Matt Johnson, How Hitchens Can Save The Left.

 

- I've long been a fan of the esteemed Christopher Hitchens who passed away in 2011. I've read most of  his books and was inspired by many of his essays, interviews and YouTube clips over the years. This new book by Matt Johnson, an American writer and editor, is a brilliant exploration of Hitchens’s thoughts and beliefs. He was nothing if not controversial, and made many enemies particularly over his support for the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. 

- The book is superbly written and edited and very comprehensive. It also includes a detailed analysis of current events such as Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the re-emergence of the Taliban's ugly primitivism in Afghanistan. Hitchens's theses become highly relevant and enlightening. 

-  I highly recommend this book and can do no better than quote this summary from the back cover: 

  'Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today's left, he's remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout - a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks.

In How Hitchens Can Save the Left, Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important.

Over the past several years, the liberal foundations of democratic societies have been showing signs of structural decay. On the right, nationalism and authoritarianism have been revived on both sides of the Atlantic. On the left, many activists and intellectuals have become obsessed with a reductive and censorious brand of identity politics, as well as the conviction that their own liberal democratic societies  are institutionally racist, exploitative, and imperialistic. Across the democratic world, free speech, individual rights, and other basic liberal values are losing their power to inspire. 

Hitchens's case for universal Enlightenment principles won't just help genuine liberals mount a resistance to the emerging illiberal orthodoxies on the left and the right. It will also remind us how to think and speak fearlessly in defense of those principles.' 

Chris Womersley, Ordinary Gods and Monsters.

- Only a year ago Chris Womersley published his last novel The Diplomat. It was extraordinarily good. Very inner city Brunswick, very gritty, very adult. Drugs were central. But the goodness of people prevailed. 

- His latest novel, Ordinary Gods and Monsters, seems to have been written by an entirely different author. It's set in the outer suburbs of Sydney, and it's about teens and their estranged parents and siblings. Drugs are still central, but what makes it very different is its Young Adult tone. It's a bit Famous Five - a neighbourhood mystery being investigated by young people. That doesn't preclude violence or vulgarity. 

- Nick and Marion, both seventeen, live next door to each other and are best friends. They've just completed their HSC. Marion's father has recently been killed in a hit-and-run accident. The story develops from there. And it's entrancing, with intricacies that are slowly revealed, and in prose that is beautiful and captivating in Womersley's inimitable style. I marvelled at his magical similes. 

- There are strange characters sprinkled about, but they add color and movement to the story. One in particular, 'Stretch', an ugly, thuggish, dumb as dog shit, drug dealer, becomes central to the plot as it unfolds. Nick, Marion, and Nick's grumpy older sister Alison, are delightful though. As are their mums. 

- Womersley's suburbia is the ‘the kingdom of ordinary gods and monsters’. We meet and love the gods, but the monsters are part and parcel. Survival is the challenge. 

- As in The Diplomat, the goodness prevails in the end. 

- Although not your typical Womersley, this novel is a highly enjoyable read.

Keyu Jin, The New China Playbook

- On all levels this new book is so refreshing. It moves totally away from your standard anti-China, anti-communist cliches. And Jin's prose is lucid and highly readable. 

- It addresses issues that are only vaguely familiar to even intelligent people, and the comprehensive detail provided is so revelatory. For example the infamous One Child policy. Where is it now and did it work? Yes, but in a very different way than just limiting unaffordable population growth. It's had a huge and positive influence on the education of two generations of young people due to the massive overspending by parents on their single child. Higher education is now the norm. It was rare before. 

- Chinese society is now characterised by the coexistence of generations with radically different characteristics. The current generation, for example, is the first to seek happiness rather than wealth.

- Jin delves deeply into the micro economy of the new China. The rapid growth in private versus government owned firms for example, and the way young entrepreneurs have benefited enormously from the financial and administrative support by local regional authorities' commitment to growth and investment.

- Corruption is being tackled, as is poverty, inequality and pollution. Social media allows free speech and criticism of the underfunding of services such as health and education. The new middle class is becoming increasingly intolerant of poor and unresponsive governments, local and national.

