Books I Read in October
Politics on Edge, The Stationery Shop of Tehran, A Woman is No Man, Normal People
A Woman is No Man, by Etaf Rum. Strongly recommended
This book had a big impact on me. It follows the story of a Palestinian immigrant family in New York, over three generations.
Big learnings:
The depiction of domestic violence is powerful and shocking, on several levels. First is just the direct and frequent nature of it. Second is how normalized it is in the culture - and scary thing is that this is not a problem unique to a small community but it is widespread across many cultures around the world and across time. Third is the helplessness of the victims. I naively used to think ‘You can just leave an abusive relationship’, but that is not straightforward in many circumstances (e.g. having no education, no money, cannot speak English, no friends outside the family, almost never having left the house, etc.)
The most memorable (not in a good way) moment in the book for me was the first moment the protagonist is hit by her husband. It stands out because despite knowing it is going to happen (the book is not written chronologically), it is still tragic to see the husband reach the tipping point and unleash the abuse on his wife. But what adds to the tragedy is how ‘easily’ the wife just absorbed the abuse and adjusted to this reality. They were conditioned from birth to expect this, so subconsciously she was ready all along.
Early in the book, it was easy to judge the parents and the grandparents for perpetuating these terrible norms, but as you learn more and more about the characters and their thinking, it became clear that you cannot just straightforwardly blame one individual for the problems. Culture is a powerful force and I under-estimate just how much people value culture in and of itself. And the fact that these norms have survived so long in so many places is testament to how difficult it is for the norms to change.
The fact that these terrible norms and practices can continue for multiple generations, despite being in New York. I previously was in support for more open borders in the Western world, but now I take seriously the concerns that there are cultural incompabilities and that you need to consider cultural assimilation. This is something that Sam Harris, for example, talks about a lot and I used to be dismissive and think he is just overly obsessed with religion, but now I am realising that he understood the facts of the matter clearer than I did. Maybe I should read books by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but I’m not sure I have the stomach for it.
A friend asked me what my one-line message would be based on this book. I went with “People, their experiences and their cultures can be dramatically different to yours and you should learn about them.” They had not read the book but based on our discussion, they went with, “Do not be quick to judge, since you do not know their life story.”
Normal People, by Sally Rooney. Not for me, but worth a try
Tried but did not finish. The person who recommended it to me said that you will either love or hate the book, and you will know after reading it for 20 minutes. I gave it a bit more time and was not enjoying it, so stopped. I can say it is worth a try - unconventional characters and narrative style - but not for everyone.
Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart. Recommended
Rory Stewart was a Conservative MP, starting under David Cameron, then Theresa May, and then ending his career as an MP after losing to Boris Johnson during the conservative leadership campaign.
Highlights:
I have a deeper appreciation of the quote by Milton Friedman: “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
Despite knowing Boris Johnson wins the leadership race, it is tragic to see the way in which Rory loses. In essence, Rory stood by his principles, whereas all the other competitors raced to the bottom to secure their influence under the new government under Boris.
The blatant backstabbing and lying that happens amongst colleagues. There are stories of top politicians feeding blatantly false rumors to newspapers in order to kill off the competition. And my understanding is you just have to suck it up and support your colleagues, because god forbid you let the opposing team win!
Getting insight into how big decisions are made in UK Government. In particular, it is surprising how little weight seems to be put on previous experience when deciding which politician is responsible for which things. Furthermore, surprising how abruptly somebody’s responsibility can change!
Insight into how unpredictable things are, and how contingent outcomes can be tiny details. E.g. the story of how Rory even became an MP in the first place required many unlikely factors to all line up.
The potential for things to improve, when you do have the motivation. The chapter on Rory’s efforts to improve public prisons was refreshing to read, but at the same time dis-heartening because you see just how much the system and incentives are set-up for the prison system to get worse instead of better.
The Stationery Shop of Tehran, Marjan Kamali. Recommended
Not too much to say. Solid story, interesting setting (the coup in Iran in the 1950s), but not ‘ground-breaking’. I personally like historical fiction as a way of learning history. Even if the number of facts is much less in a story, I remember more from a story compared to a dense history book.