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Power Readers Bott Was Reading Waugh’S Sword of Honour Trilogy, While Bowen Was Reading the Great Gatsby)

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Power Readers Bott Was Reading Waugh’S Sword of Honour Trilogy, While Bowen Was Reading the Great Gatsby) THE AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW March 3, 2010 March 3, 2010 THE AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW 14 POLITICS POLITICS 15 Some had escaped into crime fiction (Gillard and Joe Hockey 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 Kevin Rudd 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 Malcolm Turnbull 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- PETER GARRETT 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- JULIA GILLARD 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- LINDSAY TANNER 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: COALITION 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- TONY ABBOTT 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.
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