Wrapping Up 2023

Paul Lynch’s “Prophet Song,” Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and other last-minute cultural observations from the year just past…

Jan 05, 2024

(HUDSON, N.Y., January 3, 2024) - Before 2023 becomes ancient history – and before I forget everything I recall about it – I wanted to pay one last visit to the past year, paying particular attention to some of the books I read and movies I saw in the last few weeks of the year. (I reserve the right to return yet again to 2023 to share any further afterthoughts.)

But before I begin, I want to share some personal news with you. I finally have a publication date for my next book. Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison will be published on October 1, 2024, by Oxford University Press. The book is a musical and cultural appreciation of the singer, songwriter, and guitarist (as opposed to a conventional biography), focusing on Harrison’s years with the Beatles as well as on his post-Beatles solo career. With the help of a few interlocutors – including filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Let It Be) and English rock singer-songwriters Robyn Hitchcock and John Wesley Harding aka Wesley Stace -- the book explores the characteristics of Harrison’s genius as a songwriter and recording artist, attempts to unlock the mystery of his enigma as a worldwide celebrity who preferred gardening to being a rock star, and to trace the cultural impact he had on future generations, through leveraging celebrity for humanitarian causes (e.g., Concert for Bangladesh) and through opening the Western world’s ears and hearts to the sounds and spirits of the East, particularly those of India.

I will soon be sketching out a plan for book-related events – in-store signings, parties, book talks – to take place in the immediate aftermath of the book’s publication. If any of you have ideas for places that might be willing to host such an event, please let me know by replying to this message or sending email to me at seth@rogovoy.com. Thanks.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Had I read it earlier, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, which won the 2023 Booker Prize – a pretty consistent mark of greatness – would have made my list of my favorite books of the year. I cannot say enough great things about Prophet Song. It is written in dreamy, Joycean-like prose, yet it is a gripping, accessible page-turner, a political thriller. Two thirds of the way through I found myself torn between the desire to read quickly to find out how the story ends and the sheer enjoyment of bathing myself in Lynch’s staggering stylistic achievement, his dense, lyrical prose. With narrative that remains close to the protagonist’s consciousness, Lynch unveils a terrifying yet utterly believable and way-too-realistic dystopian nightmare. While Lynch is an Irish writer and while the story takes place in Ireland, it could take place anywhere, as it steers clear of any national or regional detail or history; there is hardly if any mention of The Troubles, Catholics vs. Protestants, sectarian strife, nor Irish independence. It remains focused on the plight of a single family yet portrays a totalitarian takeover of a democratic state. It eschews paragraph breaks and direct quotations in favor of stream-of-consciousness immediacy, pulling the reader into a nightmare that could easily be a forecast of how the United States slips into a fascist dictatorship over the next few years. Lynch’s aptly titled Prophet Song may not leave you humming a happy tune, but it certainly will heighten your senses and sensitivity towards a bleak future we all fear and cannot fathom with the force and power of a Biblical jeremiad.

Maestro – Directed by and starring Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein

The more time passes since I saw Maestro – the Leonard Bernstein biopic directed by and starring Bradley Cooper – the more problematic the film appears to be. Putting aside for the moment Cooper’s talents (or lack of such) as a movie director and actor, one is left wondering what made him want to tell Bernstein’s story in the first place. Because Bernstein’s two greatest accomplishments, as a musician (composer, pianist, conductor) and as a radical cultural figure (e.g., his work as a civil rights and antiwar activist), are given short shrift in this film, which instead forefronts Bernstein’s relationship with his long-suffering wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn (portrayed by Carey Mulligan) almost to the exclusion of his life and work as an artist. Even the film’s focus on Bernstein’s struggles with his homosexuality is given a bland, whitewashed treatment – there is little portrayal of his anguish (which, you wouldn’t know from the film, even drove him to seek conversion therapy). Radical chic? Cooper apparently never heard of it. Instead and in summary, Cooper gives us a soap opera not even worthy of his remake of A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga.

Killers of the Flower Moon – Directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio

There are few cinematic storytellers whose work transcends time in the manner of Martin Scorsese, who gives us a gripping yet insular, contained view of the tragic consequences that resulted when capitalism met the indigenous population of what became the United States. In this tightly woven, three-hour-plus epic portrayal of the corruption at the heart of the American project, Scorsese underlines the murderous nature of American expansionism, even tying in the tragedy of the Tulsa Massacre to this true story of the destruction of the Osage people. Everything about Scorsese’s filmmaking is brilliant, from the camera work to the colors to the script to the most incidental performances. Special if sentimental merit goes to the film’s chief composer and music supervisor, the late Robbie Robertson, who himself was half-Native and who enjoyed a decades-long collaboration with Scorsese dating to their work together on the 1978 concert film, The Last Waltz.

Poor Things – Starring Emma Stone

My shorthand for this movie is feminist Frankenstein meets Kasper Hauser with a happy ending. Emma Stone is brilliant in this sexy sci-fi black comedy, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and also starring Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and Jerrod Carmichael. I am generally not a fan of sci-fi nor Victorian period pieces, but Lanthimos finds a way to transcend genre in this frisky romp. The mise-en-scene makes for delightful viewing. But Lanthimos’ true genius was in the casting of Stone as a cloistered young woman who embarks on a (sometimes ribald) journey of self-discovery. With this role, she catapults herself into the top tier of film actors, and I, for one, am along for the ride, wherever it goes.

THANK YOU to all who have heeded the call and have upgraded to a paid subscription to Everything Is Broken or to the Rogovoy Report. Thanks to you, we have achieved our goal of reaching over 100 paid subscribers — which without my even being aware has earned me the title of “Substack Bestseller.”

That being said, with a total of over 3,000 subscribers, it would be great to get paid subscriptions from 10% of those receiving one or both newsletters. I guess that’s a goal for 2024. It would also help to grow the subscription list significantly - so please share the newsletters widely with friends and/or on social media using the built-in share button.

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Thank you so very much.

Seth Rogovoy
Editor, Everything Is Broken

Everything Is Broken

Wrapping Up 2023

Paul Lynch’s “Prophet Song,” Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and other last-minute cultural observations from the year just past…

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