I've said it more than once: recent world events have unbalanced the judgement of a lot of people of the well-meaning, right-thinking classes. It's rare however to find quite so concentrated an instance of the phenomenon as in this review by Lucy Ellmann of Francine Prose's A Changed Man:
American sentimentality may once have seemed endearing, but now we know it's just another instrument of evil. Every aspect of American culture has begun to stink of the grave. The pizzas and hamburgers: this is how world tyrants fuel themselves. The cars, the drugs, the music, the TV: this is how they distract themselves from their crimes. But how can they still think they're right about anything? Their children are deep-fried, drug-soaked numbskulls, the adults hapless lemmings in their SUVs, heading straight into the back-end of the American dream. Where is the guilt - and where the apology?Gee whiz, Mom, Philip Roth, Lucinda Williams and Herbie Hancock stink of the grave? Mugabe runs on pizzas? I'm deep-fried and you're a lemming? Shucks.
Then there's this towards the end:
So, we're all basically okay, and everything will be all right? Tell that to the 6m Jews who died, tell it to the Iraqis. Aw, tell it to the marines.Such moderation and delicacy and understatement. Still, if you read to the very last line, you do get a good, unintentional piece of self-reference. Never thought there'd be a candidate to beat A.L. Kennedy for the A.L. Kennedy prize, but this Lucy looks like being one. (Thanks: IL.)