My other favorite Churchill story is when his great granddaughter, I think granddaughter ran into the room. This is off to the war, and he's sitting writing his memoirs and she runs into You may know this. She runs into the room and she sees him sitting there, and she's gosped.
She stops, shees, She goes.
Great Granddad, is it true that you're the greatest man in the world? And he says, yes, Now fuck off.
Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country. Mister gorbachav tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet podcast number seven hundred and forty one. James Lilax is off today, but I am joined by Peter Robinson and Charles C. W. Cook and our special guest, Christopher Scalia. Let's have ourselves a podcast.
The gleaming marvels of Ria and Abu Dhabi were not created by the show called nation builders, neo cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives.
Welcome everybody to episode seven forty one of the Ricochet podcast. James is off today I'll be your host, Steve Hayward, joined us always by Charles C. W. Cook, and today a stranger is filling the third slot. It's a guy named Peter Robinson. Hi, Peter, how are you? Hi?
Steve? I barely remember myself right what? We've got a lot to do in.
Our special guest today will be Christopher Scalia with a terrific new book on novels that we've been neglecting. But before we get to Christopher, quickly, Peter, and I mean very quickly, because this could be the whole show. But give me your just initial impressions of the new Pope.
The Pope I listen, I mean I like him. Yeah, yeah, No, I do too. I'm just trying to explain that I feel myself in the position of a dog rescued from the pound that was grievously beaten by its former owner. It is going to be a while before I unclench and give my full trust to a new master. That's the kind of beaten dog I am. After twelve years of Pope Francis, now, I'm sure there will be some. And I speak of him with respect because he is the pope, was the pope. And however, Pope Leo is just.
He seems to be a man of good sense, well spoken, loves the church, and loves the church in every particular of its history. So he speaks beautiful Latin, he sings the Regina Shelley in front of the Every bit of this is just a relief and an inspiration to a Catholic such me. So I truly I love the man. I love the man right down to his brothers, who are moordinary Americans, just right, the sense of normalcy. Now, of course, the left will be outraged because one of
the brothers is pro Trump. I remind the left that Trump won the popular vote last time. You can be a normal American and pro Trump. Just the sense of a kind of normal love of the church, love of country, love of this country. Not however, that he hasn't dedicated almost all his life to the poor in Peru. But I so far I love him. I find myself my heart going out to him.
Right. All right, Well, let's go from the sacred to the mundane. I'll put it that way. Charles, I got up early yesterday out here on the left coast to listen to the oral argument in the Supreme Court. Yeah, wow, the birthright citizenship. Although really the case is about whether district courts can do these nationwide injunctions. So I listened to the whole thing and have my thoughts. But did you get a chance to listen or review at Charles?
I did?
I have thoughts on both of those? Which do you want either describe it whoever you like?
Charles? Is this wonderful intellectual constitutionalist's jukebox you put in a quarter rights your button? Go ahead, right?
Well?
I wish that this case was not also about national injunctions, because I think they'd be a better vehicle for that, and also it may get in the way of the on the merits decision. I have very complicated thoughts about
national induction, Steve. I think that ultimately the problem we have with judges who come in and usurp the role of the other branches is that the judges are hacks, not that national injunctions exist, because there are many circumstances in which it makes sense to have national injunctions.
I think the problem is we have a lot of bad judges on the.
Question of birthright citizenship. It's funny. I think Trump will lose this if it's decided. I am less persuaded than I was that it is easy. I thought last year i'd say.
Well, yes, that's a profound point.
Actually, yeah, one kim ark is settled law. The originalist meaning is obvious. I still think that's probably true on balance. I certainly think that there would be five votes for that position, three of the Democrat appointed judges, and then probably Robertson Kavanaugh on precedent inertia grounds. But I am less sure than I was. I haven't got to that because of yesterday's or all arguments. I've got to that slowly over time. Randy Mannett raised some questions for me.
Ilan Werman raised some questions for me. I read a few of the Amikast briefs. I've read some other people I respect who have sown doubt in my mind. So this one, actually, I think is more difficult than I had thought it was.
You no, My impression it was that they're going to pun completely on the birthright citizenship issue, because it seemed like about ninety five percent rough estimate of the argument was really concentrated on the nationwide injunction question. And I thought Justice Kagan gave away the whole game when she said, with some indignance in the way she put the question to one of the Trump attorneys Justice Department attorneys, I
can't believe you're bringing this case to us. And the subtext was you're trying to sheehorn in birthright citizenship on something that even I admit it's problematic, which is district judges giving nationwide injunctions. And then the second thing was the other thing of the weakness of I think the Democratic justices, it's clear they hate what's going on on both levels. I think they like activist judges doing nationwide injunctions.
