What You Should Be Reading Right Now (w/ Jay Nordlinger) | Bulwark on Sunday

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Episode Summary

Title: What You Should Be Reading Right Now (w/ Jay Nordlinger) | Bulwark on Sunday
Host: Bill Kristol
Guest: Jay Nordlinger
Release Date: April 20, 2025

---

1. Introduction

The episode "What You Should Be Reading Right Now" features Bill Kristol hosting Jay Nordlinger, a distinguished writer from National Review and The New Criterion. The conversation delves into literary recommendations, focusing on influential authors like Stefan Zweig and Mario Vargas Llosa, while also touching upon classical music and its enduring relevance.

---

2. Discussion on Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig, an early 20th-century Austrian writer, becomes the focal point of the discussion. Jay Nordlinger shares his profound appreciation for Zweig, emphasizing the author's emotional depth and insightful portrayal of European civilization's decline.

• Zweig's Influence and Works:

  • "Beware of Pity" and "The Post Office Girl" captivated Nordlinger with their emotional intensity.
    • "These books are full of emotion... they are very painful to read. They're real, you know, he gets down to it."
      [05:51]
  • "The World of Yesterday", Zweig's memoir, offers a comprehensive history of his era, chronicling the rise of illiberalism and demagoguery.
    • "It's his summa, it's an autobiography, but it's also a history of his time... he chronicled it absolutely brilliantly."
      [06:32]

• Personal Reflections:

  • Zweig's life in Salzburg is highlighted, particularly his witnessing of Hitler's rise from nearby Berchtesgaden.
    • "He could see with his naked eye Berchtesgaden, the Eagle's Nest, where Hitler was building his place."
      [08:14]

---

3. Mario Vargas Llosa's Works

The conversation shifts to Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel laureate and influential Latin American writer. Nordlinger discusses his admiration for Vargas Llosa's novels and political thought.

• "The Feast of the Goat":

  • Nordlinger recounts his intense experience reading the novel, which delves into the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
    • "It had me by the throat. I wasn't an idiot. I knew that Vargas Llosa was a novelist, but I knew him primarily as a political person."
      [16:50]

• Intellectual Autobiography - "The Call of the Tribe":

  • The book explores Vargas Llosa's influences and his journey from leftist ideologies to classical liberalism.
    • "He started out on the left... and then he found people like Isaiah Berlin and George Orwell... they changed him forever."
      [19:21]
  • Nordlinger critiques the title, suggesting it misleadingly implies tribalism instead of resistance to it.
    • "If I could change one thing about the book, it would be its title."
      [22:37]

---

4. Other Literature Recommendations

Beyond Zweig and Vargas Llosa, Nordlinger and Kristol exchange recommendations on works that provide deep insights into dictatorships and political struggles.

• Elizabeth Abbott's Account of the Duvaliers in Haiti:

  • "Her account of the Duvaliers, especially Papa Doc, is just riveting."
    [18:21]

• Michaela Wrong's Coverage of the Mobuto Dictatorship in Zaire:

  • Praised as a magnificent account of dictatorship.
    • "Magnificent. Magnificent."
      [18:21]

• Nathan Sharansky's Prison Memoir, "Fear No Evil":

  • Recognized as a profound memoir detailing personal resilience under oppressive regimes.
    • "That is a wonderful book."
      [19:13]

---

5. Insights on Classical Music

The dialogue transitions to classical music, where both speakers share their perspectives on performances, reviews, and the importance of staying true to original compositions.

• Bill Kristol's Review of "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Met:

  • Kristol praises the performance, highlighting its emotional impact.
    • "Nothing in the world is better than that."
      [35:30]

• Joshua Bell's Interpretation of Beethoven's Concerto:

  • Nordlinger shares an anecdote about pianist Joshua Bell writing his own cadenzas, underscoring the importance of personal artistry in classical performances.
    • "Let me give you a story. Good friend... Dame Myra says... I'm not gifted that way."
      [32:00]

• Dame Myra Hess's WWII Performances:

  • Honored for her role in boosting British morale during the Blitz through her performances.
    • "Patriotic person and a noble woman."
      [34:12]

---

6. Conclusion

The episode concludes on a harmonious note, with both Kristol and Nordlinger reflecting on the enduring value of literature and music in understanding and navigating the complexities of society and politics. They express gratitude for the opportunity to discuss these enriching topics outside the often overwhelming news cycle.

