Early in the new year, returning home from the office one evening, I picked up a story by the Argentinean writer Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell. The opening pages of “An Eye in the Throat” place us in the thrall of an escalating family emergency, one that might belong to a work of autofiction. But in time, the nature of the story’s reality transforms. On finishing—I had to unclench my jaw and pour myself a drink—I realized that the narrative, like a tormenting Magic Eye, could be read in at least two distinct, and equally haunting, ways.

Like Schweblin’s story, several of the works in this issue seem to disclose, as if by optical illusion, a previously hidden plane of reality. Joy Williams gives us Azrael, the angel of death, who mourns the limited possibilities for the transmigration of souls as a result of biodiversity loss. In “Derrida in Lahore” by the French-born writer Julien Columeau, translated from the Urdu by Sana R. Chaudhry, an aspiring scholar studying in Lahore, Pakistan, is introduced to Derrida’s Glas (“You must read this,” his professor tells him, “it has fire inside it. Fire!”) and becomes a deconstructionist zealot. And in Eliot Weinberger’s “The Ceaseless Murmuring of Innumerable Bees,” bees become variously the symbols of socialism and constitutional monarchy, good luck and witchcraft, war and peace, and much else besides.

The subjects of our Writers at Work interviews, too, slip between worlds. Jhumpa Lahiri, in her Art of Fiction interview, describes “the woeful treadmill of needing approval” that drove her, at the height of critical and commercial success, to leave her American life behind. “It’s only when I’m writing in Italian that I manage to turn off all those other, judgmental voices, except perhaps my own,” she tells Francesco Pacifico, with whom, in Rome, she spoke in her new language. And in her Art of Poetry interview, Alice Notley describes the need, in her work, to go beyond conscious thought and the “scrounging” of everyday life—beyond, even, the grief of losing loved ones. “You might just freeze, but if you don’t, other worlds open to you,” she tells Hannah Zeavin, before adding, casually, “I started hearing the dead, for example.”

Perhaps a kind of doubleness is fitting for the spring we’re in: the season of hope, which is, this year as ever, filled with dread. When we asked the Swiss artist Nicolas Party to make an artwork for the cover of our new issue, he sent us not one image but two. Like in de Chirico’s The Double Dream of Spring, painted early in the First World War, each image exerts a kind of formal terror, at once seductive and monstrous. We decided that, for the first time in the magazine’s seventy-one-year history, the issue would have twin covers. Subscribers will receive the cover featuring a still life, an array of uncannily sagging apples and pears against rich blue. Buyers at newsstands and bookstores can pick up the version featuring a coastal landscape, albeit one in which the ocean is green and the sky a candy pink. If you’d prefer to alternate between realities, you can always have both.

The Three-Body Problem was a success despite China's historic sci-fi censorship

March 2 – 31, 2024

March 2 – 31, 2024

I’d planned to write about one of my favorite James Schuyler poems in time for the centenary of his birth last November, but  

Past is past, and if one
remembers what one meant
to do and never did, is
not to have thought to do
enough? Like that gather-
ing of one of each I
planned, to gather one
of each kind of clover,
daisy, paintbrush that
grew in that field
the cabin stood in and
study them one afternoon
before they wilted. Past
is past. I salute
that various field. 

The tiny, beloved “Salute”—which is not the poem that I mean to discuss—both gathers and separates, does and then undoes what the poem says Schuyler meant to do but never did. (And isn’t this, the play of assembly and disassembly, to a certain extent just what verse is? How part and whole relate or fail to as the poem unfolds in time is a basic drama of poetic form.) Schuyler’s enjambments—at once distinct and soft, like the edge of a leaflet or the margin of a petal—are sites of hesitation where meanings collect before they’re scattered or revised. 

For a second I hear “Like that gather-” as an imperative: Do it that way, gather in that manner, before the noun “gathering” gathers across the margin. I briefly hear “one of each I”—each of us is a field of various “I”s—as the object of the gathering before it becomes the subject who has “planned” it. (The comparative metrical regularity of “Like that gathering of one of each I planned,” the alternating stresses, haunts these enjambments, a prosodic past or frame the poem salutes and breaks with, breaks up.) I am always slightly surprised when “to gather one,” at the end of the seventh line, repeats “of each,” as opposed to modifying a new specific noun, at the left margin of line eight. (This break makes me feel the tension or oscillation between “each” and “kind”—and a kind is a gathering of likes—between the discrete specimen and the class for which it stands, the particular dissolving into exemplarity, when you write it down.)

