’tis the season to catch up on the reading that you don’t get the time or inclination to do during the rest of the year. I’ve certainly had a chance to plough through a few books.
Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay on Howard’s demise is out, and it’s very much in her typical style. Psychoanalytic interpretations of the electorate, and to some extent the leaders, abound. One assertion that I found considerable room to quibble with, however, is her claim that the seeds of Howard’s political demise were sown with the ascension of Rudd to the Labor leadership. While we’ll never know, I suspect Labor would have had a pretty fair shot of winning this election with Beazley - or Julia Gillard - as leader. Perhaps the scare campaign about union influence might have more effect given a Gillard leadership; perhaps the It’s Time factor wouldn’t have been as great if Beazley had still been in charge. And Brett, in an almost throwaway manner, states that Andrew Bolt has been crucial in keeping Victorian working-class votes in conservative manner. Does Bolt really have any great influence on swinging voters, or does he just preach to the converted, a shock jock of the print world? In any case, there is one particularly good reason to read this issue of QE: an extraordinarily insightful and beautifully-written piece of correspondence at the back. I agree with every word the author wrote…
On a much lighter note, Richard Woolcott has pulled his typewriter back out for Undiplomatic Activities, tongue-in-cheek look at the world of diplomacy. Aside from a short blast at the previous government in the last chapter, the tone is light, the writing is excellent, and the anecdotes genuinely amusing, if occasionally ones that have appeared before in print or elsewhere. When being serious, Woolcott can be an insufferably arrogant defence of realpolitik, but this is excellent time-filler for a short plane flight.
Future Perfect is a series of essays about the near future by ABC broadcaster Robyn Williams. While not as bad as the excreable Future Files, I couldn’t help lamenting what seems to be a certain shallowness in Williams’ thought. On his piece on the future of transport, for instance, he swiftly dissects the numerous ills that the private car inflicts on our cities, and speculates of a future laden with mass transit and ubiquitous short-term vehicle rental. But, as he notes, private car ownership is exploding in the rapidly developing countries. An analysis of how to solve our issues with transport for the future is going to have to unravel the reasons as to why people are so wedded to their cars. To pick another example, Williams’ piece on the future of innovation spends substantial time complaining about the lack of “big bang” innovation over the past few decades, missing that myriad tiny improvements over time can make as much difference as any “big bang”. Regardless, this one is worth a read, even if only to crystallize one’s own arguments in disagreement.
Finally, if you’re prepared to pay to order it from overseas, is Gwyneth Cravens’ Power to Save The World, an extended tour of the American nuclear power industry. Cravens has written several books, and for magazines like the New Yorker and Harper’s, so this is if nothing else very readable, and an excellent summary of the case, as I see it, for giving this technology consideration. Particularly interesting is the discussion of waste disposal technology, including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Thoroughly recommended.
What else have people been reading in their pre-Christmas downtime? Any recommendations?
Gotta be blunt, Robert. I’ve read a few of her pieces and I conclude she would not know if her arse was on fire.
Robert
On Bolt. My father is from a long line of working class types who left school at 14. He had voted Labor all his lfe until 1998. Yes, he is a Howard Battler, who also was a Hansonite for three or four years. He would not know Andrew Bolt if he fell over him. Whenever he and I sink a few bourbons and rave about politics, he is unstoppable on parsing the idiocy that is printed in ALL papers; though admittedly, the only one he reads regularly is the Daily Telegraph. To suggest these columnists LEAD the great unwashed is partly a myth. The leading more often goes the other way
One last thing. It is because of people like Brett that my father abandoned Labor. But I will definitely read Richard Woolcitt’s book. A light-hearted look at diplomacy and geopolitics could be just the ticket given the dominace of doom and gloom that have saturated the market since Iraq. On Williams, he needs to leave the ABC and handover to somebody with some passion and vigour. Perhaps an Adam Spencer type? He would also do well to start a course of Prozac. What a dreary depressing po-faced man.
“It is because of people like Brett that my father abandoned Labor.”
Could you elaborate on that? I didn’t quite get what you mean.
I too doubt Bolt has a big influence on Victorian working class votes. Most people simply don’t take their voting cues from columnists. And there have been some times Bolt has taken very unpopular postions. He was scathing about supporters of Schappele Corby for example, as well as West Papua supporters, (causes that opinion polls tended to suggest most Australians supported) and his columns hardly led to swathes of Victorians changing their opinions on these topics.
Definately gonna check out Woolcott’s book too.
john greenfield, why do you discuss your father’s ignorance on the internet? ffs
Sink a few bourbons and wollow in your stupidity: Is this not the homosocial RWDB equivalent of discussing one’s cat?
glen
I do not think my father is an idiot, nor do I think my post suggests he is. You would wo well to learn what is actually written, rather than paranoidly always searching for imaghinary Others for you to project your moral narcissism on.
