Table Of ContentJAN. 6, 2020
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THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 2020
1
4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
13 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Adam Gopnik on the oldest of stories;
keeping the Post posted; a Knausgård of fewer words;
thirty years of “OBEY”; standup-comedy tête-à-tête.
PERSONAL HISTORY
V. S. Naipaul
18 Grief
On the losses that never leave us.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Hart Pomerantz
25 Einstein: The Untold Story
ANNALS OF IMMIGRATION
Rachel Nolan
26 Language Barrier
The high stakes of translation for indigenous people.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
Sheelah Kolhatkar
32 Embarrassment of Riches
The élites fighting against economic inequality.
PORTFOLIO
Collier Schorr
42 A Boy Like That
with Emily Stokes
New moves for “West Side Story.”
FICTION
Jamil Jan Kochai
54 “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
Hua Hsu
58 The rise of Asian-American literature.
61 Briefly Noted
MUSICAL EVENTS
Alex Ross 64 Three operas search for new possibilities.
DANCING
Jennifer Homans 66 Noche Flamenca’s ancient art.
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 68 “Little Women.”
POEMS
Donika Kelly
22 “From the Catalogue of Cruelty”
Gerald Stern
56 “Warbler”
COVER
Pascal Campion
“Twilight Avenue”
DRAWINGS Jose Arroyo and Rob Kutner, Liana Finck,
Suerynn Lee, Michael Maslin, Elisabeth McNair, Zachary Kanin,
Joe Dator, Roz Chast, Liz Montague SPOTS Filip Fröhlich
JANUARY 6, 2020
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THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 2020
CONTRIBUTORS
Sheelah Kolhatkar (“Embarrassment of
Riches,” p. 32) is the author of “Black
Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money,
and the Quest to Bring Down the Most
Wanted Man on Wall Street.”
V. S. Naipaul (“Grief,” p. 18), who died
in 2018, published more than thirty
books. In 2001, he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature.
Donika Kelly (Poem, p. 22) wrote the
poetry collections “The Renunciations,”
which is forthcoming, and “Bestiary.”
She teaches at Baruch College.
Jamil Jan Kochai (Fiction, p. 54), who
won an O. Henry award, is the author
of “99 Nights in Logar.” He is at work
on a collection of stories.
Lizzie Feidelson (The Talk of the Town,
p. 17) is a writer and a dancer. Her work
has appeared in the Times Magazine
and n+1, among other publications.
Pascal Campion (Cover), an illustrator,
is an art director for animation studios
in Southern California.
Collier Schorr (“A Boy Like That,”
p. 42), a photographer, is at work on a
multimedia dance project called “Ak-
erman Ballet.”
Rachel Nolan (“Language Barrier,”
p. 26) teaches Latin-American history
at Boston University’s Pardee School
of Global Studies.
Katy Waldman (The Talk of the Town,
p. 15), a staff writer, won a 2018 Amer-
ican Society of Magazine Editors award
for journalists younger than thirty.
Gerald Stern (Poem, p. 56) wrote, most
recently, the poetry collection “Galaxy
Love” and the essay collection “Death
Watch.” His new book, “Blessed as We
Were,” will be published in January.
Susan Mulcahy (The Talk of the Town,
p. 14) has published three books. She
is a former editor of Page Six.
Hart Pomerantz (Shouts & Murmurs,
p. 25), a comedy writer and performer,
was an employment lawyer in Toronto
for five decades.
NOVELLAS
Read the novella “Mother Nut,”
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s first
published work of fiction.
POEMS
Excerpts from a new translation
of Dante’s Purgatorio, by
Mary Jo Bang.
LEFT: ALVIN FAI; RIGHT: BERKE YAZICIOGLU
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THE MAIL
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 2020
3
handle.” Bob serves the concoction to
the whole family, and a merry Christ-
mas is had by all.
Nina M. Scott
Amherst, Mass.
1
UNREAL
Patricia Marx, in describing her expe-
riences with virtual reality, jokingly
considers moving out of her apartment
and into a closet, taking her V.R. head-
set with her (“The Realer Real,” De-
cember 9th). This point touches on the
profound: with advances in virtual-re-
ality technology, people may someday
find themselves in a world where back
yards, spacious living rooms, and spec-
tacular views are less precious. Anyone
who has experienced V.R., even in its
current fledgling form, can appreciate
its allure. The reduction in the value
of physical space has implications for
everything from real-estate prices to
international politics.
G. Randy Kasten
Angels Camp, Calif.
After reading Marx’s fascinating piece
on the brave new world of virtual re-
ality, I found myself wondering about
the energy requirements and potential
environmental impact of the technology.
Standard-definition video streaming
on Netflix typically uses one gigabyte
of data per hour. A V.R. application,
by contrast, can use many times more.
The Shift Project, a French think tank,
reported that, in 2018, online video
viewing produced a carbon footprint
comparable to that of Spain. With the
energy costs of V.R. inarguably higher,
developers and users of the technology
should consider the effects on the planet
before diving in.
Rebecca Scherzer
Sausalito, Calif.
THE GIN CRAZE
Many thanks to Anthony Lane for
confirming the historical and cultural
pedigree of the gin-and-tonic, which I
and many friends in British-ruled Hong
Kong regarded as more or less the offi-
cial colonial drink (“Ginmania,” De-
cember 9th). Its popularity is a legacy
of the Victorian era, when malaria
plagued the territory. (As Lane points
out, the quinine in tonic water com-
batted the disease.) I used to live in
the colony’s mordantly named “Happy
Valley” area. It was a malarial marsh
in the nineteenth century, and now it’s
home to a famous horse-racing track
and several cemeteries, where some of
the malaria victims rest. Perhaps more
gin-and-tonic would have been in
order; Winston Churchill credited the
drink with saving “more Englishmen’s
lives, and minds, than all the doctors
in the Empire.”
Chris Gay
New York City
Lane offers a comprehensive look at
the worldwide love of gin, but he leaves
out one particular use of the spirit: folk-
lore says that a regimen of nine gin-
soaked golden raisins per day relieves
arthritis pain almost as effectively as
over-the-counter medications. Some
have theorized that the juniper berries
in gin combine potently with a sub-
stance in the raisins. Others say that
any pain relief is due to the placebo
effect. And still others maintain that
straight gin will do the trick, no rai-
sins required.
John Huxhold
Manchester, Mo.
Lane mentions Charles Dickens’s ob-
servations about gin’s power to allevi-
ate the misery of London’s poor. One
example appears in “A Christmas Carol,”
which I read every year. Bob Cratchit,
Ebenezer Scrooge’s put-upon clerk,
combines “some hot mixture in a jug
with gin and lemons,” then pours it
into “the family display of glass: two
tumblers, and a custard-cup without a
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