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The Hillbilly Elegy of JD Vance's Senate Campaign

While it's not entirely surprising that JD Vance has achieved "massive distraction status" in his campaign to campaign for Ohio's Senate seat, that doesn't make it any more serious.

Vance, a veritable compendium of notes on white rural poverty in Appalachia with a soupçon of absurd Trumpism plus a lot of angry white guy, has enjoyed outsize success with a modest book... and well, that's about it. Initially hailed as possessing some sort of unique insight into the Appalachian communities of his ancestors, over the course of the Trump years Vance devolved from Trump critic keenly aware of Trump's know-nothing appeal to rural communities to a Trump cheerleader eager to join the jeering crowd of rural supporters. 

The theory is that Vance's high profile combined with a media ready presence results in a field clearing romp to the GOP nomination; so far that 's been held up by a number of pesky realities. One of which is that Vance isn't from Ohio, but Kentucky, and though he has borderline appeal with some parts of neighboring Ohio territory, he's been out of step with Ohio's less rural, more cosmopolitan cities and nearby suburbs. Another is that Trump personally, for a variety of reasons, favors other Ohio candidates. A third is that Vance seems to be struggling to find a narrative that can be comfortably pro-Trumpist, while not edging into simply "out there" politics. The latter is what's been surprising, since Vance initially seemed well within political mainstreams.

But these are wild times and Vance has, so far, managed to head for Crazy Town at almost every opportunity. He advanced a "pro-family" notion of politics so weirdly extreme even conservatives were baffled (claiming at one point that all left wing politicians including Nancy Pelosi, a mother of 5, could only be childless and anti family). His opposition to even the most common sense approaches to vaccination and other public health responses to Covid has been as extreme as a deep southern governor: fine for them, but absolutely at odds with the popular, sensible policies of Ohio's Mike DeWine. More to the point, Vance has yet to advance the kind of holistic politically centrist policies of a senatorial candidate that have traditionally marked Ohio, where candidates achieve national status as bellweathers of the "realistic middle").

Democratic fear of Vance, aside from the relative star power, has everything to do with the vast nameless fears that Trumpism isn't in retreat but rather running silent, but deadly, under America's cultural notice. The theory being that while normal people may think this stuff is crazy and disastrous for the GOP... just like 2016, liberals will be caught short when Republicans overwhelm them again at the polls.

What can one say? Perhaps that's true... though as a theory it tends to favor 2016 over all that's happened since, including Trump's eventual defeat in 2020, and the sense that without Trump, Republicans are struggling to achieve similar vote results (which, fair enough, could be fine for 2022, but just kicks the fears to Trump re-emerging for 2024). 

Either way, though... Vance, as a harbinger is so far not working out as planned. He continues to poll weakly in potential Republican matchups, never mind any scenario in which he actually gets a nomination and runs against a Democrat. Hillbilly Elegies alone won't solve that problem, and political extremism, so far, is making it worse. Unless some GOP behind the curtain magic works to transform Vance's extreme edges and tendency to mouth off unsupervised, it's hard to see how Vance pulls off a primary, never mind the general.

One larger thread to pull from this, though, is an insight that upsets both the right that's invested in Trump and the left that fears that they're right: ultimately, Vance's take on the rural audience may be right about their anger, but wrong about how that translates to long term political success. Vance's insights, such as they are, provide a window into the sense of hopelessness and despair that drives rural poverty, and he's surely onto something there. But rather than proving that populist politics can be their salvation, the events of the last few years have probably illuminated that hopelessness and despair tend to lead to poor choices, not wise ones, and thus, may just reinforce what it was meant to relieve. Trump, in other words, is a dead end. And Vance, provocative views or not, can't solve that any more than any other non-Trump voice. Trump himself only manages to camouflage the dead endedness with more bluster.

And that bluster, I suspect, is itself wearing thin... which is why, while Trump serves as a major distraction for the GOP, he doesn't represent any kind of solution down the political road. Between legal issues, his own short attention span, laziness and greed, Trump would happily scoop up all the money he could and shirk the actual work of even running again if he can avoid it. All because, unlike Vance, Trump isn't running away from a nightmare past in rural poverty. And because much more like Vance, he has little empathy or sympathy for all the people still trapped there.

