Ben Lerner, Transcription

- Ben Lerner, aged 47, is an American poet, novelist, essayist and critic. He's won numerous literary awards, and is considered one of the most talented writers of his generation. 

- Transcription is his latest novel. I absolutely loved it. It's brilliant. There are three basic stories that make up this short novel of 130 pages.   

- His focus is on the communication process people engage in. An arts journalist plans to interview his 90 year old academic mentor, Thomas, and publish it in a respected journal. He plans to record it on his phone. Unfortunately however he drops the phone in a sink full of water in his hotel, just prior to his scheduled meeting. So he pretends the phone is working when Thomas starts his story. 

- While most seniors can't handle the digital world, it seems most younger people are flabbergasted by the analogue world. Communication is frustrating and mostly impossible. How do they find phone numbers or locations? 

- In the second story our journalist has just given an opening speech for a symposium on Thomas's life long contribution to the visual arts. Thomas has recently died. Unfortunately many film makers in attendance hated his speech. He had pretended to quote Thomas in his article. Though he'd told them he hadn't recorded it or taken any notes. As the symposium organiser says to him 'You more or less confessed that you falsified what many of us thought of his last testament'.  

- The third story involves our journalist listening to a friend's story about his ten year old daughter, Emmie, who has an eating disorder. She refuses to eat, other than nibbling chocolates and sweets. Dieticians and doctors seem unable to cure her. Her father gets angry and gives her a stern lecture. The daughter's response was to down a whole and nutricious smoothy the following morning then vomit it all over the floor. 

- The grandfather visits them and the granddaughter has always loved him. He was European, of high culture, and an expert on Golden Age Hollywood film. We learn he was Thomas. Thomas brings up the subject of screen time. The parents had enforced a strict regime. When Thomas leaves, they allow Emmie to manage her own screen time. She combines it with eating and using her iPad. She's in her own world and starts to eat good food regularly. 

- Lerner takes us into the communicating world of young people, old people, fathers and sons. But mostly into today's world of digital communication and recording. They are stories that are full of detail and imbued with vitality. They also confront us with how vulnerable our lives are in these challenging times. 

Lucinda Holdforth, Going On And On

 

- The back cover blurb on this book sums it up perfectly:

'What do we owe future generations?

And how do we act now to support them?

One way is to think - hard - about the damage our obsession with longevity is wreaking on the economy, our society and our future.

Australia's aged care crisis is escalating as Baby Boomers grow old. According to latest research, our ageing population is as great a risk to Australia's future as climate change and looming geopolitical risks - yet we're refusing to talk about it. 

As Lucinda Holdforth argues, we have become defined by a narcissistic refusal by ageing leaders to grow old or give up the reins of power - or even squarely face the fact that we must eventually die. The disastrous consequences include blocked political progress, the disenfranchised young people and death of the essential cultural renewal that once occurred with the natural blooming of each new generation. 

As we strive to extend our lives to the maximum, we must ask ourselves difficult questions. What is our social contract with those who come after us? Why is 'ageism' unacceptable while age-based prejudice against the young is commonplace? And what price will our younger citizens pay for the rest of us going on and on?'

- Holdworth has written a real treasure of a book. In very lucid prose she addresses in detail all the major issues associated with the ageing process, particularly the negative effects it has on the younger generations. And she litters the book with fascinating statistics. The clarity of her argument is highly convincing.  

- Baby Boomers are a major problem. As George Bernard Shaw put it in Heartbreak House: 'Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world'. 

- Euphemisms and blather dominate the discussions doctors, carers and clergy have with old, dying people. Frankness and honesty are rare. Surgery and medications to sustain meaningless lives are the easy option. 'To live well and to die well' should be the central focus, and 'deliver happier and more peaceful deaths for patients and less trauma for families'. 

- Holdsworth wants Australia's euthanasia laws to be far more progressive and meaningful. 'Today there will be people who don't want to live at all costs, for they have lived long enough. They feel their life to be whole, resolved, completed. They are ready to end it in an orderly self-directed way - and ready to hand over to the next generation'.  

- Consider this: 'As the 2023 Intergenerational Report tells us, by 2063 almost a quarter of Australians will be aged between 65 and 85, more than double their number today.' 

- Consider this: 'Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Alexander Hamilton was 21 and James Monroe was just 18. Contrast that with today's Washington 'one decrepit old president after another, and the US Senate described by former presidential candidate Nikki Haley as 'the most privileged nursing home in the country'.  

- Enough already!  

R. L. Maizes, A Complete Fiction

- American author R. L. Maizes has written a thoroughly absorbing and fascinating novel. She documents in detail the stories of two authors who, in their new and as yet unpublished novels, explore the sexual abuse of young employees by their bosses. 

- P. J. Larkin's novel is inspired by the awful workplace experience of her younger sister, Mia. George Dunn, an editor at the small publisher her agent sent the manuscript to, really liked the book but, mysteriously, rejected it because in his opinion the #metoo thing was becoming tiresome. 

- George himself is also an author, and for ten years or so has been working on a book that is based on his own experience of sexual abuse while he was a young teenage intern in a female Senator's office in Washington. That experience traumatised him. But his book is highly successful under auction and he lands an advance of $1 million. 

- Word spreads however that he stole parts of Larkin's story and incorporated them into his own. She posts this on social media:

Hey @GeorgeDunn congratulations on the sale of UP THE HILL. Your book sounds a lot like my book HALLS OF POWER, which my agent sent you. Not good enough to publish but good enough to steal?

- We're deeply immersed into all dimensions of the publishing industry - its authors, agents, editors, managers, advances, contracts, and unfortunately, lawyers. 

- The press are captivated by the controversy and it becomes an absorbing media story for months. But the publishers of both novels are very reluctant to proceed until the legal issues are settled. 

- Maizes is across all the issues in the industry and very accurately brings them to life. The drama is captivating. But she's written not just an industry story but a deeply human one as well. The details of the abuse and its tragic effects on the lives of the victims are rendered with emotional and psychological depth. 

- Highly recommended.