- Economic and financial management is central to Jin's analysis: China’s structure, with its centralised powers, financial muscle, and administrative capacity for policy implementation, has made it robust…but its growth model is reliable but not flexible. To keep it going credit needs to be pumped constantly into the economy...Whether measured by breadth or depth, China’s financial system is underdeveloped…Government intervention affects every segment...In the financial system in particular, as in the broader economy in general, China scores high on stability but low on efficiency.

- The chapter on the global technology race is just brilliant. China is a master of leading-edge technology. It's constantly leap-frogging the US. Chinese e-commerce companies are now the most innovative in the world. But the gap with the West in creating the fundamental breakthroughs (‘zero to one’ as it is called) is still sizeable. For example, in the field of microchips China still cannot make its own highest grade chips. Its weak point is talent, which has led to a dearth of basic research because of its emphasis on quantity not quality. However its new generation of well educated millennials is the real hope for the future.

- In the realm of global trade in goods and services China has leapfrogged from cheap low-end products to higher quality goods. It has moved to the centre of the global supply chain, becoming by 2017 the largest node. Protectionism, which is now on the rise globally, particularly during the Trump era, is decidedly the wrong strategy. The numbers convincingly show this. It's technology that is continuing to spur global trade (eg, online purchasing).

- In the future, China will strive to be a bigger and more forward looking Germany, with an unparalleled industrial capacity powered by disruptive technologies.

- (Jin is an associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics. She was born and raised in Beijing before moving to the US and completing a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Because of her focus on the economy she doesn’t address controversial non-economic issues such as free speech; the quality of social services like health and aged care; the imprisonment of journalists without trial; non-independent legal processes; human rights abuses; substantial military buildup; foreign policy issues such as regional expansion in the South China Sea; Taiwan; etc.) 

Jane Harrison, The Visitors

 

- The story of the arrival of the First Fleet has never been told historically from an Indigenous perspective. It can only be imagined. Jane Harrison, in this novelisation of her highly regarded play, has done that brilliantly.

- The Indigenous people have Anglo-Saxon names - Lawrence, Raymond, Miranda, Elizabeth, Howard, Gary, Gwendolyn, Gordon, Adam, Delilah, Joseph, Nathaniel, Lola, Walter, Helen, Albert, Margaret and others. The familiarity is the point - let no othering occur, no strange and unpronounceable names confirming the white colonial prejudice.

- Harrison ensures we warmly relate to her characters and their family and tribal status. She brings alive their deep connection to country, their sensitivity to nature's ways, and the trees, bushes, grasses, fish, animals, birds and insects that are an intimate part of their daily lives. 

-  'Aliens' in big boats have suddenly turned up in the bay around which the different tribes live. Their leaders must meet and determine how to react. Seven men, old and young, meet, talk and argue for a day. We're immersed in it - their personalities, biases, strengths and weaknesses. We could be in a pub watching any bunch of opinionated blokes argue it out! One is philosophical, one creative, one mathematical, one cheeky, one a healer, one a hunting expert, one an astronomer familiar with the stars and planets. They wear shirts and trousers, and some wear suits and ties or cravats! It could be any corporate board meeting.

- They remember the last time the aliens visited eighteen summers ago. They didn't stay. Will this much larger group of big boats, eleven in all, full of men, women and unknown animals, visit for a few days also, or stay? ‘…something about the novelty of this situation is discombobulating’ one of them thinks. The concept that these ‘visitors’ could stay forever is foreign to them.

- They find it hard to agree on how to respond. Gordon, one of the Elders, is firm in his belief that they are dangerous. 'They have weapons….Thundersticks. Bang’. 

- Their debate as the day proceeds reflects the novel's theatrical origin, its earlier reiteration. The conversations are often stilted, unrealistic and circular. Yet those elements afford it considerable weight. 

- A day or so earlier Lawrence, the youngest of the group, had paddled his canoe, unseen, right up to the alien boat. He heard foreign animal sounds (they were pigs, sheep and horses). He pulls a fallen rabbit out of the water. A sailor, smoking a pipe on the deck above him sneezes and the spray lands on Lawrence. He is now feverish and within a few days dies. 

- They see the aliens hang a young boy on the boat's deck. The brutality astonishes them. Gordon asks ‘Why can’t you see the truth about these creatures…can’t you see that they are plain primitive?’ 