But the Trump administration plan or initial argument was, well, look, the decision should be bound to just the parties of the case, which was you know Lincoln's view about dred Scott, by the way, so not a novel or exotic position, correct, And the Trump attorneys responded sensibly, well, look, you could have a class action suit brought to federal district court and that could give a broader injunction to a whole
class of people. And then there were but then the comeback from the liberal justices was, well, what if the class isn't certified, are you really telling me you'd have to go one person at a time through the federal courts to vindicate their citizenship or vindicate their eligibility for benefits and other rights that come from citizenship. And so you could tell that. I think that there's and I think even Keigan's probably thinks that nationwide adjunctions are problematic
at the very least. But it was clear that he really hates it that it's tied up with the birthright citizenship issue.
We have a guest joining us soon, so but may I ask a question of both of you. I did not listen to all the oral arguments, and I certainly didn't read any of the meek as briefs the way Charlie did. But I listened to bits and pieces of it as it floated through my feed yesterday. And here's my question on national injunctions. I try to put myself in the mind of John Roberts, Chief Justice John Roberts. Oh, and we've seen over and over again, and I think
it's true of him. By the way, just full disclosure, I've known the man for forty years. We worked together in the Reagan white House's young men, and I like him a lot, which is not to say that I get my head around all of his jurisprudence. However, he really is an institutionalist there. He really does take seriously holding it all together. And now we come with an argument.
And the argument really it's interesting for Justice Thomas and Justice Alito as well, because it's not a question where how do you apply original meaning to the question of national injunctions. You've got six more than six hundred district court judges who have the power to impose national injunctions.
Every single one of them is simply a judge who has the ability to stand up to the President of the United States, elected by the entire country, and in many circumstances, to the Congress of the United States, to defy on his own bat Article one an Article two of the Constitution. And it doesn't work. It's almost a purely institutional argument. The situation is untenable. Now, mister Chief Justice, what do you do with it?
Yeah, that's a good question. You know what I want to do, Peter, I actually want to pose that question to our guest, who is ready to join us in a moment he may not want the question, and you'll see why. I want to tell you who it is.
Our guest is here. It is Christopher Scalia, a senior fellow in the Social Cultural and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, formerly a professor of English at the University of Virginia's College at WISE, and he has a brand new book out that he's here to talk about. But Chris, you'll get used to a book tour interviews where the interviewer wants to ask you about something aside from your book. But I promise we will do the book.
The book is called Thirteen Novels Conservatives will love but probably haven't read. It's going to be out here next week. Chris, welcome, glad to have you. I've been waiting with great anticipation for this book.
Thank you, guys. It's great to be back on the podcast and I'm looking forward to talking to you all.
Yeah. Okay, well just briefly. I mean, because I think listeners, because of who you are in your name, they're going to know if you have an opinion about the Supreme Court argument this week on injunctions and birthright citizenship. And if you don't, that's fine because you are a professor of English and not of the law. But since we have you, I have to ask.
I admit I have not been following it very closely because I've been preoccupied with book obligations and opportunities. So it's obviously an important issue, and I agree with the general conservative consensus that these universal injunctions are becoming a serious problem and we need to figure out what the hell is going on with them, as President Trump would say, and they do seem novel. So my own uneducated opinion on the matter is that the judges making these injunctions,
handing down these injunctions are overstepping their bounds. But I don't have a ton of confidence in that opinion, And based on a little bit I heard about of the arguments yesterday, I really don't know what's going to happen with the birthright citizenship decision. But obviously I'm not certain, and you can't tell for sure from oral arguments, but it does look like the administration has an uphill battle there.
Enough of this, Christopher Scullia, I have known you since you were a pipsqueak. Now Here you come, now here you come, all eloquent, informed, speaking judiciously. Furthermore, you've written a book, and to my intense irritation, it's a very very good book. Here's the threshold question. In an age in which you know, as the father of four, nobody reads, kids are not being raised to read. Here you come saying we'll come to some of the particular novels in
a moment. But here you come saying reading is important. And furthermore, this disused genre, this old form, the novel, really matters. It can say tremendously important things to us. It can help us think through why we're conservatives. It can help us approach life in a healthy and more intelligent way. What the hell are you talking about?
