Political Fictions
Encyclopedia
Political Fictions is a 2001
book of essays by Joan Didion
on the American political process.
between October 1988 and October 2000, the collection includes three essays previously published as the "Washington" section of After Henry
.
, the Republican
takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections, Clinton's impeachment
, and the 2000 race
between George W. Bush
and Al Gore
.
President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky
, the intern's association with Linda Tripp
, and their entanglement with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr
provides the book's central material. Didion evolves this into a close dissection of how the press casts and shapes the news, and helps promote a scandal. It is, as Didion writes, a story of "that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life." The narrative, she writes, "is made up of many understandings...to overlook the observable in the interests of obtaining a dramatic story line.”
In a 2001 essay, Joseph Lelyveld
, former executive editor of The New York Times
, asked, "Who can deny that this is a reasonable view of reality?".
, former Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld discussed "Didion’s great virtues as a political writer," noting particularly her examination of the journalism of Bob Woodward
. "For the sheer exuberance of the savaging, Joan Didion on the methodology of Bob Woodward’s books is itself worth the price of admission." He calls the book both a demonstration of how "in the end something like a narrative is foisted on the land" and "the freshest application of an acute literary intelligence to the political scene [in] three decades." In Salon
, political writer Joe Conason
noted, "It turns out that the man who used to run the Times is quite troubled by the quality of journalism during the era when he was in power, though we learn that circuitously, through his endorsements of many of Didion's complaints. He is plainly contemptuous of his old rivals at the Washington Post. He worries that readers regard him and his colleagues as part of a 'self-serving, self-satisfied, self-enriching establishment' that conspires in the creation of a trivial and misleading narrative of our national life. And most surprisingly, he suggests that there was substance behind suspicions of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' against the Clintons. (Now he tells us.)" In The New York Times Book Review
, John Leonard
wrote, "Didion is on pure Zen target when she tells us that American democracy has been abducted," and called the book "a splendid sermon."
Conason, in his brief essay, examines implications in Lelyveld's positive reception of the book.
2001 in literature
The year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
book of essays by Joan Didion
Joan Didion
Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
on the American political process.
Essays
Written for The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
between October 1988 and October 2000, the collection includes three essays previously published as the "Washington" section of After Henry
After Henry (book)
After Henry is a 1992 book of essays by Joan Didion.The entire contents of this book are reprinted in We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction .-"After Henry":...
.
Content
Didion records the election of George H.W. Bush and his defeat by Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections, Clinton's impeachment
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....
, and the 2000 race
United States presidential election, 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush , and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President....
between George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
.
President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American woman with whom United States President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an "improper relationship" while she worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996...
, the intern's association with Linda Tripp
Linda Tripp
Linda Rose Tripp was a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal of 1998 and 1999 that led to the impeachment and subsequent acquittal of U.S. President Bill Clinton.-Early life and government employment:...
, and their entanglement with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr
Kenneth Starr
Kenneth Winston "Ken" Starr is an American lawyer and educational administrator who has also been a federal judge. He is best known for his investigation of figures during the Clinton administration....
provides the book's central material. Didion evolves this into a close dissection of how the press casts and shapes the news, and helps promote a scandal. It is, as Didion writes, a story of "that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life." The narrative, she writes, "is made up of many understandings...to overlook the observable in the interests of obtaining a dramatic story line.”
In a 2001 essay, Joseph Lelyveld
Joseph Lelyveld
Joseph Lelyveld was executive editor of the New York Times from 1994 to 2001, and interim executive editor in 2003 after the resignation of Howell Raines. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.In all, Lelyveld worked at...
, former executive editor of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, asked, "Who can deny that this is a reasonable view of reality?".
Reception
In the Yale Review of Books, Jessica Lee Thomas wrote, "The scariest point Didion seems to be making is not simply that politics is a nest of lies, but that we buy into 'the story' like any good novel." In his 2001 essay in The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, former Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld discussed "Didion’s great virtues as a political writer," noting particularly her examination of the journalism of Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
. "For the sheer exuberance of the savaging, Joan Didion on the methodology of Bob Woodward’s books is itself worth the price of admission." He calls the book both a demonstration of how "in the end something like a narrative is foisted on the land" and "the freshest application of an acute literary intelligence to the political scene [in] three decades." In Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, political writer Joe Conason
Joe Conason
Joe Conason is an American journalist, author and political commentator. He writes a column for the weekly New York Observer newspaper, for Salon.com and has written a number of books, including Big Lies , which addresses what he says are myths spread about liberals by conservatives.-Life and...
noted, "It turns out that the man who used to run the Times is quite troubled by the quality of journalism during the era when he was in power, though we learn that circuitously, through his endorsements of many of Didion's complaints. He is plainly contemptuous of his old rivals at the Washington Post. He worries that readers regard him and his colleagues as part of a 'self-serving, self-satisfied, self-enriching establishment' that conspires in the creation of a trivial and misleading narrative of our national life. And most surprisingly, he suggests that there was substance behind suspicions of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' against the Clintons. (Now he tells us.)" In The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
, John Leonard
John Leonard
John Leonard may refer to:* John Leonard , American literary, television, film, and cultural critic* John Leonard , Australian poet* John Leonard , Gaelic footballer...
wrote, "Didion is on pure Zen target when she tells us that American democracy has been abducted," and called the book "a splendid sermon."
Conason, in his brief essay, examines implications in Lelyveld's positive reception of the book.
Although he oversaw most of the Times coverage of Whitewater, replete with distortion and omission, Lelyveld avoids mentioning how that fabricated "scandal" led into the Lewinsky affair. He praises Didion's able dissection of the Isikoff-Starr version, an unreliable narrative concocted by prosecutors and their helpers in the press. He doesn't dispute her observation that Washington's "self-interested political class," including the media, "smelled blood, Clinton's." And he forthrightly agrees that the real story was the independent counsel's "headlong attempt" to bring down an elected president, adding that Hillary Clinton's famous remark about a possible conspiracy "was too easily discounted."
What Lelyveld says next amounts to a confession of sorts. "Very late in the game, reporters started tracing the network of lawyers in the conservative Federalist Society, funded in part by Richard Mellon Scaife, that reached into both the Paula Jones defense team and Starr's office," he writes. Students of the subject will recognize how inadequate that description is, but it is apparently the best he can do.
The question he is uniquely qualified to answer, but does not, is why that fascinating and salient story was so assiduously ignored by the mainstream media, including the Times, for so many years. Lelyveld cannot quite bring himself to be candid on that sensitive topic, which is, ironically, the same kind of intellectual failure excoriated so passionately and so precisely by Joan Didion. It is astonishing, nevertheless, that he even tries.