• Final Thoughts:
  • "It was great to get away from it for 35 minutes here on a Sunday."
    [36:06]
  • "Thank you for being Bill Kristol."
    [36:22]

---

Notable Quotes:

• "These books are full of emotion... they are very painful to read. They're real, you know, he gets down to it." – Jay Nordlinger
  [05:51]

• "It's his summa, it's an autobiography, but it's also a history of his time... he chronicled it absolutely brilliantly." – Jay Nordlinger
  [06:32]

• "He could see with his naked eye Berchtesgaden, the Eagle's Nest, where Hitler was building his place." – Jay Nordlinger
  [08:14]

• "It had me by the throat... he knew him primarily as a political person." – Jay Nordlinger
  [16:50]

• "He started out on the left... and then he found people like Isaiah Berlin and George Orwell... they changed him forever." – Jay Nordlinger
  [19:21]

• "Nothing in the world is better than that." – Bill Kristol
  [35:30]

• "Patriotic person and a noble woman." – Jay Nordlinger
  [34:12]

---

This episode of "Bulwark Takes" offers a rich exploration of influential literary figures and their impact on political thought, intertwined with reflections on classical music's role in cultural resilience. It serves as a compelling guide for listeners seeking profound reads and a deeper appreciation of artistic expressions.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

It is Ryan Seacrest here. There was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment. But a better trend would be going to chumbacasino.com it's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumba casino has over 100 online casino style games, all absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane. So grab your free welcome bonus [e-mail] sponsored by Chumba Casino.

[Unknown]

No purchase NECESSARY VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21/ terms and conditions.

[Bill Kristol]

Apply Hi, I'm Bill Kristol. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined today by my old friend, former colleague at the Weekly Standard for a few years and then ever since at National Review.

[Jay Nordlinger]

I wouldn't say colleague, Bill, you were the boss. You were the big kahuna and I was a minnow and I was.

[Bill Kristol]

You were great mid sized fish at least, you know, maybe a trout or something. Anyway, has written so well for National Review for so many years on politics, but also very distinguished music critic mostly at the New Criterion, but also at National Review on your impromptu's there. Everyone should read you at National Review, read your impromptu, follow you on Blue sky and X and that will guide people to your writings. Or just follow me on Blue sky at X and I link to you enough that they can find your stuff. What do you find about Blue sky and X incidentally? So X is the old Twitter you and I rotted for several years. Many you were on before I think. But I do you find. Do you get more responses much response these days from Blue skies from X? I think you do what I do and post on both. Right? Most of the time.

[Jay Nordlinger]

It's an odd thing. I have many, many more followers on X than on Blue sky and I have more so called engagement on Blue Sky. I'm going to have a relative handful of followers on Blue sky but they seem to want to talk which is very nice.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I think Blue sky has been successful and I think we should all make it more so. I have a zillion almost a million followers and experts somebody that were not active is my sense or I never really look at the responses but I do see the numbers of just people who read the stuff or I guess click on it, you know, respond to it. I don't read the responses but that would drive me crazy. But a lot of them maybe don't agree with me or with you anymore. You know what this is going to be a non political discussion. We're not going to mention the name of the current occupant of the Oval Office and talk about literature and maybe get to a little music and opera and poetry too. And I really want to. You're the person who inspired this, both because you've written so well over the years on literature as well as music, but also. When did we have dinners after the election? That was maybe a month after, I'm going to say December, maybe early January.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Less than that, I can't remember, maybe three, four weeks.

[Bill Kristol]

And I said, what's up? And you said you haven't been following politics as much because you vowed. Well, you tell the story. You, you.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Well, I haven't been right. I hadn't been writing about politics. I'm off the wagon now. Yeah, I'm afraid.

[Bill Kristol]

Yes.

[Jay Nordlinger]

But, you know, we consume so much media and sometimes I tell people. It's a bit of a laugh line, but it's kind of true that I read like mad from about 0 to 30 and then not much thereafter. My line is, you can't write and read at the same time. And so I've consumed so much media and I've read in books for the purpose of writing, which is different from reading books properly. And I decided, God darn it, you know, pretend you're literate, Jay, read a few books and maybe write about a few of them. So I went on a jag.

[Bill Kristol]

But this was partly in response to avoiding politics for a few weeks after the election.

[Jay Nordlinger]

I think it was for a distraction for, you know, Bill Buckley would say, all politics and no play makes Jack dull boy. And he was never a dull boy. And I learned pretty quickly. But just about the last thing he wanted to talk about socially was politics.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, interesting.

[Jay Nordlinger]

So, you know, I have a long list of books I'll never get to, and I knocked a few off.