As an aside, I suspect Vance would seem more dangerous, his appeal to rural whites more on point, had Hillbilly Elegy translated into a film that had not been met with derision rather than awe. Ham-handed and overthought, the film underscored that as much as Vance's story had some appeal, it was not necessarily new, save for the reality that America tends to ignore the addiction issues of non-privileged whites. And indeed, were Vance to position himself as an earnest, hard working voice fighting to help those addicts against an unfeeling system of bureaucracy and privilege, he might very well be the threat many left and right imagined he might be. Doing that, though, would require tapping into the things Vance himself has rejected via Trumpism: a sense of hope, of fairness, of seeing the good in what we do when we help one another.  By defining his quest in terms of his own personal victory, Vance underscores why the Trump dead end is just that dead: "only one of us gets out of here alive. And it better be me."

Articles We Never Finished Reading: And The World Screams, Kiss Me, Son Of God

"[Cornel] West and Cone did a Q&A at a Princeton bookstore last winter, and afterward, they and a handful of friends and colleagues—including the journalist Chris Hedges, who wrote the Truthdig piece; Carl Dix, a local communist organizer; Brother Ali, an albino rapper; and a few professors—went to dinner. There, West was in his element. He had no one to provoke, and it was clear to see why some might compare West to Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. DuBois, or even Mark Twain. The conversation started with an appreciation of the works of novelist James Baldwin. “At Baldwin’s funeral,” said West, “I sat next to Stokely Carmichael. He’s a hard brother, and he cried like a baby.” West regarded Baldwin in the light of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Amiri Baraka, and his friend Toni Morrison. Then the conversation took a turn, touching briefly on the works of the slavery historians ­David Brion Davis and Leon Litwack, and the civil-rights historian Howard Zinn, ­before resting for a time on Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr, the definers of ­twentieth-century Christian theology—both of whom taught at Union. About the literary critic Harold Bloom, West pronounced, “He’s not always right, but he’s always got something to say,” and then he veered straight through Martin Heidegger to praise his lesser-known disciple, Hans-Georg Gadamer."

 - This week's profile of Cornel West titled - I'm not kidding - "I Want To Be Like Jesus", by Lisa Miller.

Miller does manage the neat trick of being both fawning and dismayed in profiling West, apparently going with "how could such a great mind have so many personal problems," but none of West's admirers can outdo West himself. If you can get past the Jesus part - it's an actual quote that West says he doesn't see himeself as any of Jesus' disciples, but rather as Jesus, himself - there's still West polishing his resume over a string of appointments at Ivy League schools (the hook for the story, ostensibly, is that West is leaving Princeton for Union Theological Seminary), and name dropping like mad. It's not West's celebrity that gets me, or the self satisfaction; his Jesus complex is no doubt helped by the sycophants he's trained to follow him and who shower him with accolades and praise. Miller does a nice job, really, of highlighting the fact that all this mass love is no substitute for the fact that he has few friends, three bad marriages and even a fairly checkered set of professional connections (and really, when forced to choose between Larry Summers or Professor West, who's really worse?).

No, the thing that got me to throw down the artcle was the paragraph above, which to me laid bare the intellectual pomposity that annoys me when West talks in most interviews and appearances (I can only imagine what his classes would be like), the scattershot deployment of Big Intellectual Names You Must Know, the smattering of celebrity names and inside gossip that make you feel like an intimate (why else name drop of Stokely Carmichael?) , but the considered lack of thought about the ideas that are supposed to drive these big thinkers and their works. I feel very lucky to have had college professors who challenged me not to just read the assignments, but to think about what I read, synthesize my own ideas and apply the learnings to all sorts of aspects of life in general. It's not who you know, or how fabulously well read you are, I think it's what you do with the ideas that you discover along the way, and the life you put together as a result. Otherwise, why bother learning anything along the way?

