- It took me a while to get hooked by this new book on Trump. There have been others - Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury and Siege, Bob Woodward's Fear and Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk, being the key ones, all of which I've read. It seemed to be traversing old ground, offering nothing new.
- But it gradually became quite obvious that this insider job was very different. It was not written by a journalist but by a White House staffer, and, critically, by a committed Republican. It has a different flavour altogether.
- 'Anonymous' is quite obviously a foreign affairs/diplomacy advisor, most probably a West Point graduate, very pro-military, and totally shares the established American prejudice that their country is the world leader in everything and other countries should genuflect at all times. The ever present ‘enemies’ are still China, Russia and Iran. It's lazy, conventional thinking. (If there’s one good thing about Trump, he vaguely recognises that and has called out US warmongering for what it is).
- What makes Anonymous's account fascinating is that he's a conservative Republican committed to traditional values, a purist and staunch believer. Although he sounds like a real prick at times, a high-minded private school prefect, he's not annoying. His critique of Trump is devastating, relentless and exceptionally well written. It can't be seen as a simple anti-Trump rant from a public servant who feels neglected because of the President's obvious preference for his 'politicals', his chosen advisors and Department Secretaries. He's standing for values, both personal and professional, and propriety.
- Because of his conservative bias there are real weaknesses in his critique. He has minimal understanding of economic issues (being from the ‘all debt is bad’ school), and a conventional 'America First' stance on foreign policy (cliches first, nuance second). Also, and disappointingly, he never mentions Trump's appalling stance on climate change (pulling out from the Paris Agreement), his abandoning the six-nation Iran nuclear arms control deal and re-imposing severe economic sanctions. Although he rightly condemns Trump's tariff war with China.
- He includes some great quotes from former presidents, philosophers and political observers.
- He's firmly of the view that if the Democrats nominate a ‘socialist’ in 2020 (he doesn't name Sanders or Warren) Trump will benefit. It must be someone who ‘campaigns on unity’ (he doesn't even name Biden). That way many disaffected Republicans would vote for him or her and the nation would be saved from another horrendous four years of Trump. If Americans re-elect Trump in 2020 they will go down in history as the most anti-democratic nation on earth.
The verdict is in. Despite some accomplishments, it's evident Trump is behaving immorally, weakening the party he professes to lead, undermining democratic institutions, abandoning crucial US alliances, emboldening our adversaries, dividing Americans with hateful rhetoric and chronic dishonesty, and surrounding himself with people who will only reinforce his defects. It was easy to dismiss a pile of insider accounts about the severity of the situation. However, the pile is now a mountain, and the stories paint a portrait of a leader who handles the nation's affairs with persistent negligence. Donald Trump deserves to be fired.
- Garry Disher's new police procedural once again features Constable Paul Hirschhausen, known as Hirsch, who we met in the superb Bitter Wash Road, published in 2013, which I reviewed at the time and said this:
Bitter Wash Road is Australian crime writer Garry Disher's strongest work to date. It comes pretty close to Peter Temple's classic The Broken Shore in achievement. It's not your average crime thriller. It's a social critique of considerable substance. As well, it has a strong coherent plot, beautifully resolved.
Disher invokes a genuine country Australian atmosphere in all its dry unforgiving hardness. The menace is so thick you could cut it with a knife. We're talking territory not far from Snowtown here - a dark, backward place, where deviance thrives.
- Unfortunately, and much to my disappointment, Peace is nowhere near as good. It lacks power and oomph, and any depth of meaning.
- It has the same country small town setting, the same rural noir deadness and meanness, the same ugliness and provincialism. And the same ugly cops, flown in from Adelaide and Sydney, who hate Hirsch because he was a whistleblower on some significant corruption issues he saw when he was a city detective. He was subsequently demoted, shoved back in uniform and shunted to the country.
- But he is a likeable, competent, caring and highly professional policeman, working hard to keep in touch with his community and its concerns. He navigates and resolves the typical arguments and resentments and is popular.
- A random series of minor crimes is everyday business. But Disher knows how to build tension. You know something big will happen. And it does.
- But in the end the main story loses power and the various threads don’t really mesh in a satisfying way. It sort of fizzes out. Goodies become baddies, baddies become goodies and it's very, well, meh.
- But please read Bitter Wash Road. In contrast to Peace, it's immensely powerful.
- This is a very sober and rather dull read unfortunately because of its decidedly academic tone. But if you are at all interested in the politics and economics of Australia's challenge in dealing effectively with the climate emergency this detailed book is essential reading.
