Power Without Glory
Nov. 24th, 2023 07:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeMy currently reading is Power Without Glory (1950) by Frank Hardy, the Great Australian Communist Novel, which is mainly remembered these days for its (self) publication triggering Australia's last ever criminal libel trial. Hardy wasn't sued by any of the people he actually libelled*, the book being an almost embarrassingly obvious filing-off-of-the-serial-numbers-of-reality and openly suggesting that every second Labor politician in Australia was corrupt. No, the plaintiff was the wife of John Wren, the dude who is 100% the main character -- the book depicts her as having an affair with a brickie from which an illegitimate child ensues.
Hardy won the case because he was able to demonstrate that he did no research whatsoever into any of the women in John Wren's life. I would go further and suggest that it's possible he never met a woman, ever, in his entire life.**
Anyway, the book covers the life of "John West", an Irish Catholic who rises from poverty to control the gambling industry, organised crime and eventually Labor politics in the first half of the 20th century. If you're going, "Wait, is that not the plot of Peaky Blinders?" you're not alone, although West does not enter politics himself, nor does he fuck Diana Mosley in a House of Parliament.***
As an indictment of Australian politics, particularly the Australian Labor Party, the Catholic Church, the labour movement and the mining industry, it's excoriating, and a lot of facets are depressingly famiilar in the present day. Hardy's politics is such that The Only Good Politician Is The Socialist Who Quits The Fight In Favour of Ideological Purity, which maybe explains why he was not especially beloved by his fellow Communists.
As a novel it's less successful; obviously "show don't tell" is CIA propaganda, but I think Hardy would have benefited from less exposition. Or maybe an editor. This may in fact be one of the most successful self-published books in Australian literary history, although I suspect C. S. Pacat sold more before she got picked up by a publisher, and has also never been sued. Anyway, highlights include phonetically rendered regional accents, but not applied consistently; honestly most of the character voices are interchangeable; 80% of the female "characters" are sad nags who stay at home and wish their husbands were less corrupt. (One of John West's daughters becomes a Communist and elopes with a Jewish fellow traveller; she's the most sympathetic woman in the book, and therefore dies of breast cancer at the end.****)
Anyway, I'm at page 450 of about 600, and I have the new Murderbot waiting for me as a reward at the end. I've enjoyed stretching my literary boundaries and spending time with an out and out antihero, but honestly, "political novels written by men in the 1940s" is a hard sell for me, and I don't see that changing.
* Truth is not a complete defence in Australia, I think this is what the "upside down smiley" emoji is for
** He had a wife and children and his granddaughter is a prominent literary nepo baby, so there is some evidence I might be mistaken
*** No, that is actually a thing in Peaky Blinders
**** I'm shocking about reading the last page first
Hardy won the case because he was able to demonstrate that he did no research whatsoever into any of the women in John Wren's life. I would go further and suggest that it's possible he never met a woman, ever, in his entire life.**
Anyway, the book covers the life of "John West", an Irish Catholic who rises from poverty to control the gambling industry, organised crime and eventually Labor politics in the first half of the 20th century. If you're going, "Wait, is that not the plot of Peaky Blinders?" you're not alone, although West does not enter politics himself, nor does he fuck Diana Mosley in a House of Parliament.***
As an indictment of Australian politics, particularly the Australian Labor Party, the Catholic Church, the labour movement and the mining industry, it's excoriating, and a lot of facets are depressingly famiilar in the present day. Hardy's politics is such that The Only Good Politician Is The Socialist Who Quits The Fight In Favour of Ideological Purity, which maybe explains why he was not especially beloved by his fellow Communists.
As a novel it's less successful; obviously "show don't tell" is CIA propaganda, but I think Hardy would have benefited from less exposition. Or maybe an editor. This may in fact be one of the most successful self-published books in Australian literary history, although I suspect C. S. Pacat sold more before she got picked up by a publisher, and has also never been sued. Anyway, highlights include phonetically rendered regional accents, but not applied consistently; honestly most of the character voices are interchangeable; 80% of the female "characters" are sad nags who stay at home and wish their husbands were less corrupt. (One of John West's daughters becomes a Communist and elopes with a Jewish fellow traveller; she's the most sympathetic woman in the book, and therefore dies of breast cancer at the end.****)
Anyway, I'm at page 450 of about 600, and I have the new Murderbot waiting for me as a reward at the end. I've enjoyed stretching my literary boundaries and spending time with an out and out antihero, but honestly, "political novels written by men in the 1940s" is a hard sell for me, and I don't see that changing.
* Truth is not a complete defence in Australia, I think this is what the "upside down smiley" emoji is for
** He had a wife and children and his granddaughter is a prominent literary nepo baby, so there is some evidence I might be mistaken
*** No, that is actually a thing in Peaky Blinders
**** I'm shocking about reading the last page first