[Bill Kristol]

So the one I remember you telling me about, which I, who I've not read and barely knew of really, was Stefan Zweig. So for me that's been a revelation. You're talking, telling me about him and I don't think he's that well known these days as he once was. No, say a word, say a word about him.

[Jay Nordlinger]

I feel like he's become a friend of mine. He's someone I admire a great deal, who teaches you, who consoles you. He was a great man of letters, wrote all types of things all my life. I had heard from David Price Jones and others, you must read Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth. And I had never Read any Zweig at all.

[Bill Kristol]

And Zweig is what, early 20th century?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yes. He's born in, I think, 1881. And he dies by his own hand in 1942 in Brazil. So he's at the lives. His first part of his life is at the zenith of cosmopolitan Vienna, you know, a golden age. The beautiful, great liberal, polyglot, cosmopolitan city. And Zweig had all of European civilization within him, and he knew Everybody. World War I comes great shock, the world is destroyed. 20 years later. We know about that. So I think I first read a novel of his, published posthumously, the Post Office Girl. I couldn't put it down. And then I read a better known novel of his, Beware of Pity. Couldn't put it down. And I was a little daunted by his memoirs titled the World of Yesterday. It's big and fat.

[Bill Kristol]

Are those novels reasonably slim so that you. One can actually slim is who are daunted by big fat books could pick them up.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yes, yes. And they're very. These books are full of emotion. You know, a lot of people don't like critics because he's not real modern. He does. He's not real cool and detached and oblique and indirect. There's just. These books are very painful to read. They're real, you know, he gets down to it. And I found myself, certainly in Beware of Pity. As I remember, I had to put the book down a few times, not because I was bored, but. But because it was all too strong. Wow.

[Bill Kristol]

And then the memoir is the most famous thing, maybe he wrote.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yes, it's his summa, it's an autobiography, but it's also a history of his time. And I'd been told for years, it's such a cliche, one of the most tiresome of cliches. It's all there, but by golly, it's kind of all there in politics and culture and so on. The coming of darkness, of illiberalism, the accommodation of the intellectuals, the capitulation of the intellectuals, the rise of nationalisms. How dislike or even hatred can be fanned by demagogues, especially talented demagogues. He saw this and he was a witness, in a sense, and he chronicled it absolutely brilliantly. He spent the last many years of his life on this book, and he put it in the post in Brazil where he and his wife were living. And the next day they committed a double suicide.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow. Now, the. He lived, as you were telling me. I'd been to Salzburg a few years ago, first time you go every summer for the music festival. He lived in Salzburg for quite a bit of time.

[Jay Nordlinger]

He was a classic Viennese. Classic Viennese Jew. After World War I, he couldn't bear to return to the Vienna. To Vienna. Because of what he said. He said, let me try somewhere else. Little tiny provincial Salzburg. A quiet place in which to work, way out of the way. The festival, I guess, hadn't started yet. It was tiny. It became famous.

[Bill Kristol]

Right.

[Jay Nordlinger]

But he lived there and he wrote and he lived on the Kapucinneberg, up on a mountain or a very high hill, and he could see with his naked eye Berchtesgaden, the Eagle's Nest, where Hitler was building his place with this naked eye. And it's true. I mean, it's only about 20 miles away.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. What forgets how far. I forget at least how far west Austria goes, how close it is to southern Germany. Right.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Or, well, back to Skadn is just over the border. And by the way, this is a diversion. So I guess it's 20 minutes away. And I've been to Salzburg every summer since 02. A lot of people take excursions to the Eagle's Nest. I'll never go. And I guess it's a personal issue and plenty of people do. I just don't want to. Just don't want to. But, yeah, Zweig lived there and he got out rather early. He exiled himself to London long before the Anschluss.

[Bill Kristol]

And you're telling me a story. So the anschluss is like 38, but you telling me a story of him walking along the main street in Salzburg.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah, he tells a story in his autobiography. He's simply on the street in little Salzburg. I mean, it's so little. I mean, you see everybody. And he sees a longtime friend, someone he's known from Vienna, I think, since his youth, and the guy just cuts him off, just ignores him in the street. And the next day he calls on Zweig at home with no agenda, no reasoning. It's very unusual for this fellow to do that. And Zweig worked it out that he had noted Zweig noticing that he, the other guy, his back was turned to him and he thought he sort of make up for it by visiting Zweig at home. And that lets Zweig know, huh? Become dangerous to be seen conversing with Jews in the street.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow.

