Please allow me to stick to the tradition of the past few years – of dedicating one of my pre-Christmas articles to some of the best reads I had throughout the year that is drawing to an end.
After much hesitation, I finally got down to reading The plot against America by Philip Roth. After reading through this “what if?” novel, I was left with hardly any doubt why this year Roth will become the third living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. Taking liberty with history, this seasoned Jewish Pulitzer Prize-winning author portrays Hitler sympathiser, Charles A Lindbergh as a US presidential candidate who takes on and actually defeats Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide in the 1940 presidentials. As the novel progresses, we see this “new” US President actually negotiating a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler. The book is written from the eyes of a Jewish family – the Newarks, who come to experience the excesses of this would-be presidency. The author writes with such incisiveness that even the mere nomination for the presidency of Charles A Lindbergh instils a certain amount of fear amongst his readers. The ticket on which Lindbergh was meant to have won the presidency was – “Vote for Lindbergh or vote for war.” Towards the end of the book, Roth had the decency to show – courtesy of a postscript – where historical facts end and historical imagining begins.
When The real Fidel Castro was first released by Leycester Coltman, it was described as a rare commodity, in the sense that it is one of the few books that offers a balanced view of the Cuban leader. This does not mean that Castro is glorified throughout the book. But at least, there are none of the concerns of the Cold War or the axes to grind of Cuban exiles in this book. Coltman is no Marxist. On the contrary, he was British Ambassador to Cuba, having been posted there after being Head of the Latin America Department of the FCO. His service, both in London and in Cuba, gave him access to information additional to that obtained from direct contacts with Castro and others. Unfortunately, the author died unexpectedly – shortly after having delivered his manuscript in typewritten form to his literary agent. His publishers wisely decided to publish it in its original form, without making any alterations to it. Throughout the book, we are told that with outsiders, Castro usually talked the language of Utopian Socialism. This was the pleasant, smiling face of the Revolution. But he knew the realities of power. He also knew that it would not be easy or pleasant to break the power of the dominant economic class in Cuba. Che Guevara described him in this period as representing “the bourgeois Left.” But then, for an intellectual fundamentalist like Che, even most Communists were tainted with bourgeois attitudes.
The Castro we last encounter, is that of a mortal subjected to personality cult status as his aides rush to cover up fainting fits he had, by adopting a “business as usual” approach. Castro is described as a politician who although always surrounded by people, often seemed isolated by his own charisma and by the aura of his power – a fate that has befallen many other politicians – on both sides of the globe.
From the spate of books written about Putin, the most highly-readable were Putin’s progress by former British MEP Peter Truscott and Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the end of revolution by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, who were Moscow bureau chiefs for The Washington Post from January 2001 until November last year.
While the American bureau chiefs also took a compelling inside look at life in the country that Putin is building, Truscott focused primarily on Putin the leader and politician. The British book on Putin has been described as the first comprehensive exploration in English of Putin’s character. What I found intriguing is that it also offers many insights into his likely legacy. Truscott’s book is the third installment in a trilogy, having already written Kursk: Russia’s lost pride and Russia first : breaking with the West.
From a historical perspective, it comes across as a culmination of over twelve years of following events in the Russian Federation. In introducing his book, the author expressed the hope that he has produced a balanced, independent biography of the Russian leader, warts and all. I personally feel that he has succeeded in doing so. As for the Baker/ Glassner joint effort, it opens a window on how the various strata of Russian society are coping, living and in some cases – prospering.
Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which has been described as his best novel yet, was a book I enjoyed, although in a somewhat detached manner. Friends of mine found it unbearable, whilst a New Statesman columnist recently described it as the most over-rated novel of the year. All in all, I enjoyed his style of writing as he told the story of a surgeon who gets embroiled with anti-Iraqi war protesters in London, East London thugs and also hidden aspects of the dysfunctionality of his family – something that hits us “bang in the face,” when contrasting it with the serene, almost romantic opening chapters of his book.
A friend of mine has recommended that I should read Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s Strange death of Tory England, but I very much doubt its relevance after the Blairite Cameron took over the Conservative Party leadership last week. So for the time being, I have decided to give it a miss, although I was told that it masterfully traces the art of political self-destruction – something every political party should beware of.
Juan Chang and Jon Halliday’s Mao: The untold story is one of the few books that I did not manage to read right through. Not because of its length. But rather because of the tedium that sets in after reading the decidedly one-dimensional portrayal of the atrocities of Mao Tse Tung in a style that can best be and has actually been described as hideously written.
Having read Agatha Christie in my early teens, there was a sense of déjà vu’ when I recently read P.D. James’s The Lighthouse – another crime story featuring the unbending Adam Dalglish. For an 85-year-old, James still writes with all the crispness, wryness and excellent command of English that one would expect from a crime novelist half her age. The idea of setting a novel on a remote ficticious island called Combe Island, off the Cornish coast, might not be very original. But one cannot say the same for the brisk manner in which a number of characters meet their brutal death, as well as the superbly structured way in which the whole plot unfolds until the saga is brought to a satisfactory end.
This year’s perfect match for Robin Cook’s Point of departure is Clare Short’s An Honourable Deception?’ Many books are sold as riveting personal accounts of events which certain politicians live through, but it is hard to match this book for the candour and sheer honesty with which this “hurt” politician writes.
The book is at once polemical and disturbing, but it never relies on sensationalism, neither when it tries to depict how New Labour allegedly misused power over the Iraqi war issue.
As Ewen MacAskill comments, this book is a stunner because the author says in public what she had been telling her leaders repeatedly in private.
The last book I shall comment upon today is David Lane’s Berlusconi’s shadow, subtitled Crime, Justice and the Pursuit of Power.
The author has been Italy Business and Finance correspondent for The Economist since 1994. From his style and approach, you can tell that the man has all the facts at his fingertips, and that he has written both regularly and at length on Italian political and social affairs for the magazine.
One need not read beyond the author’s introductory note to realise what one is in for: “Corruption, the Mafia and justice make a potent mixture. Add Silvio Berlusconi, his huge wealth, enormous media-power, highly individual approach to politics and singular way of looking at the past, and that cocktail becomes even stronger.”
The author makes a serious accusation when he states that Berlusconi’s Italy is the heir of tangentopoli that exploded in 1992 and the atrocious Mafia murders of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino that same year. To be fair, he also adds that the country in question is also saddled with the legacy of a criminal justice system that was a mess, long before Berlusconi turned to politics in 1993.
The book is a tale of deception and corruption, where the sums of money involved were huge and the spread of corruption involved politicians, officials and businessmen at all levels everywhere. Most corrosive of all was that judges were themselves involved.
email: [email protected]
Leo Brincat is the main
Opposition Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and IT