You are unfortunately correct that people are not reading much of anything anymore, apart from their phones, I guess, and that's been going on for a long time, but it it is getting worse. I won't get into the numbers, but one alarming statistic is that in the nineteen eighties, young people were the most likely to read a lot, and now young people are just behind the very old in rates of reading as of just a couple of
years ago. And no doubt that has a lot to do with the many, many distractions that young people have to choose from. What I do in the introduction to my book is make the case for reading, in particular for reading fiction. I have nothing against poetry, but novels are what this book is about, and fiction has particular merits that other type of types of books do not have. History books obviously are important, but I know, especially conservatives
love reading history and biography, especially conservative men. But novels give us knowledge in a way that those books do not, and they also offer beauty in a way that history books rarely do. And I think conservatives especially should be interested in the novel as a form because it is among the greatest art forms of Western civilization. It's a relatively new form. It's only, you know, a few centuries old, but some of our yeah, that's right, it's basically a
new kid on the block. But it's uh. Some of the greatest thinkers and writers of our civilization have expressed their ideas and written in this form, and we need to be aware of it. We need to we need to remember and maintain our ability to engage with novels, because once we lose that ability, I mean, you're not born with it. It takes some practice to appreciate a novel. It is much easier to scroll through TikTok or whatever.
But if we lose that, we're cutting ourselves off from a great literary tradition.
Okay, you give me about three sentences. I'm going to hit you with some of the novels that you discuss here, and at some point, at any point, Steve Hayward and Charlie Cook are going to jump in to take issue with you or ask why you left this or that novel off the list. But let's begin with one that I myself always just loved Rossellus Samuel Johnson. Yeah, what's the point of it? When? What's the story? And what's the points? According to Scalia.
Samuel Johnson Rashalis, technically not a novel. I cheat a little bit here. It's an Oriental tale, but nobody's going to care enough to raise a big fuss about that. Seventeen fifty nine. It is a tale of a young man who is restless. The pun on his name suggests that he is. He has a great life. He's a prince and he lives in a kingdom. Everything is given to him, but he doesn't have to work. He doesn't have to do anything, and his experience and knowledge is
are so limited. He wants to go out and learn more about the world. And what he learns is that life is full of disappointment, not because it's unfair or anything like that, but once you reach what once you reach your goals, you immediately want to do something else.
There's an innate restlessness about us. And the novel is also about a very conservative idea of universal human nature, human behaviors and ideas and values that transcend time and place, and what I do in my chapters, I connect a lot of what Johnson wrote to what the Founders wrote. Even though Johnson was not a fan of the American Revolution, a lot of their Enlightenment ideals overlap.
Tell us about the astronomer.
Oh, the astronomer is somebody who gets so he's a character in this book who gets so absorbed in basically in his one bit of knowledge, impressive knowledge that it is that it deforms his mind. And it's a really important lesson that any really any expertise deforms the mind. I think Nietzsche said that I should have quoted that, And so they have to kind of rescue him and bring he believes he has all sorts of powers he doesn't have, so they have to dissuade him.
I read Rosalus because it was assigned I read Rossellus in college. It is I'm so delighted that you started with it, because it is for young men particularly. Leave I leave the brick bets from the women to you, although there will come to that in a moment. But the astronomer seems at first to young Rossellus like though he has finally found a wise man, yes, a man
who studies that. And then gradually as he spends time, as you read through the work, it becomes clear that the astronomer believes that he's not merely observing the moon rise, that he is causing it, that all the movements of the cosmos have come to depend upon him. And I have to say I have found that as I've gone through life, I have found that particular touch of insanity in one otherwise wise sane, accomplished person after or another. It's profound. Okay, now we come to.
You described that much better than I did, Peter. Thank you.
Can I bit in Peter for a minute, because of course, see well, I think we got to set a broader scene for the listeners first before we get in some particular novels. I mean, we can do each one of these for an hour each almost. But put this way, Chris. When I saw that you were working on this book, and I've been looking forward to this, by the way, so I'm glad now to have it, and I saw the title, it was thirteen novels. Oh gosh, I just lost it.
Here, thirteen novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read.
Right. Well, you know my first assumption as well, it's probably gonna be the you know, the usual list of the books that I cherish, you know, orwell, Darkness at Noon Brights had revisited C. S. Lewis's novels, several others you can point to, and you make nods to those in your introduction as you explain how you've done it.
And instead the list we've got as even some of the prominent authors, you haven't done their most prominent novel So, for example, you have Georgia Elliott, and of course I say, oh, Middle March, like one of the five Greatest Things. Instead
you have Daniel Deronda instead. So I'm wondering what your thought process was picking novels that you might say, are not the ones that would be the a list that the rest of us would do if we're asked by say, National Review, to give the five most important conservative novels or something.
Steve says, Steve says, how interesting explained to us how you took all these offbeat novels by great authors. And Robinson is thinking, yes, Kaliah, what the hell were you doing?
No, I didn't think that at all. I thought it was I thought it was genius. Peter.
I wish to reserve. I yield the floor back to you, guys, but I wish to reserve a moment or two to bitch and moan about selecting Waverley.
But go ahead, how dare you? How dare you?
Well?
I don't know if it's hereditary, but I am a little bit of a contrarian, and I wanted to. I wanted readers to encounter books that were off the beaten path, in large part because conservatives do have this bookshelf that at their hands that is for the most part, pretty impressive. But by always going to the same books, and you mentioned a lot of them, we're we're selling ourselves short.
We're not recognizing the rich literary tradition that that kind of reinforces or develops or depicts some of the values and ideas that we hold deer. And these aren't These novels do not proselytize. These novels are are not didactic. They are first and foremost great works of literature that I really believe people of any political persuasion would enjoy. But conservatives in particular would enjoy these books because they're surprising and they and they are sympathetic to things that
we hold deer. In the case of Daniel Deronda, Middle Marches is the better novel by by George Elliott, but more people are familiar with with Middle March, and I think Daniel Deronda is underrated. It is her longest novel, is her last novel, but I find it remarkably accessible for as long as it is. I think it moves pretty quickly. And it is it's about duty, It's about what you owe other people, the sacrifices you make you
have to make to other people. And one of the main characters, Gwendolen Harleth is a beautiful, funny, very likable character in some ways, but very selfish, and she learns the hard way the short the dangers of that selfishness. But more remarkably, it's a Zionist novel. This novel. George Elliott was not Jewish, but this novel predates the Zionist
First Zionist Congress by two decades. And it's a case for a Jewish state that in which the Jewish people are able basically to secure a national identity in the way that European peoples are able to do it. So it's for that reason a very controversial novel. But in this day and age, perhaps especially relevant.
Well, you know, Chris, I think that you've got a wonderful list here. I just sent from Peter's crankiness about how you picked it. But I'll say listeners that this is a perfect list to snuggle up in your Cozy Earth sheets. We all have our checklist for the hours between nine and five, and getting through it can be hard. But today's sponsor wants you to have time to prioritize you outside the work hours. In your five to nine
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Ricochet Podcast. All right, Christopher, we're back. But before I turn you back to Peter for his completely unfounded criticism, I'll just say that I enjoyed you saying that one of the subtexts of the of the book is, as you put it, read another book, something that's not on
the regular lists. And you said you thought of calling the book read another book, but the publisher wisely said that wouldn't attract a lot higher You know, I do remember from back in what sixties and seventies, was either Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman or one of those old yippies had a book that they called Steal this book. Yes, anyway, so I kind of think read another book was maybe not such a bad idea.
Anyway, would have been a more fun title. My title just tells you exactly you know, exactly what you're getting. That's the advantage of thirteen novels conservatives will love.
Thirteen novels conservatives will love. And as I so read the book, read Christopher's essays about each novel, because the son of a bitch writes just beautifully. Boy does it annoy me to see to see somebody coming up behind me, who's going to who's already in some ways past me? Boy do I hate? I just stick my leg out, hoping you'll trip over it somehow or other. The novel I decided, I resolved, and I recommend this resolution to everybody.
Read Christopher's book, read the essays one by one, and then take the books that you haven't already read and read them. And I have to confess in the final chat, I never I read about but never read The Children of Men by P. D. James. And then I have never read anything by leaf Anger Christopher recommends peace like a River. Nor have I honestly even heard of Christopher Biha Beja.
How is that?
I don't even know.
I think it's be yea Christopher.
Beha the index of self destructive arts. So I said, terrific, I'm going to take this and do what I think everybody ought to do. Get the book, read the essays, and then read what you haven't already read. And so I got to Waverley. What were you thinking? I was thinking, I addresses all over the place.
It is the Fun's have the fun.
It is like watching your life drift by in some muddy river that just trickles on path. Furthermore, it's nobody's favorite book by Walter Scott. I can't find a good edition of it even on Amazon. I can't find a good edition to a reduced bookstore.
Go ahead, this is all. This is slander and calumny.
Okay, So why did you choose every book with knights and armor specializes in calumny?
So ivan Hoe is great, and in some way ivan Hoe is his best structured novel. But Walter Scott's best novels are the one set in Scotland, one of the one factor in determining what books to include in this In my book, all of these book novels you can find easily in paperback editions, including Waverley uh Penguin World Classics and Oxford World Penguin Classics. In Oxford World Classics
editions of these are easy to find. Conservatives throughout history, or at least since Walter Scott was writing have loved Walter Scott. G. K. Chesterton Russell kirk Kirk called him basically Burkie, and he did more to spread Edmund Burke's ideas than Burke himself did. Scott was the most significant novelist of the Romantic era and arguably the nineteenth century until Dickens came along. And and yes, I'm not forgetting
about Jane Austen. When George Elliott writes about the Romantic period in Middle March, to establish the setting, she has all of her characters talk about Walter Scott because he was such a big deal. And the digressions, I think are half the fun. It is difficult because it's he's writing about a time period we don't know about. He's
writing about the Jacobite Uprising. But it's such an important novels novel for conservatives to know because a it conveys this really important point that it's not enough just to read and not enough to Yeah, not to read widely, but you need to read with some purpose. You need to read, and especially if you're young, you need people to guide you when you read. So nowadays we see a young person reading something below their grade level or something we think, oh, at least he's reading. But that's
not that can be dangerous. And Scott is also important for conservatives. As I said, he's Burkeian and this novel is I think one of his most Burkian novels because it shows the d reminds us of the dangers of revolution and sudden change rather than incremental change and gradual process.
