David Mitchell, Utopia Avenue

 

- There are many fans of UK author David Mitchell's novels, and I am one of them. 

- His latest is a magnificent paean to sixties rock. It's absorbing from the start. It captures the character of Soho in the late sixties and its bars, clubs, cafes, music and art venues perfectly, and brings them stunningly alive. Though more than that is going on. There’s a revolution in play - throughout the whole of society and across the world. A new world is emerging. Not just in music and the arts, but in politics and society across the board. Mitchell shoves us into all of it. 

- His trademark vivid prose is rich, colourful, swashbuckling, earthy and real. We are introduced to the new band Utopia Avenue. Four brilliant musicians and songwriters have been carefully selected by an ambitious but talented manager. Elf is on the piano, Griff on the drums, Dean on the bass, and Jasper on the lead guitar. And Elf is a woman, highly unusual in those times.

- These characters are brought stunningly to life in every detail, including their cockney accents. We gradually get their class-based and mostly harsh, ugly backstories. They’re intensely interesting and very likeable. We relate to them - their long hair, Carnaby Street fashion, transient relationships, sexual identities, drugs, constant money problems, and cruel, reactionary, conservative, and angry post-war parents upset by the emerging and disruptive counter-culture and its new consciousness. And unlike in Bone Clocks, Mitchell’s least successful novel in my opinion, their stories are fully integrated into a seamless whole. There are little side trips (Dean’s three days in a filthy cell in Rome; Elf’s nephew’s cot death) but they enrich rather than detract from the larger narrative. And, as is usual for Mitchell, characters in his previous books make brief appearances in this one. 

- The conversations and arguments are electric and brimming with vitality. He writes about the musical structure of the songs like a seasoned critic and brings to life the concerts and performances. He's on stage with the band, utterly blown away by their brilliance. (If only we could be thrust forward 50 years to link to the music and hear the songs. We ache for it).

- As a writer, Mitchell has another dimension. I’ve never been an enthusiastic fan of his off-ramp excursions into otherworldly realms that too frequently complicate and bog down his core narrative. But at least he’s more restrained here. Jasper’s ‘Knock Knock’, an incorporeal spirit hounding him from his centuries old Dutch ancestry and ultimately hijacking his body, thrusts us back to Mitchell's previous, and quite superb novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Here it works.

- Real stars get brief appearances - David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Syd Barrett, Allen Ginsberg, Keith Moon, Brian Jones, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Jackson Browne, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia. There's endless parties and drugs. But is Mitchell indulging himself here: is this loose, sex and drugs, celebrity lifestyle the ideal and the one he would have preferred for himself? No matter.

- Towards the end of the novel we're forced to reflect on all this sixties stuff and find some deeper meaning. A journalist at a press conference asks the question 'Can songs change the world'? Forgive me for quoting the whole answer:

'Songs do not change the world', declares Jasper. 'People do. People pass laws, riot, hear God and act accordingly. People invent, kill, make babies, start wars'. Jasper lights a Marlboro. 'Which begs a question. "Who or what influences the minds of the people who change the world?" My answer is "Ideas and feelings". Which begs a question. "Where do ideas and feelings originate?" My answer is, "Others. One's heart and mind. The press. The arts. Stories. Last, but not least, songs." Songs. Songs, like dandelion seeds, billowing across space and time. Who knows where they'll land? Or what they'll bring?" Jasper leans into the mic and, without a wisp of self-consciousness, sings a miscellany of single lines form nine or ten songs. Dean recognises, 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)', 'Strange Fruit' and 'The Trail of the Lonesome Pine'. Others, Dean can't identify, but the hard-boiled press pack look on. Nobody laughs, nobody scoffs. Cameras click. 'Where will these song-seeds land? It's the parable of the sower. Often, usually, they land on barren soil and don't take root. But sometimes, they land in a mind that is ready. Is fertile. What happens then? Feelings and ideas happen. Joy, solace, sympathy. Assurance. Cathartic sorrow. The idea that life could be, should be, better than this. An invitation to slip into somebody else's skin for a little while. If a song plants an idea or a feeling in a mind, it has already changed the world.'

