Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Weschler, a staff writer for The New Yorker for more than 20 years until his retirement, was a two-time winner of the George Polk Award for journalism. His collection of essays, Vermeer in Bosnia, is an eclectic mix loosely divided under six headings. Part 1, “A Balkan Triptych” is by far the strongest. Here, Weschler connects seemingly disparate events and objects in fascinating ways. He draws a connection between Vermeer’s art and the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague; Henry V at Agincourt in 1415 with the massacre of 8,000 male Muslim prisoners at Srebrenica; and a loud speaker reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics during a protest demonstration in Belgrade.
Weschler follows this section with three Polish survivor stories, including a profile of Roman Polanski; essays under the general heading of Grandfathers and Daughters; three pieces on Los Angeles; and portraits of three artists, including David Hockney.
The collection is wide-ranging; the connections are creative; the writing is lucid and accessible. But unless one is interested in his meditations on family members, or on the works of particular artists, or on the background of Polish survivors of the Holocaust, or the nature of light in Los Angeles, these essays don’t offer the fascinating insights of the opening set of essays.