Rodham: A Novel | Curtis Sittenfeld

What a fascinating premise!

What a fascinating story!

What an amazing story teller!

Rodham: A Novel is hard to define, and even harder to classify or deconstruct. What is real and what is fiction is the thing that haunts you the whole time you're reading this story. At least it did for me.

The idea of sliding doors, alternate histories or the road not taken have always intrigued me, so it was only natural that I would be sucked into Curtis Sittenfeld's world, where Hillary Rodham refused to marry Bill Clinton.

Living on the other side of the world, my understanding of the nuances of American politics is basic, though. I suspect a lot of the references to real life stuff passed me by. Especially once we moved into the alternate story of a single Hillary, forging a career path unhindered by a husband or children (sorry Chelsea). I didn't know enough about what Hillary Clinton actually did do, to know how different things were for Hillary Rodham. Was that youtube video in Ohio something that really happened? Did she really go on a cooking show and was there some gaff about baking cookies? 

So I had to read the book assuming that the basic relationships were based on reality (with family, friends, colleagues, senators, media and backers etc), but that the paths they took were changed by her third 'no' to Bill. 

I assumed that all the conversations were purely imagined and the sex scenes nothing but fantasy! Please let the sex be nothing but fantasy. It was like reading about your parents having sex. You know they probably did it, but you definitely do not want to know any of the details. Ever!

After reading a couple of other reviews (Susan @The Cue Card and Girl With Her Head in a Book) I believe that being on the other side of the world and far removed from many of the incidents and people referred to, I did miss some of the cleverness and the humour. I spent a lot of time worrying about what was real and what wasn't. And I certainly found the middle section of the book rather dry and dull, as only stuff about politics can be dry and dull to the outsider.

It wasn't until we got to Trump and more recent times, that I was able to appreciate the changes that rippled out from that third 'no', to bring Rodham to her third run at the presidency in 2016. It was highly amusing seeing Trump's own words being used against him here, to support Rodham against her long-ago ex, Bill Clinton, who was running against her in the Democratic nominations. With Trump's support, Rodham was able to move into the White House on her own terms!

One of the things I really enjoyed about the book, was the thinking involved in Hillary's decision to leave Clinton back in the 70's. For two pages, Sittenfeld's shares the internal dialogue of a woman torn by her love for a man and her growing concern about his philandering ways. Should she stay and accept his wandering eyes (and hands and lips and penis) or should she go? Should she stand by her man or put her own needs first? Which choice could she live with? 

In the book, she decides (with Bill's support) that she should go her own way. This changes everything (and sometimes) nothing for both Hill and Bill. 

Sittenfeld said in an Esquire article in May 2020,

it's really thinking about fate versus free will and the butterfly effect and how potentially small choices that any of us make can have... Do they have huge consequences, or does our life resemble itself no matter what small choices we make?

I'm not sure that I believe in fate, or soul-mates or even that everything happens for a reason. Even though my life story with Mr Books could be held up as a perfect example of all three. In the end it's the stories we chose to tell ourselves about our lives that make all the difference.

In real life Hillary chose to stand by her man, warts and all. The love they felt for each other was strong enough to get them through the tough times. The compromises made, were ones they chose to live with. They embraced the life they made together. I don't imagine that they have ever imagined different lives for themselves than the one they have lived through together. They do not seem to be the kind of people who live with regrets.

Sittenfeld has not imagined a world of regret either. Instead, she has cleverly shown us how a completely different life might be possible. How bit by bit, experience by experience, it's possible to evolve into someone else if another path was taken.

I found Rodham to be fascinating in a voyeuristic kind of way, sympathetic in a very human way and fun and delicious in a rather daring kind of way.

Book 2/20 Books of Summer Winter

The Conquest of Plassans | Émile Zola #FRAclassic

La Conquête de Plassans, or The Conquest of Plassans (1874) is the fourth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart series that I have been reading with Fanda for #Zoladdiction. My Oxford World's Classics 2014 edition is translated by Helen Constantine and has an Introduction by *Patrick McGuinness. He reminded me that,

Like all of Zola's fiction, (The Conquest of Plassans) is also a novel of human truth told with drama, symbolism, lyricism, and imaginative power.

It's set between 1858 and 1864, straight after the events in the very first book, The Fortune of the Rougons. The central drama follows the political machinations of the Catholic Church and the Second Empire against the disaffected rural provinces. A topic, I confess I knew very little about. Even Wikipedia acknowledges the difficulty for modern readers with this now little-known historical period.

Although the novel does assume in its readers a degree of familiarity with the battle between clerical political interests and governmental influence in the provincial towns of the Second Empire - knowledge which Zola's contemporary readers would certainly have taken for granted, but which seems obscure and almost arcane now - its strength lies not in its politics but in its human drama. On the face of it this could have been a relatively dull series of political observations, but instead by the end it is almost a melodrama, such is the anticlerical fury which Zola instils in his work.

