What do Churchill, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein all have in common? Novels!
This week saw the release of O, the anonymous novel which centres on the presidential race in 2012. The president in question is a thinly disguised Barak Obama and so speculation has been rife as to the identity of the author. However within a week the mystery appears to be over. A former aid to John McCain, Mark Salter, is widely acknowledged as the author. Of course all this is about as interesting as an evening in with Sarah Palin.
Last week I compiled a list of musician’s who had written novels and with little else book news and at the risk of repeating a tired formula, I thought I’d look at politicians turned novelists.
Winston Churchill
‘We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.’ Almost every Englishman knows Churchill’s famous words but not many know he wrote a novel. ‘Savrola’ was published in 1899, long before his stirring speech, and had a lack lustre critical response.
Benito Mussolini
The fascist dictator isn’t known for his writing and unfortunately his political exploits seems to have overshadowed his historical novel. ‘The Cardinal’s Mistress’ has a very promising title, and the plot, a cleric’s attempt to legitimise his love affair, sounds like it could be full of bodice-ripping smuttiness.
But apparently it’s a real bore, with flimsy characterisation and a wandering plot. I guess we’ll have to wait for Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” novel.
Saddam Hussein
Mr Hussein actually wrote four novels, all published under the pen name ‘the author’. The romance novel ‘Zabibah and the King’ is his most famous and was a bestseller in Iraq. It tells the tale of a beautiful common girl, Zabibah, who is abused by her husband; luckily a benevolent king comes to her aid. The romance is all allegorical, of course. Zabibah represents the Iraqi people and her abusive husband, the United States. The kindly king, well he represents Hussein. If you don’t fancy a read you can always for Sacha Baron Cohen forthcoming film adaptation.
Barack Obama
Obama hasn’t written a novel yet, but is the author of two hugely successful and critically acclaimed autobiographies. Although he can’t be called a novelist Obama had two poems published in the student literary magazine, Feast. The first, ‘Pop’ is a free verse portrait of his grandfather. It’s a tender poem and depicts a young Obama, ‘a green young man/ Who fails to consider the/ Flim and flam of the world’; this is surely not the President we see before us now. ‘Underground’ is rather lighter fare, an obscure poem which might be attempting to say something, but is really just about apes eating figs. He was only nineteen.
POP
Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I’m sure he’s unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He’s so unhappy, to which he replies…
But I don’t care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shrink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ’cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop’s black-framed glasses
And know he’s laughing too.
UNDERGROUND
Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.
London agenda for Tuesday 18 January
1. Look at the city when it’s asleep. New York Sleeps [Le Cool]
2. Join the brainy bunch to see Helen Keen lead off for the first time at the Bright Club as we try to understand brains [Run Riot]
3. Go Soho at Tennis, Swanton Bombs, Planet Earth at Madame JoJos [London Gigs]
4. Drink at the Cockpit [Tired of London]
