THE AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW March 3, 2010 March 3, 2010 LITERARY REVIEW 14 POLITICS POLITICS 15

Some had escaped into crime fiction (Gillard and were reading John le Carre, Tanya Plibersek was reading G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories), while others were deep in classic novels (Ab- Power readers bott was reading Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, while Bowen was reading The Great Gatsby). Austra- lian authors such as Kate Grenville, Winton and MacGREGORDUNCANandANDREWLEIGH Geraldine Brooks appeared on the lists, but seemed no more common than if one were browsing the fic- Favourite books tion section at the local bookshop. Not a single fed- eral politician responded that they were reading a LABOR Our federal MPs reveal the books in their lives, from Tolstoy to Harry Potter book of poems or a play. NONFICTION FICTION When we asked about favourite novels, clearer ANTHONY ALBANESE Nthemidstof the2008USpresidentialelec- Menzies and Gough Whitlam certainly qualify. All cal leadership is that it is exclusively about power, patterns emerged. War and Peace came in at number tion campaign, we found ourselves catching were deeply versed in classical literature, which polls and public policy. Shakespeare also says that one, with politicians as ideologically diverse as Tan- Nelson Mandela, Nick Hornby, up over beers on Manhattan’s Lower East played an important part in their inner lives. Hawke political leadership is, at its best, infused with some- ner and Minchin plumping for Leo Tolstoy’s tour de Long Walk to Freedom High Fidelity Side. The two flat-screen TVs tuned to CNN downloaded a lot of data from reading but it’s ques- thing spiritual and mystical, with a commitment to force of Napoleonic Europe, nothwithstanding its CHRIS BOWEN and Fox presented a gladiatorial picture of tionable whether he entered into the moral imagin- deeper truths and understandings. What we all rejection of the ‘‘great man of history’’ thesis. Per- Robert Caro, John Steinbeck, the campaign, with the talking heads shout- ation that literature offers. yearn for, Shakespeare implies, is leaders we trust, haps in Pierre Bezukhov’s moral and spiritual quest- Master of the Senate; The Grapes of Wrath; Iing their scripted points for the thousandth time. Curtin, Chifley and Keating were autodidacts leaders with character, leaders with a sense of self- ing, they find a reflection of their own efforts to make Roy Jenkins, Harper Lee, And yet on the table in front of us lay a discarded who took reading seriously, embodying a common understanding, leaders who have something mean- some sense of the world. Perhaps in Prince Andrei’s Life at the Centre To Kill a Mockingbird weekend copy of The New York Times, and in it we theme from the early labour movement, which ingful to tell us about ourselves and the deeper, un- ultimate disenchantment with the desiccated nature came across an article that offered a different picture through its links to the chartists and Fabians focused heard rhythms of our place and times. of 19th-century public affairs, they see a deeper truth TONY BURKE of the candidates. The piece detailed the reading on self-improvement alongside an interest in im- So the question arises as to where such deeper in- about our own times. Or perhaps in the utilitarian Amir D. Aczel, God’s Frank Delaney, habits of Barack Obama and John McCain, and the proved working conditions. More recently, Clinton sights might be found? It was once believed that Nikolay Rostov or his saintly sister, Natasha, they Equation: Einstein, Ireland books and authors that had influenced them. lauded as one of thebest-informed and great leaders were born, not made, and that a high find insightfully drawn characters they’ve known all Relativity and the Obama was portrayed as a lover of fiction and po- well-read world leaders, while Annabel Crabb’s sense of dignity and duty were best secured through their lives. Of course, perhaps they just think it’sa Expanding Universe etry: Shakespeare’s plays, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Quarterly Essay on revealed his aristocratic blood. Our more democratic temper rollicking good read. poems, the novels of Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, love of literature. Beyond the Lodge, Australia has hopes that great leaders can be taught and self- But we like to think that in the Tanner and Min- Graham Greene and Doris Lessing. McCain, too, cit- produced a handful of wise politicians tutored taught, and that reading offers a primary means to chin households, you’ll find a dog-eared copy of War Bill Arthur and Geraldine Brooks, ed literary greats, including Ernest Hemingway, through books: Paul Hasluck, Percy Spender, both elevate character and understanding in our leaders. and Peace, heavily underlined where young Prince Frances Morphy (eds.), March Somerset Maugham, William Faulkner and F. Scott Beazelys, Neal Blewett and