- The invaders set foot on shore and begin to construct the township. An infliction called ‘whooping cough’ sweeps through the mob, killing so many men, women and infants. Before long native animals become scarce, and the landscape a desolate eyesore. Nathaniel, one of the leaders, is killed and his head sent off to England. Others are afflicted by the pox which wipes out most of the population.

- ‘We once lived in Paradise’ reflects a survivor. And this amazingly good and gratifying novel ends. 

- Vote Yes. 

Rebecca F. Kuang, Yellowface.

 

- Rebecca F Kuang has written an absorbing, fast paced story about the inner workings of the publishing industry. It's soaked in detail and is forensic in its exploration of everything good and everything bad about blockbuster publishing and the dramas involving agents, authors, executives, editors, marketing and publicity staff, royalty advances, and reviewers. 

- Kuang is very familiar with this universe, and it shows, over and over again. 

- June (Juniper Song Hayward) steals Athena Lui’s manuscript from her study before Athena dies, polishes it and submits it as her own. It's titled The Last Front, and is about Chinese workers who were sent by the British army to labour camps on the front line during World War 1. Their stories were mostly tragic. Notice that June is a white woman and Athena Asian. That is a critical element in the unfolding drama. 

- The novel is particularly excellent on the editorial and publicity aspects. The long production process is outlined in exquisite and accurate detail - the texts, emails, the late night phone calls, etc. It's high drama all the way.  

- Candice, a young, woefully underpaid of course, editorial assistant, who is Asian, raises the question in a meeting as to whether June is writing ‘outside her lane', particularly when she resists a ‘sensitivity read’. She also doubts whether June is the genuine author. Candice is ignored, and eventually let go. 

- The novel is published, receives mostly excellent reviews, and becomes an international bestseller. 

- It doesn't take long however for highly critical reviews in non-mainstream and social media, mainly Twitter, to emerge. Kuang thrusts us into the whole, very emotional ‘white saviour’ debate, and the labelling of June as a racist. Former bestsellers like The Help and American Dirt are referenced. Their authors, Kathryn Stockett and Jeanine Cummins, were attacked remorselessly for abject racism. 

- Contrary to her publisher's fears, the negative press doesn't effect the book's sales. In fact they increase because right wing commentators, particularly on Fox news, rail against June's ‘cancellation'. 

- The novel brings all the threads together at the end in a surprising but very satisfactory way. 

- Well worth a read. 

Pip Adam, Audition

 

- New Zealand author Pip Adam's new novel just blew me away. It's an often confusing, meandering tale of three prison escapees who are captured, sent to a 'classroom', and then launched into space on a spaceship called Audition, and god knows where they are going. They certainly don't. ‘It is better to be stupid and it is better to not try and work out things' says the main character Alba at one point.

- Adam sucks us into a profound metaphysical parable. Alba, Drew and Stanley are 'growing giants', not just physically but also intellectually, morally and spiritually. Their conversations are mostly inconsequential, but they are also becoming increasingly aware and questioning. 

- On the spaceship if they talk it keeps moving; if they don’t they keep growing. Their sexual identities are confusing at first but become clear as the story unfolds. Adam's prose is clean but often deliberately unclear. Passages require frequent re-reading. The ship shakes and makes loud grinding noises. The Carpenters' song ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft' is heard. They feel good and safe, after lives of abuse and violence. 

- As giants the three eventually escape from the ship and land on a new planet. They are welcomed by the friendly locals despite being considered 'aliens'. They begin work in a factory where it's all harmony and kindness. Or so it seems. They realise 'they don’t belong where they have come from and they don’t belong here'. 

- Suddenly they are submerged in a world of water, followed by a new strange land with trees that walk with them, oceans that move sideways, and a natural world where everything is alive and not at risk by human presence. It's like the Garden of Eden.

- Alba still feels alone however. Stanley, her former lover, whom she offended, ignores her and is attracted to Drew. ‘She looks at Stanley and Drew again. They can’t trust her’. 

- But in this new harmonious world love, peace and sexual intimacy prevail and personal relationships are healed. As we travel on this journey with Alba, Drew and Stanley, we deeply bond with them and celebrate their eventual salvation. 

- We also come to appreciate the uniqueness and depth of Adam's vision. Audition is a novel of absolute originality and brilliance.