The New Republic

The New Republic

By Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver's 2012 novel, The New Republic, is actually a problematic manuscript with a checkered history. Originally penned in the late 1990s, this psychological novel about terrorism was dismissed by American publishers as too jejune for American readers. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the proceeding years of earnest introspection (at least among literary circles) an ironic take on terrorism and journalism continued to frighten off publishers, until recently. Apparently the social and political climate of 2012 was ripe for an unabashed satire on media sensationalism and terrorism. In the meticulous Shriver style, there are no psychological tables left unflipped and no sociological surfaces left unswiped. Having recently finished Shriver's Orange-Prize winning novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, and loving it, I desperately wanted to love this novel as well. Alas, I didn't. But it's not all bad.

The New Republic is set in the fictional state of Barba, a drab, beard-like (Barba... get it?) appendage of land that extends into the Atlantic Ocean off Portugal's southern coast. Barba has recently become a European hotbed of terrorism under the guise of a paramilitary group known as the SOB – a radical terrorist cell fighting for Barban autonomy from Portugal and claiming responsibility for a seemingly random series of violent international attacks. Due to the rash of attention, foreign correspondents from the world's major media sources have descended on this European backwater previously known only for its unceasing gale-force winds, its tacky souvenir production industry and the hairy pear, a local fruit that is every bit as unappetizing as it sounds.

The foreign correspondents form a Greek chorus of media personalities (or lack thereof. Shriver's two-dimensional take on the members of the foreign press is rife with meaning), producing tired examinations, reasonings and rationales for the violence in lieu of any hard reporting on the ground. Joining this murder of squawking crows is Edgar Kellogg. Kellogg is a greenhorn journalist sent to Barba to replace Barrington Saddler, a larger-than-life personality who has gone missing and who may or may not have a lot more to do with the SOB than simply writing about them.

But the entire point of The New Republic isn't the narrative so much as the themes it illustrates, sometimes in bold relief. Shriver, obviously, takes aim at the notion of modern terrorism and the manner in which it is reported to illogical extremes but this novel is really about charisma. Why some people have it and others don't and what drives people who don't have charisma to emulate and ultimately turn on those who do have it. In this vein, Shriver is disappointingly predictable. Kellogg recounts the story of why he has quit his Manhattan law firm to become a journalist. He is determined to follow in the footsteps of his charismatic prep school friend with whom he hasn't spoken in decades. Turns out that his friend has grown up to become a milquetoast sycophant for the Daily Record newspaper and possesses none of the self-assurance that he possessed in school. This was like discovering the butler killed Lady Butterbum in the conservatory on page 12 of a 400 page book. You'd think Edgar would learn his lesson right there before shipping off to a european hellhole, but apparently Edgar isn't that bright. Diligently, Shriver trudges on and, lo and behold, exactly what she says will happen in the beginning actually happens at the end.

Predictability is certainly a problem, but my real problem with The New Republic was the characterization of Shriver's have-not anti-hero, Edgar Kellogg. Kellogg is simply irritating. He's blunt, rude and completely devoid of charisma. Furthermore, he seems to lack class, tact and common sense. He's also arrogant, haughty and condescending. He's incapable of hiding his true feelings and utterly incompetent at his job. I could go on, but you get the picture. Needless to say Edgar is a bastard.

While I understand that Shriver is attempting an examination of charisma and needed a character that was indeed lacking in it, but Kellogg is so relentlessly devoid of any emotions ascribed to charisma that he almost ceases to exist in any sort of reality understood by the reader. How does someone like Kellogg even ingratiate themselves enough with anyone to discover their lack of charisma? I wouldn't give Edgar 15 minutes before standing up and walking out on him.

By way of explanation, Edgar was once a morbidly obese kid and, though he lost the weight, he never lost the inferiority complex. Fair enough, I suppose. Consequently, Edgar has awkwardly shifted into adulthood with an acute sense of both entitlement and disdain for those around him. Why shouldn't he have what others have? He deserves it more than they do, anyway. In that respect he had transferred his personal self-loathing onto everyone else. That's some serious pop psychology right there.

In literary terms, this makes Edgar not so much a character but a caricature. He is, like the blathering idiot reporters at the local Barban watering hole, a predictable cartoon cut-out of what would happen if someone had zero charisma superimposed on a novel along side the world's most charismatic correspondent. This makes The New Republic a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is less novel and more a psychological and sociological diatribe.

Which is why the novel, as a whole, fails to impress. Don't get me wrong, Lionel Shriver's acute understanding of her subject matter is apparent, especially on the subject of terrorism and the media and the elements that would be used with such effect in We Need to Talk About Kevin are manifest throughout. Furthermore, the writing is, at times, sublime and, at points, this novel can be scathingly funny. But it lacks in any real movement, drags on so unnecessarily through the middle and leaves the reader with a rather cop out ending. Unfortunately, the strong qualities of this novel only made this reader feel cheated out of what could have been an extremely poignant book.

As it stands, it simply feels like a novel that should have remained right where Lionel Shriver left it in 1998... taking up a few megabytes of space on an out-dated hard drive. Perhaps the publishers were right the first time. Perhaps we didn't really need The New Republic.

The Secret River

The Secret River

By Kate Grenville

About a third of the way through this book I developed a measure of regret for all the Australian literature I have not read. I admit it, I've read very little Australian literature. Furthermore, my understanding of Australian history is cursory. I know its history as a penal colony for the British Empire and I understand that, like their counterparts in North America, much of Australia's history is colored (pardon the mildly racist pun... I couldn't resist) by their relations with the indigenous populations. So it turns out that Kate Grenville's Booker Prize nominated novel The Secret River was a bit of an introduction to the particulars of Australia's earliest colonial days.

One part The Good Earth, another The Poisonwood Bible, The Secret River chronicles the life of transported felon Will Thornhill. Thornhill's story begins in late 18th-century London, where he has been born into extreme poverty. But when he marries Sal, the daughter of a local boatman, he is given the chance to make an honest go of it. However, a series of untimely events erases all of the marginal success bestowed on Will and his family and the vice-like grip of London poverty  returns. He takes one too many risks, gets caught and is condemned to hang. Sal, who is able to read and write, greases the right wheels and manages to have Will sentence lessened to life in New South Wales.

The introductory chapters about life in London serves as an exquisite preamble for the cultural collisions that follow in Sydney and, later, the Hawksbury River. It is vitally important to understand where the typical early 19th century Australian settler came from and what sort of person he was. They may have been industrious and diligent but they were also Great Britain's felonious castoffs. This is a point that cannot be ignored.

In Sydney, Will is able to earn back his freedom and works diligently to make a new life for himself and his ever expanding family. He becomes obsess with the notion of purchasing land, obviously taking to heart the old axiom "A man is nothing without land." When his eventually purchases a parcel of land in the wilds along the Hawksbury River, Will initially thinks that his life is complete. A place where he can earn an honest living off the land.

But the land of Will's hope and dreams, land that that he purchased with his own money and of which he holds title and deed  isn't his land and can never be his land. Within days of setting up a hut and planting a filed of corn, Will is confronted by a group of aboriginal people who make it clear that this land is, was and will always be their land. What follows is a escalation of tense that turns angry, the brutal, then murderous.

A lesser writer would have used this opportunity to roll out the tired "noble savage" trope whereby Will and the settlers learn a valuable lesson about living in harmony with and learning from their friendly aboriginal neighbors. In that lesser novel, the narrative would culminate in the evil settlers getting their comeuppance while the astute, forward-thinking settlers who sided with the gentle natives continue to live in peace and harmony. If said lesser novelist was truly Hollywood, there would be a big dinner at the end where all the good settlers and all the natives get together and laugh and sing and we'd all feel good about the future. Now I don't know a lot about Australian history but I do know that is exactly what never happened. And Kate Grenville is no lesser writer.

Instead Grenville paints a far more complicated image that is devoid of traditional good natives and bad settlers. We are confronted by white settlers brought to the land by force rather than choice, many of these settlers were shockingly uneducated and violent. Although driven by greed and hunger, these settlers were given the chance to reinvent themselves and make a life and they took it as would anyone else, often by forced removal of aboriginal populations. We are also introduced to the more lenient white settlers who befriend attempt to work with the aboriginals. Their plight is so ultimately marginal that despite their good intentions they seem to have blinded themselves to the very real problems surrounding them. Conversely, the aboriginal people aren't the pacific simpletons who trade their birthrights for a handful of seeds as they are often portrayed to be.  They know full well what is occurring along the river and act in retaliatory fashion all too often. 

In this context, the cultural clash that invariable follows is far more complex than simply the greedy white settler wantonly raping and pillaging the traditional lands of the indigenous populations. Grenville does an admirable job of painting life in early 19th century Australia with its escalating tensions and intensifying bloodshed. The Secret River is an extremely nuanced novel that masterfully balances the apprehensions of colonialism without resorting to traditional cliches.

It is also a reminder to me that I need to read more Australian literature.

The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles

By Madeline Miller

Where to start concerning Madeline Miller's Orange Prize winning novel, The Song of Achilles. Well, I guess I should begin by saying that I enjoyed this novel. I say that because the rest of this blogpost is going to sound like I didn't enjoy it because I have a bit of a bone to pick with it. But rest assured, it was a thought-provoking novel that deserved award consideration (I can't say it deserved to win the Orange Prize since I have not read the other nominees nor have I read a large enough cross-section of 2012 novels to say anything otherwise). And since it seems to be getting universal acclaim (deservedly, I suppose) I thought I'd concentrate on the negatives for a change.

The Song of Achilles is very much an updated version of Homer's epic poem, The Iliad. Written in the same vein as the classic novel by Mary Renault, The King Must Die (about Theseus and the Minotaur), Miller has taken a well-known Greek myth, humanized it, personalized it and then turned the myth on its head.

In the original Iliad, it is the death of Patroclus (although a minor character in the actual poem, he is described as Achilles's most beloved companion) at the hands of Hector that rouses Achilles from his vain refusal to go into battle into a maelstrom of rage and despair that culminates in the slaying of Hector, Achilles dragging Hector's body around the walls of Troy for several days and the ultimate demise of the "greatest of all heroes" by the bow of Paris. But what was so special about Patroclus that would send a professional warrior into a blind rage so intense that he performs atrocities that even his compatriots and the gods find excessive and repulsive. Warriors watch their friends fall on a daily basis. What of Patroclus? In The Song of Achilles, Miller supposes that Achilles maintains a lifelong homosexual love affair with his Patroclus.

In an election year that sees gay marriage as a major talking point, it's no surprise that this novel has gotten a lot of media exposure. Gay issues are fashionable and a book depicting a popular literary character as gay was bound to cause a stir. But the notion of homosexual relationships among Greek (and Roman, and Persian) warriors is hardly anything new. Homosexual affairs are alluded to throughout the Iliad and Odyssey and mention of homosexual love is rife throughout Greek and Roman history from the Sacred Band of Thebes to the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos. While the most common form of homosexual relationship was pederasty (what is commonly referred to today as pedophilia), homosexuality enjoyed far more acceptance in the Athenian agora than it does in the modern western world. Hell, all of these words (homosexual, pedophilia, lesbian, etc...) descend to the modern English language from ancient Greek. It should hardly come as a surprise that the Greeks were tolerant of same-sex relations in all their various colors.

Which gets me to my first problem with The Song of Achilles. While Achilles and Patroclus don't face any overt persecution for their relationship, there exists an undercurrent of shame and secrecy about their relationship from the start. Achilles mother, the goddess Thetis is openly disgusted with the relationship (OK, she's a goddess and his mother so perhaps we can go easy on her) and more than one character tries to reason with Achilles to cut such nonsense out. Only Odysseus hints at the historical acceptance of homosexuality in the military when he notes that it is customary for young boys to take on a male lover during adolescents. But, he adds, once men come of age, they should not engage in such activities.

The hell?

As far as I knew, homosexuality was not only accepted in the Greek military it was actually condoned. Many armies (Thebes for example) encouraged homosexuality as a morale booster among their troops. And since the Trojan War dragged on for ten years even with the spoils of war one has to wonder whether Achilles was the only Greek king who maintained a relationship with another man. Sure Achilles was a beautifully vain mommy's boy and dressed in drag and had a retinue of girl besties (all in the novel, I'm afraid), but stereotypes hurt us all. Just because he fits a certain demographic doesn't me he should be centered out. There's no reason not to think that Menelaus or Ajax or Diomedes weren't into shopping for designer armor, gossiping about how Agamemnon is such a slut and sashaying down the front lines. I highly doubt Achilles and Patroclus were the only soldiers sharing a bed.

OK, sorry. I got carried away there.

My second problem with this novel is Patroclus himself. He's such an dependent, needy git. The guy can't spend a single moment out from under Achilles's shadow without threatening suicide. A weekend apart once in a while can be revitalizing to a relationship. C'mon dude! Achilles might be the son of a goddess but he's still human. Let's not put the guy up on such a pedestal. You studied with Chiron. You must have learned that all Greek heroes possess a fatal flaw. Unless of course Patroclus is, in his own way, a Greek hero and his fatal flaw is abject blindness to the bleeding obvious. Patroclus is the Bella Swan of Ancient Greek myth.

I hoped that by humanizing these characters, Miller might provide a little light as to why Achilles acted the way he did. While the Iliad remains one of my favorite stories of all time, there are more than a few moments in the story where I questioned the decision-making logic of the characters. I thought The Song of Achilles might shed so light on some of the quirkier moments in the narrative. Alas, I finished the novel as confused about the decision making process of both Achilles and Patroclus. Oh, sure, one might simply dismiss these decisions as the meddling of the Fates, but that seems like the easy way out, especially since the Fates aren't even established as characters in the novel.

But I digress. Like I said at the top, I actually really enjoyed this novel. Much like The Coen Brother's take on The Odyssey via O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Song of Achilles a fresh and innovative retelling of an old story. Don't let my overly critical, armchair intellectual curmudgeonliness hold you back. Madeline Miller can write.

By the way: If you liked The Song of Achilles, pick up a copy of Mary Renault's classic novel The King Must Die. You will not be disappointed.