John Button. Keating once said that it was essential for political Andrei, approaching death, lauds the lofty, righ- Macquarie Atlas of Fitzgerald. Both candidates mentioned their love for All of this would seem grist for the leaders as leaders to have a fulsome inner life. He claimed to teous, kindly blue sky, and bemoans the petty and Indigenous Australia Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1946 readers mill. And yet the picture is more complex. have reformed the Australian economy on the back vain Napoleon: ‘‘Gazing into Napoleon’s eyes, novel All the King’s Men, a philosophically drenched While Harry Truman said that ‘‘all leaders must be of Bruckner and Mahler and through the examples Prince Andrei mused on the unimportance of great- tale of political corruption and moral redemption. readers’’, it seems equally true that not all leaders he discovered in books. He spoke, like Lincoln or ness, the unimportance of life which no one could Thomas Friedman, Tim Winton, And so, later that night, after reading the article, who read will be great or even good. Think of John Churchill before him, about the need to get one’s understand, and the still greater unimportance of The Lexus and the Cloudstreet the two of us sat in the bar and discussed the role of Quincy Adams or Anthony Eden, Whitlam or Ted ‘‘longitudes and latitudes’’ right in order for the big death, the meaning of which no one alive could Olive Tree reading in politics, especially Australian politics, and Heath, Jimmy Carter or Gordon Brown. There are observations to flow, and to avoid getting snowed understand or explain.’’ MAXINE MCKEW justwhyreadingissoessentialforpoliticalandmoral many essential qualities that speak to leadership: under by the ordinariness of things. The Australian Orwell’s most famous novels, Animal Farm and leadership. And if reading is important, as we be- character, will, determination, perseverance, judg- media mocked him, of course, and once again dis- 1984, also ranked highly. While Orwell is often Margot Saville, George Eliot, lieved it to be, then what, we asked, ought our leaders ment, understanding and vision. Reading can give played an inverted superciliousness. considered a literary standard-bearer for Battle for Bennelong Middlemarch read? The Bible, perhaps? Aeschylus and Shake- succour to all of these qualities, but it will not suffice For when it comes to our leaders, the need for an progressives, his appeal is significantly wider. A re- TANYA PLIBERSEK speare? Or maybe more modern works of the im- if those other qualities are lacking. inner life, so often fostered and nourished through cent survey conducted by Andrew Norton of the agination? Might history, biography and nonfiction reading, is not some elitist private matter of little Centre for Independent Studies found that among a C.E. Smith, Design Jane Austen, suffice? And what of the present crop of Australian CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that we live in an concern to the wider public. Deep and considered politically engaged subgroup of Australians, Orwell for the Other 90% Persuasion politicians, how do they stack up? Our discussion era that doesn’t value reading. That wisdom seems reading furnishes the mind with standards, gives was the favourite writer across the political spec- prompted us to conduct a survey of the reading wing to the moral imagination, maps the expanses of trum. His honesty, emotional sincerity and lack of habits of Australian MPs, the results of which we are the individual and national character and dusts off pretension remain appealing, while his timeless con- George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, revealing for the first time in this article. the detritus of political life. It can teach our leaders cern with authoritarianism and social justice con- Collected Essays, War and Peace There remain isolated how we might do things better, not just in terms of tinue to resonate. Journalism and Letters THE greatest leaders have always been readers. And policy, but in terms of the responsibility, measure But what did surprise us was that the only politi- notjustanyreaders,butdeep,thoughtfulones.Inan- examples of contemporary and humility we need within our own lives and with- cians who listed Orwell’s novels were Liberals: cient times the likes of Pericles, Cicero, Marcus in the country at large. Mitch Fifield, Cori Bernardi and Gary Humphries. NON FICTION FICTION Aurelius and Hadrian were steeped in books. Ameri- political leaders who A good politician knows that to lead people, you The Labor MPs who listed Orwell preferred his non- can history offers a host of enlightened readers: must understand them. The highest task of leader- tralia, once the definition of geographically provin- Well, yes, when put like that. But the two are not You can learn a lot about a leader by the books fiction. On reflection, this makes some sense. Animal George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jeffer- have