West, the article suggests, is suffering now because he's one of the few major black intellectuals to have soured on President Obama, but that, of course, is of a piece with West's general approach: his over-the-top praise for Obama initially was both too much and too intended to get attention for himself, and his new contrarianism is just as self aggrandizing and just as poorly thought through (if you can stay long enough, Melissa Harris-Perry takes it apart in the article, with her usual combination of smarts and class). Maybe it's my life spent around collegiate types, and faculty in particular; but the best teachers, and the best friends, I find, carry less pretension and look more to share ideas rather than win the contest of Obscure References, because it's a better world when we all know a little bit more. West can probably win the name game... but that doesn't make you Christ. Or even Christ-like.

Island Time

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all. 

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had.  Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

I promise to poat pictures too.

Oh, and, Happy Easter. :)

Excuses, Excuses

Mom asked me to jump off my arguments against Nancy Pelosi, and, though I don't always defer, it seemed to me that the work was done: if the New York Times can see, plainly, just what I saw... at least I know I'm not crazy.

What's been interesting as the "Really... Nancy Pelosi? Really?" storyline has unfolded is the amount of excuse-making involved in trying to make the case for her. My friend Red ably noted that a number of the things I mentioned in my first post - her tenacity, her political savvy and exercise of power through fundraising - were probably things that could be seen as making her successful. I tend to agree. She wouldn't be where she is, or in a position to keep doing what she's done, if what she already did wasn't seen to work.

The excuse making on the left, though, is about the election: from a world-weary "the party in power always loses seats" to "the losses were all about the Democrats who were too conservative" or in more Republican-leaning districts... a large number of liberals, it seems, have found a way to deal with major losses in the House: they're not really losses... it's just inevitability.

Not that Repubicans are immune - I think they've spent the years since the 2006 losses in a similar dreamworld about just how bad their rejections were - but I don't think excuse making is any way to figure out how to win the next time around. The "new fatalism" among energetic liberals and progressives, in which the Democratic Party is either on a natural down cycle before the next upswing... or the more radicalized perspective of some further left types that the whole "Legacy Party" apparatus is falling apart... sort of obviates everyone from doing the work of coming up with the next big idea, or finding the next new leaders. We could... but, really, it will just end up the same, anyway. Or something.

What got me thinking about all this excuse making is, naturally, former President Bush. Just in time for the post election hangover, Mr. Bush's memoirs popped out to bookstores, and the President naturally embarked on the kind of things he likes to do least: interviews where people actually question his decisions, and having to justify a lot of what remains pretty indefensible.

Watching a few segments of the hourlong interview with Matt Lauer, I was struck, again, by how much of the kan's interviews turn into rounds of defensive "it's not my fault" type answers to questions that are hardly deep or probing; they can't be - neither his thinking, nor his speaking style, really lend themselves to developing deep insights. What you get is what you see... and what you get, most of the time, is "it wasn't my fault" or "I thought I was right then, and I still think I am." Self doubt... who needs it?

More than Iraq, more than 9/11, the place where this self-justification and excuse making just gets absurd is in the response to Hurricane Katrina. It's not that Bush won't admit to mistakes - even he seems to get, at this late date, that at least the appearance of things he was supposed to be handling looked bad - but even his admissions are tinged with a kind of "I couldn't do otherwise;" and if it looked bad... well, that's how the media works, isn't it?

It's not that I think Mr. Bush helped create, or more likely, sustain, a faith in never admitting mistakes and refusing to take responsibility for one's own failings... it's that I think the eight years of his disastrous Presidency, in addition to deeply lowering our expectations of nearly every leader we have, also made the self centered excuse making expected, hardly news. From Toyota to BP to all the various political leaders who've failed us in one way or another... it's fine to admit to mistakes. But after that, feel free to make all the excuses you want. We'd love to hear them. We probably won't believe them... but why would you expect anyone to do anything else?