[Jay Nordlinger]

He left not long after Salzburg. And by the way, Zweig was. You don't ignore Zweig in the street. He was a huge celebrity. He's one of the most famous writers of the day. And according to some Assessments, I guess, for evaluations. He was the most translated living writer in. In all the world. It was very rich. His family was well off, too. But he made a lot of money himself and he was the last or one of the last collaborators with Richard Strauss in opera.

[Bill Kristol]

Different world, huh?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

And I guess that's the. That's sort of the point of the autobiography.

[Jay Nordlinger]

That's the point of it and the fragility of civilization. How quickly it can all go wrong when everything's very. Seems. Everything seems secure and eternal. It's not. It's one of the great themes.

[Bill Kristol]

Mona Sharon, our mutual friend and former colleague of yours at National Review. Now, a colleague of mine at the Bulwark said she's reading the autobiography on your recommendation. But I haven't had a chance to really ask her how far into it she is. And if she's enjoying it as much as you told her she would.

[Jay Nordlinger]

I asked Mona, many, many years ago. I used to ask people. It was a favorite question of mine. Why are you a conservative? Or how did you. A conservative? I've gotten so many interesting answers. And Mona said, I was aware from a very young age of the fragility of civilization. How can all go wrong and very quickly. And she knew this from, you know, reading about the Third Reich and the Holocaust and so on.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. So what do you think? If one wanted to begin. Zweig, which I still haven't and I should. I mean, one of the novels or the. Or the big book.

[Jay Nordlinger]

The World of Yesterday.

[Bill Kristol]

The world.

[Jay Nordlinger]

The World of Yesterday. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

It's just translated into English. I don't have to. I don't have to dust off my one year of college German. Okay, good.

[Jay Nordlinger]

And it's a brilliant pen. I mean, Zweig is such a stylist. He knew everybody, Bill. He knew all the writers of Europe and all the composers, all of his contemporaries, and he was a big deal among them. And it's. You learn a lot from this book. It's a beautiful book. He loved America. He came to America on the strength of Walt Whitman. He was so enthralled with Whitman, he wanted to see Whitman's country. And he went to a hotel here in New York. And poor. I can imagine that there's this poor Italian immigrant desk clerk. And Zweig, this clueless Viennese intellectual, says, can you tell me where Walt Whitman is buried? Didn't get much help there.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, they couldn't Google back in those days. Well, people should Google your excellent piece or pieces. I can't remember answer from when you Were discovering him and writing him and on my Jag.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Helping us. Helping, you know, bringing others along on your drag, which is a real good deed that you did, incidentally, I think. Did you get much response on Zweig, or is it a little too exotic to have a mess?

[Jay Nordlinger]

It's interesting. It's interesting. People have an appetite for this kind of thing. Yeah. It shouldn't surprise me anymore because it's pretty predictable and regular.

[Bill Kristol]

Is that right? Yeah. I find that people underestimate how much certain class, at least of people in.

[Jay Nordlinger]

America who I. I loved you on Longfellow the other day and.

[Bill Kristol]

Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's an interesting. Under another. A poet who in his case, who really was consigned, not fashionable among the critics after certain notes. But worth. I don't. What do I know? But seems to me worth rediscovering. But that's.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Oh, heavens, yes.

[Bill Kristol]

Another conversation last week, someone whom you were a huge admirer of and wrote about very well and. And several times over the years. Mario Vargas Llosa passed away in Peru at pretty advanced age, I think 89. 89, yeah. Tell us about him. And did you know him, Giant?

[Jay Nordlinger]

No, wish I had. I know his son Alvaro, who is a wonderful classical liberal and writer. But Mario was. I call him Mario as though I'm intimate with him. He was sort of the one who got away. I was saying in my column the other day that I am not a chaser of people, of things and so on. I just. I'm just not. And I don't chase interviews. I can take no for an answer. If you tell me no, find, I'll go on to the next one. There are plenty who are willing, you know, but Vargas. So there are two who have gotten away. One is Jack Nicklaus, the great golfer. I made a run at him maybe two, three times, which is not real dogged, but for me it is. And Vargas Llosa, I had an opportunity to sit down with him at the Salzburg Festival. He went every year with his family for many years and stayed at the Soccer Hotel, the main hotel there. And someone said, well, you. You can meet Vargas llos at, say, 3:00 or something. I had a contract to attend and cover, and I thought, ah, I can get Vargas llos another time. And that other time never came. But he was a great man of letters, a great novelist, a wonderful thinker, someone who had an influence on a lot of people politically, especially in Latin America. There were two great classical liberals, really, in all of Latin America. Mario Vargas Llosa and hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist. They were bosom friends and then had a terrible falling out, which I think is a very sad thing. But Vargas Llosa was, I was saying the other day, and something I wrote, it's fairly easy to recognize giants of the past. It may be harder to recognize them when they're with you. He got a lot of recognition, won the Nobel Prize in literature and so on and so forth. But one of the great writers of our time, a genius.