built their careers ship is communicating a sense of where you want to cial, hemmed in by the tyranny of distance, is now mutuallyexclusive.Obamarecentlydescendedfrom they read, or say they read. At the very least you can Farm and 1984 were resolutely dystopian and anti- Robert Rhodes James, J.R.R. Tolkien, son, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, take the country. It is not to tell people what to do but intimately connected with the rest of the world by Air Force One carrying a book of poetry and some learn whether they take reading seriously. Given our communist, and reflected an overwhelming concern Churchill: A Study The Lord of the Rings Woodrow Wilson and both Roosevelts. And British around deep reading to remind them of what is at stake. A leader must the internet, A380s, and a globalised media. But we presidential biographies, before immediately head- belief about reading and leading, it was encouraging with the evil inherent in totalising government. Or- in Failure history yields much the same impression: Pitt the know what is to be done and how to explain it, as have replaced our new found geographical cosmo- ing for a game of pick-up basketball with his closest that senior Australian politicians from both sides well’s nonfiction, on the other hand, was less overtly Younger, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, sound if we are to believe the Australian Bureau of Thucydides said of Pericles. We can take it for grant- politanism with a provinciality of time. In this we are friends. During the presidential campaign, he told listed serious books. While Kevin Rudd and then op- political, more humane and sympathetic; perhaps Peter Watson, Martin Boyd, Winston Churchill. Indeed, it’s difficult to name Statistics, which reported in 2009 that the average ed that most of our politicians will seek to discharge no different from any other western country. We are David Cameron, the British Conservative Party position leader Malcolm Turnbull did not reply to more akin to the philosophy of progressives. A Terrible Beauty: A The Langton Series: great statesmen who shunned the written word and Australianwatchesalmostthreehoursoftelevisiona this duty faithfully. They will attend community din- locked in an eternal present with a dim awareness of leader,that aleader neededto carveout largechunks our letters, others in the leadership groups of both A final observation about federal politicians’ History of the People The Cardboard Crown, the cultural and civilisational heritage it represents. day but spends only half an hour reading. (Arts and ners, open school fetes, meet with hundreds of con- the civilisational heritage and collected wisdom that of time during the day just for thinking and reading. parties did. reading of fiction. Many respondents identified as and Ideas that Shaped When Blackbirds Sing, It seems there is something about great leadership Culture in Australia: A Statistical Overview.) Even stituents each year and try to understand the needs preceded us. Our technological dominance fosters That mindset, which recalls Marcus Aurelius and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner mentioned his their favourite novels ones with an overt political or the Modern World A Diffi cult Young Man, that requiresa kinship withwhat EdmundBurke cal- among readers, the ABS found that newspapers and of their electorates. an implicit superiority, a sense that previous gener- Lincoln, is, we suspect, a large part of what sets love for the Russian greats, Tolstoy and Dostoy- moral theme, such as the Orwell titles. Bowen listed Outbreak of Love led the ‘‘moral imagination’’, a need to stock the in- magazines dominate, with books a listless third. And Yet even if politicians were to spend every minute ations have little to teach us. While we all want to live Obama apart. evsky. New Opposition Leader Tony Abbott ident- Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Harper Lee’s ner life with an awareness of the best of what has among the books, it’s safe to assume that not many prowling shopping centres, they could never hope to in our own times, it should also go without saying ified Catholic authors J. R. R. Tolkien and Evelyn To Kill A Mockingbird. Brett Mason, too, cited Mock- JOE HOCKEY been thought and said, an appreciation of the human are reading the classics. It seems we’re too busy, too properly understand the human condition from that the ‘‘permanent things’’ — those things inti- FOLLOWING our evening in New York debating Waugh as his favourites. Deputy Prime Minister ingbird, as did Bruce Billson (Labor) and Shayne Thomas Friedman, Jane Austen, condition and, perhaps most important, an under- stressed and too tired. Work, family and friends all within such a limited domain. None of us could. Our mately associated with the human condition — have the links between leadership and reading, we re- Julia Gillard, Human Services Minister Chris