I think Greenfield needs to start his own blog and give us all a rest.
For those who like a good dose of fiction for the holidays, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is a great read and quite a stunning feat of storytelling.
OK Adrian I can take a hint. I have been rabbiting on about today. I think I will take glen’s advice and pop up to The Oxford hotel for a bourbon or ten.
Enjoy the drinks John. Happy Christmas.
Another recommendation: The Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen.
Oh I am so touched, LP’s autofill remembered me even after all this time.
The idea that a media pundit influences people’s votes - let alone be ‘crucial in keeping Victorian working-class votes in conservative manner’ - is simply hilarious. Do people who write this tripe ever think it might be useful to provide some, you know, evidence, to support their solemn pontifications?
And as for ‘I think Greenfield needs to start his own blog and give us all a rest’ … I second the first bit but have to advise that I have been strongly urging upon JG that he is not suited to the ambience at ‘Road to Surfdom’ and would be much happier remaining here amongst his many friends and admirers …
Well, we have got off to a good start, haven’t we? Robert delighted to have this thread.Before I start on my own reading, a few observations on earlier comments.Glen read Gorky’s Childhood.JG,Not that I’m in any way suggesting your relationship with your father is anything like that.You’re lucky to have him round, and that you have such a good relationship with him that you can discuss politics without rancour with him.Not that I want you to think I’m setting some sort of a precedent here by agreeing with you. [Smile](Don’t know how to do the icon.)
Robert,
I agree with you and JG. Bolt’s influence is minimal. If his blog is any indication he preaches to the converted.I would suspect it is really only political tragics like us who take any notice of him. Personally, I think Labor would have won with Beaseley or Crean in 2004, the electorate was so disillusioned with Howard, but Latham was too much of a risk. Sir Ian Watts wrote a diplomatic autobiography in I think the 1950s. Might be an interesting comparison with Woolcott.
Now, to books. I have just today finished John Pollock’s 1977 biography of Wiberforce. Very good, but he fell into the trap of falling in love with his subject.He is too ready to reject the criticism of Wiberforce’s contemporaries, such as Cobden and Hazlitt, about the condition of the 18c English working poor, and of the sometimes intolerant nature of his Evangelicanism. Though I do accept his rejection of the Hammond’s early 20c. critique of him, because in that instance he provides firm evidence.Somehow I don’t think Wilberforce and I would have got on. He’s too like Fred Nile in his religious enthusiasm, but far more tolerasnt.
I’ve been reading the collected short stories of Arthur C Clarke. Not a few times I shrug, thinking “that’s only a few decades off”, then notice that the story was published in the 40s or 50s.
It’s good value.
Judith Brett’s psychoanalytic take was great stuff. Elegant and enjoyable. And sorry Robert, but Ian Lowe pretty much demolished your arguments and those of the other advocates of nuclear energy in the corro section of the QE. Though he didn’t really need to - the counter arguments are longstanding, well-known and understood. And irrefutable.
Reading Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. Dreamy, deep, delirious.
How would a researcher design a study to measure the influence of any columnist on any part of the electorate?
Bolt’s influence on “Victorian working class votes”?
Pffft.
“He would not know Andrew Bolt if he fell over him.”
“the only one he reads regularly is the Daily Telegraph”
JG, your comments are inane even by your own world class standards of inanity. Bolt only writes for the Herald Sun, so why would your Tele-only reading father know of him?
Robert, I can’t agree that Labor was headed for victory with Beazley. Kim Beazley was a loser and seen as a loser by the electorate. He lost both elections he contested as opposition leader, and all three of the Labor leadership ballots that he contested (once each to Crean, Latham and Rudd). The electorate wasn’t listening to him at all. As soon as Rudd became leader, they stopped listening to Howard.
I did like your little piece in the Quarterly Essay, and I notice that Ian Lower did not have a substantive response to any of the points you made.
Rubbish.
Beazley should have stood up in 2001, he couldn’t get used to opposition and hence could never get out of it. If Beazley was still leader the Howard-Costello team thing would have worked and the Coalition would have been returned, albeit narrowly. Gillard would have been vulnerable not only to the union thing but also general economic competence.
News Ltd could sack Bolt tomorrow and their circulation wouldn’t go down at all. He’s ridiculously unimpressive on The Insiders, a frightened little rabbit pocketing ABC funds.
What else did you expect? He’s a snide DJ with a crippling case of inner-city groupthink. At the Sydney Writers’ Festival I asked him and Clive Hamilton a question about self-indulgent baby-boomers costing more than they contribute, and they turned very nasty because there was nowhere else for them to turn. Hamilton at least tried to address the issue, but Williams is just a DJ. No more influential than Andrew Bolt, really.
