I got my copy of this from The Left Book Club so I definitely expected a high dose of politics in the book, though the sub-title of “Culture, PoliticsI got my copy of this from The Left Book Club so I definitely expected a high dose of politics in the book, though the sub-title of “Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness” naturally made me think there’d be more to it. I’ll admit that I went into this book excited and thinking it would be worth reading: in an era of “culture wars” and an appeal to populism leading to the successful campaigns for Brexit and Trump, I looked forward to its insight on why many a politician (or person trying to seek financial or political capital) bows to a faux “common” image.
What I actually got was a book that was overwritten, inconsistent in tone and strangely scattershot: this book reads far more like a needlessly extended opinion article you’d find submitted to The Guardian but rejected due to bloat. The editor of this book either got lazy or doesn’t know how to edit.
An early warning sign was that even after the introduction and the majority through the first chapter, there were declarations of “this book will talk about”. If you’re having to introduce your book to me in the first chapter AFTER the introduction I question what your introduction was for.
The next chapter talks about a famous moment on Question Time with a chapter title that I guess is supposed to be witty… but reads far more like a stretch to make a joke. Your witty writing shouldn’t be so easy for someone to consciously realise. It was also a prime example of schizophrenic tone, not deciding whether it wanted to be throwing out witty one-liners in a more “bloke down the pub” way, or whether it was trying to be a historical document that was impartial. The author really should have picked one tone and left it.
The third chapter is an essay about characters such as Bond and Batman being reimagined in their mid-noughties debuts as far more grim and serious than previous campy portrayals. I'm rather film literate so the majority of the information was not new to me. That being said Kennedy's commentary is fascinating in one respect: it's desperate to throw out big words in an attempt to sound smart yet comes across as very shallow. Nothing I read about taking Batman from his campy 1960’s TV show and reinvigorating the character with a level of grit did anything more than say “hey, we all noticed this right?” with a few big words thrown in to disguise how shallow the observation was.
I'm not scared of an author flexing their vocabulary and sometimes I find that even when I dislike an author’s choice of big words for the sake of it I get a new word in my vocabulary. (here’s looking at you Jordan Peterson). What I'm not a fan of is when it reads unnaturally. In Chapter III words like "Machiavellian" and "Ameliorate" are used in an intellectual capacity... along with "shit-stirring". The book is filled with examples like this and I'm convinced the author was just eager to reiterate intellectual things he's heard but couldn't work out the way to use them organically. You can tell when this kind of thing happens when the following sentences are filled with very simple English.
To me the worst part of this book is simple: it doesn’t actually seem to add anything to the conversation. Rather, it exists to point out stuff you’ve already noticed. The best way to explain this I think is with a stand-up comedian. Often they’re just making fun of stuff we’ve all noticed before so there’s a shared joke. The difference between a comedian making simple observations, and an author of this kind doing it, is context. When I watch a comedian make fun of a simple observation I get a laugh. When an author like this points at something with nothing to add I question the point of what I’ve just read.
I’ll summarise this book simply: some politicians will act in a way that they think appeals to the average person so that they seem down to earth in the hopes that they will get your vote. If this is something you’ve never considered before then chances are you’re not into politics and could learn something from this book… but I’d question why you want to read it if you’re not into politics. If you are already aware of the notion that people will act in this way you’ll get nothing deeper....more
Loathe Thy Neighbour is a good, but flawed, short examination of racism in our country. As a fan of James O’Brien I find myself agreeing with a lot ofLoathe Thy Neighbour is a good, but flawed, short examination of racism in our country. As a fan of James O’Brien I find myself agreeing with a lot of points and Loathe Thy Neighbour for the most part was no exception. He examines the absurdity of judging someone exclusively on their ethnicity, using the example of someone saving your life: do you really care the race of the person who pushes you out of the way of the speeding car?
The book unfortunately is very naïve and doesn’t touch on a lot of stuff that would have been useful. O’Brien rightly condemns racists and the far right rhetoric that is often used to rile up the public instead of looking at the problems causing harm. I’ve seen the impact that these can have on people I love and respect, and as long as people won’t question why something is being published the more we know these things will be published. What O’Brien doesn’t do is look at the people who are scared of what they don’t know and don’t need a push. It would’ve been good if he had commented on the notion that there are genuine people whose racism is down to never having seen someone of colour which, while not acceptable, is more human.
He also has naivety when it comes to why people believe certain things. He comments that regardless what his idols ever wrote, he would never be convinced that it was ok to have sex with a child. I find myself agreeing with this and even cite Orwell as one of my heroes just like O’Brien in spite of his non-progressive attitude to homosexuality. O’Brien uses this to suggest that if we, in the West, would never use a book to justify sex with a child then it’s ludicrous to suggest that a religious person from the East would think differently. The reason this is a problem is simple: we know there are countries where specific quotes from the Qur’ran, accurately or not, are used to justify the same. As the holy books are often considered the divine word of a deity, it’s not the same as our reading of our favourite authors. If a divine being is telling you it’s ok, you might think it’s ok. If Jon Ronson’s next book encourages me to watch child pornography I will reconsider my love of the author. It’s naïve to compare the two fairly and I feel that O’Brien was trying to make a point but didn’t write enough to be clear.
The length is the problem with the book. At less than 100 pages it was always going to feel shallow. I get that this was supposed to be a short polemic on the subject of the absurdity of racism but by trying to tackle a topic in an intelligent way, and not with many pages, a lot of the points leave a lot to be desired....more
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