Pickled Politics has a piece by Hari Kunzru on the controversy. (Thanks, Harpreet.) Kunzru is right to speak against the parochialism present even among European liberals, and he is also on the mark about how Islamists, who would gladly publish anti-Semitic cartoons, are the ones who benefit from the the foolish mistakes of outfits like Jyllands Posten. (A few days ago, my friend Amardeep Singh had a blog on this subject with some helpful links to diverse sites. Also see Desi Critics for further information, including a link to a site which presents a fascinating archive of historical images of the Prophet down to the present-day.) It is good to have folks like Kunzru writing. Because otherwise all you get is something like this piece from yesterday’s Boston Globe which, in an inflammatory way, begins by doing something that I had thought only the Hindutva half-pant-wallahs did–pitting good Hindus against bad Muslims.

In the latest NYRB, Daniel Mendelsohn has an excellent review (there are only two or three other critics I know who are so consistently incisive and lucid) of the film ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ In the same issue of the NYRB, J.M. Coetzee reviews Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Coetzee’s piece is noteworthy because, apart from examining the novel in relation to Marquez’s earlier work, he provides a very fine reading of its relationship to other writings, extending from Cervantes to Yasunari Kawabata. (NYRB often publishes its reviews later than other publications. None of the earlier reviews of this book managed to convey a fraction of the insight and erudition that Coetzee packs into his writing.) The NYRB also has a review-essay by John Banville entitled “Homage to Philip Larkin.” Banville manfully defends Larkin against the dunces: “There was much ugliness in Philip Larkin’s character, but what mattered most to him was beauty, and the making of beautiful objects. In this lay his greatness.” Maybe. It is more interesting to pay attention to the work itself and the ways in which it is familiar with corruption. Banville is better when he seems to relish Larkin’s wit and virulence. May I draw your attention, dear reader, to footnote 3, where this brief, previously unpublished poem of Larkin’s is quoted in full:

ADMINISTRATION

Day by day your estimation clocks up
Who deserves a smile and who a frown,
And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
Are those whose pants you’d most like to pull down.