Noted thumb resembler Tucker Carlson, erstwhile Fox host, defender of white boys’ honor in battle, television’s largest baby, the guy with a fixed look you can only call “constiperplexed”—they say he’s smart. I have things to do, so I don’t watch his vlog, but I’ve read enough YouTube titles like “Tucker Carlson DEMOLISHES Antifa Ukraine Supporter” to get the deal: Tuck shreds the lies of the Judeo-Bolshevik deep state by saying what others won’t, plus Kate Middleton updates.

Tucker just got got. Bad. It was the Kate Middleton updates.

Background: Kate Mid-Vibes, daughter-in-law of Charles from The Crown, is missing, dead, or on strike; theories abound, especially after wire services pulled an “infamous edited photo” of a studiously normal Kate gilded by her three kids. My colleague Julianne McShane:

It all began when Kensington Palace announced in January that Catherine, the Princess of Wales, had undergone “planned abdominal surgery,” would be in the hospital for up to two weeks, and was “unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.” As the weeks ticked by and she wasn’t spotted in public, various theories on her whereabouts—and her well-being—began to percolate: Was she getting treatment for an eating disorder? Had she been a victim of domestic abuse? Were she and William on the brink of divorce? Is she even alive? Or is she simply recovering from a Brazilian butt lift? (Yes, really.)

Tucker TV was minding its own business exposing white genocide when two whistleblowers wrote to say they knew how the Middleton pic was edited—because they’d done it. They had proof: one offered a royal job contract with “a clause stating that the palace had a right to amputate one of his limbs should he fail his probation period.” In principle, UK labor law discourages this. But Tucker promptly put them on his show, which runs on X, Elon Musk’s Great Replacement blog.

Aaron Ramsdale could still return to being Arsenal’s number one, according to Gareth Southgate.

While naming his England Three Lions squad for the March internationals, most Gooners were waiting to see if Ramsdale would get a call, which he did.

Gareth Southgate, in fact, revealed he continues to believe in the ‘wantaway’ Arsenal goalkeeper. He considers the 25-year-old one of the best three England goalkeepers. He is disappointed by the fact that the Gunner has not gotten much playing time, but they still value him. That’s why they give him a chance on the national team.

Strangely, while many believe Ramsdale is leaving Arsenal, Southgate hints he may not need to. He confesses that he believes the ex-Sheffield custodian still has a future as a Gunner; he only needs to keep pushing, and he could return to be their first choice.
Southgate explained: “We have chosen the three goalkeepers who we think are the best.

“It is not ideal that Aaron does not play. But he showed last week that he has the mental toughness to play for England when he responded to the mistake that he made.

Chris Sutton is confident that Arsenal can overcome Bayern Munich and advance to the Champions League semi-finals when they meet in the quarterfinals.

Arsenal secured their spot in the last eight by defeating FC Porto via penalties, showcasing their determination and resilience.

In previous seasons, Bayern Munich would have been considered the clear favourites in such a matchup, given their consistent success in European competition.

However, this year, Arsenal presents a different challenge. The Gunners currently sit atop the Premier League standings and have displayed formidable form throughout 2024.

Conversely, Bayern Munich is facing challenges in their domestic league, losing their grip on the Bundesliga title to Bayer Leverkusen.

Benjamin Sesko has caught the attention of Arsenal, and it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the Gunners pursued him for their squad.

The young striker has been performing well at RB Leipzig since his move from their sister club RB Salzburg.

During his time at Salzburg, Sesko attracted interest from several top clubs across Europe. However, he opted to continue his development by moving to Leipzig.

Leipzig recognises Sesko’s potential as a top talent and understands that they may be unable to retain him for an extended period.

Journalist Ben Jacobs has shed light on Arsenal’s intentions to bolster their striker options, highlighting Sesko as a potential target alongside Viktor Gyokeres.

Harry Kane will return to London to face Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinals this season after the Gunners were drawn against his Bayern Munich team.

The striker moved to Germany in the summer and has continued his fine run of form in the Bundesliga and the Champions League.

He always enjoyed facing Arsenal as a player of Tottenham, and when the Gunners thought they would no longer need to worry about him in the Premier League, he is now set to face them in Europe.

Everyone knows Kane is a dangerous striker, and Martin Keown has warned the Arsenal’s defence about facing the Euro 2020 finalist.

He said, as quoted by Metro Sport: