Book Reviews

Interesting, and completely accidental, juxtaposition of novels this week. The linking theme being voice, or lack of it.

Vox explores an imagined USA from the not-too-distant future where power is held by a group of white males led by a cruel and tyrannical evangelical Christian minister. Separating out those who are 'pure' the gay, ethnic minorities and women are all marginalised. For women it's not quite Stepford. No-one has yet pioneered the surgery necessary to bring that about. So women are required to wear a bracelet which delivers a short, sharp shock if they say more than 100 words a day.

It's pretty frightening, given the state of the current Christian right in the USA. The interesting premise develops into a classic thriller and the last 100 pages pass quickly.

In Pew a sleepy US town is visited by one who doesn't speak, named by the locals after the place this stranger is found spending a night. The desire to be hospitable, in this place of Christian principles, to a struggling newcomer is tested by the lack of communication. How can we know how to help you if you don't tell us your story? Is the muteness a preference? Is it post-trauma? Or something more sinister?

In Christina Dalcher and Catherine Lacey we have two novelists right on top of their game and two interesting approaches to the necessity of language.

Where Did Trump Come From?

A piece in Politico magazine called The Victory of 'No' by Michael Grunwald told a story which I have heard quoted in a few places since, so I decided to read it.

In brief, on the night of Obama's inauguration as President a group of senior Republicans (including Ryan and Pence) sat down for a meal and started work on their strategy for getting power back. Their idea was simple. Oppose everything. Don't let Obama breathe without complaining he is taking the wrong type of breath. He wears the wrong shoes. He disrespects the USA with the colour of his suits. He got an inappropriate dog. He is the enemy within.

Regardless of whether or not he was espousing policy which Republicans could swallow (or even would normally agree with) he was to be opposed. He was a danger to the American way of life (whatever that might be; no-one ever says). Give him free rein and he will destroy America.

As a strategy this 'obstructionism' worked. They got back the House, the Senate and eventually the White House. But at what cost?

Because it was a strategy to get power and nothing more. If there were Obama policies with which they agreed they would simply make the country wait eight years before repackaging them so they could take the credit. They didn't actually believe that everything Obama did was wrong. But there was someone who did.

Because Obama was black? Because Obama was learned? Because Obama was fit, healthy and successful? Because he wanted our guns? Because he was pro-gay and liberal on abortion? Who knows. Whatever the reason, that Republican strategy stirred a dozy kraken and along came one who thought the strategy was not only good but it was also true.

When Trump announced he would run for the Presidency no less a woolly liberal commentator comedian than John Oliver looked forward to the party they would have at his expense. 'Bring it on' he announced to his viewers in 2015.

But Trump unleashed set about beating up not only every Obama-supporting Democrat but also every Republican who didn't wholeheartedly sign-up to the 'Obama is the devil incarnate' agenda.

'So the party’s anti-Obama strategy has ended up working almost exactly as planned, except that none of the Republican elites who devised it, not even Vice President-elect Pence, envisioned that their new leader would rise to power by attacking Republican elites as well as the Democratic president. President-elect Trump was really the ultimate anti-Obama, not only channeling but embodying their anti-Obama playbook so convincingly that he managed to seize the Republican Party from loyal Republicans. And in the process, he has empowered an angry slice of the GOP base that has even some GOP incumbents worried about the forces they helped unleash.'

Paul Ryan has had the good grace to look embarrassed when he stands behind President Trump. Shameless Mike Pence accepted the Vice-Presidency. But Trump has turned the Good Old Party into the Bad New Party (those initials ring any bells?) and two years into his presidency Democrats are wondering how to get it back without playing his game.

Jon Sopel - Notes from Trump's America

Jon Sopel has been the BBC's North American Editor for the last three years. Interesting times.

This book caught my eye. I always enjoy his broadcasts, pieces to camera and insights and usually end up informed.

Here he reflects on his hosts under interestingly predictable chapter headings such as guns and god. But there are some far more unexpected themes. I enjoyed anger and anxiety.

It is populist writing and easy to read. Having expected to browse and dip in I promoted it to the front of the queue and finished it quickly. I didn't have to look up any words.

To some extent it is an almanac of recent writings and thoughts. You will recognise all the people and events if you watch or listen to any BBC News output.

What I found interesting was the reflection on the differences between US culture and British or European. Why is the idea of a national health service seen so negatively over there? Why is the gun lobby so dominant? To what extent does the Democrat/Republican divide mirror our Tory/Labour one? Other, surprising, areas of difference include the volume of alcohol at parties, patriotism (which apparently works in an entirely different way to ours) and the quality of TV (US win on drama; we win on everything else). We note, in passing, that the print media is largely Democrat in the States but Conservative in the UK. Fox News isn't quite as bad as we think it is from the tweeted highlights. I recall my confusion that Democrats wear the blue accessories.

Jon Sopel also self-analyses the difficulty of being a fair reporter of situations where your gut feeling is tugging you to one side. During the Trump presidency the BBC has been tagged with the 'fake news' label. Carrying on doing your job in a balanced way in such circumstances is clearly very tough. Sad.

Short news items are helpful but we can fail to understand the big picture. This is the big picture. So the final chapter on truth reflects on where on earth we go now. And, to be truthful, none of us educated, articulate, liberal, chattering folk has the first idea any more. But I will take this book on the journey.

New Popular Culture

I haven't listened to much new music for the last few months. I feel the loss but it was a decision, of sorts.

I think I have discussed previously the rule, as it relates to those of us with limited time to engage with cultural activities, of cyclical proficiency.

In case you haven't come across it, the rule suggests that developing knowledge of one area of culture can only be achieved by disregarding some other area temporarily.

Do you have a hierarchy of culture? I think I do, although it has flexibility. I read every day. I make sure I haven't gone to sleep without reading some of a book. Even if it's only a chapter of a pappy thriller before lights out, it is a rule of life for me. No TV or tablet in the bedroom last thing at night.

Secondly there is sport. In particular football and cricket. Not so much live these days but I make sure I keep up with the weekly TV updates.

What else is there? Theatre, cinema, music, art. I love all these things.

So it becomes quite awkward, when I am already lamenting that I haven't been to the cinema for six months or so, when something new and demanding pitches up. Podcasts are it.

I let them pass me by for a while, apart from occasionally catching up with a Radio 4 show I had missed. Then I started noticing reviews of podcast shows in the weekend newspapers. About Easter time this year people were writing and talking about S-Town. Presented by Brian Reed of This American Life (a programme on Chicago public radio that became a podcast once it could) it is a wonderful seven part story that introduces people not normally given air time so positively, heads off in all sorts of strange plot-twist directions and ends with a nice resolution.

It wasn't long before I discovered Serial, another spin-off which goes into an old news story in more detail over a longer period. It hunts for miscarriages of justice, or at least the truth about controversial carriages of justice.

Now I am into twenty two back years of This American Life and I may be gone some time. It is what is on the headphones as I walk about these days, or playing in the car on long journeys. Getting inside the skin of the USA and introducing intelligent, thoughtful stories is a real antidote to the news from Trumpton.

If it's OK, please nobody invent any new culture for a bit. Thank you.

Thought for the Day

As delivered this morning at BBC Radio Bristol. I also got involved in a brief discussion about reasons to be cheerful (to beat the January blues) because they had my list of 200 I published a couple of years back. Linked here and here. But the thought:

Well. Was Barack Obama a good president or bad? The 44th president of the United States made his farewell speech last night.

Statistics suggest that over the last eight years the Obama administration has made amazing progress towards eradicating poverty. Good news. But the outgoing president has said that he is frustrated by his lack of ability to control guns. Bad news.

Jesus set out his own agenda by quoting the great prophet Isaiah:

Good news for the poor

Freedom for the prisoners

Sight for the blind

Release for the oppressed

As a manifesto it's a great check-list to use when assessing someone's ministry or leadership.

It's not good news for the poor if your dwelling is rat-infested.

It's not freedom for the prisoner if no-one understands the shackles of drug-dependency.

And even if great leadership eradicates 90% of poverty, the 10% still hurt and still need to be heard. If I am hungry I will find it hard to accept that a food programme is making a remarkable difference.

And this is the reality of politics, by which I simply mean 'organising people', today. It is an endless task. There will always be people who need help. And always those who cast doubt on the motives of the aid-bringer.

Which may be why Jesus responded to the impressed locals by saying, 'A prophet is never welcome in his own town.' And it made them so mad they wanted to throw him off a cliff. Really.

And that may be why Barack Obama is thought of much more highly around the world than he is in his own country. Nevertheless, in this far off corner of a far off land, we should thank him for his service.

USA and Guns

It's been a strange, and terribly sad, week overhearing the voices of the religious right in the American south voicing their opinions on Orlando over the social media. Bible Belt - '...where there are more prisons than Starbucks.' (Kevin Spacey's David Gale in The Life of David Gale)

These people hate the very idea of Islam. It almost seems as if some of them welcome fundamentalist terrorism happening so they can up the vehemence in their rhetoric.

These people hate 'gays'. You will not find the expression 'LGBT' in their tweets. They often gather outside LGBT events holding random verses from Leviticus.

So when an ethnic middle-eastern, USA-born, bi-polar afflicted, proclaimed gay-hater who turns out to be gay goes mad with an assault rifle in the name of Islamic fundamentalism in a club full of members of the LGBT community - well they find it hard to get their anger pitched exactly right.

Know this friends. The shares in the company who made the weapon used by the murderer apparently went up by 50% over the weekend.

Number of people killed by guns in the UK per 100,000 last recorded full year - 0.04
Number of people killed by guns in the USA per 100,000 last recorded full year - 3.6

Ninety times more likely.

One Twitter user went through every condolence tweet from every senator and congressman and added the amount of money they had received from the gun lobby in the previous year. Eye-opening. It was a lot.

All this information is gleaned from newspapers and I have no first-hand knowledge. Apologies if any of it proves to be incorrect. It surely can't all be.