Holiday Reading 1: Paul Mason - Meltdown

You know that capitalism lurches into crises, you know this one is something to do with bankers making risky loans, you are familiar with terms like subprime, credit crunch, and you've heard of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae - or was it Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac? But you would really like to understand it all a bit better.

My recommendation? Read this book.

Paul Mason's 'Meltdown' was published in February 2009, and provides a highly readable, indepth-yet-easy-to-understand account of the current economic crisis. His account is very much helped by lively descriptions of people and places, cultural references, and the personal touch of his own presence at press conferences and lurking in various places waiting for developments.

It is also helped by straightforward explanations and by regular mentions of the poor and working-class victims of the bankers' behaviour. Its style is much more journalistic than theoretical, but it feeds your theoretical understanding nonetheless.

Now a year-and-a-half old, the book can not provide up-to-date accounts of governments' slash-and-burn response to the crisis. These extraordinary-scale cuts, and the accompanying pathetic-scale curbs on the bankers, perhaps cast doubt on Paul's central argument: that this economic crisis has killed neo-liberalism. He contends that the 'age of greed' is at an end; capitalism has no choice but to reign in and regulate its financial mega-gamblers.

Even if the ConDems' savage attacks suggest otherwise, though, they do not prove that Paul is wrong, and I still find his argument very convincing. Obviously, it's an argument that I'd very much like to be convinced by, especially as he also argues that the organised labour movement will have a much bigger role from here on in.

That last bit is something that we do not have to wait on and observe, but that we can assist with our own efforts.

Come And Hear Me Talk About My Book!

And wish me a happy birthday too ...

Radical History Network of NE London, c/o PO Box 45155, London N15 4RW

Radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
celebrate our history, avoid repeating our mistakes”

Janine Booth speaks on her book
"Guilty and Proud of it!: Poplar's rebel councillors and guardians 1919-1925"
[on sale at this event at £10.00]

Wednesday 21 October at 8pm

Venue: the Postmen's Office at the North London Community House. Its address is 22 Moorefield Road, London N17. The venue is almost next to Bruce Grove British Rail Station, where Bruce Grove meets the High Road in Tottenham.

Holiday reading: 'The Curious Incident ...'

Holiday reading this year was Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time', which had long been on my to-read list following great reviews, recommendations from friends and general fuss.

I don't want to give away too much of the story to those few of you who have not yet read it, as unexpected developments are among the book's strengths, giving it a suspense plot that, for the most part, keeps you reading so that you take in the more important emotional plot. Suffice to say that it is a murder mystery in which the victim is a dog but the real story is less that of deceased canine Wellington and more that of narrator Christopher. The solving of the Whodunnit does not simply answer one challenge but launches us into another.

I could not read this book as anything other than what I am: the parent of a boy who, like teenager Christopher, has Asperger syndromw. I saw much of Joe's outlook on life in Christopher's: his structures of thinking, his bewilderment at the strange ways in which neurotypicals speak, his desire to shut out the world and protect himself from mental overload, his use of reasoning and rules to work through confusing and unfamiliar situations. But there were other aspects which did not seem like Joe at all. I had to remind myself that this is OK, that this is not a handbook about Asperger syndrome (in fact, it does not even mention the term), nor does it claim to describe or speak for aspies in general. It is a novel about Christopher.

At times I feared for Christopher being portrayed as a circus freak, or an object of mirth, or a danger to himself and those around him. Or that he might reinforce some unhelpful stereoptypes about aspies - for example, that they are incapable of lying or of understanding jokes. I have not read responses by aspies to the book, and it would not surprise me to find criticism alongside praise. Personally, I thought that 'The Curious Incident ...' just about managed to stay on the right side of the line and to re-balance itself just when I worried that it might tip over.

The book shows the joys and challenges that life presents to a teenager with Asperger's. It also shows powerfully how hard it is to be a parent, and how easy it is to do or say the wrong thing. It made my feel simultaneously sympathetic to Christopher's parents, angry with them for their mistakes, and rather chuffed that I'm doing a better job of it.

What struck me most, though, were the similarities of Christopher's thinking not just to Joe's but to my own. I sometimes share Christopher's frustration at the inaccurate and confusing ways in which people talk, his desire to curb his own runaway thinking, and his fanaticism for maths, science and the natural world. Asperger's syndrome is not so much a whole different way of thinking, but a condition in which ways of thinking that occur occasionally in most of us are hard-wired in the aspie.

'The Curious Incident ...' will probably be thought-provoking for people with Asperger's in their life. It will almost certainly be enlightening for those without. But it is a novel, not a textbook, and as it goes, a pretty good read: a murder mystery with engaging, believable characters, and everyday matters observed keenly and made interesting.

Burning Books

This one's old news, but I've paused to contemplate the fact of Bible-bashers burning Harry Potter books. At first you think it's just wacko, but seriously, this stuff is frightening. Of course, the stories are from the USA, but don't think it could never cross the pond - after all, the government funds and endorses an Academy in the North East which might not burn Potter books but does ban them.

And reactionary stuff that seems very much on the fringes during 'normal' times can suddenly grow during times of economic and social crisis. As Paul Weller sang in The Jam's Funeral Pyre:

As I was standing by the edge
I could see the faces of those led pissing themselves laughing
(and the flames grow higher)
Their mad eyes bulged their flushed faces said
The weak get crushed as the strong grow stronger

We feast on flesh and drink on blood
Live by fear and dispise love in a crisis
(what with today’s high prices)
Bring some paper and bring some wood
Bring what’s left of all your love for the fire
We’ll watch the flames grow higher!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I don't care what you think, I love it.

Spent the weekend with my nose in a book. Finished by Sunday night. Somehow also managed to buy a new computer, set it up, take it apart again, take it back to the shop and demand the parts that they 'forgot' to pack, set it up again, and spend a bit of quality time with my family too.

Obviously, I'm not going to give away any essential bits of the plot. I will say, though, that after the last book, I had this theory about the identity of R.A.B. and my mate Rosie had this theory about Severus Snape. As it turns out, we were both right.

No doubt, cynics will continue to write dreary newspaper columns and tut at 'grown-ups' reading HP on the bus. But there will be no apologies from me. So it's undemanding? Escapism? And so what?

It's also absolutely gripping. You just have to know what's going to happen next. So you eat your tea one-handed, and decide that today is the day that your kids simply have to learn to dress themselves. Because you care about the characters, because the narrative drives you on. I guess it helps to like fantasy, and to love all that myth and legend stuff too.

But this book also manages to convey that parts of Harry and friends' search for the Horcruxes is drawn out, boring, frustrating. And it also has its Grand Emotional Themes - that the only way to 'master' death is to accept it, that even those you admire and trust most have faults, that kids born into evil have the right to redeem themselves, that you might not know people as well as you think, that pressure and fear create friction amongst the closest friends and self-doubt that can nearly consume you.

And it's allegory of the bad guys as fascists is the most blatant yet. A prison called Nurmengard, indeed. And the Muggle-Born Registration Commission made me come over all chilly - a fantasy persecution so horribly similar to real ones.

Ok, so there are bits about the way JK Rowling writes that jar a little - personally, I can't bear the word 'numbly', but it has always seemed to be one of her favourites. And yes, it's obscene how filthy rich she is. But I wish I could write books like this. And I'm sad that it's all over.