Toni Morrison Cracks Wise

Plus: All the Chips in China; Asad Haider; Curzio Malaparte ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Sponsored by Classical Pursuits     Our February 26 issue is now online, with Fintan O’Toole on the murders in Minneapolis, Trevor Jackson on the problem with central banks, Ingrid D. Rowland on Fra Angelico, Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison’s sense of humor, Julian Gewirtz on the new microchip race, Vivian Gornick on Arundhati Roy, Joy Neumeyer on Poland’s far right, Ian Tattersall on all creatures great and small, Maurice Samuels on escaping the Nazis in Vichy France, Ben Rhodes on Robert McNamara’s sins, poems by Mary Jo Salter and James Arthur, and much more.   Namwali Serpell Toni Plays the Dozens What’s so funny about Toni Morrison?     Advertisement   Julian Gewirtz When the Chips Are Down President Trump’s reversal of a ban on sales of advanced semiconductors to China undercut the strategic logic behind years of American policy that was meant to keep the US ahead in the race to develop AI systems.   Ben Tarnoff People Think Asad Haider, the foremost socialist thinker of his generation, staked his philosophy on the principle that everyone should be fundamentally free.     Advertisement   Rachel Donadio A Student of Power In his experiences and chronicles of the great ideological battles of the twentieth century, Curzio Malaparte was a shape-shifter—pitiless, clinical, cynical, unsentimental, indifferent to morality and idealism.   New Subscriber Benefit! Subscribers are now able to share unlocked versions of our articles with friends, family, and social media channels. When signed in to your account, look for this gift box icon in any of our articles.   Tonight at 5 PM EST: Fintan O’Toole in conversation with Alma Guillermoprieto and Michael Ignatieff American Imperialism and the End of Sovereignty New York Review Advising Editor Fintan O’Toole hosts Alma Guillermoprieto and Michael Ignatieff for a wide-ranging discussion on the Trump administration’s imperial ambitions in Venezuela, Greenland, and beyond. The event, conducted via Zoom, will last approximately ninety minutes, including an audience Q&A session. This event is pay-what-you-wish (with a suggested fee of $10) and open to the public. Register Here     Advertisement   Special Offer Subscribe for just $1 an issue Get the deal Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from The New York Review. Update your address or preferences View this newsletter online The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305     Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

TOMORROW: Fintan O’Toole in Conversation with Alma Guillermoprieto and Michael Ignatieff

Plus Marilynne Robinson on the Bible ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Tomorrow Evening: Fintan O’Toole in conversation with Alma Guillermoprieto and Michael Ignatieff American Imperialism and the End of Sovereignty Thursday, February 5th at 5 PM EST New York Review Advising Editor Fintan O’Toole hosts Alma Guillermoprieto and Michael Ignatieff for a wide-ranging discussion on the Trump administration’s imperial ambitions in Venezuela, Greenland, and beyond. The event, conducted via Zoom, will last approximately ninety minutes including an audience Q&A session. This event is pay-what-you-wish (with a suggested fee of $10) and open to the public. Register Now!   Also Available: Marilynne Robinson on the Bible The New York Review is pleased to announce a new series of seminars on the Bible, hosted by contributor and Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Marilynne Robinson. Her first seminar on the Old Testament begins on March 2. Her second seminar on the New Testament starts on May 6.  The course as a whole is intended to draw attention to the fact that the Scriptures are, whatever else, a very great literature. Considering their importance to Western Civilization, it is remarkable how vulnerable they are now to misuse and ridicule.  Over centuries writers returned to these texts, confident of finding a high order of meaning in them, as great writers have done for centuries after the canon was closed. This is far too extraordinary a phenomenon to be left to cynical use or to neglect. —Marilynne Robinson     Marilynne Robinson on The Old Testament Four weekly sessions, starting March 2, 2026 Each week will focus on a theme or book from the Old Testament: Creation, Law, Psalms, and Prophecy. Four one-hour sessions: March 2, 9, 16, and 23. All sessions will start at 7 PM EST.  Register for The Old Testament     Marilynne Robinson on The New Testament Four weekly sessions, starting May 6, 2026 Each week will focus on a book from the New Testament: Luke, Acts, First Corinthians, and John. Four one-hour sessions: May 6, 13, 20, and 27. All sessions will start at 7 PM EST.  Register for The New Testament   Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for e-mail newsletters from The New York Review. Update your preferences View in browser The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305   Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

Night of the Demon Hunters

Kevin Power on KPop Demon Hunters ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Sponsored by Classical Pursuits For anyone without children under the age of eighteen, it may have come as a surprise to learn, at Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony, that the “Best Song Written for Visual Media” in 2025 was something called “Golden” from a movie called KPop Demon Hunters. For everyone else, “Golden”—which has gone double platinum in the US—and Demon Hunters—now Netflix’s most-watched film of all time, having sailed past 500 million viewings earlier this year—have been inescapable. “Four or five million of these viewings occurred in my house over the last month,” Kevin Power drolly notes in the NYR Online this week. Thus, “in the last six weeks I have, through no real choice of my own, paid closer attention to KPop Demon Hunters than I have to any other artwork ever, including my own novels.” Power finds in “the movie’s magpie approach to source material” a “semiconscious allegory [for] the conditions of its own production and reception”: The true subject of mass entertainment products is now the creation of mass entertainment products and the drama of their possible fates in the marketplace. That this is the literal subject of KPop Demon Hunters only makes visible a general truth: mass entertainment products now seek to create the illusion of an unmediated connection between fans and idols, a frictionless vision of the perfected market. Below, alongside Power’s essay, are five articles from our archives about mass entertainment products.   Kevin Power Promo Time At the center of KPop Demon Hunters is a fantasy of unmediated connection between fans and idols, a frictionless vision of the perfected market.     Advertisement   Lauren Michele Jackson Humorless Barbie Greta Gerwig’s Barbie finds its comedy in the inflexibility both of plastic and of modern womanhood. —August 27, 2023   A. S. Hamrah Persistence of Mission More than ever, Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies are about a film industry in crisis. —August 2, 2023   New Subscriber Benefit! Subscribers are now able to share unlocked versions of our articles with friends, family, and social media channels. When signed in to your account, look for this gift box icon in any of our articles.     Advertisement   J. Hoberman Marvel’s Ringmaster Under Stan Lee’s guidance, Marvel marketed not only its characters but also the men who created them. —August 19, 2021   Christian Caryl The Force of Nostalgia “Now that I’m taking my own kids to see the show, I can’t help noticing how much has changed. Star Wars has become, to a remarkable degree, captive to the geek revolution it spawned back at the end of the 1970s—and it is this, more than anything else, that explains why The Force Awakens feels at times like the product of a giant focus group. (It could have just as easily been called Revenge of the Fans.)” —February 25, 2016   Alison Lurie Pottery “Looking back on the [Harry Potter] series now, certain questions occur. For one thing, it is hard to understand why so many witches and wizards would want to join the Dark Lord and become Death Eaters. Voldemort is neither beautiful nor charming, as many Dark Lords have been in the past, both in history and in literature. His aspect is repellent and his manner toward his associates cold, haughty, and cruel.” —September 27, 2007     Advertisement   Special Offer Subscribe for just $1 an issue Get the deal Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for e-mail newsletters from The New York Review. Update your address or preferences View this newsletter online The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305     Preferences  |  Unsubscribe