[Bill Kristol]

Which of his novels do you recommend to start with and then say a word about the recent non fiction?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I am a friend of mine, a very generous friend, an Italian friend who comes to New York now and then. He likes to bring me books. And he brought me the Feast of the Goat, a novel by Vargas Llosa about the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. And I really wasn't reading novels and that much time, but it's a gift. And I thought I'd read a page or two to tell my friend that I'd read a little of it. And I started this book right shortly before I wanted to go to bed. I think it was about 11:15. And I read the first page, it was okay. And I read the second page and it was good. And I read the third page. I think I fought sleep until about 2:30 in the morning.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow.

[Jay Nordlinger]

And I woke up, I couldn't really move until the book was done. It had me by the throat. By the throat. And I mean, I wasn't an idiot. I knew that Vargos Llosa was a novelist, but I knew him primarily as a political person because my great interests had been political. And so I had done this novel and I called my friend David Price Jones, who's a real literato and a novelist as well as a political writer like Vargas Llosa. And I said, David, the guy's a freaking genius. Am I the last to know? And he said very politely, yes, you are.

[Bill Kristol]

That book is pretty early in his.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Career, or no later, later book. And I've read because of the work I've done and a book I wrote many, many accounts and depictions of dictatorships, many, many memoirs, histories, so on. This novel's just about the best.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow.

[Jay Nordlinger]

What it's like to live in, as Robert Conquest would say, a non consensual society.

[Bill Kristol]

Just as a digression. But you have written a book on dictators, or maybe more than one, two books, I can't remember anymore. And written so extensively on it, also in your columns and interviewed people, gone to the conferences and Also of dissidents and so forth. And what else is must reading for what life is like in a dictatorship? Anything One or two others come to mind.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yes. One of the best accounts of a dictatorship I ever read was by a Canadian woman. I think her name is Elizabeth Abbott. She wrote about the Duvaliers in Haiti. She married a member of the Haitian elite. She had access to everyone. And her account of the Duvaliers, especially Papa Doc, is just riveting. And also a brilliant English journalist with the name Michaela Wrong, like the English word wrong. She's an Africanist. She's from Oxford or Cambridge, I can't remember. And she wrote an account of the Mobuto dictatorship in the country that he renamed Zaire. Magnificent. Magnificent. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow. And then.

[Jay Nordlinger]

And your friend Nathan Sharansky's prison memoir, Fear no Evil.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. That is a wonderful book. I haven't looked at that in quite a while. I should. Yeah. And then the recent book you wrote, what's the Call of the Tribe? Is that what it's called?

[Jay Nordlinger]

The Call the Tribe is Mario Vargas llos's intellectual autobiography. It's an account of his influences, and it's also a book in which he pays tribute to his influences. He started out on the left, as so many have and do, and then he found people like Isaiah Berlin and George Orwell and Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper and the two great Frenchmen, Aaron and Ravel, or two of the great Frenchmen, and they changed him forever. And toward the end of his life, Vargas Llosa pays tribute to these people for, oh, letting him know how best to think. And his great man, all of it, Ortega y Gassette, is one of them. But the great figure, the one he starts with, the only non 20th century figure, is Adam Smith. And it sounds a little hokey, but Mario Vargas Llosa was very far from a sappy, sentimental man. Very far. But he traveled to the little place in Scotland where Smith is buried to lay flowers at his grave.

[Bill Kristol]

Wow. It's really something. Really. I have not read that. I. I need to read that. But some of those are wonderful writers who. And I have thought you and I discussed this over the last eight, nine years, I guess now 10 years, almost. The need to rediscover a lot of those writers who influenced him so much. And, you know, I read some of when I was younger, but. And certainly influenced my parents and other people of that generation so much. But I don't know, rediscovering these really strong defenders of liberalism, in the broad sense of liberalism, I think is so useful today. And I mean important always, but maybe particularly urgent.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Well, I was saying, after Vargas Jose died, Charles Krauthammer, his life was turned by Isaiah Berlin's Four Lectures, Four Essays on Liberty, which he read when, I think he was 17 and just enrolled in at McGill. And he never departed from this. And he said if he could give a high school, a gift to every high school graduate, it would be four essays I would like to place into the hands of everyone. The Call the Tribe. I had a. It's been, I don't know, seven, eight years, five, six years, I don't know. But I had a lunch with a fairly big group of young people on the right, and they all very much admired the writer Patrick Deneen and his book about the failure of liberalism. And they were all disciples would be too strong a word, but they were very impressed by him, which unnerved me a little. But that got me thinking about the people who impressed me early on. Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, Norman Pothorrence, George Will, Robert Conquest, so on and so forth. We all have influences of people who help, who shape us for good or ill. And Vargas Llosa pays marvelous tribute. It's a beautiful, beautiful book. It's also an expression of gratitude.

[Bill Kristol]

What does the title mean? The Call of the Tribe.

[Jay Nordlinger]

That's the worst thing about the book. It's the worst thing about the book. To me, the title is completely misleading because the book is about resisting the call, the tribe, resisting tribalism and rising above it. And I think, oh, you know, he's setting. Here's a roster of his tribe. Here are his fellow tribesmen. You know, it's his tribe. They're kind of an anti tribe. And he quotes Popper at length, I think, and Popper was wonderful on the malign influence of a tribe. A tribe can be good, you know, sometimes you need a tribe, for heaven's sakes, for protection and so on and so forth. But yes, if I could change one thing about the book, it would be its title.

[Bill Kristol]

Interesting. You also wrote recently about a book that I read decades ago, I will admit, and again, mean to get back to it, haven't now famous again, maybe because of this Netflix series or I think it's Netflix or one of those.

[Jay Nordlinger]

It is Netflix.

[Bill Kristol]

It is Netflix. The Leopard by Lampedusa. So, God, what a book. God, what a book. Say. Well, I can say one word about it, which I remember when I read it, I think it was maybe in college, it was sort of famous. There'd been a movie, it came out in 57 or 58, I think in Italy. It came out after this aristocrat, Giuseppe de Lapidoza, died. This was the only novel, only book he wrote. He wasn't a writer, he was a aristocrat, you know, had an estate, a reader.

[Jay Nordlinger]

He'd been preparing his whole life to disgorge this book.

[Bill Kristol]

It's amazing. And he submitted the manuscript. It was rejected by two prestigious Italian publishing houses, if I'm not mistaken, he passed away. And then it was printed a year after his death and had a massive success in Italy and translated throughout Europe. And here in the U.S. i think wasn't that well known here in the U.S. until the movie came out in 1963 with Burt Lancaster. Kind of an odd casting, but anyway, I haven't seen that also in 50 years, so I have no idea how that would stand up. Anyway, it was kind of a.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Two foreigners are in it as the leads. They're dubbed Burt Lancaster the American, and Alain Delon the Frenchman. It's an Italian movie, but the two of them are dubbed. Weird, huh?

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, right. I. I don't really. I should go look at it. Interesting things to compare it to the current Netflix series.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Anyway, I do think the book is a masterly film. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Is that right? I hear. Yeah, the book's always been, I think, a little bit of cult, you know, I don't think it was very hugely known in the 70s, 80s, 90s.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Cult is right. Cult is right.

[Bill Kristol]

But kind of among some very much, sort of respected or even adored. Kind of say a word about the book. Say a word about the Netflix series. Did you. Had you read it years ago or.

[Jay Nordlinger]

No, in class, in college. Italian class. Marvelous teachers today. A dear friend of mine, Maria Rosaria Viti, Alexander. And her love for the book wore off on us and I lapped it up like milk. Now, I must say I told her this later in life. I did read it side by side with an English translation. Wonderful. But it's book about the Risorgimento and the giving way of the aristocracy to the new Italy and the kingdom of Sicily, to this new country dubbed Italy. And the great famous line from it is, everything must change so that everything can stay the same. Slightly mysterious, I take it to mean you better accept liberal reforms or the hard men will come and break everything.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. But he has a certain nostalgia for the old regime as well. Oh, very. My memory.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah, it's about. It's about the author's great grandfather who was the leopard. This is what the.

[Bill Kristol]

The.

[Jay Nordlinger]

The prince of. Well, in Real life, the Prince of Lampedusa. In the book, it's the Prince of Salina. He's called the leopard because that's the symbol on his crest. Now, not. I'm no zoologist, but a gatto pardo in Italian is really what we would call a serval or an ocelot rather than a leopard. That's just, that's picayune.

