Writer and Dalrymple fan Bernard Chapin reviews the forthcoming New Vichy Syndrome.

Two videos recently posted on YouTube show Dalrymple’s activity in the Netherlands: the production of a one-man play based on his book De Filantroop (entitled So Little Done in the English-speaking world) and a new book in Dutch called Profeten en Charlatans (about which we are trying to get more information). The videos include interviews with Dalrymple and the actor Genio de Groot.

We meant to, but neglected to post a link last week to this story in the Daily Mail:

The streets of no shame: The shocking picture that epitomises Britain’s ladette culture

Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing Dalrymple has criticized as being pervasive in the UK these days. I raised this piece in a comment on the blog Freethinking Economist, in response to the blogger’s criticism of Dalrymple’s portrayal of his native land.

If you are a political conservative participating in a panel discussion entitled “After the crunch: How best to beat poverty?”, and it is sponsored by an organization called The Centre for Social Justice, chances are your views will not be warmly received. Such was the case for Theodore Dalrymple in Manchester on Monday (see here and here).

Actually (and this probably makes it much worse), the organization was founded by the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, and the discussion was one of about two dozen organized by the group to coincide with the annual Conservative Party Conference. Apparently, there is some dispute regarding how much of the audience was actually conservative, but if it is true that Conservatives can no longer abide the idea of personal responsibility that Dalrymple promotes, then there is not much hope left for the party or their country.

Much of the so-called Right that has recently taken power in Europe have succeeded by simply promising to run the socialist welfare-state more efficiently than the socialists. While this might be good for “conservatives”, it can’t be good for conservatism. I don’t follow British politics closely, and others can correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the Conservatives are so giddy with the prospect of regaining power that they are increasingly willing to compromise any principle to close the deal.

If you do and you’ll be in the Low Countries, there is a wealth of Dalrymplian entertainment awaiting. His fame continues to grow there, so that per capita he may be more well-known there than anywhere else. He has attributed his popularity in Holland to the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh, which opened the eyes of its intellectuals to many of the issues that he has explored. If my personal experience is representative, it could also be true that his criticism of his countrymen has struck a chord among citizens of Amsterdam who’ve grown tired of the sight and sound of English yobs marauding through the alleys on their way to the Red Light District.

Whatever the reason, he has a lot going on there. Later today, he will give a public speech or interview or some such at Rechtenfaculteit Leiden, which could very well be the Leiden University School of Law. Details are here. (Nice webpage, by the way, especially that bit on the bottom.) The speech might very well (can you tell I don’t speak Dutch?) have something to do with a new Dutch-language book called Profeten en Charlatans (Prophets and Charlatans, maybe?) published this month by Niuew Amsterdam, who has published all of his previous books in Holland. It appears to be focused on his literary criticism, but we will get more details soon.

Perhaps most exciting though, his 1995 book So Little Done has been turned into a one-man play. Sharing the name of the Dutch version of the book, De Filantroop (or The Philanthropist), it stars veteran Dutch actor Genio de Groot, who collaborated with Dalrymple in adapting it for the stage. How can a Dalrymple work be turned into a play, you ask? Well, remember: So Little Done is a fictional work (his one and only) subtitled “The Testament of a Serial Killer” and written in the first person. I re-read the first few pages, and it almost cries out for a one-man theatrical treatment. The play has been in previews for the last few weeks and officially opens… tonight! It will tour around the Netherlands through December. The schedule is here. For a lengthy interview of Dalrymple discussing the book in Holland, go here.

Why does this remind me of this?

The Spectator has reviewed the English release (by Monday Books) of Not With A Bang But A Whimper. Dalrymple’s admirers will quibble with a couple of the comments by reviewer Marcus Berkmann (his writing has only the one theme?) but, all things considered, it’s a well-written demonstration of Dalrymple’s appeal “to anyone with a brain and a heart, of whatever political persuasion.”

Monday Books publisher Dan Collins reviews the review here.

UPDATE: Link to the review has been fixed.

As you may have noticed, Dalrymple is no longer writing regularly for The Spectator. His Global Warning column has been replaced by Standing Room, a column written by Sarah Standing, whose subject matter is far less profound than that of her predecessor and, so far as I have determined, is not just well-disguised satire. (See for yourself here. Try the March 11 opus.) Apparently, Editor-in-Chief Matthew D’Ancona’s project to modernize the magazine involves replacing rare and timeless wisdom with utter trivia. Just what the world needs most at times like these. Were I channeling Dalrymple, I might say that the replacement is typical of the cultural degeneration of Britain.

Dalrymple (Anthony M. Daniels) began his writing career at The Spectator 26 years ago by sending unsolicited articles to the magazine from the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, where he was managing a psychiatric clinic.

The next issue of National Review will carry Dalrymple’s review of John Lukacs’ new book Last Rites, which Dalrymple calls “a short book that is not quite memoir, not quite philosophical treatise, but something in between.” Our beloved readers will no doubt feel as if the first paragraph of the excerpt below speaks of them.

Lukacs tells us that an era half a millennium long, that of the bourgeois, has now drawn definitively to a close. Of course, there are still cultivated people who read books and listen to real music, who behave with a certain ceremoniousness and dress without wishing to appear as if they had just emerged from a slum tenement despite being enormously rich; but they are a decreasing minority…

…Americans, in his opinion, are less reflective, shallower, and more vulgar and egotistical than they were when he first arrived in the country. There was then a recognizable upper class, with refinement of manners and an interest in something other than money; now, there remains an elite (for no society is without one), but it is a much cruder one, consisting merely of the poor man writ rich…

I sympathize viscerally with a lot of what Lukacs says. I live in a country, Britain, in which things have gone a lot farther than in America…There are people with more money and less money, but they have very similar tastes. It is only the scale of indulgence in them that varies, not what is indulged in.

National Review subscribers can read the review via NR/Digital. Non-subscribers may purchase a membership for $21.95 per year or, of course, buy a copy of the March 23rd issue when it hits the shelves.

The news that British playwright Harold Pinter has died on Christmas Eve brought to mind one of my favorite Dalrymple essays: “Reticence or Insincerity, Rattigan or Pinter” from the November 2000 issue of The New Criterion. As the title implies, Dalrymple associated Pinter with insincerity, and in speeches like this one he used Pinter as an example of the modern triumph of sentimentality over inconvenient truth (although he conceded that Pinter was “a very talented man with a great poetic gift”).

Perhaps we shouldn’t speak ill of the recently departed, but Pinter was celebrated not only as the clever entertainer he undoubtedly was but also as an important, liberal public intellectual (now a de facto requirement of all Nobel laureates in literature), and we will surely have to bear more hosannahs in his name in the coming days. As such, is it really bad form to take this opportunity to remind people of his rather shameless dishonesty?

Reticence or Insincerity, Rattigan or Pinter
The New Criterion; November 2000

$3 purchase required for the essay. You can also purchase an online subscription to the entire New Criterion website (which includes over 70 Anthony Daniels/Theodore Dalrymple essays) for only $38. Better yet, purchase a print subscription to the magazine for only a little more and get the online access for free.