And later on, Jerry Garcia muses: 

'Every third or fourth generation is a generation of radicals, of revolutionaries. We, my friends, are the bottle-smashers. We release the genies. We run riot, get shot, get infiltrated, get bought off. We die, go bust, sell out to the man. Sure as eggs is eggs. But the genies we let loose stay loose. In the ears of the young the genies whisper what was unsayable. "Hey kids - there's nothing wrong with being gay." Or "What if war isn't a patriotism test, but really fucking dumb?" Or "Why do so few own so goddamn much?" In the short run not a lot seems to change. Those kids are nowhere near the levers of power. Not yet. But in the long run? Those whispers are the blueprints of the future'.

- The final chapter, Elf’s tribute, is simply beautiful. 

- What a magnificent book this is. Extraordinary. 

Melissa Davey, The Case of George Pell.

 

- Melissa Davey, Guardian Australia's Melbourne bureau chief, has written this extremely comprehensive account of the Cardinal George Pell legal saga - the committal hearing, the two trials, the Victorian Supreme Court appeal and the High Court appeal. But what makes this book utterly compelling and exceptional is its broader perspective. It delves into the legal system and its processes and protocols in cases like these, and explains them very clearly and in enlightening detail. 

- I've read just about everything written on the Pell saga, including the excellent David Marr, Louise Milligan and Lucie Morris-Marr books, but this consummate volume by Melissa Davey is the best of the best. (It's a Stella Prize winner for sure, and you heard it here first!)

- In very lucid prose she tells the inside story and conveys a real sense of the unfolding drama. She’s a fly on the wall to every conversation no matter how 'private'. 

- For example we learn a lot about Judge Peter Kidd and how carefully he ran the committal and trial processes. His leadership was impressive, including guiding the minute and detailed discussions about procedure and protocol. He even brought to bear considerable authority over the highly experienced and respected defence barrister Robert Richter. 

- The testimony of every witness, no matter how significant or insignificant, is described in detail, including the numerous choirboys in procession after mass on the Sunday in December 1996 when the first instance of Pell's offending was alleged to have taken place.         

- Prosecutor Mark Gibson’s four-hour closing address to the jury is reported in full, as is Richter’s two-day address. It’s clear that Davey is more sympathetic to the surgical and restrained Gibson than she is to the dramatic, far more colourful, Richter. And she doesn't withhold her enormous respect for Kidd and his frequent and seemingly necessary reprimanding of Richter.

- She tells the story about the second boy who became a drug addict and died in his early-thirties. She interviews his father. It's very sad.  

- She also discloses the stress the Suppression Order put on the eight journalists who attended the trials, particularly after the guilty verdict was handed down. Leaks were happening and the immense pressure to disclose everything before the order was lifted was intense. But they didn't. 

- Davey addresses in full the many rumours circulating on the jury split in the first trial, called 'the mistrial'. No one, not even Judge Kidd, knew the guilty/not guilty numbers. It remains a secret to this day, and it doesn't mean anything.  

- The prosecution and defence arguments to the Victorian Court of Appeal are given in detail, as are the responses to the High Court questions. The issues of ‘possibility’ and ‘reasonable doubt’ were central. 

- She also addresses the controversial question of the High Court’s assessment as to whether it was legally right for the Appeal judges to watch the video of the complainant’s evidence, rather than just reading the transcript. It judged it wasn’t. The judges were apparently exposing themselves to emotion. (This, to me, is legal silliness writ large!)

- It becomes pretty clear towards the end of this magnificent book that Davey doesn’t like Pell: His response to the (Royal Commission’s) findings was the same as ever. Cold. Dismissive. Resolute. Tone-deaf. And, most of all, disingenuous.

What I have learned through covering the royal commission and the Pell case, trawling through research into abuse and violence, and talking to various experts is that people whom society perceive as being 'good', 'admirable', and 'respectable' can and do commit crimes. Accepting this has proven difficult for society, including the media, which has struggled to tell such conflicting narratives about perpetrators in a way that is accurate while also being respectful to victims. Accolades do not justify or excuse abuse, but may explain why abusers went undetected for so long, or if detected, were excused and celebrated regardless.

And it explains why, despite all of his failures to report and act on child sexual abuse, George Pell is living quietly in Sydney, still a priest, and still a cardinal.

Michael Shellenberger, Apocalypse Never.

 

- This is a seemingly sobering book, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth. It attempts to bring facts and statistics to bear on very common yet 'erroneous' beliefs about environmental and energy issues. Yet it has the flavour of traditional denialist rants - selective quotes, ad hominem attacks on experts, cheap abuse of activists and politicians like AOC and Greta Thunberg, and grass roots movements like Extinction Rebellion. They are criticised for a complete lack of perspective. ‘...the religious fanaticism of apocalyptic environmentalism’.

- Shellenberger's overriding theme and the basis of his entire critique is his total support for nuclear power. It has 'zero carbon emissions'. He's also pro natural gas and fracking. 

- He attempts to exposes the 'abject hypocrisy' of co-called clean energy advocates like billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, who benefit enormously from their fossil fuel investments replacing nuclear energy and spiking emissions.      

- He attacks the way current global energy and anti-infrastructure policies are condemning third world countries to continuing poverty: in their view ‘industrialisation was harmful, as was economic development’. In the 1970s the UN’s ‘sustainable development’ model preferred development monies went to charity and not things like infrastructure.       

- He contends that the IPCC’s ‘Summary for Policymakers’, press releases, and authors’ statements betray ideological motivations and do not represent the substance of the detailed reports.

- ‘Environmentalism is the dominant secular religion of the educated, upper-middle-class elite...Its sister religion is vegetarianism...There is more reason for optimism than pessimism’.

- This demolition of Shellenberger's book by Dr Peter H. Gleick is absolutely spot on:  

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/review-bad-science-and-bad-arguments-abound-in-apocalypse-never/

Margaret A. Farley, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics

 

Put simply, this is a magnificent book. It's taken me a long time to get around to reading it. However over the last six months or so I have been determined to educate myself on current Catholic moral theology, just to see whether sensible and intelligent voices were addressing the major issues we all face each and every day in our contemporary personal, social and political lives. 

Each of the half a dozen or so books I've read all referred to Farley's Just Love as a classic in the field.

She is a world renowned and highly respected ethicist and theologian who taught at Yale for many years. This book, published in 2006, is her major and groundbreaking work.

She is a very liberal and progressive voice across the whole spectrum of moral theological issues, and is the polar opposite of the reigning conservative, reactionary, stale, and frustratingly stupid official positions of the Catholic Church hierarchy. So angry were the Vatican officials they condemned the book and banned it from being used as a text or reference in Catholic universities across the world. That of course made it a best seller!

The book explores marriage, divorce and re-marriage, same sex relationships, gay marriage, and other important contemporary issues, and all from a perspective of love, desire, human nature and frailty, and the stresses and strains of living a full life in today's world. 

Her perspective is anthropological and in clear, non-academic prose she digs deep into the debates from four overarching perspectives : scripture, tradition, secular traditions of knowledge (science), and contemporary lived experience. She never references papal encyclicals or hierarchical determinations or documents at all. She is way beyond that, and her thinking is in no way constrained by it. That's so refreshing.

I highly recommend this liberating tome. Every educated Catholic should read it.

Zephyr Teachout, Break ‘Em Up

 

- Zephyr Teachout teaches law at Fordham University, and is a political activist who campaigned for New York attorney general in 2018. She was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the New York Times, and many others. Sanders wrote the Introduction to this just released book.

- The book is well written and an unapologetic polemic against the enormous power of mega-corporations in the US and globally, particularly Facebook, Amazon and Google.  

- She is persuasive at times, although far too frequently way over the top. Her summaries of how Big Tech operates are too negative for my liking. The obviously bad and even appalling aspects of their operations are outlined in detail but they are all she focuses on. The sweeping demolition is her shtick. The positives never get a look in. To me Google Search, for example, is one of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years. And, personally, I don't mind being 'targeted' for advertising. We're being bombarded anyway, and have been all our lives.

- She also displays a fair bit of commercial naïveté. Amazon taking 35% commission from third party traders she castigates as 'excessive'. As any retailer in the physical world would know it certainly isn’t. As for its favouring suppliers who also advertise on its site - welcome to the real world. She also completely misrepresents Amazon’s legitimate pushback a few years ago against publishers Hachette and Macmillan over their anti-consumer ebook pricing controls. 

- Teachout also makes some outrageous claims: Zuckerberg still holds more power over the 2020 elections than any person in the country...Bezos is still consolidating power over all consumer goods sales in the country while dreaming of life in space...Google has a poisonous business model...It's a privately owned Big Brother...Facebook and Google have deliberately, radically poisoned the way we read and the way we relate to one another...they are Mafia-like rivals to public government.

- The book is far more persuasive when she delves into the realities of political power - the increasing power of big corporations through the confected process of private dispute 'arbitration', rather than public court cases; the enormously well funded Super PACS that back party candidates that match their business interests; huge trade associations and their intense lobbying. 

-  Monopolisation has grown aggressively since the 1980s and is a cancer. Monopoly turns out to be a major driver of inequality...Private corporations with too much power raise prices for consumers, depress wages for workers, choke off democracy, and regulate all of us....corporate government will lead to tyranny...the laws against ‘predatory pricing’ are not being enforced. 

- Consumers who engage in personal boycotts (‘ethical consumerism’) are virtually powerless in monopolised economies. Radical political action is the only way.  

- That I certainly agree with.

Victoria Hannan, Kokomo.

 

                                                          

- I was disappointed in this just published novel, after a long wait since Hannan won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in January 2019. 

- Elaine is the mother, Mina the daughter, Bill the father who has died. The funeral is described in microscopic, tedious detail.          

- The whole premise seems rather silly: Elaine hasn’t left the family home for 12 years, since Bill's death. And she refuses to engage or even talk to her only child and daughter, Mina. So Mina goes and works in London, refusing to come back home. 

- Hannan is totally obsessed with the colour pink. Everything is pink, possibly a refection of the colour of Mina's ex-boyfriend's penis. Which we meet on page one. Other colours, like green, very occasionally get a look in, but mainly it's pink. Pink.         

- She's also beer obsessed. Day and night the young 20-somethings skull beers. (Although, thankfully, she uses the cliche 'drunk' only once!)     

- The novel is divided into three sections - Mina, Elaine, Mina. Elaine’s section is the most interesting and compelling. After being married to Bill for two years she meets Arthur, a chef  at a Chinese restaurant. She instantly falls in love with him with an intensity that's rather melodramatic. In fact it becomes a bit creepy. She engineers that she and Bill buy a house opposite Arthur and Valerie's place in suburban Melbourne. She's not unfaithful to Bill '...But somehow she knew that if she just kept waiting, everything would reveal itself. She knew that if she waited, he'd come. And that when he did, it would be worth it. All of it would be worth it'. 

- Unfortunately there's little depth to this novel. It’s a simple family tale, with an interesting generational contrast between the sacred bond of marriage and sexual fidelity in the older generation and the fickleness of relationships in the current one. Mina's mother and grandmother knew what love was, but Mina is still, in her early thirties grappling with the concept.

James F Keenan, A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century.

           

- This book is an excellent summary of the major developments in moral theology over the last century, and the individual theologians who made significant contributions .

- The rediscovery of scripture, history, human experience and life in the real world, and the formulation of essential concepts such as ‘the sanctity of life’ and ‘preferential option for the poor’ have been critical. 

- The old, medieval tradition of 'manuals' listing all the sins and giving all answers finally gave way to the centrality of contemporary experience and reflection. Moral theology was becoming trivial and irrelevant. 

- The turning point was Bernhard Haring's publication in 1954 of his magisterial three-volume The Law of Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity. It was a landmark contribution which had a major impact on Vatican II, particularly through Haring's offical position leading the committee that drafted the revolutionary document Gaudium et Spes.

- 'Revionist' theologians like Charles E. Curran were heavily influenced by Haring and embraced his vision. French theologian Philippe Bordeyne argues in his work on the moral theology of Gaudium et Spes that here the Church conveyed a deep sympathy for the human condition, especially in all its anxieties, and stood in confident solidarity with the world. The entire experience of ambivalence that so affected the world in its tumultuous changes of the 1960s was positively entertained and engaged. 

- English theologian Kevin Kelly saw in Gaudium et Spes...a watershed moment in the Church's teaching...Vatican II's personalist approach spoke of children as the 'fruit' of married love, not its purpose.

- It was not to last however. The powerful conservative voices in the Church fought back.The progressives were cast aside and Rome again took control. The hierarchy were still committed to the centuries old tradition of thinking of truth as 'propositional'. Popes and bishops considered themselves as the authorities on all moral matters such as birth control, abortion, pain relief, life support, ectopic pregnancies, homosexuality, and a host of other issues. 

- As Keenan says: By the end of the twentieth century, bishops saw the pope and his curial officials (and themselves) as competent to decide moral matters...moral truth became identified with papal and episcopal utterances.

- The papacies of John Paul II and Benedict VI cemented that paradigm.