open letter to Anne Applebaum

During this past season I have become aware of Ms. Applebaum by virtue of her book Gulag and a pair of newspaper pieces which I have read subsequently. The first of these pieces was syndicated frpm the Washington Post and it centered upon historical memory in the context of the President's trip to the Baltic states and Russia in commemoration of the 60^th Anniversary of the VE-Day. The latter piece is actually from 2002 and its focus is a review of a review by Christopher Hitchens of a book by Martin Amis: Koba the Dread. All references to simulacra aside, it is indicative of the cultural caliber of these two men, that such a consequent observation by an "outsider" would warrant such prominent position in Slate.

Given her own agenda, which can be loosely translated as curator of the Gulag program throughout the existence of the Soviet Union, Applebaum recoils from the premise of Amis' text. It isn?t a question of scholarship or authority, as a browsing of ANY chapter in Applebaum's Gulag will confirm that it balances statistical charts beyond palpable immediacy and anecdotal references from essentially the same shelves of survivor literature that provides the foundations of Amis's text. A text, by the way, that doesn't pretend to be history. What characterizes the differences at this point? One, a measure of immediacy as Amis notes that his father, Kingsley, was close friends with Robert Conquest, whose Great Terror is still the benchmark in analysis of Stalin's purges. This particular sparrow over the homestead merits closer concern, as does Amis' friendship with Mr. Hitchens. Koba the Dread doesn't aspire to being Gulag or the Great Terror but it is a memoir, one with a cachet of issues that Applebaum can't refute and it also surpasses Applebaum in a striking manner: its called writing, my dear (to paraphrase Sir Laurence Olivier.)

?The conclusion of Applebaum?s article concerns that Hitchens? review of Koba The Dread in Atalantic Monthly easily succeeds in skewering Amis but, he is let off? too easily. I am curious as to what Applebaum thought of Hitchen?s next book, Why Orwell Matters, released the following year in 2003. While I remain in awe of Hitchen?s writing, his arguments at times (rather often as of late) strikes me as that of a fakir, but one that believes in the act and is trying to convince intimates that, indeed, it is now real.

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