In his weekly column for Slate, part-time literary critic, part-time muckraker, and part-time dime-a-dozen political pundit Christopher Hitchens shares his two cents about the crisis in Iran, and draws a particular focus on Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent paranoid invocation of the “evil” British government. Hitchens points out that while America-hating is commonplace in Iran, it’s a youthful phenomenon next to the decades of anti-British rhetoric. Hitchens then calls our attention to the great book that lampooned Iranian Anglophobia:

The best-known and best-selling satirical novel in the Persian language is My Uncle Napoleon, by Iraj Pezeshkzad, which describes the ridiculous and eventually hateful existence of a family member who subscribes to the “Brit Plot” theory of Iranian history. The novel was published in 1973 and later made into a fabulously popular Iranian TV series. Both the printed and televised versions were promptly banned by the ayatollahs after 1979 but survive in samizdat

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form. Since then, one of the leading clerics of the so-called Guardian Council, Ahmad Jannati, has announced in a nationwide broadcast that the bombings in London on July 7, 2005, were the “creation” of the British government itself.

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Hitchens goes on to recommend that we all get our own copy of My Uncle Napoleon, to which Open Letters can only agree. Recently, Bryn Haworth reviewed the book with an eye to the pre-election-crisis troubles in Iran, and found much to admire on both artistic and political levels:

The beauty of My Uncle Napoleon is that it is blissfully funny. Though it has the slapstick mayhem of many Egyptian comedies, it is more than pure farce. And although it has debts to European literature – My Uncle

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is very much like Don Quixote, or Sterne’s Uncle Toby Madhouse movie full (he even has his own Corporal Trim) – it is not a plagiarizing tribute to the classic comic novel. This is a book that manages to create memorable and believable characters while shamelessly sending them up, loading them with catchphrases and putting them in bizarre situations. Behind all its tomfoolery lie the serious issues of love, sexuality and, most importantly, paranoia on a grand scale.

Go here to read the rest of Haworth’s examination of a book given such abrupt and urgent relevance—and then, by all means, get a copy for yourself!

With the election over and inauguration imminent, The Atlantic serves up its “State of the Union” issue. While George Bush has been the President for the last eight years, Garrett Epps thinks the Founding Fathers deserve some of the blame for the sad shape the country is in today. The Constitution they produced “created a presidential office that is ill-considered, vaguely defined, and ripe for abuse.” Jeffrey Eaton reviewed the Library of America’s two-volume Debate on the Constitution back in our November issue, so stop off there first for some background.

Marc Ambinder has an excellent piece on the Obama campaign’s dexterous handling of race. “It had to make those pilsners of the Democratic electorate – true independents, Reagan Democrats, and working-class whites – culturally comfortable with Obama while simultaneously increasing African American participation.” A senior Obama aid explains to the author that “you could get intensity in the African American community by giving them a candidate they could see as being able to win. You didn’t have to speak to them in a way that would make white people nervous.”

In the same issue Hua Hsu writes about the end of White America and Ta-Nehisi Coates profiles Michelle Obama. Finally, Christopher Hitchens reviews the President-elect’s autobiographies, assessing the pros and cons of Obama’s rhetorical agility. For more on Barack Obama’s rhetoric and his views on race, among other things, be sure to check out Greg Waldmann’s in-depth look at the man and his books, from our October issue.

 Another full-to-brimming issue of Open Letters Monthly goes ‘live’ for October, and it abounds with a surprising variety of romances! Sharon Fulton examines the reading public’s erotic fascination with vampires Band of the Hand movies

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; Karen Vanuska tries to anatomize America’s ever-troubled passion for so-called ‘Southern’ fiction; Steve Donoghue heads Down South too, rooting around in that region’s love of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson; John Rodwan, Jr. shows us a Christopher Hitchens in love with the sound of his own voice

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. Political Editor Greg Waldmann turns in an epic dissection of Barack Obama

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, the ideological paramour of so many voters young and old; Kathleen Smith looks at the torrid relationship between marketing and the vox populi

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; both Lianne Habinek and Steve Donoghue plumb the depths of Shakespeare, displaying and deconstructing the love critics have of theorizing about the Bard; and Hugh Seames reviews the latest book about that most romantic of cities, Venice. Add to all that a poem by Andrea Zanzotto (translated by Wayne Chambliss) and a photo by Wes Thomas, and you have a lovely bon-bon of an issue to consume!