Oh all right, I'm sold. I'm sold.
And also it's fun it's funny, Christopher.
I would like you to account for my failures. I have read one book.
Can I guess which book you read? Is it Scoop?
That's right? That's right?
Now?
Yes, now, yes, now here's the thing.
I have read everything evil and War, right, Yeah, I have read I think everything else from George j Elliott except Daniel there on THEE And then if you put a bunch of books in front of me by the same author, I've probably been through those for a whole bunch of Jane Austen. I read everything Jane Austen wrote, all well Shakespeare.
So here's my question.
And as somebody who's not as we well read as I would like to be or or could be, but is nevertheless not a slout, why haven't I read all the books on this list or more than one of them? So there's going to be something about these books because you say in the book conservatives probably haven't read them. That's a very good guess, at least in my case. Why haven't they read these ones? Because I recognize a lot of the authors. I just haven't read these books.
I think part of it is going back to what I was saying earlier. We're just conservatives in particular are stuck in a rut about the same the same handful of novels. So if you talk to somebody about George Elliott, it's gonna be about Middle March.
Yeah, But why, it's my question, Like why is.
Because because the books you're familiar with are great. There's It's the point, isn't that those novels are bad, but they Jane Austen, for example, Jane Austen is obviously excellent. Yeah, the only thing bad about Jane Austen is that she distracts us from everybody else who was good at her time, except for Mary Shelley, and we still read Frankenstein. I include Walter Scott, as I mentioned, he was very important and widely read. I also include my Jane Austen like
novel is Evelina by Fanny Bernie Francis. Bernie. Austin loved her and when you read this novel you'll see why. You'll see its influence on Jane Austen, especially pride and prejudice. But we don't talk about it because there are just over the time. Certain books assume a place in the cannon that they do deserve, but other books that arguably also deserve that place get overshadowed.
But what I'm driving at, and perhaps this is a difficult question, but is Daniel Deronda a worse book than Middle March or is it just abtry The Middle marchals I've read Silas Manner as well, are the ones that my school encouraged and that people talk about.
I mean, why is that.
I think Middle March is a little bit better than Daniel Deronda. Okay, but for the purposes of my novel, of my book, Daniel Deronda, I think is more interesting in some ways. I think Daniel Deronda is more thought provoking. It is still an excellent novel, but it's one that I think is overlooked because Middle March gets deserved attention some of the later books I write about, I just don't think. I think conservatives have an aversion to later novels like.
Conservatives conservatives of myself.
Yeah, I mean, I think after like after after WAW, we get a little bit skeptical. But Muriel Spark, I include the girls of Slender Means she was She's if you like WAW, you're gonna like Muriel Spark. She's she was also a Catholic convert. She was less orthodox in her belief but she's about as funny as WAW. Formally more interesting than WAW. And then vs. Night Paul. I
think he has some important lessons for conservatives. He was loathed by liberal academics because he pushed back against postcolonialism, and he won a Pulitzer. I mean, he was recognized as a great novelist, but I think for whatever reason, we're skeptical of him. And then I wanted to include twenty first century novels to make clear that people are still doing this. People great, great novels are still still being written, and not every novel coming out is just woke stuff to run away from.
Christopher can I ask what twenty first century novels were on your possible candidate list. I'm curious about this.
Well.
The ones I included were Leif Vanger, Piece Like a River and Christopher Beja Index of Self Destructive Acts. I considered including Gilead by Marilyn Robinson, which is one of the great novels of the century so far, but I thought a lot of people have read that. I considered including Cormick McCarthy, but again, I think a lot of conservatives are familiar with Cormick McCarthy. There are a lot
of people already saying read Cormick McCarthy. I wanted to advocate novels that were a little more obscure, but I think I think I prefer them more than Cornmick McCarthy.