[Bill Kristol]

And so it's probably wise for them to call it the leopard. On the other hand. Oh, much wiser, much wiser.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah. It's what they have in Sicily and North Africa, or did have. Now, this is the kind of book you can approach from many angles. People like you, you know, intellectuals, Mansfield students. You will mind the book for its philosophical insights, its politics and so on, but also it's a rip roaring story about love and sex and human relations and broken hearts and satisfied hearts. And it's just intellectuals like this book a lot, but. But so do just plain readers who want just a fabulous story.

[Bill Kristol]

And the TV series.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Oh, marvelous. Marvelous. Yeah, it's. I don't really. I don't know really the terms for. For today. It's TV series. It makes me think of Norman Lear and all that.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. What do you call it? I don't know.

[Jay Nordlinger]

I don't know. There are six. To me, it's a grand old fashioned movie in six parts, six installments on Netflix, but it has all the bells and whistles. It's epic and it is beautiful. It is. Now, it takes great liberties and good for the makers of this, I'll call it a movie. They're honest enough to use the words based on. Based on the leopard. But it's still leopard like enough for my taste. And it's just. It's the leopard. The novel or novella. Some people prefer to call it a novella. It's shortish. It is a genuine work of art, literary art. I would say that this movie I'm calling it is a work of art. Dare I call it a cinematic work of art as well? It's enchanting. Sicily has never looked better. It's so alluring. You can smell everything. The people are beautiful and beautifully shot. And the pain is, you know, there's a lot of love and enthusiasm and warmth in this story, but great pain and horror and it's, you know, it doesn't spare the viewer anything. There's a lot about class and it's just marvelous. Marvelous. Does justice to Lumpy Dusa. He's, I think he'd say, who added all this crap? And at the Same time. Good.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, to reform, you know, what was it to. You have to change. To use his own words on them or flourish. No, I mean some truth. I. I used to be a kind of stickler. Oh, I don't like this movie. It takes liberties and. But at some point one also. And if it pretends not. Pretends not to take liberties, it shouldn't take liberties. But at some point one also has to say it's a different genre. Some things work on print and on the page and don't work visually. And I've. I've become more liberal in my willingness to like both a novel or play for that matter, and then like the movie or television adaptation of it. Is that you too or not?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Or maybe you're sticking with I think of it. No, I was but I think of a musical term or a term used in music, a paraphrase. Liszt would write things, piano fantasies on operas and ballets and so on and call them paraphrases. That's nice. This is not the real thing. This is list is. I don't think he'd use this language. This is me riffing.

[Bill Kristol]

Liszt would say, I mean, we should have a separate conversation on music. And you had a terrific review of the new Met performance of Figaro, which I hope to go see live at HD on next Saturday. But you see it live in person there at the Met. But you know, one thing that liberated me a little from my maybe excessive literalness and wanting works to be exactly as they were. And generally I still have that attitude and I still like, for example, I think the original instruments revolution in classical music was a good thing mostly it can get carried a little too far perhaps and there's a place to hear modern orchestra, you know, modern forces. The size of the modern orchestra playing some of these older works. But it's also very interesting to hear them the way Mozart would have heard them. Right. Was to discover something. I was so ignorant, I mean of the. Of course, Mozart and everyone else. Beethoven wrote these concertos which they spent a huge amount of, very important to them, very central to their work and then they leave parts of it to be improvised. Right. The cadenzas by. By. By the pianist of the day. And that's sort of a nice gesture towards. This isn't, you know, 100%. The operas, I guess are a little. Well, the operas too though, right. They add arias at different later performances if there's someone who has a particularly high voice or something. Right.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Use your ornamentation and you know, depending on what your skills Are. Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

So it's an interesting part, don't you think, of classical music? How much it is in the way.

[Jay Nordlinger]

To that, I guess Beethoven. I'd have to look this up. I think he was at least one of the first composers to start writing out cadenzas, frankly, he was. He was so good at them.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, yeah. He wrote his own, though. I don't know that he insisted on that. People play his cadenza. It was what he would do as a pitist, performing his own concerto. I think maybe I have a little.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Story to tell you about Joshua Bell, the Hoosier violinist. He had played the Beethoven concerto one night and people are congratulating him on his playing and so on. And I said to him he had written his own cadenzas for the first movement of the last movement. I said great cadenzas, which I meant. And he was so pleased by this because that came from him. Of course, the playing is all him as well. But yeah, yeah, it's part of. Should be part. It should be an item in a performer's toolkit. Oh, let me give you a story. Good friend of mine from long ago in Ann Arbor, my hometown, he was chairman of the piano department at the University of Michigan. He told me about the time he was a student and he turned pages from Myra Hess, the great Dame Myra Hess, the British pianist. And Hess in those days, in her last year, she used sheet music. She was worried about memory lapses. She was a great pianist. So they had a quick conversation in the green room beforehand. And Dame Myra says to my guy, so what are you working on? And he names a Mozart concerta. And Dameira says, oh, great, whose cadenzas are you using? And my guy gulps and says, well, I've written my own. And Myra Hess says to this 20 year old the following words. That's wonderful. I'm not gifted that way.

