20 ★ 19 October/20 October 2019E
motional gunship incoming,”
says Kendall Roy, watching
from the deck of his family’s
oligarch-level yacht as its
patriarch, Logan, approaches
in a helicopter. “Send out the distress
signal, we are under attack,” adds sister
Siobhan, known as Shiv.
We are, indeed, under attack. Verbal
attack. The just-finished second series
of HBO’sSuccession, a fast-walking-and-
talking gallop through self-made
Scottish mogul Logan Roy’s “empire of
shit” and its dynastic media ambition,
has meme-d and gif-ted itself into the
spotlight. It has cruised from “sleeper”
hit (meaning that media people love it
and keep talking it up on socials) to
actual hit (meaning enough viewers
love it for it to be renewed for another
season, which is what has happened).
The surprising thing about the buzz
and love forSuccession, according to
many commentators, is that people
love itdespitethe fact that all the super-
rich Roys are repellent human beings.
Is this perhaps a show where we are
meant to fall in love not with its
characters but with their carapace, the
beautifully rendered “Rich Kids of
Instagram” aesthetic? (Uniformed
staff, private jets, New England
neutrals, yacht bling, penthouse steel
and glass.)
It is not. Talk of likeability no
television or in books, plays or any
other sort of cultural fodder is looking
increasingly redundant. This show
succeeds precisely because likeability
is one luxury that we don’t need any
more, especially when it comes to rich
and powerful people.
We may finally have stopped
looking for redemption in all the usual
places. The US is led by a nepotistic
ruling family. Britain is being torn
apart by internecine political power
struggles. Strongmen-bullies are in
charge around the world — and we
are helpless.
“Well Kim Jong Pop, that’s not how
things work in this country,” Roman
tells his father in season one, when
Logan wants to buy up “all the news”he doesn’t already own. But in season
two, when the Roys shut down Vaulter,
a millennial news website they had
bought on a whim, we see that bullying
with billionaire menaces is, in fact,
exactly how things work. Just ask
Gawker. (In totally unconnected news,
real-life media heirJames Murdoch astl
week bought a minority share in online
news company Vice.)
By watching rich people doing
terrible things but being very witty and
well-dressed about it, we give ourselves
an escape valve from all the grim
things that their real-life counterparts
are actually doing in the world. There’s
a pattern here:Succession sn’t the firsti
show to do this. It’s just the funniest.
For those seeking more post-
likeability in their lives, Showtime’s
Billionsis a satisfying collision of hedgefunders and political ambition. It’s
testosterone-max, but has far more
tenderness at its heart thanSuccession,
with a central couple, Chuck and
Wendy Rhoades (Paul Giamatti and
Maggie Siff), who love each other on
some level, despite a history of mutual
betrayal and a painfully unequal
interest in torture dungeons.
Over on Netflix, its new streamerThe
Politicianthrows big production bucks
at a more mannered, less turbocharged
take on all the power that money can
buy, complete with Gwyneth Paltrow
doing the gardening in couture.
Successionwas created by Jesse
Armstrong, a Briton who co-wrotePeep
ShowandThe Thick of It: foul-mouthed
and cringe-filled comedies, full of the
kinds of socially awkward people you
perhaps shared an office with during
the shiny, complacent years of the New
Labour government. In these two
shows, Armstrong observed civiliansunder pressure: respectively south
London flat sharers with no money and
terrible jobs, and politicians and
advisers at the mercy of a relentless
news cycle and venal bosses. It was all
quite relatable.
InSuccession, Armstrong has
upgraded effortlessly from characters
in the three-zeros income bracket
to those with nine zeros. There are
some mere millionaires, notably
the side-flunkies in the Waystar-
Royco company orbit who actually
have to work for a living. (This group
includes fan favourite Gerri, general
counsel and dirty-talker in chief to
Roman Roy.)
As Connor, the oldest — and
Trumpiest — Roy son, tells less affluent
Cousin Greg, the latter’s potential
inheritance of $5m is perhaps the worst
amount anyone can have. “Five’s a
nightmare. Can’t retire, not worth it to
work.” (“The poorest rich person in
America,” chips in Shiv’s husband Tom,
who probably hasn’t even got $5m of
his own, poor soul.) It is no coincidence
that Greg, brought up ostracised
from the Roy clan, is the blundering
newcomer who still has vestiges of
decency about him. He doesn’t
know there is a “glass floor” that
protects the children of the elite
from falling downwards.
Reportedly theSuccessionwriters are
told to read the FT (along with Vanity
Fair and the New York Times). And
why not? In recent weeks alone we have
covered a spying scandal atCredit
Suisse hat reportedly began with at
neighbour dispute in Zurich’s most
exclusive lakeside enclave, while
WeWork, the overheated office space
company on a mission to “elevate the
world’s consciousness” has morphed
from unicorn to (how best to put it?)
donkey in a matter of weeks. Until
season three ofSuccessionarrives, there
are many consolations to be found in
the heady post-likeability of the real-
life power players.Isabel Berwick is editor of
FT Work & CareersWhat’s not to like? The
secrets of ‘Succession’
I
hope to live long enough to see
elitism make a comeback. At 37,
that demilitarised zone between
the prime of life and middle age,
I have an outside chance. If it
happens, few will deserve more credit
for the — let us go with “Renaissance” —
than Harold Bloom.
A quarter of a century has passed
sinceThe Western Canon, in which the
American scholar, who died this week,
defended great literature against
political correctness. If he regarded
the cause as all but lost in 1994,
imagine his pique at the subsequent
debasement of standards. The boom in
children’s books among adult readers.
