Strings attached: In The Harper Review’s inaugural letter of the winter quarter, Daniel Chen responds to the question, “should the ivory tower endure?” Chen describes the world of Hermann Hesse’s 1943 novel The Glass Bead Game, in which academic inquiry has been reduced to a single activity: the game of the novel’s title. Society’s brightest dedicate themselves to mastery of this esoteric pursuit, as the world outside churns unaffected and unaware. Hesse’s protagonist, Joseph Knecht, ascends to the position of “Master of the Game,” but questions what good intellect is when it is devoted only to the abstract, when “body and soul, ideal and reality have moved apart.”
Knecht leaves the game behind but stops short of calling for the game’s downfall, warning that when “the Glass Bead Game is destroyed…the world will suffer a loss.” Despite his concern for a world that severs mind and body, he cannot devote himself to the purely practical, which would require “a bent for identifying oneself with outward goals, and…a certain swiftness and lack of scruple about the choice of ways to attain success.” The players of the Glass Bead Game thus find themselves at the mercy of those who do see to such practical matters.
Chen takes Hesse’s story as a warning, writing that “the ivory tower cannot endure forever no matter how valuable or invaluable it is.” The university will always find itself caught in the strings attached to its government subsidies and private donations. And so long as it does, it too exists at their mercy.
Knecht leaves the game behind but stops short of calling for the game’s downfall, warning that when “the Glass Bead Game is destroyed…the world will suffer a loss.” Despite his concern for a world that severs mind and body, he cannot devote himself to the purely practical, which would require “a bent for identifying oneself with outward goals, and…a certain swiftness and lack of scruple about the choice of ways to attain success.” The players of the Glass Bead Game thus find themselves at the mercy of those who do see to such practical matters.
Chen takes Hesse’s story as a warning, writing that “the ivory tower cannot endure forever no matter how valuable or invaluable it is.” The university will always find itself caught in the strings attached to its government subsidies and private donations. And so long as it does, it too exists at their mercy.
Declan Rexer, senior editor
Age of monsters: Beowulf, the epic tale of the titular hero’s battles against demons and dragons, is an oddity. On the one hand, it depicts a world much like ours, one full of shifting political allegiances and abiding social anxieties around status and reputation. On the other, it is an artifact of an alien culture that extolled pillage and conquest for their own sake and took for granted the reality of evil monsters. Underpinning the poem’s action is an uneasy admixture of pagan and Christian values, leaving one to speculate about the author’s moral and ethical commitments. It is no wonder, then, that Beowulf has perplexed generations of readers.
In her book Beowulf: Poem, Poet and Hero, Heather O’Donoghue of Linacre College, Oxford, shows how Beowulf, despite its many apparent incongruities, is a work of astonishing dramatic and psychological depth. Drawing upon her enormous erudition and powers of close reading, she provides us with a comprehensive analysis of both the poem’s historical significance and its rich story. In doing so, she not only elucidates the poem’s oft-overlooked complexity but also shows how the world of Beowulf is not so different from ours after all.
In her book Beowulf: Poem, Poet and Hero, Heather O’Donoghue of Linacre College, Oxford, shows how Beowulf, despite its many apparent incongruities, is a work of astonishing dramatic and psychological depth. Drawing upon her enormous erudition and powers of close reading, she provides us with a comprehensive analysis of both the poem’s historical significance and its rich story. In doing so, she not only elucidates the poem’s oft-overlooked complexity but also shows how the world of Beowulf is not so different from ours after all.
Will Dudley, contributing editor
Trial run: It’s always interesting to see what an artist creates after their magnum opus. After they’ve exhibited what makes them them—where do they go next? After Kanye West’s genius My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came Yeezus—one of his most beloved albums. But after The Beatles’ Abbey Road, there was John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band. Following his critically acclaimed album AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP, A$AP Rocky’s Testing sits somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
Despite being his shortest album, it’s also his least focused. As its name implies, it’s a smorgasbord of various musical ideas thrown together without much cohesion. There is a song built around one of GarageBand’s premade loops. There is a song featuring rapper Kodak Black singing through a prison phone call (and it’s exactly as bad as you think it would be). There are quite a few songs—“Purity,” “Brotha Man,” “Kids Turned Out Fine”—that don’t really sound like rap songs at all.
Some of these ideas don’t work. But some of them do, and they remain some of the most interesting experiments to grace mainstream hip-hop in the past decade. “Tony Tone” is driven by an infectious guitar that rips through the mix. “Hun43rd” submerges a noticeably more mature sounding Rocky underneath layers of reverb and frenetic synth stabs. “OG Beeper” is so goofy it becomes irresistible. Testing isn’t perfect, and it’s pretty definitively A$AP Rocky’s worst album. But viewed seven years removed from its release, it serves as a pillar of creativity in a genre that too often plays it too safe. I hope we get this version of Rocky on his next project.
Despite being his shortest album, it’s also his least focused. As its name implies, it’s a smorgasbord of various musical ideas thrown together without much cohesion. There is a song built around one of GarageBand’s premade loops. There is a song featuring rapper Kodak Black singing through a prison phone call (and it’s exactly as bad as you think it would be). There are quite a few songs—“Purity,” “Brotha Man,” “Kids Turned Out Fine”—that don’t really sound like rap songs at all.
Some of these ideas don’t work. But some of them do, and they remain some of the most interesting experiments to grace mainstream hip-hop in the past decade. “Tony Tone” is driven by an infectious guitar that rips through the mix. “Hun43rd” submerges a noticeably more mature sounding Rocky underneath layers of reverb and frenetic synth stabs. “OG Beeper” is so goofy it becomes irresistible. Testing isn’t perfect, and it’s pretty definitively A$AP Rocky’s worst album. But viewed seven years removed from its release, it serves as a pillar of creativity in a genre that too often plays it too safe. I hope we get this version of Rocky on his next project.
Charlie Phelan, assistant digital editor
Rivers of Babylon: The Epic of Gilgamesh continues to resonate with readers thousands of years after it was first composed. In her novel Babylonia, Constanza Casati chronicles a world in which the Epic of Gilgamesh’s date of composition lay far closer to the present than we imagine today, writing through a modern lens about the Assyrian Empire and the legendary Queen Semiramis.
Casati nimbly weaves the story of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu into the novel, both through quotations from characters and through her carefully drawn portrait of the friendship between the cold-hearted general Onnes and the idealistic King Ninus. That friendship is first threatened, then briefly expanded when Onnes marries Semiramis—here depicted as an impoverished yet ambitious orphan with courage, a quick mind, and a kind heart to boot. At her most skillful, Casati provokes genuine questions about what it means to love in a world where love is seen as a weakness.
Alas, Casati never quite breaches the consequences of that question, most obviously with regards to her protagonist. Casati seems determined to present Semiramis as likable even when the plot makes that questionable. A story arc in the latter half of the novel, which sets Onnes and Ninus at odds for Semiramis’ affections, is presented as a fight over true love rather than what seems more probable—a ruthless attempt by Semiramis to grab power at the cost of the brief, beautiful companionship the three have formed.
Framed by the glossy ornateness of Semiramis’ perfection, Babylonia is an enjoyable read, but unlike the ancient epic that recurs in its pages, it is regrettably forgettable.
Casati nimbly weaves the story of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu into the novel, both through quotations from characters and through her carefully drawn portrait of the friendship between the cold-hearted general Onnes and the idealistic King Ninus. That friendship is first threatened, then briefly expanded when Onnes marries Semiramis—here depicted as an impoverished yet ambitious orphan with courage, a quick mind, and a kind heart to boot. At her most skillful, Casati provokes genuine questions about what it means to love in a world where love is seen as a weakness.
Alas, Casati never quite breaches the consequences of that question, most obviously with regards to her protagonist. Casati seems determined to present Semiramis as likable even when the plot makes that questionable. A story arc in the latter half of the novel, which sets Onnes and Ninus at odds for Semiramis’ affections, is presented as a fight over true love rather than what seems more probable—a ruthless attempt by Semiramis to grab power at the cost of the brief, beautiful companionship the three have formed.
Framed by the glossy ornateness of Semiramis’ perfection, Babylonia is an enjoyable read, but unlike the ancient epic that recurs in its pages, it is regrettably forgettable.
Francesco P. Rahe, contributing editor
Image: Edward Burne-Jones, The fight: St George kills the dragon VI, oil on canvas, 1866 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia).