troisoiseaux

Finished The Ritz of the Bayou by Nancy Lemann, a novelist's-eye nonfiction account of her time as a "girl reporter" covering the 1985 racketeering trial (and 1986 retrial) of the then-sitting Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards on assignment for Vanity Fair,* in airy snapshots with a vivid eye for personality and atmosphere, populated by characters referred to obliquely as "the jazz-crazed assistant prosecutor," "the courtroom existentialist" (distinguishable from "the courtroom philosopher" by his quirk of keeping a diary, since the 1950s, to rate every oyster he'd eaten), "the man from the train", "the Yankee reporter", etc. Truly just 100% vibes rather than any sort of political or legal commentary, but I found myself thinking, throughout, that there were still dots to connect between the attitude that, in the mid-1980s, Lemann credited specifically to "Louisiana politics"— that the public seemed to enjoy charismatic politicians behaving badly, as "the two great enemies of Louisianians are boredom and lack of style"; that, at one point, an "alleged bribe . . . was scoffed at {by the defense} as being an amount too low to constitute a decent bribe, an indication of the moral tenor"— and American Politics These Days; Lemann does in fact connect them in her afterword to this new 40th anniversary edition.

* She turned in her story and the Vanity Fair editor "basically said Huh? What?" and paid her a "kill fee" and then Lemann turned that story into this book.

Turned back to War and Peace, which I've been neglecting lately. Since joining the Freemasons, Pierre has made a half-hearted (or, rather, whole-hearted but half-assed?) attempt at improving the lot of his serfs— unfortunately, he let himself be talked into downgrading Plan A: free the serfs!!! into Plan B: improve the lives and workload of the serfs...?, which under self-serving estate managers turned into paving the road to hell with good intentions— and visited the Bolkonskys, while an increasingly cynical Andrew tries to adjust to widowered fatherhood and civilian life.