Bowen Neumann (Liberal). Liberal Andrew Laming men- The World is Flat Pride and Prejudice standing of one’s deepest self. take precedence, and perhaps reading books, espe- lives are too narrow in scope and too short in dur- not changed. solved to find out what Australian leaders liked to and parliamentary secretary for defence Mike Kelly tioned Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, while To be sure, great leaders are rare. Chateaubriand cially complex fiction, no longer speaks to our most ation for any real wisdom to be discovered unaided, Yet it seems that our leaders, along with the rest of read. We decided to send a letter to all federal MPs, all disclosed an interest in complex and insightful colleague Alex Hawke bravely nominated Ayn GREG HUNT wrote in the 19th century that ‘‘nowadays statesmen immediate and pressing concerns. at least until late in our lives. ‘‘Experience is the tea- us, have mostly forgotten about those permanent asking them to name the most recent fiction and books, as did the Opposition’s Senate leader, Nick Rand’sAtlasShrugged.Surprisingly,onlyChrisPyne Jere Longman, Leo Tolstoy, understand only the stock market, and that badly’’. Disappointing, yes, but hardly surprising. Most of cher of fools,’’ said Ben Franklin, that most practical things and embraced a flat and provincial sense of nonfiction books they had read, and their all-time Minchin, and education team, Chris Pyne and Brett listed a Dickens novel, choosing Great Expectations, Among the Heroes: War and Peace More recently Gore Vidal fretted that ‘‘today’s pub- us can only shake our heads and plead guilty. But of men. And so the greatest leaders, recognising this, time. Perhaps they have done so, at least in part, be- favourite fiction and nonfiction titles. We sent out Mason (see tables). the wonderful bildungsroman about the orphan Pip United Flight 93 and the lic figures can no longer write their own speeches or what we want to ask in this article is whether we can have always looked to enter the realm of reading in cause they have stopped reading deeply, turning the letters in mid-2008, and followed up with an Two of those who responded — Liberal senators and his Australian benefactor. Passengers and Crew books, and there is some evidence that they can’t reasonablyexpectourpoliticianstobedifferentfrom order to understand what lies deepest and to sense away from those authors who tutor a more complete email and a second letter in 2008-09. Bill Heffernan and Judith Adams — were sufficient- Given the understandable preference for social Who Fought Back read them either’’. Yet there remain isolated examp- the rest of us? Can we hold them to different, more the spirit of a people and their history. understanding of our politics, culture and civilis- While we awaited the responses, we took bets ly honest to confess that they did not read. Another and political realism, it was pleasing to see a few MPs les of contemporary political leaders who have built elevated, standards? Can we ask that our leaders That is not to say that we need a parliament of in- ation. In its place they read newspapers and maga- with one another. A few findings seemed likely. A interesting, albeit unsurprising, trend was our politi- listing novels beyond the political ken. Maxine Mc- NICK MINCHIN their careers around deep reading: Bill Clinton, have a superior understanding of literature, history tellectuals and academics. William Buckley was on zines, which tend to constrict and push the imagin- handful of conservatives would list the Bible, while a cians’ strong interest in reading biographies about Kew said George Elliot’s Middlemarch was her Winston Churchill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vaclav Havel and Barack Obama come immediately and culture? Can we ask that those selected to to something when he said he would sooner be ation inwards. handful of progressives would name George Orwell. other leaders. It seems natural enough that those favourite, while Plibersek and Hockey named Jane History of the Second The Great Gatsby to mind, as do Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Roy Jen- govern bring more to the national table than a predi- governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston This is not meant as an arid call for leaders who We doubted anyone would include works by Soph- who aspire to leadership will turn to the stories of Austen’s Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice respect- World War; kins, Dennis Healey and Chris Patten. And Can- lection for number-crunching and Tweeting? To phone directory than by the entire faculty of can quote facts about Agincourt or Antietam, or who ocles,Virgil,Dante,ShakespeareorMontaigne,allof their predecessors, or of other leaders from around ively. Plibersek would make a fine Elizabeth Bennet: T.E. Lawrence, adians look set to elect Michael Ignatieff, a former these questions, we think the answer is yes. Harvard University. But