To help me get my head around all the French Empires and Republics, I created my own little timeline below.

• Kingdom of France 987 - 1872
• First Republic 1872 - 1804 
• Napoléon Bonaparte
• First Empire 1804 - 1815 
• Napoléon I
• Bourbon Restoration 1815 - 1830 
• Louis XVIII (1814-1824) 
• Charles X (1824-1830)
• July Monarchy 1830 - 1848
• Louis Philippe I
• Second Republic 1848 - 1852 
• President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
• Second French Empire 1852 - 1870 
• Napoleon III
• Third Republic 1870 - 1940 
• Vichy Government 1940 - 1944 
• Philippe Pétain
• Provisional Government of the French Republic 1944 - 1946 
• Charles de Gaulle
• Fourth Republic 1946 - 1958
• Fifth Republic 1958 - present

Plassans is now in the hands of the Rougon family as we saw in the first book. They are Bonapartists. The bloody nature of his succession, with all it's betrayals and double-dealing, left a bad taste in the mouth of the locals. As this story begins in 1858, the Legitimists (or Royalists) have political favour.

Abbé Faujas', the new man in town (and surely the epitome of literary stranger danger), has his own self-interests at heart. As does Félicité Rougon, the matriarch of the family and the unofficial ruler of Plassans. She may appear to be helping him, but Bonapartist or not, if he gets in her way, she will do everything in her power to come out on top. Félicité is clearly in it for the long game.

Faujas has been enlisted, by a shadowy group of Bonapartists in Paris, to bring Plassans to heel. Le Petit Napoleon was not popular in the countryside after the violent 1851 coup d état although every effort was made to turn this opinion around. The Catholic Church and it's priests are shown here, to be as political, ambitious and lusting for power as the next man. Zola shines a light on religious hypocrisy and power plays and reveals the toxic mix of small town gossip and self-serving intrigues.

It's a heady mix of dastardly deeds, hysteria and madness.

The cover illustration, The Orange Trees, or The Artists Brother in His Garden, 1878 by Gustave Caillebotte is a very appropriate choice given the amount of time our characters spend in the back garden. 

The story begins with Mouret enjoying his garden of Eden-style space, pottering around in his vegetable and herb garden, picking fruit. It's a safe haven for his children to play in. On either side are two opposing political families - on the right are the rich Rastoil's with a pretentious English-style garden and on the left, the family of the sub-prefect, Péqueur des Saulaies with a carpet of rolling grass and a pond. The Rastoil's are Legitimists and the sub-prefect and his friends are 'bigwigs of the Empire.' Mouret is probably a Republican (like Zola), but prefers not to get caught up in the politicking.

Abbé Faujas, our very own snake in the grass, is very interested in what's happening in both gardens.

The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil | Claude Monet | 1881

As Faujas' influence grows, he uses the intermediary garden to bring together the two different groups. As he spends more time in the garden, Mouret spends less and less, isolating himself in his room instead. The addition of Faujas' sister and brother-in-law, Trouche, hasten the disintegration of Mouret's family life...and his mind. Slugs not only attack his lettuces but his peace of mind. And when Trouche takes over the garden, pulling up all the vegetables and fruit trees to create a vulgar flower show, we see this as sign of Mouret's fall from grace.

It is symbolic, and rather satisfying, that Mouret uses remnants of this showy garden as a catalyst for his last dramatic and fiery act. The garden of Eden becomes an apocalyptic fire of Hell. A Zola-esque form of purification has occurred on this troubled site.

Faujas was deliberately created by Zola to be misogynistic. Early on he says to Marthe, Mouret's wife and cousin, (she is a descendant of the legitimate Rougon line, while Mouret is part of the less than salubrious Macquart branch of the family) "you are like all women, even the noblest causes are ruined when they get hold of them."

Yet Marthe succumbs to religious fanaticism anyway, although it's often hard to tell if her fervour is for God or for Faujas. As she becomes more caught up in her religiosity, her family life suffers. The house falls into disrepair, domestic duties are ignored and eventually all her children leave or are farmed out to others.

The Mouret's decaying marriage is also another example of Zola's fixation on genetic dysfunction. This is not a genetically healthy family and when two cousins from the two different branches come together, it is sure to be disastrous. The youngest Mouret daughter is feeble-minded, but that's not enough for Zola. He throws a rat into this seemingly happy existence, to see what these characters will do.

And what they do, is unravel, rather magnificently into madness and illness. Imperfection or flaws are not enough for Zola. Natural determinism is what he is really exploring, and whether or not an individual can rise above their genetic makeup. Zola clearly believes they can't. Even though, he draws the Mouret family sympathetically (the Simpsons of the Second Empire!) they are doomed to suffer the same fate as the rest of the extended family.

The Conquest of Plassans could have been a dry novel about politics and religion, instead Zola created a gripping, fascinating insight into a period of time long gone. That time may be long gone, but our world is still suffering from the same kinds of intrigues and machinations. Except now it is faith-based initiatives being used to drive government policy across the globe, supposedly in the name of God, but really just about power and money.

Zola wrote about his time in history, but his books are now considered classics because they can still have the power to speak to us, 150 years later.

• La Fortune des Rougon (1871)
• La Curée (1871–2) The Kill
• Le Ventre de Paris (1873) The Belly of Paris
• La Conquête de Plassans (1874)
• Nana (1880)
• Germinal (1885)

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Becoming ended up being an epic read for me, simply because I put the book down when I was half way through it in the New Year, when we were away and busy with family and summer and stuff, and then I forgot to pick it up again.

Other new, shiny books caught my eye and it kept sliding down the pile of half read books by my bed.

A few nights of waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep though, has cured that problem.

I find it too hard to read my fiction books at that time of the night, but the heavier non-fiction titles don't work either. An easy to read memoir is the thing that does the trick.

And a memoir that is full of the such hope, dignity and grace is the perfect antidote for the 3am blues.

I'm not sure I can add anything new to all the other rave reviews I've read for this book where Michelle Obama walks us through her childhood, her school years, her career, meeting Barack, having a family and moving to the White House. All I can add perhaps, is a perspective from the other side of the world.

There may be nuances particular to the American dream in Michelle's story that those from elsewhere may not fully appreciate, but I could appreciate the message about the importance of education to change lives. However, as Michelle realises too, it's not just a good education that gets you there.

In our modern Western world, a large majority of children have access to a good education. But not every child has the advantage of a strong, supportive, loving family or an inspiring teacher that can change the course of their lives, or a minister or neighbour who mentors them towards a better way. Good education, especially in the early years is vital, but so too are these connections, these people who boost, push, motivate, encourage and manage to say just the right thing at the right time to make a difference. People who open just one door, or people who do that one thing that makes your life easier for just that one magic moment. Then having the right personality to be able to make the most of those moments is the final blessing.

Michelle Obama was fortunate enough to have most of those things work in her favour. But it's her gratitude and her ability to give back, or to pay her good fortune forward, that makes her shine with grace and dignity.

Gratitude, grace and dignity are sadly lacking in much of world politics at the moment. Arrogance and bullying tactics have been mistaken for gravitas.

It is a curious thing watching all our Western democracies floundering on a bed of teenage petulance, seemingly in a race with each other to the bottom of human decency and kindness. I sometimes wonder if we are watching the death throes of the democratic process as we know it. The Obama White House may be the last decent government anywhere in the world for a long time to come. Living under the political systems currently in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran are not enviable or desirable in any way shape or form either. It could be easy to despair.

I have to remind myself of inspirational leaders like Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand or Justin Trudeau in Canada to know that it is still possible for kindness and inclusivity to be the guiding philosophy of a government and its leader.

Becoming reminds us that there are people in leadership positions who care, and care deeply. That small changes can lead to bigger changes. That individuals can make a difference. And that kindness and generosity will always be more admired than the alternative.

Michelle Obama's book is charming, genuine and heart-warming. The perfect antidote for the 3am blues.

8/20 Books of Winter Summer
Sydney 20℃
Dublin 20℃

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting by Judith Brett

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage by Judith Brett was a surprise bestseller at work in the week leading up to the recent NSW state elections. I'll be curious to see if it has the same surge during the weeks leading up to our Federal elections in May.

Brett has written a fascinating and informative book about the history of voting in Australia. It's a bit dry in places, but the slimness of the book made it a quick, easy read. 

I loved all the facts and stats that Brett listed in the her introduction. Which I will include below because I want to have them to hand. The rest of the book basically expanded on and explored in detail, the points below.

Voting is compulsory in 19 of the world's 166 electoral democracies and only 9 strictly enforce it.

People from our sister democracies are often astonished that Austraians are compelled to turn up to vote: it seems an affront to freedom. We in reply are appalled at their low turnouts and the election of leaders and governments by a minority of voters.

In Australia registration has been compulsory since 1911. Turnout in Australian elections is always above 90 percent of registered voters, and in the high eighties of those eligible to enrol.

Australians wanted their governments to have the support of the majority of electors, they preferred their elections to be orderly and they were happy for them to be run by government officials.

The US and Australia were both settled by people from the British isles, who brought with them political traditions and ideas of their home country, but they were settled in different centuries. 

Where the US favours liberty and rights over democracy and majorities, we favour democracy and majorities over liberty and rights.

The early settlers to America left Britain when parliament was still struggling to wrest control of government from the monarch and when individuals were persecuted for their religious beliefs. America's informing spirit is the seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke.

By the time the Australian colonies were establishing their political institutions, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British parliament had well and truly defeated the autocratic monarchs...the foundational thinker...for Australians...was the philosopher and political reformer Jeremy Bentham. 

He argued that rights are created by law; that without government and law there are no rights. 

The federal government did not tax income until 1915, when it needed to raise money to fight the Great War. By then settler Australians' view of government as a major source of benefit rather than a circumscriber of freedom was entrenched.

Preferential voting is as distinctively Australian as compulsory voting. Both ensure that the governments we elect have the support of the majority of voters.

I knew most of this stuff in a very general sort of way. What was useful was having it all in one place and written in such a readable, quotable style.

But the one fact that really got me thinking and wondering was the name of our foundational thinker - Jeremy Bentham - who?

I've heard of John Locke, America's political 'informing spirit'. Why haven't I heard about the guy who inspired our political system before? 

What did he believe? Who was he? Why did he matter to Australia?

Brett covers off a lot of this in her book, but I wanted more.
So I googled.

Jeremy Bentham was born 15 February 1748 in London to a wealthy Tory family. He was considered to be a child prodigy - reading as a toddler, learnt Latin at three and played the violin at seven.

According to wikipedia he was,

sent by his father to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he completed his bachelor's degree in 1763 and his master's degree in 1766. He trained as a lawyer and, though he never practised, was called to the bar in 1769. He became deeply frustrated with the complexity of the English legal code, which he termed the "Demon of Chicane".

He wrote a Short Review of the Declaration that was published with John Lind's rebuttal to the American Declaration of Independence. He was a firm critic of the revolutionary idea of 'natural rights' independent of law, calling them "nonsense on stilts". He claimed that it described how things ought to be rather than how things actually were; about wishes and beliefs rather than facts and reality.

Bentham believed that rights were created by laws, and that all laws and rights require government. If and individuals rights cannot be interfered with, it then implies that rights must also be enforceable.

He argues that the concept of the individual pursuing his or her own happiness cannot be necessarily declared "right", because often these individual pursuits can lead to greater pain and less pleasure for a society as a whole. Therefore, the legislation of a society is vital to maintain the maximum pleasure and the minimum degree of pain for the greatest number of people. (wikipedia)

The trick of course, for all governments, is to legislate "good laws".

Bentham was very concerned about the idea of "sinister interest" or how the vested interests of the powerful conspire against the wider public interest.

He was a firm atheist and an advocate of secular positivism, which has been described on wikipedia as,

information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge. Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology because metaphysical and theological claims cannot be verified by sense experience.

His most famous idea though was the "greatest-happiness principle". Where one must always act to produce the 'greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason' (wikipedia). The philosophy of Utilitarianism evaluates actions based on their consequences and whether or not these actions cause pleasure or pain. The moral status of these actions is classified by the "happiness factor" of 12 pains and 14 pleasures.

Bentham's political position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery and of physical punishment (including that against children), the recognition of animal rights, the right to divorce, the promotion of free trade and usury and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Bentham died on the 6th June 1832 in London. He left his body to science for dissection and preservation as an auto-icon (a word that Bentham coined to describe the process of dead body being "preserved, clothed, and displayed as though still living, as a memorial to the deceased"). (OED)

Who knew?

Rusted Off by Gabrielle Chan

Rusted Off: Why Country Australia is Fed Up by Gabrielle Chan didn't quite live up to my expectations, or to her marvellous Introduction. In fact, the rest of the book was little more than an extended version of the fine points she made early on.

I've spent most off my life in rural Australia; this last decade in Sydney has been a complete change of pace for me. Therefore I have my very own deeply rooted, nuance awareness of what life in small country towns looks likes and feels like. Reading Rusted Off, in the end told me nothing I didn't already know and I'm not sure that my city based born and bred friends will see any more value in country life than they already do, after reading this.

One of the main values in country living is how every single strata of society is right there in front of you. City living has become so insular with certain socio-economic and cultural groups tending towards one suburb or another, that most Sydney suburbs are basically a mono-culture. It takes a determined individual to seek out differences and diversity. Living side by side with families who look and sound just like you makes it easy to forget and hard to understand when someone holds diametrically opposed views, or experiences hardship or privilege beyond anything you have every experienced yourself.

Not that country living is a paragon of virtue or an ideal arrangement either. Prejudices still abound and it's not always easy for newcomers to ever feel like they belong or are fully accepted. I miss my country lifestyle, even though Chan's book reminded of all the reasons why I was often uncomfortable, alone or dissatisfied with my life there.

Although I'm not sure if I learnt anything new, Chan's account of country life, certainly got me thinking about where I belong and where I feel most comfortable. I love the wide, open space of rural life, the big blue skies and the connection to country that I struggle to see and feel in Sydney. But I love the cultural advantages of city living - the diversity of restaurants, galleries, parks, theatres and other cultural events. I live in a suburb that has a very real village atmosphere, a place where I can walk down the street and run into people I know, where I know most of the shop keepers by name and the local barista knows how to serve my coffee without me even asking.

Mudgee, NSW

It seems to me that both country folk and their city cousins are completely fed-up with politics and the way our politicians have been carrying on. So what I did find inspirational was hearing about the small and large community projects that Chan's particular small country town had instigated all on their own. Instead of waiting for politicians to decide about climate change or funding for educational, social and health related programs, they had just got in a started making plans to protect their towns and the citizens themselves.

Chan obviously loves her small country town, and I understand why. I also completely understand how it can frustrate her at times. Perhaps the secret to wherever you live, is being present and accepting with gratitude the joys and pleasures (as well as the niggles and annoyances) that abound in any place, with as much good grace and mindfulness as you can manage.

White Houses by Amy Bloom

White Houses was my latest book club pick, chosen by me. I felt a weird sense of pressure to enjoy the book on that account. But the best I could summon up in the end was a mild kind of appreciation.

It took me a while to pinpoint my disconnect. 

The first person narrative was a start. I'm not philosophically opposed to first person as a device, but I have to feel a real connect to said person to go along for the first person ride (like the young narrator in Washington Black that I'm reading and loving right now). I struggled to feel that kind of affection for Lorena Hickok. I felt a tremendous amount of compassion for her horrific childhood and admiration for her ability to rise above it. In fact, that's one of the human conditions I find most fascinating - in fiction and in real life. Why do some people with horrific childhoods, succumb to its sordidness, always the victim, yet others find a resilience and sense of agency to remake their adult selves? It's the stuff of great story. A mix of genetic predisposition, environment, the power of education (usually), luck (sometimes) and a mentor/someone who believed in them all along (often but not always). All wonderful tools for a story-teller to play with. But Bloom didn't really go there with Hickok's back story. I'm still none the wiser about the how or why she overcame her ghastly childhood.

When a story is based on someone's real life story, the fiction writer has some boundaries and proprieties that may restrict their creativity. And the reader (or this reader at least) often has some reservations and frustrations around what really happened and what's made up. Which is my usual beef with fictionalised biographies/histories. I love a good story and I love narrative non-fiction, but combining the two just doesn't seem to work for me. It seems to be a literary lesson I am slow to learn!

Second was the whole jumping around with time thing. Again, I'm happy to play with multiple timelines, but I need to know when it's changing. The second half of the book lost it's way thanks to so many unannounced jumps in my opinion.

Thirdly, the writing. I kept waiting for some sparkle that never quite arrived. The was a flatness, a dullness that sucked all the emotional possibility of the story. At first I thought this may have been a deliberate technique to illustrate the bleakness of Hick's early life (which as I said above, I found very intriguing), but when the circus story, then the romance itself also failed to come to life, I concluded that the writing was just not working for me.

My fourth problem took longer to pinpoint, until I remembered my reaction to reading Hazel Rowley's Franklin and Eleanor biography about seven years ago. By the time I got to the end of the bio, I realised that I had come to strongly dislike both Franklin and Eleanor as people. I admired their politics and public service, but they treated the people who loved them and worked for them appallingly. They both made tremendous sacrifices and compromises to the do the good that they did do, but those sacrifices and compromises usually also sacrificed and compromised those around them.

Hickok's story in White Houses brought all these thoughts flooding back.

A friend who read and loved this book, was moved by the descriptions of love, whereas I found it hard to see the love story at all. The love felt so one-sided to me. Not quite unrequited, more desperate and needy perhaps and completely controlled by Eleanor to suit her schedule and agenda. Hickok gave up so much to get the little crumbs of love and friendship that Eleanor handed out.

This one particular paragraphed moved me beyond words though,

I don't care why the light burns. I think that even if you are both old ladies riding side by side on the second Avenue subway, with one of you going home to three grandchildren and a doddering husband, you can lock eyes, and remember when you weren't. You remember that very pleasurable and surprising thing that was done to you by the wrinkly old bag of bones next to you and you breathe in memory the weight and the mortality and the sensible shoes are just costume, falling away, and your real selves rise up, briefly, dancing rosy and naked, in the middle of the subway car.

One paragraph in a whole book is not enough to sustain my interest though. I pushed myself to finish White Houses and resolved to never read any more books about Franklin or Eleanor!

The West Wing Weekly

I can't believe I haven't heard about this before.

The West Wing weekly podcast has been going for two years now.

It's an episode by episode discussion about every single season of West Wing.

Hosted by Joshua Malina (Will Bailey) and Hrishikesh Hirway (musician & composer), with special guest stars every few episodes, they reveal behind the scenes pranks, explore themes and point out often missed details.

Thanks to a couple of recent weekend roadtrips, Mr Books and I have binged listened to the first 10 episodes. We've seen the series so many time we don't need to watch each episode before tuning in to the podcast, all the wonderful details simply come flooding back to us as Josh & Hrishi talk.

So far, the podcast has featured special guest stars Dule Hill (Charlie), Janel Moloney (Donna), Richard Schiff (Toby) and Melissa Fitzgerald (Carol). They've all discussed how they got their roles, what they're doing now, lots of funny (and sometimes sad) anecdotes and oodles of insiders comments about the particular episode they were talking about that session. 

Speechwriters, costume designers and real-life political advisors also get a gig.

It was fascinating hearing about how the Clinton presidency handled their own new Supreme Court nomination process and how much work and research went into getting the dresses right for the State Dinner episode. Who knew a First Lady wasn't meant to have cleavage?!

One of the joys for Josh & Hrishi is picking over all the details that can only be revealed by multiple viewings. 

It's also one of our delights. 

I've now watched the series through four time. Mr Books has watched it six. Throughout our next viewing we will watch out for the changing props in Gail the goldfish's bowl, Josh's tucked in tie, Donna's obvious love for Josh from episode one. and Sam's hair malfunction in one of the early episodes. We now also know why Bartlett puts his suit jacket on the way he does.

In these early podcasts, Josh and Hrishi make their own ads for each other, and besides the occasional guest, record the sessions alone. After checking out their facebook page though, it looks like two years later, they are recording in front of a large, and very appreciative, live studio audience, with a stage and very regular guests appearances from the cast. 

I look forward to hearing how the podcasts develop into this as their popularity increases. Just as well Mr Books and I love a good roadtrip!

It would seem that in this world, where Trump can be President, the need for West Wing style hope, integrity and goodwill is even stronger than ever before. It's a show that just keeps on giving!

Yes, Mr Books and I do plan to watch the series again, but we like to wait until we see the first news report (every four years or so) pop up about primary elections and caucuses. We figure if we watch West Wing enough times in conjunction with the latest US election process, we may, one day actually understand how it works!

With grateful thanks to Joy @Joy's Book Blog for alerting me to this wonderful podcast and for finally converting us to the magic of podcasts. 

If you love West Wing, you will adore this podcast and if you've been looking for a good excuse to watch the series, then this might be the way to get you hooked.

What's next?

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Home Fire was longlisted for this year's Man Booker and I so wish it had got the nod for the shortlist. It was a stronger, more consistently interesting story than 4 3 2 1, but perhaps the judging committee felt they had ticked the refugee/migrant experience by including Exit West?

Either way it's a shame, because Kamila Shamsie's story is engaging, thought-provoking and quite a page turner. It's easy to read nature beguiles you until you find yourself in the middle of a very serious situation with very heavy consequences. Faith, family, moral dilemma's and parliamentary heavy-handedness clash head-on in this story of choice and consequence.

Shamsie based her story on Sophocles play, Antigone which is the story of a young girl who has to chose between the law (in particular her uncle Creon, the King of Thebes, laws) or her own moral compass. Shamsie was also influenced by Seamus Heaney's play about Creon as imagined through the lens of the Bush administration, The Burial at Thebes (2004).

Shamsie's epigraph referenced Heaney's play which I now see actually highlights her particular focus within this story - love versus law - the faith of her characters simply reflects modern concerns and gives Shamsie's story the contemporary touch.

Knowing the basic premise of the play, meant you also knew how the book would end. Incredibly Shamsie managed to create a lot of tension in the build up to this end. The details of the disaster and it's catastrophic results still caught me by surprise. Being an adaptation, you weren't quite sure how she would follow the original story and which bits she might adapt. Having a slightly different arrangement of main characters also created some doubt about who, what, why and how.

What makes this story work so well though, is that you can read and enjoy Home Fire all on it's own without any knowledge or thought of Antigone at all. Universal themes are universal for a reason!

If the Man Booker was still a Commonwealth only award, I believe that Home Fire would have been the stand-out winner. But that's another debate.

Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson

I have no idea how to adequately review Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru.

Refugees, asylum seekers and offshore processing has polarised politics and opinion in Australia for several years now. A book like this, that attempts to provide an 'uncompromising' overview that 'gets behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known' will probably only be read by those already convinced that there has to be a better way to manage the perceived crisis in asylum seekers.

Gleeson has put together a thoughtful, cohesive and detailed document. Her anger and frustration at the living conditions on Manus and Nauru and the uncertainty around processing individual claims is palpable. Yet Offshore still offers the reader opposing ideas, contradictory evidence and controversial opinions in an attempt to provide a balanced argument.

However it was impossible for me to get to the end of this book without being appalled by the conditions that the asylum seekers are currently living in on Manus and Nauru. The only justification for this treatment appears to be the idea that it will act as a strong deterrent for anyone considering arriving in Australia by boat.

Given that so many of the world's governments seem to be in a race to head to the right, I'm not sure how or when this situation will ease. After reading about the amount of money our government has spent and continues to spend on maintaining Manus and Nauru, the problem is not the money.

The problem seems to be how we actually perceive asylum seekers and refugees. Currently our ability to perceive, know or understand all the reasons why this situation has occurred are shrouded in double speak and political obfuscation. This ignorance creates fear and distrust.

Morally and ethically we know what should be done, so why aren't we doing it? What is the political expediency that is driving our current course of action? Why are we deliberately creating more damage for people already damaged? What will the long term cost for this psychological damage be? For them and for us? How can we possibly think that it will end well for any of us to create this level of trauma in human beings?

My only problem with Gleeson's book is that none of these questions could be answered.

Future history students will one day be studying this period of time and citing these events as one of the causes for what happens next. They will shake their heads in wonder that we couldn't see and didn't do anything to change the course of history.

It would seem, that history does indeed, repeat itself.

James Kane from Goodreads has posted the review for Offshore that I wish I could have written.

Offshore was longlisted for this year's Stella Prize, shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-fiction award 2016 and winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Non-fiction 2017.

The Road to Ruin by Niki Savva

I don't normally read political non-fiction although I have read the occasional political memoir. Unless it touches on an issue I'm particularly passionate about, I have too many other books I actually want to read!

However the media storm and book buying frenzy surrounding Niki Savva's recent book got under my skin. What was it about this particular political book that got everyone so excited?

The full title of The Road to Ruin is How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed their own Government.

There was already a book published in February by Aaron Patrick called Credlin & Co: How the Abbott Government Destroyed Itself? How was The Road to Ruin different? Why did Savva's book generate all this intense interest?

Patrick is a writer for the Australian Financial Review and has written a previous book about the downfall of Labor. The blurb for his book says:

Credlin was Abbott’s enforcer, his disciplinarian, his counsellor, his brain, his mother. Her strength as a chief of staff was a sign of his weakness as a prime minister: she gave him the option of disengaging. Credlin allowed Abbott to be who he wanted to be: the good bloke, the philosopher, the weekend fire-fighter, the surfer, the orator, the man of action. If Abbott was a natural leader, it could have worked. But he lacked the most important attribute of all: judgement.

Tony Abbott and his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, ran a brilliant campaign in opposition. But their approach led to disaster in government.

When Abbott became prime minister, he and Credlin ruthlessly controlled ministers, backbenchers, the public service and the media. They shut out voices that questioned Abbott’s way. Everything started to unravel.

Credlin & Co. is the story of a relationship that determined the fate of a government. It shows in stunning detail the disastrous consequences of power abused, and the broken people left in its wake.

Niki Savva used to be a political staffer in the Liberal Party. She is also a journalist and writer and has a political memoir called So Greek that dissects the defeat of the Liberals in the 2007 election. Part of Savva's appeal then is her insider knowledge.

The blurb for The Road to Ruin says:

Kevin Rudd was given no warning, but even he lasted longer than Abbott. Julia Gillard had plenty of warnings, but even she lasted longer than Abbott.

Abbott ignored all the warnings, from beginning to end — the public ones, the private ones, from his friends, his colleagues, the media.

His colleagues were not being disloyal. They did not feel they had betrayed him; they believed he had betrayed them. Their motives were honourable. They didn’t want him to fail; they wanted the government to succeed, and they wanted the Coalition re-elected.

Abbott and Credlin had played it harder and rougher than anybody else to get where they wanted to be. But they proved incapable of managing their own office, much less the government. Then, when it was over, when it was crystal-clear to everyone that they had failed, when everyone else could see why they had failed, she played the gender card while he played the victim.

In The Road to Ruin, prominent political commentator, author, and columnist for The Australian Niki Savva reveals the ruinous behaviour of former prime minister Tony Abbott and his chief of staff, Peta Credlin. Based on her unrivalled access to their colleagues, and devastating first-person accounts of what went on behind the scenes, Savva paints an unforgettable picture of a unique duo who wielded power ruthlessly but not well.

Savva was also very good at working the media in the week leading up to the book's publication. She was on every program - TV and radio. A social media buzz was created. And then she dropped the bombshell on the day before publication that there were rumours of an affair between Abbott and Credlin and the media went wild!

In hindsight, I find this quite extraordinary, because according to her book, Savva claimed that many, many people in Canberra had been expressing their concerns about the nature of Abbott and Credlin's relationship for quite some time. This was not new news to those in the know, but it was the first time that someone had gone public with these suspicions. And the public lapped it up.

This is where my feminist sensibilities kicked in.

Was this another case of a woman in power being brought down because she was a powerful woman? As Credlin herself said the week after Abbott lost the leadership,

If I was a guy I wouldn't be bossy, I'd be strong. If I was a guy I wouldn't be a micromanager, I'd be across my brief, or across the detail. If I wasn't strong, determined, controlling (and got them into government from opposition I might add), then I would be weak and not up to it and should have to go and could be replaced.

I had to find out for myself.

The first two chapters were a little like reading the personality disorder section in a psychiatrist's DSM-5.

Credlin exhibited secretive, inappropriate, hysterical, abusive, volatile, charming, obsessive, belittling, unpredictable, demanding, imperious, intimidating, denigrating, bullying, intelligent, hard-working, controlling, excluding, alienating, and punishing behaviours. She was willing to cross lines and meddle unnecessarily in her staff's private lives. She was unable to consider information that didn't fit her world view and she exhibited extreme shifts in behaviour.

Abbott was silly, injudicious, brutal, threatening, indulgent, arrogant, placating and enthralled.

Their relationship was described as complex, inexplicable, detrimental, destructive, protective, psychologically dependent, consuming and obsessive - 'she was his Wallis Simpson', 'his Lady Macbeth'.

Savva's subsequent chapters (and the bulk of the book) went on to describe in great detail the various decisions, meetings and going-ons that made up the day to day stuff of this government. This is where my eyes began to glaze over!

Nevertheless, it was clear to me that Savva was building her case, story by intricate story, about how the very tight, controlling relationship between Abbott and Credlin, ultimately had a negative impact on almost every decision that was made during their time in government.

Some of the stories about how staffers and ministers were treated reminded me of the ones that emerged from Rudd's office when he was deposed as Prime Minister.

And although I'm too young to really remember the Whitlam years, the rumours of an affair reminded me of how Jim Cairns and Junie Morosi's relationship was one of the contributing factors in the downfall of Whitlam.

A politician should be able to expect a degree of privacy in their personal life away from the office. But when their personal relationships spill over into their working life, when they choose to blur the boundaries between private and public, then the same degree of respectful privacy cannot be expected.

I am a feminist but this doesn't mean that I think that all women are angels or that all men are monsters. Some men and some women treat people appalling. They are disrespectful, aggressive and manipulative. When it all goes pear shaped it is never their fault. They are the victims and everyone else is to blame. And you will never be able to convince then otherwise.

Credlin, and to a lesser degree, Abbott, fit into this category.

This was not a book written by a powerful woman to bring down another powerful woman. This was a political insider's pretty harsh critique of Abbott and Credlin and their rather toxic term in power.

The Stalking of Julia Gillard by Kerry-Anne Walsh

Topical, relevant and a publishers dream as far as timing goes!

The Stalking Of Julia Gillard: How Team Rudd contrived to bring down the Prime Minister was due for August release.

Walsh initially planned to document the Gillard governments minority parliament, the first one in Australia since 1939. But she noticed, that despite a "parliament...functioning remarkably well under Gillard leadership" that the media and a minority within the Labor caucus were "threatening to derail its success".

So the book became about "Team Rudd's slow-death destabilisation campaign  against Gillard" and about the media's focus on all things Rudd. Walsh claims that her book is not a defence of Gillard or a definitive account of the Gillard government. She also never spoke to Gillard about her book. Instead "it's an expanded personal diary of observations."

At the end of June, Rudd was finally successful in getting the numbers to topple Gillard as leader of the Labor party.

Allen and Unwin decided to bring forward the release of Walsh's book to catch the wave of interest in this leadership change.
The Stalking of Julia sold out within a week.
The reprint (and amended past-tense title) came out a week later and is still racing off the shelf three weeks later.

I'm glad I read Summer's The Misogyny Factor first. It was well researched and told in a calm, restrained fashion.

Walsh's book is far from calm or restrained.

She is obviously anti-Rudd. But she is also scathing in her comments about members of the media who supported Rudd is his three year campaign to undermine Gillard at every turn. Whether via personal attacks, beautifully timed leaks to take attention away from any positive press about her government and the courting of Rudd and his agenda at the expense of reporting government policy.

Although there are many interesting insights in Walsh's book, I found it difficult to trust them. I felt that her red hot anger took away from her objectivity. Her many derisive comments ended up putting her in the same group as the shock jocks to my mind.

When people start name calling, I tend to tune out, regardless of their politics or beliefs.

If you want to read a sensational account of the Gillard government - then read this book.

If you would prefer a calmer, rational, more balanced argument - then read Anne Summer's book (see my review below).