There is such a thing as "inexcusable" and "indefensible"; more pointedly, there's a sense in which growing up and shouldering some responsibility for oneself is taking the excuse making off the table. It doesn't matter what the excuses for some things turn out to be - whether other people were mean, or no one understands you, or you did the best you could. Do better, don't worry about the others, and get back to work. No excuses. At least, don't expect a lot of things to change until we take the excuse making defenses off the table.

The Burning Of Paper Instead Of...

I don't think this was a hard call: I think we can pretty much agree that book burning is probably a bad idea, and something that seems, instinctively, not the American way.

What's harder, I think, is the continuing sense that anti-Muslim sentiment in America is, right now, gaining ground, and no one seems to have a good answer for stopping it. It's unnerving, not that the book burning wound up careening into the national conversation, but that even now, there's a weird ambivalence to Pastor Jones announced plan to burn the Koran. As if, in some universe, that was explicable. Or defensible.

So he's backed off, tying his own quixotic decision making to the by-no-means-parallel situation in New York, saying that the planners of Park51 agreed to move the site if he called off the book burning. That already seems to be quite untrue, but really, any fig leaf will do when calling it off.

This isn't, in the end, about the potential for uprisings in Afghanistan or Pakistan or other Middle Eastern countries. The problem with burning books is about what it says about a society, our society, the one that nearly did the burning. It's the frightening potential to burn ideas, of agreeing to the proposition that books are dangerous (though you could more likely convince me about a problem with, say, Danielle Steele's novels... but that's neither here nor there). How did we wind up here? And how, really, will we ever find our way back?

Happily, this piece affords me the opportunity to quote one of my favorite poets (aside from my best friend J), Adrienne Rich, who I found in college (unlike J, who I found shortly thereafter). This poem, the first I read, was one which profoundly moved me, challenged me, and enriched my thinking. This is the fifth and final section of "The Burning of Paper Instead of Children":

I am composing on the typewriter late at night, thinking of today. How well we all spoke. A language is a map of our failures. Frederick Douglass wrote an English purer than Milton's. People suffer highly in poverty. There are methods but we do not use them. Joan, who could not read, spoke some peasant form of French. Some of the suffering are: it is hard to tell the truth; this is America; I cannot touch you now. In America we have only the present tense. I am in danger. You are in danger. The burning of a book arouses no sensation in me. I know it hurts to burn. There are flames of napalm in Catonsville, Maryland. I know it hurts to burn. The typewriter is overheated, my mouth is burning. I cannot touch you and this is the oppressor's language.

It Will Also Help if He Could Produce A Two Headed Pony. Or, Alternatively, A Unicorn

From a book review we should never have finished reading, Jacob Heilbrunn's otherwise reasonably interesting take on Jonathan Alter's The Promise:

Whatever the case, it seems unlikely that the cautious Obama, a true conservative at a moment when the term has become soiled by its current representatives, will preside over a new era of resurgent liberalism. Still, if he outflanks his opponents, winds down two wars and, above all, revives the economy, he will surely more than fulfill his abundant promise, and the dream of change that his campaign so skillfully evoked.

These Times Are So Uncertain, There's A Yearning Undefined...

It's weird, isn't it, how Easter coincided with the latest round of handwringing about the Catholic Church. And it's easy, I think, to look at the latest revelations in isolation - yet more indication of how deep the priest-child abuse scandal went within the church hierarchy - and miss that there's a broader point here about religion generally.

For one thing, the problems the Catholic Church faced this week were not the only religion story to have legs: Scientologists scrambled to respond as further charges of abuse by David Miscavige surfaced, and more questions were raised about the Sea Org and Scientology generally.

And in all of this, I think, there's a point here about religion in the modern age, a point that links these troubles and others: the gradually decline of the ability to sustain a faith on mysticism alone.

That may seem less immediately apparent in the Catholics case, but stay with me on this one; one of the problems that showed up this week was the sense of the current Pope having a past. The various questions about what Cardinal Ratzinger did or didn't do, as Archbishop of Munich or as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were ones that seemed, very much, to just bloom out of the blue. And "a past" is generally not what we talk about with Popes. It violates, as some noted this week, the general directive of the Church that the Pope is infallible and not to be questioned or challenged. Maybe... but how about the jobs the Pope held before he was Pope?