[Bill Kristol]

I've always liked. I don't know anything about. I'm not capable of judging really, these different pianists as you are, but I. I've heard, listened. I've heard some of her performances on, on. On records. Records we used to say CDs or on now on YouTube. But she was, if I'm not mistaken, I always liked her because. Also because I think she. I mean, I'm sure I have this little wrong. She performed every week, every month, I don't know, during World War II, on the BBC, I think. I mean, I think live in London, but maybe it was also carried on the BBC for the British people, sort of to Give them during.

[Jay Nordlinger]

During the blitz. Yeah, during the.

[Bill Kristol]

Am I right that this was sort of famous at the time?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Very famous.

[Bill Kristol]

Very famous. Oh, yes.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Windows were blown out. Absolutely.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yeah. It was a great thing, near heroic thing, and it meant a lot to people. It meant a lot for their morale. And. And Hess, she played on the series herself, but she was the. The organizer and the mover behind this series. Yes.

[Bill Kristol]

Maybe that's a good note.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Patriotic person and a noble woman.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, that's a good note to end on in the current moment. I will add we'll get back and have a music discussion and poetry discussion sometime soon, but I will. Maybe I'll end with. With Mozart, just out of deference to Mozart. And you wrote in your review, you have a wonderful quote of a friend of yours. You took a friend of yours to Figaro.

[Jay Nordlinger]

My. My dear friend Hirsch Patel, who was at the time captain of the University of Michigan golf team, is long ago. And there was a performance of the Marriage of Figaro, I think, at the power center, maybe in my hometown, Ann Arbor. And I took Hirsch, the orchestra played the overture, and he turned to me in a whisper and said, that's the best thing I've ever heard. And I thought, well, it's kind of a shame because it's all downhill from there. I mean, he could. He could listen to music for the next 50, 60, 100 years and never get better.

[Bill Kristol]

Maybe the best. You didn't say to him, but you thought of saying to him, it's maybe the best thing you'll. Probably the best thing you'll ever hear, you know?

[Jay Nordlinger]

Yes, it's. But of course, Mozart had many, many more. They were just falling out of his pocket.

[Bill Kristol]

No, I know.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Falling out of his pocket.

[Bill Kristol]

Is the overture better than the concluding, you know, extremely long ensemble to Act 2 of Figaro? I don't know. That's.

[Jay Nordlinger]

No. Well, nothing in the world's better than that.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, that's sort of.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Nothing in the world is better than the finale of Act 2, so to speak. Yeah, it's a great thing. I'll quote to you Ricardo Mutti, with whom I've done several podcasts. His two favorite operas are Cosi Fan Tute and Falstaff. But he agreed with me, at least upon being pressed, that Cousin Fan Tute was flawed. But he was quick to say, but the Marriage of Figaro, I don't do accents. I'll just say it. My way is perfect. He said, perfect, yeah. And inspired Richard Strauss to write De Rosenkavalier, which is his Viennese Marriage of Figaro. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

A good note to, a good note to end on. We've avoided the topic. We spend most of our days obsessing, correctly obsessing about, I'm going to say. But it was great to get away from it for 35 minutes here on, on a Sunday. And Jay, thanks so much for, for joining me today.

[Jay Nordlinger]

Thank you for being, thank you for being Bill Crystal.

[Bill Kristol]

No, it's been great to have.

[Jay Nordlinger]

You are, you are chip off of both of your blocks.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, that's so nice of you to say and I appreciate it. And thank you all for joining us on the bulwark on Sunday.

[Unknown]

Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse with family. Cannolis and spins mean everything. Now you want to get mixed up in the family business. Introducing the [e-mail] test your luck in the shadowy world of the Godfather slot. Someday I will call upon you to do a service for me. Play the Godfather [e-mail] Welcome to the family. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void. We're prohibited by law. 21 + terms and conditions apply.