Now that's a book. Expect to see it on the ten best lists at the end of the year.
"Birnam Wood" is no "Maame." "Birnam Wood" is literary fiction. As in the concepts supersede the plot, big ideas are wrestled with and... I don't think anybody can really come up with a clear definition of "literary fiction," it's more like pornography, to paraphrase that Supreme Court Justice, you know it when you see it. Then again, with pornography at your fingertips via Google (and Bing!) what exactly is pornography. What crosses the line? I'd say very little. Oh yeah, your kids are seeing pornography before they reach puberty. All the child locks known to man can't keep them from it. And this is good, because sex will be decriminalized, it will no longer be seen as a bad thing. I mean why prevent kids from seeing pornography when they endure active shooter drills and must confront the distinct possibility of being mowed down in school?
So what you've got here is the do-gooders and the billionaire. And they're chiaroscuro, as in they're neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. For someone who came of age in the sixties, the number one societal issue is income inequality. Not only can we not make the money of the billionaires, we pay fealty to them, we lionize them, as if by having money they're better than we are.
But what kind of person can make this money? Elon Musk has been exposed as two-dimensional and evil. Furthermore, he thinks he's above the law. What is this new class of people who exist in this rarefied air? Like Trump. If you consider him to be wrongly accused, just think of the Black people who endure this each and every day. Or the Central Park Five Trump declared to be guilty who were put behind bars, losing all that time when in truth they were completely innocent. But if you let your jeans hang low and wear a do-rag you're guilty until proven innocent. Whereas if you wear a suit, it's the other way around.
There's a great passage about our adulation of the rich near the end of the book:
"And she had always known. That was the sad thing. Neither she nor Owen had ever been under any illusions that Lemoine was a good person, Lady Darvish thought, as she advanced. They'd known he was bad right from the start. And still they'd courted his business. Still they'd courted his approval, his respect. Still they'd courted him."
The sycophants. Be privileged to hang with the rich and powerful and the hangers-on will have you rolling your eyes, if you're not one of them yourself. You want some of that shine to rub off on you. You want to fly on the private jet, relax on Necker Island. This is the power of Epstein. Everybody looked the other way because he was rich. And even the justice system gave him a pass, with an unwarranted plea bargain in Florida. I mean after all, rich people can't be guilty, can they?
Of course they can.
And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. These people who made these fortunes... They're very smart, very business savvy, very people savvy. They veer on being sociopaths, and some are. They can make you feel good while ripping you off. They're always moving forward. As for friends? They know their kind, there are no real friends at this level.
But can the do-gooders triumph? Can we conquer climate change?
And it's always the youth who lead the charge. Because they're still optimistic, they still believe in possibilities, whereas when you get older you're resigned to the way the world works, at least how America works. Your only choice is to be an artist and speak truth to power. But the artists don't want to do this, they want to hang with the billionaires too, nobody wants to be poor, and nobody wants to alienate a potential customer, whether it be a brand or a person.
Speaking of Elon... Have you been following the story of NPR and PBS? Elon basically labeled them, inaccurately, as tools of the government, and they've decided to no longer tweet. Maybe because they're not typical corporations who have to deliver better numbers each and every quarter. But they're taking a stand. When seemingly no one else can. Those on Twitter not only want to glean information, they want to play, post and burnish their image. All these oldsters complaining about TikTok addiction in the youth should look at themselves. And why is it that the media can't stop covering Musk and Trump. They're laughing all the way to the bank! Biden doesn't get anywhere near the mindshare, and he's the President!
So "Birnam Wood" is set in New Zealand. The author, Elizabeth Catton, moved there from Canada with her family, she now lives in the U.K. But this story could take place anywhere. However, the New Zealand government is seen as more benevolent than typical western governments.
But it's not only the big societal issues that "Birnam Wood" addresses, but the personal. Who is the leader and why. Who is stifled and why. Who will sell out and who won't. These are questions we deal with every day. All of us. If you take the money they own you, you're compromised. But today everybody is looking to sell out, just look at the "influencers" hawking products they don't believe in just for some of that corporate dough. They think they're winning but in truth it's the companies that are winning, the influencers are just pawns in their game. Working 24/7 with no portfolio to make money. And when they're burned out and it's over, what have they got? Nothing. Why is it suddenly a badge of honor to drop out of school. Education itself has a bad rap. They're afraid you might learn to think so they make sure you're not exposed to stuff. As for college, it's now a glorified trade school. When I went it was about becoming a well-rounded person. Not a single person I went to college with thought about a well-paying job before graduation. That's not what they were in it for, they wanted to expand their minds before their pocketbooks.
And the jet set lifestyle of the billionaires. They actually own their own jets, which was not the case back in the sixties when the term was coined. And they have security, both cameras and people. And their goal is to keep themselves separate from the rest of us, the great unwashed. And they sell the fiction that if we just work hard enough, we too can become rich. What a crock...
So some of the reviews, even Stephen King, consider "Birnam Wood" to be a thriller. And I guess it is, but that's not how it felt to me, I wasn't reading for the great surprise at the end.
And did I tell you that Catton won the Booker Prize?
This is usually a badge of unreadability. And I won't say that "Birnam Wood" is an easy read, but it's not that hard. It does not cut like butter, but you'll get involved in the world, you'll think and you'll care.
So would I tell you to put "Birnam Wood" at the top of your reading list?
No. "Birnam Wood" isn't for everybody. If you never read books, don't start here. If books put you to sleep, don't even bother starting. But if in your high school English class you were searching for the zeitgeist... If you took liberal arts courses in college instead of science and engineering... "Birnam Wood" is right up your alley.
You see it isn't only about money...critical thinking, the power to analyze, the ability to wrestle with the big issues... These are critical to our society. Remember, all those TV series and movies and records were not made by techies. That's a different vertical. Needed, but we live for the soft issues. That which is not black and white, that which is not easily defined, like life. We're all wandering, looking for insight, but that is not primary, it all comes down to the bucks. Oh, and looking good too. So the Kardashians are billionaires. Would you treat your body that way, with so much plastic surgery? And I've yet to hear one of them utter truths gleaned from an analysis of experience. No, they went there and did that and they're empty vessels but they're billionaires, so we have to read about them and the young and impressionable try to be like them and...
Our society is truly screwed up. I won't even bother to delve into politics. Then an issue in "Birnam Wood" is whether you can trust the government. I mean if everything is a conspiracy...
And Elizabeth Catton is only 37 years old. I'm not saying she's a prodigy, but she's not an oldster stuck in her ways like so many of the vaunted writers of literary fiction. I mean wipe out the boomers and Gen-X'ers who come down from the mountaintop with tablets, holier-than-thou. The only hope for our society is the youth. I wish they'd read "Birnam Wood" rather than go to business school, then again...
I'm not rich.
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