I’ve just been reading The Long-weekend: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939 by Robert Graves and Allan Hodge, a pretty fun romp through the period. Written too soon after the event (1940) to class as dispassionate analysis, but that probably makes it more readable. Next up, I’m looking forward to reading the first of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, Master and Commander — I was inspired by visiting the National Maritime Museum in London recently, and then re-watching the film on the plane home! But Cloud Atlas sounds interesting too …
Jacques:
I’ve got that collection too, must get around to reading it one day! You may be interested in a couple of posts I wrote recently, on the occasion of Sir Arthur’s 90th birthday, about a (non-fiction) article he wrote in 1946:
http://airminded.org/2007/12/16/arthur-c-clarke-and-the-future-of-warfare-i/
http://airminded.org/2007/12/21/arthur-c-clarke-and-the-future-of-warfare-ii/
Cloud Atlas is superb. Not many writers can so effortlessly create multiple worlds and times, and such distinctive narrative voices. I’m looking forward to forgetting enough of it to read it again!
I’m just coming to the end of The World Without Us by Alan Weissman, which is exceptional. It examines, as the title suggests, what would happen to the world if humans vanished. I’ve always found, and even more so in these climate change times, the knowledge that the world will continue on when we’ve finally managed to self-implode incredibly comforting. This book is a thoughtful exploration of that, with my only quibble being it’s a tad too US-centric, but that’s so normal these days I can’t hardly be bothered getting irritated.
Wolfe: he didn’t even bother to seriously engage my arguments.
In any case, to properly debate the issues would have required far more space than QE provides.
Oh, and BTW that’s probably enough narkiness everyone.
He’s ridiculously unimpressive on The Insiders, a frightened little rabbit pocketing ABC funds
Rubbish. He’s like a breath of fresh air on the Insiders. If he were unimpressive, this blog would not spend so much time discussing him.
Presently in my comfy little flat I’m surrounded by a feast of books and having trouble deciding which one to read next. I’ve started on the American Revolution section in Barbara Tuchman’s March of Folly, but I have to take notes for research while reading that and it feels too much like work at the moment.I’ve dipped into Bruce E. Johansen’s Forgotten Founders, which deals with the contribution the Iroquois Nation made to the founding of American democracy through contact with white founders like Franklin and Jefferson, but have been put of a bit by slightly anachronistic references to the founding of the United Nations. I get the feeling the author is stretching it a bit in his opening literature survey, but its too early to tell yet. It does seem to carry over in the next chapter though.Have also dipped into R. F. Foster’s Modern Ireland 1600-1972. I’ve read part of this before, but stopped at the end of the 18 C. If you’re into Irish history, its an excellent if dense book. Think I might read it right through this time, but I’ll have to finish it by Boxing Day, as I’m picking up Gary Nash’s Urban Crucible on Thursday, and I’ll want to start on that right away.
Yes, I liked that bit too!
But I think you’re a bit unkind to Brett. Bion, whom she draws on for her typology of leadership, isn’t really in the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition, and I think there is some value in thinking about different types of leadership styles and why they attract support… albeit perhaps her presentation of it was a bit thin, but it’s not meant to be an academic publication.
I also think she does deserve some kudos for her analysis, which if you’re going for that sort of essayistic style is about as good as it gets.
I think you’re probably right about Beazley. I suspect ABL (anyone but Latham) could have won it this time, but it’s important to remember that Rudd did win it, and the election is in many ways an endorsement of the stamp he put on politics.
Have to say I don’t think Robyn Williams is the best advertisement for public broadcasters like the ABC - he may have held his position of influence for too long, and lost contact with the scientific community. I remember a while back on Ockham’s Razor he let quite a remarkable talk slip through, saying that to control human population and its effects on the environment, we should start putting chemicals in the public water storages to sterilise the public! Extraordinary that in the 21st century eugenical opinions like this should be canvassed.
I too am yet to undertake the research, but if Bolt is not the most politically influential writer in Victoria then I’d love to know who is.
I understand that Rudd is not popular here, but surely he deserves some credit for helping win the greatest ALP victory of all.
TimT - total population control has nowt to do with eugenics, btw. It’s actually a very important issue about which we will pretty soon much discuss. The particular solution you cite above, doesn’t appeal, admittedly. I’d start with education first myself. Indonesia and India, for example, are two countries with long-standing public education campaigns to limit human numbers. (To what success I don’t know.)
Rudd not popular in Victoria?
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/results/stateindex.htm#VIC
Rudd’s our main man. Bolt’s our main scourge.
Ignore him!
My point with the link was that there were some pretty good swings to Labor in Victoria - not the harvest of seats that we had in NSW and Qld and SA and Tassie but then you mob kept the faith even in the dark Latham days!
I can reccommend ‘Israel and the Arabs’ by Maxsime Rodinson - a French Marxist orientalist who died in 2004. It is a short book published just after the six day war, and has a very clearly written rundown of the events leading up to it and an occam’s razor analysis of the basic issue. It stands up very well today despite some anachronistic speculation on Chairman Mao’s attitudes to the Middle East.
BTW TimT - ‘Occam’s Razor’ the radio show is supposed to be about people putting forth controversial views. Speakers have also advocated Koala culls, introducing game hunting to Oz, nuclear power and briging back slavery (the last one was tongue in cheek). Williams introduces the essays but if he was acting as a gatekeeper against other views surely he’d be attacked as a politically correct elitist suppressing contrary opinions?
Something had been bothering me about this post. It wasn’t Bolt or Rudd. Of course.
“pre-Christmas down time?”
Which planet? And is there a regular service or will I need to charter?
2008 is the hundreth anniversary of the publication of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Just sayin’.
Yeah, and the TV version last night on your ABC, judging by the effect it had upon the members of the lower decks, sensational.
And there’s a wonderful conversation with the illustrator, Ingpen - at ABC Now with Margaret Throsby.
The best series (sort of, set in the same world) of fantasy Ive read for about ten years, Perdido St Station, The Scar, and The Iron Council by China Miéville.
Just about to re-read them, a writer you can see getting better with each book.
Also a Biography on John Monash, what a great man, I feel quite cheated that I hadnt heard a thing about him during my school years. Through force of intellect and education he overcame racism, poverty, and class.
Depends on what you mean by “influential”.
I’ll concede that more eyes scan Bolta’s pieces than any other columnist in Victoria. So at some level some of Bolt’s attitudes and opinions are impinging on people’s consciousness.
But does Bolt’s ubiquitousness translate into conservative votes?
It would appear to me tnat there is little evidence that Victorians have been less keen on the ALP than voters in any other states during Bolt’s ascendency at the Hun. There may be Bolt clones performing the same function as Bolt in other states, of course.
Yet Bolt has been keen to promote the claims of right wing populism. Yet, when we survey the attitude of Victorians to Hansenism, political evangelism and anti-Islamism we see that Victorians are less attracted to these movements than residents of many other states.
This state of affairs would tend to undermine claims made on behalf of Bolt’s power of political persuasion.
“Does Bolt really have any great influence on swinging voters, or does he just preach to the converted, a shock jock of the print world?”
The latter, which to be fair is a failing he shares with (amongst others) the people responsible for the Coalition’s Federal election campaign, the post-Manne Quadrant magazine, the Institute for Public Affairs and most of the right-of-centre commentariat.
What we saw a month ago today was the beginning of the final playing out of the Oz intellectual and political Right’s drawing of the wrong lessons from the collapse of communism and the attendant crisis of the traditional Left, i.e. that these events vindicated every prejudice the Right held on every issue under the sun, and that they were thereby spared the necessity to think and communicate in ways which were persuasive to the unconverted, civil and engaging towards those with whom they didn’t agree, sceptical of their own orthodoxies and self-analytical about their actual strengths and weaknesses.
I dont think any of the writers have a great influence on people who allready have basic political positions. However if they get a controversial story (eg, from Bolts blog, the abuse of children in remote communities and the Judical response) they can, at least temporarily, exert some influence.
Long term I dont think either left or right commenters have a great effect. Its more a matter of timing for the “big story” before an election, state or federal, that may sway some undecided voters.
Much like John Laws and similar broadcasters, if you dont listen to it allready, you probably never will. (cant stand him, and Macca on the ABC is the spawn of satan).
On the question of holiday reading, since the teaching year ended I have got through Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson (the second of four volumes in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) and The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong (which traces the development of key, and similar, themes in the world’s great religions during what Karl Jaspers termed “the Axial Ages”, i.e. 900BC to 200BC). I’m now making my way through Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel.
Robert says
What the essay says is ‘The unravelling of John Howard began on the day in early December 2006 when Kevin Rudd was elected Leader of the Opposition.’(page 1). I’d argue that these metaphors mean two quite different things; in any process, the seed-sowing usually happens a lot earlier than the unravelling, if I can put it like that. That’s the opening sentence of the essay, intended to be rhetorically startling, and in a way the whole rest of the essay is an explanation and an elaboration of that opening remark.
The essay says: “Andrew Bolt, whose moral-panic journalism in the Herald Sun had been instrumental in holding Victoria’s conservative working-class voters for Howard …’ (page 27).
I’d argue that ‘instrumental’ is quite a long way from ‘crucial’.
Greenfield, Judy Brett has an Oxford degree and is Professor of Political Science at La Trobe and is currently the Head of the School of Humanitites and Social Sciences, and none of these things come in a Weeties packet. If you have such contempt even for so distinguished an academic, might I ask why you take so very seriously the marks for undergraduate essays that were, presuambly, given to you by academics? Judy has been a friend of mine for 25 years and I can assure you that she would, in fact, know if her arse was on fire. Of course, she might not notice if you were on fire. In fact … oh, never mind.
I was really looking forward to reading Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay, as she’s the best academic writer on Australian politics in my view. I’m not sure what’s meant by “psychoanalysing the electorate” because in fact she’s done extensive qualitative work in actually talking to a much larger range of voters than any of us probably do, or any pundits - reported in several essays and her book co-authored with Anthony Moran, Ordinary People’s Politics. Like Kim, I think the Bion typology is probably more of a lens through which to analyse competing leadership styles than some rigid theory, and it works. Comparing her work to Mungo McCallum’s election year diary - it’s a good fun read and allows one to really relive the whole thing blow by blow but lacks the acute insight of Brett.
I also enjoyed, and recommend highly, Margot Saville’s book on Maxine and Bennelong. I went to an interesting event on Thursday night featuring author and subject in conversation with each other, and I plan to write something about it in the new year.
As to leisure, I agree that there’s not much of a pre-Christmas wind down - with socialising and present buying, I’m probably reading less than I do when I’m hard at work. But I’ve enjoyed reading Duff Cooper’s Diaries, which I treated as something of a companion piece to Lady Cynthia Asquith’s - one of my all time fave books.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,,1598408,00.html
Post Christmas, I’m looking forward to reading a few novels. Dickens’ Bleak House is first cab off the rank.
Oh no, Bolt’s gone on holidays again and the conservative vote has headed south.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22968124-5006785,00.html
Mark.
Thanks for the book recomendation.
I will be looking for that book next time Im in town. John Julius Norwich
wrote an excellent series on the Byzanties so I hope this is as good.
Pc,
I haven’t read the Brett article, but I’m intrigued by her use of the word ‘unravelling’in describing Howard. For years, ever since I read Paul Kelly’s Hawke Ascendancy, I’ve been forming the view that Howard was more than a little unbalanced. Kelly’s account of the Howard/Peacocl brawl is not the only evidence for this. I was stunned to find in a Google search for Howard/ mad or Howard/megalomamaniac about the middle of the year that this view was held by a lot of people. He was reportedly paranoid the ALP would find out about his tax cuts and so wouldn’t do any pre-advertising on them before the election date was declared. Which brings me back to ‘unravelling’. It would be interesting to know if Brett was playing with the subtleties of language here, hinting at more than what she was saying.
Mark,
If this is your first time reading Bleak House, you have a real treat in store.Indeed, if you’re returning to the book its still a real treat.
Paul Norton,
Aren’t the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant amazing. I think its one of the best fantasy series ever written that I’ve read.I read them one after the other.
No probs, Mole - JJN is a great narrative historian.
Paul, yep, first time for Bleak House.
Paul Norton
Guns, germs, and Steel is one of the most exciting, eye-popping, provocative, and profound books I have ever read. Enjoy!
Mungo MacCallum’s book “Poll Dancing� about the last Federal election is out now and I will be reading that one soon.
Mungo MacCallum’s book is a big disappointment. It’s a second hand account of what he read in the newspapers and saw on TV, written from the front bar of some pub in Northern NSW. He is out of touch; his frame of reference is his glory years as a journalist (during the McMahon Government, which ended 35 years ago; and he thinks Bolt writes for the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial, which hasn’t existed since 1990.
Mark, I’ll be interested in your take, but I honestly felt it wasn’t near her best work. Maybe trying to write an instant political obituary wasn’t the smartest idea, in retrospect.
PC: I’ll grant you the first point, maybe. I still think she’s overrating the role of Rudd. But on the second point, I think that’s splitting hairs. I read it as clearly implying that Bolt is important in corralling votes; I don’t think he, or any columnist, is all that important in doing so.
Margo MacCallum is perhaps the strongest justification for any Australian suffering from cultural cringe. What a tedious and irrelevant ponce.
John - if you have anything constructive to say about Mungo’s writing, please do so. No one is interested in your opinion if it’s only expressed abusively and without any justification.
Rob, yep, I think you’re probably right that it’s not her best work - there’s probably some value generally in questioning whether election quickies are needed. I overheard a young woman in town just before at a bookstore telling the sales assistant she was buying Poll Dancing for her dad as a Xmas present because he’s a politics junkie - and I suspect that there’s a large element of marketing demands in publishers’ desire to get these books out quickly.
Mungo is a joy to read because he’s interested in and can unpick the detail while also providing the necessary context and broad sweep. He’s an effortlessly good writer, funny and irreverent and with form and longevity. He’s definitely one of the best, most incisive political commentators in Australian journalism ever and like Bill Leak, e.g., able to sum up characters and situations in consise and perceptive portraits.
The Margaret Saville book is a gem and also a joy to read among other reasons for for the snapshot it provides not so much of either McKew or Howard, but of the electorate and its composition itself - by far the most fascinating “character” in her tale.
It’s a joy too because as Saville herself explains, in describing her approach, “everything is copy”. First-class example of that, though I did wish she had allowed herself to be a little more unleashed.
She also manages, in a seamless and non-intrusive way, to give a portrait of her own (to my mind) very engaging and wry self.
That’s well said, Wolfe, and that certainly came across when she was speaking in Brisbane last week - she was most impressive. I’m planning to interview her in the new year!
My third recommendation - The DK Eyewitness Companions - BEER, edited by Michael Jackson. Everything you ever wanted to know, and a fair bit you didn’t, with tasting notes for quite a bewildering range of beers from around the world.
So much choice, so little time…
I’m working my way through chardonnays now that Howard is gone, adrian!
But thanks, I like beer but know little about it - sounds very interesting.
…And Willie Simpson has a new edition of The Beer Bible out (2007), Adrian, a more Australasian-centric beer manual.
That’s if you need guidance, of course. Most folks find their own way.
I look forward to that, Mark. Sorry for misspelling Margot’s name. I wasn’t aware of her journalism at all before this work.
I hope she makes some $ from this book. Would be a fun thing wouldn’t it given that the book is fairly slight yet deserving because of her eye, humour and writing talent. I’d been asking for it for a few days over the last week in various bookshops across country NSW and Victoria before it hit the shelves and all booksellers (even the young uni student counter workers who I didn’t expect would’ve recognised it without recourse to the database) all said there’d been a huge interest in and demand for it, along with Mungo’s.
Neither was I, Wolfe. I’ve bought it as a Chrissie present twice!
Spiros is right about Mungo. The “context” Wolfe talks about only applies if you regard the period 1967-73 as the template against which all politics should be judged. He is every bit as out of touch as John Howard - and as for “irreverent”? Please. More wacky than Rove? More zany than Annabel Crabb? Come on. I think very highly of MacCallum’s journalism during the period I described, but today’s writing falls short of that by a long, long way. Reading with rose-tinted glasses isn’t good enough.
Kim: you might be fond of Beazley but what would it take to change your opinion?
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me … one argumentum ad verecundiam …
Joking!
Brett;
Thanks for the links, those were interesting articles. Recognised some of it — still need to read more. ACC wasn’t as prolific as Asimov, but he was still prolific.
Mark,
Among other things election quikkies will be invaluable for future historians.Presumably in 30 odd years time there will still be copies available from NLA.
Pavlov’s Cat
First of all, let me make clear I have never met Judith Brett. She has never done me, my family, or friends, even the slightest harm. I have only read her QE, Monthly and other media arguments, etc. I will eagerly concede she strikes me as very decent woman of immense integrity. I would guess she is a very committed and passionate educator, whom a student could trust would go the extra mile for them.
However, we are discussing the quality of her analysis and writing here, not whether or not we would like her to be the godmother or governess for our children.
Even Robert Merckel - a serial gentleman of the blogosphere - suggested some misgivings in her analysis. So, a more robust “let it all hang out” blogger, comme moi, declaring, “she wouldn’t know if her arse was on fire” is hardly accsuing her of child molestation or having many bodies under he backyard1
Greenfield, Judy Brett has an Oxford degree and is Professor of Political Science at La Trobe and is currently the Head of the School of Humanitites and Social Sciences, and none of these things come in a Weeties packet.
For an Australian to be admitted to an Oxford Ph.D program, with a scholarship, in the 1970s or so, would mean JB earned a very solid first class honours degree, and perhaps the university medal. In those days, such an achieevement at an Australian sandstone university was indeed very impressive and excellent evidence of a very bright and motivated person.
But is this an accurate inference of her “Oxford degree?”
On the other hand, Oxbridge has a ton of lesser graduate degrees that are there just to extract as much money as possible from foreigners of even average ability.
So without wishing to push this much further, there is a world of difference between a Sydney/Melbourne gradaute with a solid first in Maths, Biochemistry, Classics/Ancient History, etc. going to Oxford on atravelling scholarship, and somebody going for a one year Graduate Diploma in Paece Studies, etc.
The mere fact of admission to a prestigious university means three=fifths of fuck all when it comes to that person’s attempts to analyse contemporary society. Compare Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens for example. One an Oxford undergrad and Ph.d world-class biologist, the other with a mere undergrad degree. The former would not know if his arse was on fire when it comes to religion and broader socio-political developments, while the latter is one of the most exciting socio-political analysts alive.
Oh, and Tony Abbott has an Oxford degree as well. I guessed I must have missed your going into bat for him when other bloggers have criticised his pronouncements. Perhaps not. There is a word fofr that. Hy…oh, forget it.
I am afraid my respect for Social Studies as an academic discipline is virtually zip. Perhaps if her effusions showed even a hint of grasping economics, science, biology, maths, and some proper lived experiences among a variety of types, and in very challenging circumstances, her output might be that above of a dope. As it stands, she would not know if her arse was on fire.
If you have such contempt even for so distinguished an academic, might I ask why you take so very seriously the marks for undergraduate essays that were, presuambly, given to you by academics?
If an academic is an academic is an academic why the sophomoric appeal to the authority, you so clearly invest in an “Oxford degree”? And far from “taking so very seriously” I think I have made it quite clear I feel uncomfortable, indeed presumptuous, even thinking about trying to get these works published, despite being encouraged to do so by many others.
The academics who gave these grades mostly have rigorous US Ph.Ds, have taught in Australia, the US, and Europe, are fluent in at l;east two ancient languages and three to five modern languages. A couple said they had awarded me the highest grade they have given in a while. If you think there is something peculiar about a student thinking all these factors indicate a case for at least thinking about trying to get published, then Australia is indeed very fortunate, you have chosen to pay your rent outside university teaching!
I do not have to ask how many other Australian humanities academics share your attitude, as I know only too well, that there are a great many.
Judy has been a friend of mine for 25 years and I can assure you that she would, in fact, know if her arse was on fire.
Unfortunately, this brings us back to the same processes that led to the conclusion I drew in my first post.
As a classic suumary of how off-piest Judith is a socio-political analyst, I implore you to read her post election round-up Monday 27/11/07. Even dopier than Keating’s. But Keating has the excuse all he is writing about is himself, not Howard or Australia.
Now, run along and do stop trying to be such a sour puss,a nd you will sacre the children, tomorrow.
Apart from all that, Merry Christmas, sweetie.
Jg,
Those academics who gave you 9/10 in Ancient History, religious Studies, whatever. They’re buttering you up as a potential honours student who will make the department more money. [Smile]
“Pre-Christmas downtime” means yesterday and today. But recently I’ve been reading The Shock Doctrine - great for its clarity and its clarification of what the world’s been coming to since 1973. To recover from the I’ve been sipping slowly (again) at The Last of the Wine.
The measured, controlled romanticism and those perfectly imagined metaphors still keep me alive through solstice & apocalypse.
Sorry to ask a dumb question… but who said working class voters were “conservative”?
Nobody — the sense of the phrase as it’s used in the article is ‘those of the working class voters who were conservative’. Which would mean some of them but not all of them.
I would recommend two books I gave away as presents this year. The first is Decreation by Anne Carson, the second a reprint of Tove Jansson’s A Winter Book. Lovely books separated in time and style, but with common concerns; themes that sit well with the year’s end and other, less easily anticipated endings.
Just got home from town with 2 newly purchased books. Julirt Barker’s edition of Wordworth’s Letters and Gary B. Nash’s The Urban Crucible. The Northern Seaports and the Origins if the American Revolution, a non-Marxist class analysis of life in Boston, New York and Philadelphia in colonial and early Revolutionary America. Interestingly, he defines the ideology of the times as an awareness of urban people of all ranks, including slaves indentured servants the labouring poor, women and the illiterate as ‘their awareness if the surrounding world, their penetration of it through thought, and their reasoned reactions to the forces impinging on their lives.’
I bought my goddaughter Alice in Wonderland and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4. I could not resist re-reading both, and have not pissed myself laughing so much for ages.
JG at 63,
Thank you for a detailed and constructive explanation of the difference between reading a piece of writing for its own sake, and reading it with the academic stature or personal qualities of the author constantly in mind.
Australian political “discourse” is, I feel, too closed a shop and too small a shop. Too much mutual back-scratching and not enough self-critical and politely critical discussion or writing. Which is where LP is so valuable, I opine.
JG: please visit often.
Oops, is my arse on fire again?
Pavlov’s Cat
You can tell Judy I have just topped up her coffers by buying the QE. I shall inform you on the morrow whether I have altered my assessment of her.
I am very sure, JG, that she wouldn’t give a rat’s either way.
My very brief summary of her qualifications was provided quite specifically in order to make the point, in the following sentence, that you yourself apparently respect academic opinion only when it suits you. If you can’t follow a sequence of thought that stretches over two sentences then that is your misfortune but it is not my fault.
“and have not pissed myself laughing so much for ages.”
Always thought your bladder and critical sensibilities were hotwired together.
Now if we can dispense with that awful clumsy little Greenfly creature and return to the central topic - holiday reading.
Some books I’m engaging with over the slack season
Pynchon’s ‘Against The Day’ strikes me as a definite return to form after ‘Mason & Dixon.” It’s massive, sprawling, tech-heavy and self-indulgent (just like the Victorian/Edwardian America in which it’s set) but full of brilliant riffs, marvellous observations and splendid digressions. Many many splendid digressions. If it wasn’t the size of a fucking cinder block, it’d be the perfect inflight reading. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to check that book in separately.”