what we do need is leaders can recite Donne’s sonnets at dinner parties. Deep whom formed the basis of a liberal education in ear- the world. For instance, we all know now of Rudd’s intelligent, lively, open, passionate. Hockey as Fitz- Seven Pillars of Wisdom Harvard professor, novelist and biographer of Isaiah Politics is a profession, not an amateur vocation. who through the wisdom and understanding found reading is not about facts or grandstanding. It is, as lier times. Perhaps a few would name classic Austra- admirationforLutheranpastorDietrichBonhoeffer, william Darcy is more problematic. Perhaps Charles Berlin, as their next prime minister. From Machiavelli to Max Weber, political theorists in reading can ennoble and dignify the country, draw we have attempted to describe, about quietly ex- lian novels such as George Johnston’s My Brother whose theology and acts of moral courage give the Bingley instead: avuncular, charming, well- (Has since left parliament) And so we come to Australia. We don’t normally have acknowledged that leaders need certain real- people towards what is important and sincere and pandingthe moralimagination,gainingaccess tothe Jack or Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet, but we agreed that Prime Minister personal ballast. meaning, ambitious. Les Carlyon, Sebastian Faulks, think of Australia as a crucible of great leadership. world skills to manage the course of events, and that bring a sense of elegance and integrity to our na- distilled judgments and deepest wisdom of our pre- most of the literature and nonfiction would be The Great War Birdsong It’s a truism of Australian politics that we’ve never these cannot be learned from a library. Voters rightly tional life. Great leaders deliver a sense of tran- decessors and bringing to bear the wide-ranging ex- Anglo-American. WHEN it came to fiction, one in seven of the politi- WHEN it came to nonfiction, biographies domi- CHRISTOPHER PYNE produced a Jefferson or an Obama, much less a Lin- demand a wide-ranging command of political and scendence to their countries: they address their lead- perience of the past to the unique circumstances of After an initial letter and two follow-ups, we re- cians who responded said they were not at that time natedtheMPs’bedsidetables.WhileafewMPswere coln or a Churchill. Paul Keating famously claimed policy detail, and an ability to get things done. Com- ership to past, present and future generations, all our lives and times. Doesthis mean that we’re asking ceived responses from 89 of the 226 federal parlia- readinganovel(andnoonewhodidlistanovelfailed reading about the lives of non-politicians ( Twain, Theodore White, Charles Dickens, at the National Press Club in 1990 that Australia had promise, flexibility, pragmatism, maybe even a combined in one unitary sense of the nation. too much from our leaders? Don’t they already have mentarians, or 39 per cent, which is well within the to list a nonfiction book as well). Those novels listed Isaac Isaacs), most were drawn to the biographies of The Making of the Great Expectations never had a first-rate leader. He questioned why the streak of ruthlessness and arrogance, are the bread- It was Edmund Burke who first stressed that poli- too muchon theirplates, withoutsaddling themwith normal range for surveys of elite groups. And while were eclectic, ranging from childhood fiction (inde- other politicians. Some listed titles about those who President 1960; US could produce a Jefferson in an 18th-century Vir- and-butter skills of the politician. Indeed, Shake- tical leadership must address ‘‘the dead, the living unrealistic expectations about the spiritual and mys- other surveys can be answered by staffers, ours re- pendent MP Robert Oakeshott was reading Dr had gone before them (Bob Hawke, Keating, Rudd, Plutarch, Lives ginia backwater with little more than three million speare teaches us — whether in Macbeth, Hamlet, and the yet unborn’’, a kind of spiritual bond that tical nature of great leadership? Shouldn’t they be quired the attention — if only briefly — of the Seuss, Labor politicians Trish Crossin and Richard Mark Latham, ), others were focused ANDREW ROBB people. Australia, it seems, has only produced Julius Caesar or Coriolanus — that politics is linked generations in one political project. It re- addressing climate change, financial instability and politicians themselves. We recorded a response rate Marles were reading Harry Potter) to potboilers onBritish politicalfigures(WilliamPitt theYounger, serviceable leaders: Alfred Deakin, John Curtin, Ben treacherous business, and leaders who cannot sto- flected a fluid and cosmopolitan sense of time, even if global terrorism, without worrying about the wis- of 41 per cent from Labor MPs, 39 per cent from Co- (National Party MP Mark Coultan was reading John Richard Cramer, James Ellroy, Chifley, Robert Menzies and Bob Hawke. mach the dark arts do not last long. All true enough. the world of Burke’s age remained provincial in ge- dom of Dostoyevsky and Proust,the histories of Gib- alition MPs and 25 per cent from independents and Grisham, shadow parliamentary secretary for de- Continued on Page 16 What it Takes; Niccolo L.A. Confi dential But how about readers? Edmund Barton, Deakin, And yet one of the deepest mistakes about politi- ography. Today we face the opposite problem. Aus- bon and Macaulay? minor parties. fence Stuart Robert was reading The Da Vinci Code). Machiavelli, The Prince THE AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW March 3, 2010 16 CULTURE

