Do I Smash the Mirror?

So a couple days ago I noticed this review for a new book about T. S. Eliot. I read through it, and the book sounds pretty interesting, possibly worth a pickup, identifying the concept of the "buried life" as a recurrent theme in all of Eliot's work and using both famous and more obscure poems to demonstrate this. And then the bomb drops.

T. S. Eliot was anti-Semitic.

I don't really know what to make of this. I've read the two poems mentioned in the review as the literary evidence of Eliot's views, but I didn't get that sense from the reading. Yes, he uses "the Jew" as an identifier, but I had assumed it was a more literary device, an instantly evocative, time-specific term much as Twain's use of "nigger." I suppose that could be my own naivety speaking.

I wonder if part of the reason why comic book characters retain their allure is because they remain essentially uncorruptible. This is not to say that they're perfect; perfection is, after all, perfectly boring. But the problems they face tend to be problems of identity, of isolation and of relevancy. You never find out that Superman was a racist or Batman a vicious homophobe.

I think the other reason why superheroes stay popular is that they have become mythical; that is, their stories are the among the only truly American myths (here we pause for the neat little fact that one of Superman's co-creators was Canadian). Superman is about a guy with incredible powers, yes, but it is (more importantly, to my mind) about where we, as a people, wish to evolve. I watched Superman Returns a few days ago, and I have to say, Singer nailed most of it. There were definitely a few "Superman = Jesus" scenes I could have done without, and a few scenes in general that I think could have been cut (I also kinda hate the "Superman is Lois's baby daddy!" sub-plot), but there were also so many moments which were absolutely perfect, references stretching all the way back to the very first comic book cover that Superman appeared on (the shot of him lowering Parker Posey's car to the ground, nose-first, echoes this cover).

Perhaps it is more illuminating of my own personality that I find the message of self-sacrifice and virtue for its own sake within Superman; perhaps it is true that our readings of any kind of literature always reveal more about ourselves than the work in question. Perhaps that is why I was unable to find the anti-Semitic meaning behind T. S. Eliot's words. I guess, given the option, I'd take that over, "I'm stupid."