And isn't that question, really, a good indication of what it means to bring a centuries old organization into the 21st Century?

It's harder, after all, to shroud religion, any religion, these days in a sense of mystery. Many have noted the trouble the Church has finding Saints to canonize in recent years - too easy to explain away what used to be "miraculous" with science, or videotape, or such. And the abuse scandals too have lifted the veil on secretive workings of the Church's organization - the shifting of abusers to different parishes, the uselessness of their system of "counseling", the failure to report misdeeds to the prop[er authorities (never mind the legal agreements of enforced silence). None of that, really, is as possible to do now, or to hide as effectively.

Scientology, and other more recent religions face even bigger challenges, because so much of their basic text, and their tenets of belief, have been up for scrutiny long before they could enter the hazy realm of beliefs that we uphold on tradition as much as anything else (yeah... let's just leave it at that rather than discussing Virgin Birth or, say, the Resurrection). Scientology's odd discussions of aliens and bad energy, "clearing" and such have been under scrutiny since about the time Dianetics first appeared; and those questions, as much as anything, have driven the skepticism that leads to further investigation of Scientology as an organization. It's easy to say Scientology invited many of the problems it has now... but really, what faith can stand the kind of questions aimed at Scientology's beliefs?

Just ask the Mormons. It's been a while since Mormonism faced more public investigation, but that's likely to change if, as expected, Mitt Romney renews his chase for the Presidency in 2012. Questions about the Book of Mormon, about the veracity of cliams of golden tablets and other legends within the faith, are bound to reoccur, along with further examination of the curious history of the faith, more looks at Utah, and of course, more discussions of polygamy and outliers in their faith. Even without Romney - his viability is by no means assured - it's entirely likely more polygamist stories alone will drive further examinations, and more struggles for Mormons to back away from extremists and traditions within their own church.

How can faith survive, in such a graceless age? Not easily... but I think it's too soon for triumphant atheists and agnostics to assert religion is dead. Many people need... something. The continued popularity of some evangelical churches, "Christian" pop music and such suggest that there is a modern compromise to be made. In Tucson, I noticed that Joyce Meyer is back with another book, and like Joel Osteen, I think she represents one of the ways to make a modern compromise about faith: make religion less about automatic belief in quesitonable mysteries and unexplainable phenomenon; and focus, instead, on teaching ourselves to be better people, based on internal faith. The real "prosperity gospel" after all, is that we have the potential be better people, already within ourselves.

The question for religious organizations, then, is how to navigate this modern world, and how to live in a world that's more real, more present, that leaves less room for mysticism and the inexplicable. Expecting people to give over control to religious leaders who rely on dogma and legend and myth, strikes me as unrealistic, and getting worse. We know too much, can see too much... and that knowledge cannot just be explained away, or driven out. Progress may not be perfect... but fighting the changes wrought by our scientific advances, tghe electronic world, and now the internet seems like fighting the inevitable. That fight against the very nature of our modern world, I think, is why the Catholic Church and the Chruch of Scientology seem to be on the losing end of the news, these days. The heart of the matter of faith, really, has to be about more than believing in the unbelievable.

Smart or Pretty, I Always Say

Close to a year and a half ago, I said this, then, about John Edwards flaming out as his affair was revealed:

what strikes me, yet again, is how this all seems to be of a piece: the beautiful, shallow man who seemed all too susceptible to flattery and caught up in a sense of his own self importance. Which is why the failure of the affair really doesn't surprise me: after they both finished admiring John Edwards... really, what was left to say?

I don't have a lot of use for Game Change, the all too salacious, gossipy tome making waves in politico-land; all the "dirt" about the various participants (though, not, tellingly, anything that really adversely impacts the Obamas) is pretty much familiar, hardly revelatory and does little to improve our political life.

