MAGAZINE REVIEWS

A new Gandhi in India

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 21, 1998) -- India-watchers have thrilled to the sight of a new Gandhi appearing out of nowhere this past election season, stealing the thunder away from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.), which while having eked out a victory last week seems unlikely to be able to hold power for long.

The New Yorker

Instead, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of Indira Gandhi's son, Rajiv -- who like his mother was assassinated while holding the office of Prime Minister -- stepped into the vacuum-like breach that was the leadership of the fading Congress Party. Gandhi has singlehandedly restored lustre to Congress -- the ruling party of India since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru (Indira Gandhi's father; they are no relation to Mohandas Gandhi, the Mahatma) -- giving it new hope for a future that until she surfaced publicly as its standard-bearer was looking increasingly dim.

In "The New Gandhi" in the March 16 issue of the New Yorker, correspondent Patrick French tries to find out just who Sonia Gandhi is and what she wants. He only succeeds partially -- she is an elusive subject, who according to the author "has never publicly answered a single question." French had to satisfy himself with interviewing Gandhi's friends and advisers, none of whom would speak to him on the record and all of whom live in fear of being ostracized by her.

In the end, one senses that Sonia Gandhi's image as the ideal bahu, "the doormat daughter-in-law who serves her husband's family in any way possible," is just that -- a carefully calculated image of one who seems destined to rule the world's largest democracy.

Rolling Stone

With Albania suddenly on the radar by virtue of its ethnic kin being hunted down and slaughtered by Serbs in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia, the report from that all-but-forgotten Balkan nation by Rolling Stone foreign affairs correspondent P.J. O'Rourke in the April 2 issue is incredibly well-timed.

Of course, O'Rourke's journalism, like Hunter S. Thompson's before him, is as much about O'Rourke as it is about his subject, so there are limits to what we learn about this isolated, mountainous nation-state of three- plus million with an economy based on a pyramid scheme.

O'Rourke gets off such typically clever observations as, "The Albanian concept of freedom approaches my own ideas on the subject, circa late adolescence. There's a great deal of sitting in cafes and a notable number of weekday, midafternoon drunk young fellows."

Or, in the context of witnessing what he observed to be a case of severe child neglect, "There is not, so far as I was able to discover, an Albanian Child Abuse Hot Line. `That's because it would be jammed with how-to calls,' said the wire-service reporter."

Or, "Not to demean a whole ethnic group or anything, but, like most Americans, the only Albanians I'd ever heard of were Mother Teresa and John Belushi. An entire country full of Mother Teresas would be weird enough -- everybody looking for lepers to wash. But imagine a John Belushi Nation. Except they're not fat, and they're not funny."

O'Rourke does in fact paint a portrait of a decimated, lawless, chaotic society, which might actually go a long way toward explaining why nearly two million Albanians live in neighboring Kosovo.

The American Spectator

One turns to the American Spectator, the monthly journal of right-wing political opinion, in the hope of gaining better understanding of the anti-Clinton forces that have been setting the agenda of the mainstream news media through its venomous stream of rumor, lies and innuendo about the President and the First Lady.

One isn't disappointed. Practically the entire magazine is devoted to the cause of trashing the president. The February issue claims that Hillary Clinton is so obsessed over her fat ankles that she had a photo of herself among the former first ladies removed from a White House display.

The March issue calls Clinton a "menace to society" and Vice President Al Gore a "useful idiot." It also takes every opportunity it can to congratulate itself on its role in outing the Paula Jones affair in 1994, a piece of reporting for which its author, David Brock, has recently apologized.

What is even more pathetic, however, than Byron York's "The Truth About Bill's Lies" -- yet another rehash of Clinton as pot-smoking, draft- dodging adulterer -- is Dave Shiflett's "When Country Wasn't Drivel," which actually blames the decline of country music on a "large new left- wing contingent in Nashville" that doesn't "share the same values as old Nashville." v Yes, the article even manages to cast some of the blame for country's decline on Clinton himself, whose appointment of William Ivey -- the former director of the Country Music Foundation -- to head the National Endowment of the Arts is seen as a victory for "the striving segment of the [country music] elite."

DoubleTake

The name of the three-year-old quarterly DoubleTake refers to its dual approach, incorporating written and photographic reportage. Articles in the spring issue include "Backlash" author Susan Faludi's investigation into why the Marine Corps is having trouble recruiting new marines, an essay by Barry Lopez about photography, a photo-essay about Pittsburgh by former Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith, and fiction and poetry.

The issue also includes the transcript of a conversation between Will Percy, nephew of the late novelist Walker Percy, and rock singer- songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It is a revealing interview in which Springsteen talks about the influence of books and films on his work, including works by Percy's uncle, who actually once wrote Springsteen a "fan letter," the text of which is reproduced here.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 21, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]

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