Frankly, may I offer an answer, at least a partial answer to Charlie. In my reading of Christopher's book thirteen Novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read, I don't take Christopher, who is with us and can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't take Christopher as actually attempting to establish to add these books to the canon, or
to establish an alternative canon. I take Christopher. I take this guide as an exploration not only of these thirteen novels and novelists, but as, in some ways the presentation of Christopher's scalia. And it turns out that taking Chris as a guide is worth it. He's that good. So it may strike you, as I have to say it struck me in some regards. I'm still a little I'm still a little ticked off about Waverley because it's going to take me hours more to get through that thing.
But Christopher's written a really good book and it's fascinating. And just because he thinks this is the point. Yeah, Christopher is so good that because he thinks these thirteen novels are important, they are important. By the way, I am.
I love that.
I am going to.
Make a Yeah, well, I figured you would tell Adele to send the check to my home Adgry. So I have a confession to make, and it really is a confession. As far as I am aware, and unless by accident, I have never read a novel written in the present century. Yeah, but under Christopher's guidance, I'm going to read, and I'm going to start with these two.
There have been a lot of great novels over the last twenty five years, and many of them don't espouse conservative views. I'm a big fan of Jonathan Franzen's novels. Nobody would confuse him with the conservative or expressing conservative ideas. But yeah, I Peter, I think a lot of conservatives share your wariness. But I think we were missing out when we do that. And if I can give a plug for one more novel, I write about this one
that Zora Neil Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. That's probably the most widely read book I cover it, which she died in nineteen sixty. Really nobody knew about her. She had some success in her lifetime, and then she faded out and died in obscurity and poverty. And then the novelist Alice Walker kind of resurrected her career in the seventies and now her novel is the most assigned novel by an American woman in colleges across the country.
That's why I've stayed away from it.
Yeah, exactly, and that I think is okay, bad sign. I think conservatives are wary of that. And uh when she Alice Walker revived her reputation in part because Hearston was presented as a This was present presented as a black feminist novel, and there are feminist elements, but it's much more complicated than that. But conservatives, I think will love this. Hurston was really, really conservative. She was a she was an American patriot. She hated communism. She was
she was so conservative. She hated Brown v Board. She thought it was a bad decision because, in part because it it assumed that black students could only learn if white people were around them, which is ironically a progressive argument today, and their eyes were watching God. Has some really conservative arguments and points about about race and racial progress. And there's a great passage in which Hurston kind of subtly defends the reputation and accomplishments of Booker T. Washington
and his emphasis on self reliance education. But like you, Peter, I think a lot of conservatives and I know I was too. We're wary of this novel because of because it was so popular. It's a you know, contrarian instinct.
Here's the last largish question for you. You've got to go on to other podcasts and sell your book. The last largest question is this We now have, oh, depending on how you count it, three decades at least, maybe even half a century of the American Academy saying we need to deconstruct novels, we need to read them through the lens of gender studies. On and on it goes, and there's not a word of that in your book. You don't even take the time to refute this nonsense.
You just ignore it. You present essays about these novels as if you were wearing a tweet jacket with the stem of your pipe sticking out of one pocket in a small Midwestern college in nineteen fifty five.
My author photo, I am actually wearing a tweet jacket. So you're close. Because I don't think this was written for the general reader, and I don't think the general reader cares about that, And I think there's some hope even in the Academy. There is kind of a there's a little bit of a movement afoot, not led by conservatives, led by center left professors to move to a more traditional way of teaching literature because they see that the English major is dying, and so is a history major.
The humanities in general are in trouble, and it's people are realizing, even people in the Academy are realizing it's because they've politicized these novels and have over theorized them. So, I mean, I have some passing references, especially in my chapter on my Antonia by Willa Cather, I have a nod to some of the amagy Academy is doing. But I just think the average reader doesn't care about that. They just want to know. They want to enjoy the
novels themselves, and they're open to deeper meanings. But you know, only so far. It's easy to to become the target of satire with some of these readings. So yeah, I just I really focus on the novels and the context of the novels and generally avoid I really don't get into the theory behind them at all.
What is your favorite book on this list and why lovely.
When I started the list, I would have said Waverley, But I think now it is My Antonia.
Okay, I listen.
To me, I say, listeners can't see the shocked book on Peter's face.
No, I am a I am a Walter. I'm a big Walter Scott stand but no, Antonia is such a moving and powerful depiction of uh, to use the maybe cheesy term, the American dream, and it's it's about the success and happiness that immigrants can find in the United States. It doesn't it doesn't idealize immigration. It doesn't suggest that
all immigrants will find happiness and success here. And Peter, I quote, I quote your boss Ronald Reagan and his one of his speeches about the contributions of immigrants, and obviously that this novel is the early twentieth century and the situation is very different now. But well, heck, I'm I'm on a podcast with an immigrant who has made a couple of contributions to the American Dream.
So probation, let's not get carried away about cooking.
But I also learned, yes, I think might be now.
