I can't link to Ian Parker's piece on Iceland's financial tumble, in the latest issue of the New Yorker--it's behind the curtain. But I just wanted to say that it has the most gorgeous lede I've read in a long, long time. Anyone who's a fan of long-form journalism should read it.
I was reading Parker's piece on the 2 train, coming home on Tuesday, and I couldn't make it through the second graff. It was so good that it was actually causing my brain to hurt. I think all professionals in any field are competitive, and sometimes stumble upon a piece of work so well done, that you think to yourself, "Why do I even bother?" It's like watching Jordan hit that last jumper over Byron Russell. I read the first couple graffs of that lede and thought, "Why even bother?"
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
And... it's coming out simultaneously with an Iceland piece in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis. We rarely get to compare two thought-piece/investigation articles on the same thing in this way. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904
Is the Lewis piece pretty good?
T-NC
I liked the VF piece quite a bit. The analogy of making a country into a hedge fund was dead on.
TNC:
The VF piece is full of gallows humor and is already getting passed around among my family. It's definitely worth reading.
Shouldn't a lede draw you in and push you to read more instead of stop you from reading more?
his profile of Alec Baldwin was te best celeb profile i've ever read.
So you're saying that Parker shoved another reporter to the ground before writing this piece?
@Daniel
Nah, I get where TNC is coming from. Back when I was trying to make it as a theatre director, I sat in on some rehearsals of a couple of the best (who shall remain nameless). Watching them, I knew that as a director I would make an excellent software engineer.
G.D.
That piece was insane. Check out his profile of Christopher Hitchens, also. He won a national magazine award for that one.
I read the Lewis piece last night. The writing was so good that I only read a few paragraphs at a time. I wanted to make it last as long as possible. Can't wait to read the New Yorker piece. Excellent writing makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. When I first read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, it was a spiritual experience.
I read the article of Michael Lewis some days ago and I was so enthusiastic about it that I am now almost disappointed to hear that a piece of similar brilliance exists.
I just read the Lewis piece on Iceland, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm not sure if I entirely believe it. Lewis spent a week or two in Iceland, and now he's an expert on their gender relations? And at the end of the article he connects the Icelanders' extreme financial speculation to the Icelandic sagas -- it's all kind of glib.
I had a similar experience reading Underworld by Delillo. Not that I'm actually a writer, although like many readers I had a vague thought in the back of my mind that it would be nice to try my hand at it.
But while there were some problems with it as a novel, the basic technical mastery of writing on display there, page after page, was so impressive it was daunting and demoralizing. Probably like playing a pick-up game with a major college or NBA player--brings you face to face with just how good they are at this, and how far beyond you their skills are.
@peep.
You certainly have a point. The specific situation of the Icelandic people probably invites generalization. And the gender analysis based inter alia on a night out in the pub was a little bit too much. The description about the interaction between the fishing and the investment banking industries (and mentalities), however, was great.
The Lewis piece is better. It's livelier and more interesting about the personalities involved, clearer about the shennanigans, and more cutting. 'Tis a bit glib, true, but that's the congenital fault of all good magazine writing.
And I don't think it's just the saga he's pointing to --- his more drawn out example is between Iceland's previous main economic driver, fishing, and finance --- that both are endeavors that highly reward a willingness to take great risks. After all, your man the bond trader that he mini-profiles in the piece was a fisherman before turning his hand to the options desk. There were a number of interesting parrallels in that analogy.
First of all, I would think that quoting just that lede would fall under fair use, wouldn't you? You've engaged my curiousity.
Second, I've had this kind of experience in the martial arts, where I've seen someone do stuff that I thought was far beyond what I could ever do.
But I kept with it, kept trying to get better, and now I'm the one doing some of that stuff. And it didn't take as long as you might think. Just keep writing, directing, practicing, whatever.
It's like watching Jordan hit that last jumper over Byron Russell.
Most Obvious Push-Off Ever.
Hey T-NC,
Once you've read both I'd love to hear your thoughts on the two pieces and writing styles, etc ...
Ian Parker's writing is a froth of flavors and textures.
Speaking of the national cultural center, construction halted and lacking a facade: 'I later spoke to Thorhallur Vilhjállmson, the building's marketing manager--that is to say, salaried optimist--and asked whether work would start any time soon. He replied, "Should I say what I think will happen or what I hope will happen?"'
He meets a geographer who teaches in northern Iceland at the University of Akureyri and who is to speak to a crowd. Parker says, 'I had met Huijbens earlier in the day, when he risked bringing discredit to his discipline by losing his way on a half-mile walk across western Reykjavík, and had talked about his experience in anti-globalization protests in Europe, noting one obvious brake on unruly behavior in a country with a population of three hundred twenty thousand: "If you're in a rampaging mob, running through town, within five minutes you'll probably encounter your uncle."'
It keeps you reading, I promise.
Oh, people won't stop with bringing up Russell/Jordan, breaking my heart all over again.
The Lewis piece is hilarious, I've been forwarding it to friends and family all day. I've been visiting Iceland pretty regularly over the past decade (random but true!) and that article made me laugh and laugh.
I have never been knocked down in the street, I wasn't there for the exploding Range Rovers, I just enjoyed wandering round. But the best part of the article is that it rang true. Yes, fisherman Vikings swarmed Western banks, pillaged, and brought the riches home to Iceland -- but in the modern version, the rest of the world then crippled them. But Icelanders also all know each other, have a different naming system, and worry about fairies. All things I'd totally accepted as a visitor, but when seen through the prism of this particular financial disaster... Well, yeah. It's laughable.
It's still a nice country though, gorgeous natural beauty and I've never actually found the people vicious, so go visit.
"A country overwhelmed by evil has more dignity than one tripped up by fools." "Lost," Ian Parker
A line for our times.
To All the J-School People,
Quit and go to nursing school. Start a blog.
I read the Vanity Fair article, and couldn't believe how many times I burst out laughing. I expected it to be a serious article (and it was), but I did not expect to be so entertained.
The company that hired someone to check for fairies gave me the longest and happiest laugh I've had in a very long time.
CitizenE,
You're so right. That line caught me too. It really is great.
I'm late to this, but Ian Parker is also responsible for the very good lead in the best celebrity profile I've read in a long time; the profile of Alec Baldwin in the New Yorker a few of months ago.