The New Criterion – The September 2024 issue features ‘The red star returns’; The trouble with Delmore; Churchill endures; Charles Ive’s “let out” souls; Theater, Arts, Music and The Media….

Arresting scenes

On John Constable’s The Hay Wain & the foundations of the West.

We write as The New Criterion’s annual period of aestivation enters its home stretch. The cicadas are buzzing, the days are noticeably shorter, and the leaves—some of them—are already edged with brown. Certain summers feature quiet expanses of lazy days. This one was different. In July, Donald Trump, except for the tip of his right ear, dodged a would-be assassin’s bullet; Joe Biden dropped (or, we now know, was pushed) out of the 2024 presidential race but, as of this writing, remains president; Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, stepped into the vacancy and magically became the new candidate for president, choosing the Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate.