Several usually eloquent pens spat venom last weekend. The spat between Niall Ferguson and Pankaj Mishra and the London Review of Books has escalated. You might recall that Ferguson and Mishra trading insults over the latter’s review of the former’s book Civilisation; their acrimony has been underscored by references to racism. Mishra has since said that Ferguson is not a racist; but the matter remains unresolved. Ferguson has had another letter of complaint published in the latest issue of the LRB. He opens by saying that Mishra is ‘in full and ignominious retreat’ and ends by writing, ‘I am still waiting for an apology, from both Pankaj Mishra and the editor who published his defamatory article.’ The Guardian also quotes Ferguson saying, “If he won’t apologise for calling me a racist, I will persecute him until he does.” The spectre of legal action looms.
This set-to is reminiscent of the mutual contempt between Hugh Trevor-Roper and A.J.P. Taylor. Adam Sisman’s acclaimed biography of Trevor-Roper recounts some of the pair’s more poisonous episodes, such their televised debates about the causes of the Second World War – which was also the subject of a recent Radio 4 documentary. Academic enmity makes for intriguing public theatre, so perhaps an enterprising producer will try to persuade Ferguson and Mishra onto the airwaves.
In another literary world, counter-cultural icon Alan Moore has told the Guardian of the pleasant surprise at seeing ‘Occupy’ protestors around the world wearing the mask of ‘V’ from V for Vendetta.
‘I suppose when I was writing V for Vendetta I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: wouldn’t it be great if these ideas actually made an impact? So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world… It’s peculiar. It feels like a character I created 30 years ago has somehow escaped the realm of fiction.’
Life imitates art, or in this case ‘idle fantasy’. But these radical appearances are deceptive. The replica masks are mechandise from the 2006 film adaptation, owned by Time Warner, who
stand to make a tidy profit from the protestors’ whims. The irony is not lost on Moore, or one side of it isn’t at least:
‘It’s a bit embarrassing to be a corporation that seems to be profiting from an anti-corporate protest. It’s not really anything that they want to be associated with. And yet they really
don’t like turning down money – it goes against all of their instincts. I find it more funny than irksome.’
Irony and anger mix in Andrew Gilligan’s review of Ken
Livingstone’s political memoirs, You Can’t Say
That. Gilligan writes, ‘For 700 gruelling pages, we are trapped in Ken’s political vivarium, breathing the smells, fighting off the circling bluebottles, reliving a
lifetime’s struggles for vital centimetres of tank space.’
Gilligan and Livingstone’s antipathy has subsisted for years; but, as Ed Howker explains in the latest
issue of the Spectator, these new memoirs have intensified the rancour.
‘The statesman who spoke so eloquently after 7/7 had become boorish. This book’s parting shot at Gilligan suggests he still is:
If I won in 2012, I joked with friends about coming home to find him holding a blood-stained axe over the bodies of Emma [Livingstone’s wife] and the kids.
You Can’t Say That certainly lives up to its title.’
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