I also love My Antonia because it features a big family and there aren't many novels that have big family, and Antonia finds happiness in part through her her many many children, and this comes towards the end of the novel and it's a very moving scene for me.
Well, Christopher, congratulations on the book. Once again. For listeners, it's thirteen novels every conservatives you read, but you probably haven't. That's close enough, I think close enough. Yeah. Now, I'll say this in closing, unlike Peter's confused, indignant rants about what you've done this, I only have one complaint out of everything I've read, including the footnotes. By the way, I love your footnotes. I'm an academic nerd too, and
so don't ignore the footnotes. Readers, you confess that you don't like Walker Percy, and I don't know. I know those are fighting words, man, I'm sorry, they just are. But that's for another occasion.
So Steve, can I just say, I know, I feel like it's a guilty displeasure. I feel like I should like him, but I've just never enjoyed any of his novels very much.
Yeah, they do take a little bit of work, and I get all that. But anyway, thank you for joining us. Christopher, Congratulations, on the book and to our listeners, everyone should go out and buy it.
All right, thank you guys very much. Great talking to you, Chris.
Congratulations you bastard.
Well you know on that point, Peter, I mean, as I read the book and thought about it, Christopher is making me feel quite old, I have to say, and that's why I need help of today's second sponsor, Qualitia Senalytic. Qualitia s Analytic is at the frontier of what is currently possible in the science of human aging. Snalytics are
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thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. One of the things this is the three or four books on Christopher's list I have read. I read a long time ago, and I've I need to reread them because I've really kind of forgotten them. But I have to say, I mean, you know, Scoop is one that I do go back to once in a while, along with Charles. It's got some wonderful stuff in it.
But by the way, can we agree that Charlie's Charlie's question was really quite a remarkable display of what I think any properly trained psychiatrist would describe as passive aggression. I am ignorant, Christopher said, Charlie, I have read only one book of the thirteen you list here. On the other hand, I have read the Bible and Greek. I have read all of Shakespeare. I have read everything by Walter Scott, except of course this one. I mean, it was really quite a question that Charlie put can.
I just wanted to be clear that, unlike with say, movies, which I really am truly ignorant about, although I'm trying to fill the gaps, I have read a lot of books.
I just hadn't read these ones.
I thought it was I thought it was ad mobly honest to say, hey, I've read one of these thirteen books.
Well charge, I wanted to set.
It in the right context, you know. I didn't want to sound like I couldn't read right right, all right, Well, right, you guys, before we go today, I wonder if either of you have any quick thoughts on things that will be on the minds of listeners from the news.
So we've just seen this, this Trump tour of the Middle East, that's been Oh my lord quite the box office, right, I mean, he certainly has the visuals down better than anybody, I think, Peter sins Ronald Reagan, right, Uh, And I don't know, do either you have any sort of summary thoughts on what you observed happened in the last few days.
I'm happy to go. And my summary thought is help me, help me because and maybe this is a little bit like your ad for quality that if you came up as I did under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush,
Donald Trump is really hard to take. And the idea that he would accept a seven forty seven from cutter and so, and this notion of these unbelievable images of him, these arab dances as he enters vast palaces, all of which, of course is our money extorted by these tinpot dictators over there, recycled into vast palaces, and so all of
it strikes me is so unseemly. Stop. Then we have on the in the Capitol the Republicans with a very slender majority in the House of Representatives, led by Mike Johnson, whom I read and whom I will be interviewed, who I will be interviewing in a week. I read. Mike Johnson is a good guy, and in fact, he strikes me as the most intriguing story in Washington because it's a good guy who's doing an impossible job and he's doing it. However, on the latest news accounts, they're stuff.
And do you know what's going to have to happen. Mike Johnson is going to have to have Donald Trump call half a dozen members of the House of Representatives and swing them back into line. And so this man, whom I find just so hard to take, turns out to be indispensable help.
Right right, Well, I mean, first of all, I'm glad you pivoted to the tax bill, Peter, because if you listen to our episode last week with Ben Dominich, it's pretty clear that Trump's not paying much attention. He just wants a big bill to sign and doesn't seem to care that much about the details. And that's a big mistake. As you know, Reagan was deeply involved in the details
of both of his big tax bills. I will add this observation and then get Charles thought, which is one thing is different right now that I'm surprised no one is mentioning in the analysis of it which is we are no longer supplicants for arab oil. We now go there on the energy question from a position of strength, and I correct. I think that changes the dynamics to
some extent. Now that doesn't bear on your you're puzzlement over the airplane and certain other aspects of the trip, But I do think it's a different world now, just for that one very important fact.
Charles Well, I'm not a foreign politics buter so I will.
Are you really a reader when it comes.
To it, No, apparently not.