F the multitude of document- flash-in-the-pan war that could potentially be aries that have been made in won but a new and permanent fixture in the glo- the eight years since 9/11, a few bal economic architecture.’’ It follows then, and stand out as being particularly Prince isat pains topoint out,that by andlarge we dispassionate; in their dispas- The terror can expect Hollywood’sown war on terrorto be a sion and decorum they are creatively unwinnable proposition. Ogripping and distressing, yet they don t make us Strangely absent from his book is possibly the ’ feel sullied by or complicit in some vicariously ex- best of all post 9/11 films so far, the South Park perienced pornography of globalised trauma. team’s puppet-animationfeature, TeamAmerica: Etienne Sauret’s WTC: The First 24 Hours, the World Police , which is brilliantly funny in a History Channel’s 102 Minutes that Changed and the dream guilty-pleasure way, puncturing with such ludi- America and Richard Dale’s 9/11: The Twin crous, subversive joy American pomposity and Towers are three that spring to mind, three of the the hypocritical narrative of moral torchbearing, best: haunting and restrained, and worth the as well as Sean Penn, Kim Jong-il and a host of emotional difficulty of watching them. LUKEDAVIES others. The price of academic discourse may be The first is a compendium of raw footage shot thenotion thatsome eventsareso terribleas tobe by a French filmmaker who in the chaos of that beyond a humorous response; the South first day and night found himself — in an almost OutoftheBlue:September11 fiction films about giant monsters threaten- Parksters seem to be more of the persuasion that private communion with exhausted rescuers and andtheNovel ing cities, coolly successful responses by when the going gets awful, the awful on all sides surreal,dust-shroudeddestruction—withaccess military and security forces to threats need to be taken down a peg. to spaces that soon would be sealed off from all ByKristiaanVersluys against the state. Prince deals with the obvious subjects. Of Oli- but the most tightly controlled media. The sec- ColumbiaUniversityPress,226pp,$38.95 ver Stone’s World Trade Center, he writes that ond is a timeline reconstruction (102 minutes Thus an early post-9/11 blockbuster, The Sum the film ‘‘reconstituted the record [that is, the re- long) comprised entirely of amateur footage of of All Fears (2002, with Ben Affleck as a young cord of events that took place that day] in accord- the unfolding events, one shot per event and no Firestorm:AmericanFilm Jack Ryan, hero of the Tom Clancy novels), is ance with perceived audience interest and box- repetitions; in one instance, a half-fascinated, intheAgeofTerrorism lacerated under Prince’s cool gaze: Ryan, having office formulas. Thus, [World Trade Center] be- half-horrified hipster-sounding girl with shaky ByStephenPrince driven through ground zero shortly after a nu- came the story of two people who were saved handicam, shooting from her apartment window, clear blast, rather than the nearly 3000 who died.’’ He gets exclaims, suddenly hysterical, ‘‘That — what is ColumbiaUniversityPress,388pp,$49.95 even more interesting when he makes riskier that falling? Oh my God, don’t be a person.’’ The experiences no radiation poisoning, and links: as an example, he makes good arguments third, the most expensive and in a sense most MartinScorsese’sAmerica apparently neither does anyone else. Cathy for why The Brave One (with Jodie Foster) or The measured of the three, with a narration by Teren- Muller survives with barely a scratch, Dark Knight (with Heath Ledger and Christian ceStamp,interviewsahandfulofsurvivorsofthat ByEllisCashmore despite all that flying glass, and in the film’s Bale), both vengeance narratives in which the terrible day, as well as the loved ones of some who Polity,304pp,$38.95 final scene, the two of them relax on the main characters are the subjects of an ‘‘egregious did not survive, and interweaves these interviews grass near the White House, and . . . joke violation’’, are valid films for inclusion in the with dramatic reconstructions of the events that about getting married. Baltimore may be post-terror discourse. were experienced. rubble, but its fate certainly hasn’t inter- So too are Ridley Scott’s crusader epic and Among these survivors was Brian Clarke, enactment on a reconstructed set. Then the real fered with the love life of our hero and his box-office disappointment, Kingdom of Heaven, whose Euro Brokers office on one of the impact Praimnath, holding back tears, takes up the story. girlfriend. The epic slaughter that climaxes or Zack Snyder’s wildly successful take on the floors, the 84th floor of the South Tower, was ‘‘This man put his hand around my shoulder and the film has left no lingering scars of any Spartans at Thermopylae, 300 , (the joke in film somehow spared the devastation of a fireball. ‘‘In he says, ‘Come on, buddy, let’s go home.’ And for kind, neither physical nor psychological. circles, by the way: Why is it called 300? Because a split second,’’ says Clarke, who seems in his in- the first time in my life, I cried like a baby. ’Cos on a scale of 1 to 10, that’s how gay it is). terviews to emanate wonder and humility, ‘‘our nobody never showed me that kind of com- Prince makes detailed and engaging synopses 300 ‘‘portrays the ancient world according to room just disintegrated. It was as if a demolition passion in my life before. A total stranger.’’ of all the films he covers, but he’s not just a Leon- the templates of contemporary political conflict, crew had been given all the right equipment, Films such as 102 Minutes and 9/11: The Twin ard Maltin of ‘‘post-terror’’ cinema. He always and . . . provides an argument and a justification sledge hammers and crowbars, to go through and Towers highlight, in brief, searing moments, in- bears the reader aloft in an informed, fluid con- forwagingwaragainstIraqandIran’’.Inthefilm, just destroy this space, and you’ve got a whole stances where raw dislocation met raw love. Ste- text, and he makes surprising but resonant links. the Persians are the bad guys. day to do it. But it happened in an instant.’’ phen Prince’s Firestorm: American Film in the Age He ranges widely, whether synthesising box of- In ‘‘real’’ history the Persian empire ultimat- Clarke’s story shows just how much destinies of Terrorism, a dense, thoughtful and thorough fice figures — ‘‘the weak box office of World ely fell to the Islamic caliphate. In Hollywood, can turn on the tiniest of decisions. Every deci- investigation of the celluloid response to that Trade Center and United 93, and the commercial why sweat the small details? As Prince points out, sion is a doorway; all doors end eventually in chilling September day and its fallout, will stand failure of all the post-9/11 films released late in ‘‘in the film Xerxes and his army are rendered ac- death, though one of the unavoidable facts of life for some time as a fine initial guidebook to this 2007, suggest that viewers are rejecting the role cording to the West’s contemporary fears. They is that some of us will die more dreadfully than field. For future scholars, the film references are that popular cinema might claim in bearing wit- therefore embody a kind of undifferentiated Isla- others. At every doorway we walk through, an in- extensive. For general readers the book, while at ness to atrocity’’ — or bringing Naomi Klein into mic horde.’’ Team America gets this too; it asks us finite number of others close. The next instant times a touch academic, is intelligent and lucid, hisarguments.Kleinsaysthegrowthofthesecur- to take the point seriously by not taking it seri- there are an infinite number of choices, open and is wide-ranging and well-argued enough to ity and surveillance industries marks a new form ously at all. 300, pure entertainment in a sense doors. Descending fire stairs with a group of sur- hold one’s interest even when discussing films of global economy called ‘‘disaster capitalism’’. that Team America, with its gleeful meta- vivors, Clarke heard a man calling for help some- one may never get around to seeing. Prince Prince believes that disaster capitalism ‘‘finds intelligencecould neverbe, asksusmerely totake where deep within the smoke and rubble. He tackles the mainstream as well as the obscure, profit in crises and therefore a motive in helping it seriously. A fascinating psychological study went to look for the man, against the advice of and his chief argument may simply be that the to instigate them. The outcome is endless war.’’ would await any researcher who looked in detail some of the others. One of the group came with Klein writes elsewhere that this kind of war is at the viewing responses of serving American sol- him, but turned back after a while. (All of these disparity between the recent history of ter- ‘‘limited by neither time nor space nor target. diers to 300 and Team America. people would die.) Clarke eventually located the rorism and Hollywood’s version of it sug- From a military perspective these sprawling and Prince devotes a subchapter to Steven man, Stanley Praimnath, and guided him gests that a chief function of these films is to amorphous traits make the war on terror an un- Spielberg and 9/11, looking at such films as Min- through a small gap in the rubble. first evoke and then to allay public anxieties winnable proposition. But from an economic per- ority Report,The Terminal andWar ofthe Worlds. The men meet, and hug, actors in re- by portraying, much as did the 1950s science spective, they make it an unbeatable one: not a (For the record, Princesees Spielberg’s Munich as