The rise of goblins-and-potions
fantasy fare. The pretend-
sophistication of television. “So-and-so
is the Lannister of Washington,”
people are always telling me, assuming
I understand the reference.
If this levelling-down had no wider
consequences, it would be an aesthetic
drag only. But several miles
downstream of culture is politics. In a
sense, populism is the natural result of
a too-democratic culture, in which
nothing can be said to be better than
anything else, and certainly not by
flesh-and-blood “experts”.
Lots of liberal-minded people hated
Bloom, and Robert Hughes, and
Kenneth Clark, and AA Gill, and other
critics who insisted on parsing the great
from the meretricious. They might
wonder where such relativism
ultimately leads. It leads to the feral
civic life that is all around us. Anyone
who is serious about defeating
populism must first fight for the
principle that not all opinions
are equal. That fight starts in culture.Give me the fogey over the nihilist.
Such is the lesson of Bloom’s life for
the left. There is a yet sharper one for
the right.
It was a child of migrants from the
Pale of Settlement who stuck up for the
western canon. It was another
descendant of foreigners, Allan Bloom,
no relation, who made a similar case
withThe Closing of the American Mind
seven years earlier. Saul Bellow, a
Russo-Canadian, could never cram
enough canonical references into his
novels, either.
It is natural to equate immigration
with some dilution of the receiving
culture. Even well-meaning peoplecelebrate newcomers for “enriching”
a nation, which implies that they are
bringing something alien and
distinctive. But it is also possible for a
migrant to enthusiastically reinforce
the existing culture, precisely because
they have had to fight so hard to belong
to it. They do not have the luxury of
taking it for granted. Was there ever a
western chauvinist to rival VS Naipaul,
that double migrant, who wanted to
“show these people that I can beat
them at their own language”?
I cannot aspire to a sliver of these
people’s talent but I have some sense of
their formative experiences. Growing
up with parents who cannot master the
host language, and resolving to nevertaste the same indignities, is, I theorise,
more important than the physical fact
of migration. (Bloom’s childhood home
was Yiddish-speaking). Perhaps this is
particularly true of migrants to the
anglophone world, where the language
is so liable to catch you out with its
nuances and anomalies.
Of course, not all or even most
migrants throw themselves into the
canon. But hardly any of their enemies
do either, and they have less excuse.
What first strikes me about
nationalists is never their intolerance.
It is how unversed they can be in the
culture they purport to cherish. Unless
you really have a thing for bloodlines,
what makes a nation distinctive is its
corpus of written words (and paintings
and music and architecture). A
jingoist, even a seriously unpleasant
one, should evince a deep love and
knowledge of these things. I just
cannot think of a prominent one who
does, at least in the west, at least now.
These interlopers could learn a thing
or two from true westerners such as
Harold Bloom.
He was not a hero. Naomi Wolf
alleged that he “sexually encroached”
on her. It is not clear that his mind was
original so much as extraordinarily
retentive. But in standing up for
aesthetic snobbery, he challenged the
left’s relativism. In doing so as an
outsider, he confounded the blood-and-
soil right. It is no failure that these
dogmas have gained in strength since
he first started bucking them. It just
means that he was even more
necessary in his last days than he was
in his pomp.[email protected]Anyone serious about
defeating populism must
fight for the principle thatnot all opinions are equal
A colourful menagerie of misfit
creatures gawp, smile and glare
from the pages of Horacio Salinas’
latest book. His carnivalesque
creations, known as “carnies”, have
metamorphosed from ephemera
collected on the streets of New
York; broken spectacles, sequinned
fabric, coffee cups and scraps of
magazines are brought to life with
endearing effect.
Artist as well as still-life
photographer, Salinas produces
abstract collages that evoke the
imaginative worlds of Picasso and
Hannah Höch. An intricate blend of
light and shadow preserves the
form and texture of his original
sculptures.
These visual tricks, and the
unlikely harmony of his peculiar
assemblages, are key to Salinas’
project, which “sheds light on the
infinite possibilities one can
achieve when allowing your
perspective to change”.
Madeleine Pollard‘Horacio Salinas: Photography 19 x 15’
is published by DamianiSNAPSHOT
‘Pum Pum’
by Horacio Salinas
Isabel Berwick
Trending
Chess solution 2337 he traps are 1 c8=Q? which is an immediate stalemate draw, 1 c8=R? Ke6! 1 c8=B? Kc6! and 1 c8=N? Kc4! Instead,T
mate in two is by the unlikely 1 Ne4! when if Ke6 or Kc4 2 Qf7, or Kxe4 2 Qf3, or Kc6 2 Qd6. (composed by Fadil Abdurahmanovic, 1957).Harold Bloom’s lessons
for left and right
anan GaneshJ
Citizen of nowhere
In Season 2 we see that
bullying with billionaire
menaces is, in fact,exactly how things work
Welcome to FT Globetrotter, a
brand-new series of curated city
guides for the modern business
traveller. Specially tailored for FT
readers, it features tips from our
global network of writers on
where to eat and drink,how tocombat jet lag, as well as great
FT Weekend reads. We kick off
with London, New York, Paris,
Frankfurt, Hong Kong and
Tokyo — the six cities you told
us you travel to mostfor work.
For taster guides, download theFT app. FT Globetrotter is a
behind-the-paywall club for
like-minded business travellers.
Tell us a city secret and be
among the first to join the FT
Globetrotter community.
ft.com/globetrotterFT Globetrotter — insider city guides for the modern business traveller
OCTOBER 19 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 10/201917/ - 15:51 User: andrew.higton Page Name:WKD18, Part,Page,Edition:WIN , 20, 1