- It’s refreshing and invigorating if you take it slowly and read it carefully. Garnaut's thesis is that Australia has massive potential in a carbon-free future. If we get it right our economy will benefit enormously. - His language is measured and constrained, which I found a little disappointing. He's Australia's authority on this stuff, yet he remains reserved and deliberately refuses to be overtly political. It’s politically anodyne, without anger or passion. He goes way too softly softly. For instance, all he says about Abbott’s destruction of Gillard's highly effective carbon pricing regime, the so-called ‘carbon tax’, is ‘...it left an incoherent climate and energy policy legacy’. Christ, Ross, it was fucking disastrous!
- Nevertheless, as you proceed through the book, you cannot help but be increasingly angry at the Coalition's refusal to face scientific facts and its endless evasions and lies. Labor is not let off scot free either. Adani?
- Resurrecting a carbon tax, by far the best policy, is not possible in the immediate future because it would need to be bi-partisan. But long term? Garnaut remains hopeful.
- I'm so glad I wrestled with this book. It wasn't easy, but I did it. Highly recommended.
- This extraordinary novel is Tsiolkas’ best yet. It's immensely powerful, provocative and utterly compelling. A must read. It may not appeal to everyone however, as Tsiolkas literally grabs your head and bangs it hard against a concrete wall.
- It's a story of the first century of Christianity, focused on the early apostles and believers particularly Saul, later known as Paul. The times are brutal, rough and primitive, and Tsiolkas doesn’t hold back. He paints a world riven with vicious cruelty, lust and misogyny. His prose is vigorous, earthy and masculine, ‘full of blood and life’. The characters are passionate and quick to anger.
- Society is riddled with religious, political and ethnic wars. The Jews hate the Greeks and vice versa, and they both hate the Romans. It’s an ugly world, with its primitive gods, rituals and superstitions. Baby daughters are routinely killed. Regular beatings of women and slaves are the social norm. Tsiolkas thrusts us into the ugliness, vulgarity and depravity of the poor, the slaves and the lower classes; into their trenches of shit and piss and filth - 'the sounds and stink of poverty’. This book is not for the faint hearted.
- Saul, before conversion, despises these new 'Salvation' communities: ‘...they are disciples of that despised teacher, that would-be prophet, that crucified Nazarene crank’. He works for the Jewish priests, hunting dissenters. He’s a spy, and very prone to anger. He detests 'this strange and disturbing cult'.
- Tsiolkas vividly portrays the radical and revolutionary character of the new movement and its adherents, and the searing fractures dividing them. There is no sentimentality here. The Second Coming was believed to be imminent, though as the decades progress, into the fourth generation, doubt is increasing.
- The chapter on Vrasas, a guard and soldier overseeing Paul at the end of his life in a prison in Rome is simply sublime. What a masculine creation he is. Illiterate, bold and stupid, in subservience to his masters and the Roman gods. Like a modern alt-right anti-Semite extremist, brutalism and violence are his defining features. He detests the Christian sect: ‘This is the most depraved of sects, flesh-eaters and lovers of death’. However his summation of his own life-affirming beliefs is compelling:
'I walk with the sun, I walk in the brightness and life of day, I leave the dead to the crows and to the flies. With every breath my blood is nourished by life. Those who pray to death hate this; that we are alive, that we experience joy, that we also suffer and that we know pain; but all of it, the pleasure and the endurance, all of it is worth it, for it is life: all we have is life'.
- Tsiolkas is very theologically literate. This is essential in making the story compelling. For example, the dispute between Jesus’ twin brother, the illiterate and doubting Thomas, and the educated Paul with his deep knowledge of scripture, over what really matters - the physical resurrection of the Saviour or his teachings - is a key early Christian debate. Tsiolkas never shrinks from immersing the reader in these critical theological issues, though of course some readers will be frustrated.
- One real gem is the tussle between Timothy, Paul's long time friend and scribe, and the preacher Able as they face the challenge of motivating a congregation of believers to 'await the Saviour’s return'. Able is a populist evangelist, and Timothy more conservative and intellectual. The issue is: should we 'remake the world’ or ‘turn the other cheek and retreat from the world’. The believers are divided too - the citizens and the refugees. The refugees abhor the ‘turn the other cheek’ message. They are now proud ‘Christians’. The scene reeks of a Hillsong, modern day Pentecostal assembly.
- There are so many more arguments, debates and issues explored in this extraordinary novel. It is formidable in its scope and ambition. Having being frustrated over recent months with new fiction - so many books started but then put aside - I absolutely devoured this. It was what I was craving. It restored my faith in the power of literary fiction.
- It will undoubtedly dominate the literary awards calendar next year, and be a Booker contender as well.