London: City of Disappearances - curated by the Poet Lurgi of the Smoke himself, Iain Sinclair, with guest appearances by everyone from JG Ballard and Michael Moorcock to Rachel Lichtenstein and Sarah Wise. Peter Ackroyd is conspicuous by his absence. Nostalgia de la boue ain’t what it used to be, hey Pete?
Touch Me, I’m Sick. Not only is this guy bloody funny in a super sarcastic way, he’ll also make you wanna go and search out some of these deranged ditties. And it’ll be worth the effort I can tell you. I had no idea Sarah Mcloughlin was actually sexy.
In the long run, you can’t really hide anything from your family. And one blood relative scented my inner train spotter and gave me this for Xmax. The perfect bog book. You evacuate there while tracing you entrance here. Great graphics as information filtered by a culture tour of the world too.
Also picked up for a song (”Boogie-oogie-oogie” by “Taste Of Honey”)in a Tasmanian op-shop, Peter Conrad’s “Modern Times, Modern Places” and W.E Johns’ “Biggles: Pioneer Air Fighter” -a second hardback edition with only slightly tattered endpapers and a few whiskey stains and 9mm parabellum bullet holes here and there.
Ditto Cloud Atlas. Best book I’ve read in five years. Ditto wbb about “pre-Christmas downtime”. I was a serious candidate for a nervous breakdown for a while there.
Since Christmas I’ve been reading Keneally’s ‘Searching for Schindler’ which I found very disappointing - basically just 300 pages of self-aggrandizement and name dropping. Suggest you save your pennies and reread Schindler’s Ark instead.
On Beasley: no he couldn’t have won. Rudd gave the definitive political performance of my lifetime and only just got across the line. I shudder to think what might have happened but for the Lindsay brain meltdown.
On Bolt: It seemed to me that nothing in print or on the internet had any impact on votes. Swinging voters are fully challenged by a 30 second telly ad. But even though Bolt talks huge amounts of total twaddle he is at least unpredictable which puts him a long way ahead of irrelevant buffoons like Akerman.
“Ditto Cloud Atlas.”
I dunno. I enjoyed Cloud Atlas immensely but the more of his stuff I read, the more I’m starting to suspect he’s reworking the same riffs and structures again and again. He’s very good at it though and always a delight to read but he does remind me a bit of Eric Clapton. A true virtuoso but not an original. None of his characters live much beyond the page, perhaps because you’re too busy admiring how wrote them. You can see the skill and talent in action. Great artists make it look effortless. Well at least I’m flagging the possibility of greatness here.
And he shits all over Martin Amis - which cannot be all bad.
Hmmm… Peter Ackroyd.
Must… resist… urge… to… keep… reading… Hawksmoor… again and again…
Peter Ackroyd indeed.
Bought his new book on the Thames (Sacred River?) for a mate for Christmas and intend to borrow it ASAP.
So you resisted the urge to read it with the pages opened just enough to peek at the inner margins, eh? I’m impressed.
I’ve been reduced to buying folks books I don’t want to read myself, have already read, or leaving the purchase to the day I hand it over. Okay, shit sentence, but y’know what I mean.
Damme,Ackroyd just keeps pumping them out doesn’t he? He must have a whole crew of cheeky culture vulture mudlarks and fey, fettlesome and febrile Oxonians slaving away in the secret cellars of his Limehouse Penthouse. He makes James Michener look like some lollygaggin’ Yankee.
I always liked what the real magus of secret London, Iain Sinclair, said about Peter Ackroyd. “He’s Colonel Mustard and he did it in the library with a research assistant.” And Ackroyd does look a lot like the good Colonel Moutard.
Yes, Ackroyd’s written some brilliant books. Hawksmoor, The House of Dr Dee, Chatterton, are all superbly written and psychically charged tales about the hidden human bones of London. And Albion: History of English Imagination is the best book ever about a subject no one realised existed until he wrote about it.
But both Ackroyd and the other strange geomancy warlock of English letters, JG Ballard, are now in their own deadpan, sly and slightly bitchy english way, sorta coughing and nudging their audiences towards Iain Sinclair.
It’s like a quincunx (cue Durrell, Fowles and Golding. Fellow magicians but self-imposed exiles from Old Lud). Currently you have Ackroyd, Ballard, Amis fils (although his batteries are ebbing a bit) and Alan Moore setting up the four points of blokish energy (This is a male incantation thing. I’m sure you chicks are up to equally weird shit with the London Energy. Looking at you in particular Miss Angela Carter. Death is no excuse) and in the centre is Iain Sinclair assome kind of lightening rod cum Leyden Jar for it all.
Fuck it. FDB, just read Downriver for starters. Imagine if Burroughs was a Londoner with Blake’s gift of transcendental vision. Whether you love it or hate it, you’ll know you’ll have read something by someone really plugged