribly original, and so the whole thing rang just a bit hollow by the end.
Other notes:
I was happy that Nick Hornby returned to his “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column, but the column itself did not totally live up to my expectations.
Maureen Howard’s conversation with Joanna Scott was completely incomprehensible to me. I literally have no context for either author or the cultural capital to know half of what they were talking about.
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