nis Jensen listed Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. stand new developments in physics, genomics, fully shed fresh light on the business of politics. As far as favourite nonfiction was concerned, medicine and astronomy. Leaders’ classic biographies of Lincoln, Churchill and Finally, it is worth mentioning that a handful WELL, we were right to think that none of our Franklin D. Roosevelt all made the top five list, as of our politicians have penned their own books. Australian politicians had Sophocles, Virgil, we expected. But the overall favourite of Austra- Starting with data provided to us by the Austra- Dante, Shakespeare or Montaigne on their read- power lian politicians was Nelson Mandela’s inspir- lian Parliamentary Library, we estimated that 12 ing lists. Yet we gave them only one option each, ational 1994 autobiography Long Walk to of the 226 federal parliamentarians have written and not the 10 or 20 slots most readers would Freedom, followed by Robert Caro’s multi- a book, although others have contributed to edit- need to cover their most-loved books. reading volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, which ed collections or written parliamentary reports. It We suspect that many of our respondents felt with deep psychological and political insight wouldseemthatfewofourelectedmembershave like Petro Georgiou, who responded that it was Continued from Page 15 presents LBJ as a conflicted and ambiguous the inclination, temperament or time required to too difficult to select just one favourite fiction and character and has become a modern touchstone write a book. nonfiction title. Churchill, Cherie Blair), but most were reading for political biography. The ‘‘parliamentary book club’’ (as it is some- Having said that, it is clearly important that about American politicians and the ‘‘greatest Les Carlyon, author of the top-selling war his- times disparagingly called) comprises Craig Em- our leaders continue to read deeply, and not just show on earth’’. tories Gallipoli and The Great War, The New York erson, Duncan Kerr, Graham Perrett, Wayne the literature of the day, but the time-honoured Deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop was Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and God Swan and Tanner from Labor; Abbott, Kevin An- literature of the past, with its ability to teach us reading a biography of Condoleezza Rice. Junior rounded out the list. Of the remainder, two list- drews, Peter Costello, Mason, Russell Trood and more about ourselves and properly direct the as- Defence Minister Greg Combet was looking at ings caught our eye. Pyne nominated Plutarch’s Malcolm Turnbull from the Coalition; and Bob pirations of our national life. Conrad Black’s biography of Franklin Roosevelt. Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, a favourite Brown from the Greens. Our sitting politicians While it would be silly to imagine that we Alex Hawke was seeking inspiration in the life of of ours, too. And Agriculture Minister Tony have tended to write fairly dry policy books might make Deakins out of Heffernans, it’s not so Karl Rove. Bowen was reading a semi- Burke was the sole parliamentarian to list a sci- (novelist Perrett is the one exception). crazy to hope Australia’s leaders might read biographical account of the 2004 US Senate race ence book, Amir Aczel’s God’s Equation: Einstein, Memoirs, it seems, are left to the halcyon days more.For thepoliticiansthemselves, perhapsthis between Tom Daschle and John Thune. Relativity and the Expanding Universe. of retirement. Unfortunately, most Australian means finding more space to think and read, free Others were reading biographies of Lincoln It is 50 years since British scientist C. P. Snow political memoirs have been hastily produced ac- from the constant demands to talk and react. ✱ and Theodore Roosevelt. Meanwhile, two re- published his famous two cultures essay, lament- counts of events (Bob Hawke, Graham spondents couldn’t resist a political dig when ing the lack of communication and understand- Richardson and Costello), or clumsy attempts at READ the full survey at www.andrewleigh.org asked about their most recent fiction book: Labor ing between the humanities and the sciences. No score-settling (Mark Latham and Bill Hayden). MP Brett Raguse named Liberal Thinking by C. J doubt the scientific community wishes our politi- Since the 1970s, perhaps only Hasluck, Blewett COMMENT on ALR stories at Puplick and Robert Southey, while Liberal Den- cians spent more time endeavouring to under- and Button have used their memoirs to success- www.theaustralian.news.com.au/thearts/alr