Still, as much as I admit that there's nothing, policy wise, to learn about someone like John Edwards from reading the excerpt in New York Magazine, I have to admit that the personal saga, and the collapse of the carefully constructed images of John and Elizabeth Edwards is pretty sad and intense. A lot of people have weighed in on characterizing her or him based on the writing; I'd rather not. I think what's fascinating - and why I think the book, overall, is a sad example of really good writing aimed at the wrong purpose - is that the horrible, painful details really speak for themselves and don't yield up easy characterizations. And that's about all I can say - especially when faced with... well, let's just leave it at this:

After pulling herself together, [Elizabeth] and John set off for the private aviation terminal at the airport—but partway there, their car pulled over, and John hopped out and jumped into the staff car, saying in an exasperated tone, “I can’t ride with her.”

At the terminal, the couple fought in the passenger waiting area. They fought outside in the parking lot. Elizabeth was sobbing, out of control, incoherent. As their aides tried to avert their eyes, she tore off her blouse, exposing herself. “Look at me!” she wailed at John and then staggered, nearly falling to the ground.

John tried to bring down the temperature, remaining calm and impassive, but his apparent standoffishness only seemed to infuriate and disorient Elizabeth more. Finally, after talking to her doctor on the phone, Edwards sent his wife home and flew off to South Carolina.

Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/index6.html#ixzz0cbLOJgXi

Sarah Superstar

In all the breathless coverage of Sarah Palin's memoirs, I've been debating what to say. Like many I share a concern about her prospects, even the vague fascination with Palin's popularity on the right... but mostly, I find her a somewhat interesting, but irrelevant diversion. And little of the coverage of her seems to get at this.

It wasn't until I saw a clip of her with Sean Hannity that something crystallized for me: Palin is not seen, I don't think, for what she is. In reality, Palin is riding the wave of celebrity culture to her 15 minutes of major fame, and she's doing it by turning politics - perhaps the last bastion of "seriousness" - into the same kind of celebrity name driven gossip currently given to Hollywood and the music industry.

Seeing Palin as a serious politician, it seems to me, is the mistake. What she is, really, is famous for being famous. And by not seeing her book tour for what it is - a chance to consolidate her attention getting - conservatives are deluding themselves into making her vague political ambitions into a huge mess up, while liberals may wind up doing damage control from the needless energy of trying to stop her.

Mo Betta MoDo

Usually, I don't think of Maureen Dowd as a lousy columnist - she is, but still - I think of her as someone who's simply missed her calling to be the next Rex Reed. From her thoroughly well executed takedown of Dan Brown's new book, a real skill at eviscerating his use of language:

His metaphors and similes thud onto the page. ­Inoue Sato, an intelligence official investigating a disembodied hand bearing a Masonic ring and iconic tattoos that shows up in the Capitol Rotunda, “cruised the deep waters of the C.I.A. like a leviathan who surfaced only to devour its prey.” Insights don’t simply come to characters: “Then, like an oncoming truck, it hit her,” or “The revelation crashed over Langdon like a wave.” And just when our hero thinks it’s safe to go back in the water, another bad metaphor washes over him: “His head ached now, a roiling torrent of inter­connected thoughts.”

You can practically hear the eerie organ music playing whenever Mal’akh, the clichéd villain whose eyes shine “with feral ferocity,” appears. He goes from sounding like a parody of a Bond bad guy (“You are a very small cog in a vast machine,” he tells Langdon) to a parody of Woody Allen (“The body craves what the body craves,” he thinks).

But Brown tops himself with these descriptions: “Wearing only a silken loincloth wrapped around his buttocks and neutered sex organ, Mal’akh began his preparations,” and “Hanging beneath the archway, his massive sex organ bore the tattooed symbols of his destiny. In another life, this heavy shaft of flesh had been his source of carnal pleasure. But no longer.”

...

The author has gotten rich and famous without attaining a speck of subtlety. A character never just stumbles into blackness. It must be inky blackness. A character never just listens in shock. He listens in utter shock.

And consider this fraught interior monologue by the head of the Capitol Police: “Chief Anderson wondered when this night would end. A severed hand in my Rotunda? A death shrine in my basement? Bizarre engravings on a stone pyramid? Somehow, the Redskins game no longer felt significant.”

Bravo!