But I am going to join a militia over this tax bill, and in particular the salt provisions, which are a disgrace. The very notion that is Floridian should pay more for the same federal government because New York and California are a profligate and can't handle their own affairs
is revolting per se. But as politics from Republicans, it strikes me as being insane, because what's going to happen is they're going to massively increase the salt cap, probably without making changes to the alternative minimum tax or the tax rates, so people in those states will get a better deal than they had prior to twenty seve, which means that the governments of California and New Jersey and Illinois and New York are going to increase spending in
those states, make themselves more dysfunctional than they were before, have no effect on their own taxpayers, and then send the bill to me. So I'm watching this Republican Party essentially reward the blue states that have made themselves into national joke and punish Florida and other red states that have done all the right things for ten years.
That's conservatism, is it? I? Just I despair?
Okay, Charlie, help Speaker Johnson out of the following bind He has two hundred and twenty Republicans. Yeah, there is a midterm election coming. He must preserve, yeah, three four five seats in upstate New York. And he must preserve this small but essential delegation of Republicans from here in California. And if he's still any hope of passing any important legislation in the second half of Donald Trump's term, he actually needs to pick up a couple of seats in
Orange County. And that's the reason for salt. It is practical politics. How do you answer that?
Let me say, a couple of things. The first one is, of course, it is true that there wouldn't be a Republican House majority without New York, but there also wouldn't be a Republican House majority without Florida. Governor DeSantis's map that he pushed through and used a great deal of political capital to push through is a reason too. So if you end up punishing Florida, which is not a swing state and the way it used to be but still could flip back in a couple of areas, then
you have the same problem as you have in New York. Second, I accept as a matter of practical politics that you have to do something on salt and Donald Trump I wish he hadn't, but did promise that he would during the election. But if you look at the moment at how much of the space the headroom within the bill is being taken up by even the small assault offer it is outing out everything else, it seems to me to be absolutely disproportionate as a percentage of what has
been proposed. And so as somebody who is quite practical and who understands that politics is not an exercise in academic griping, I am not against deals. I know that there were a lot of deals done in the Reagan tax bills as well. But look at the cost. And I don't use that to imply that tax cuts cost money, but given that they're trying to keep down the quote unquote cost of these tax cuts, look at the cost of salt one thing that Trump promised relative to everything
else that it's absolutely enormous. And the deal that they struck, which was thirty thousand dollars, which is very, very generous, was described by the New York delegation it's being insulting. I'm looking at this and I'll finish on this question. The reason this annoys me so much, Peter, is I'm not a Trump guy. I'm not a MAGA guy, right the listeners know this. But I do like a lot of what Trump has done. And I thought the first
tax bill is terrific in twenty seventeen. But the argument that I get, the one I get often dripping in contempt, is you don't understand, Charles. We needed Trump, We needed MAGA because this squishy UNI Party driven by moderates and the GOP just gives the farm away every time they subsidize Blue states. They won't defund Planned parenthood they block
conservative policy. And what I'm watching now is that. So it's not that there is all of this opobrium being thrown at Mike Lawler and the Democrats in New York as the Republicans in New York. It's being thrown at Chip Roy and Thomas Massey and Ran Paul. So if the argument is we live in the real world, we have to keep a coalition together, that's fine. That was also true though in twenty thirteen. It was also true in twenty fifteen, in two thousand and six, in nineteen
eighty one. So if we're gonna argue we need Trump because otherwise we don't defund Planned parenthood, well we're giving
in to the moderates on not defunding Planned parented. If the argument is what we need Trump and we need Maggot because otherwise we give away these subsidies to blue states in the blue well, look, it's very very annoying us a Floridian, to be far more conservative than these people, to live in a state that has done all of the reforms that the Conservatives have wanted to do for fifty years, and to watch them molly coddling the moderate uniparty squishes that I was taught had been exiled.
That's what I'm annoyed about it. It's not that I don't understand the need for practical politic.
Okaye, Charley, I just wanted to say one thing to Charlie. Charlie, you're beautiful when you're angry.
Well, I was just gonna say, Peter, we'll mark Charles down as undecided. Now it is hard to follow a an exquisite rant like that, any rant that includes molly coddling, as you know, on number A ten on the scale. But it's actually even worse than that, Charles. We left out completely the number of Republicans trying to preserve a lot of the green energy booned dogs.
Oh yeah, right, that's the other bit.
And you know that just blows my mind too. I mean, it was very clever of the Biden people to direct a lot of the money to red states. That was on purpose. And guess what it looks like. It's with an ace of succeeding in keeping all that This.
Is this is this is just this is the agony of practical politics for conservatives. Well, I convert to the Steve. Steve will know the details on this, But I revert to this that when Ronald Reagan took office in January of nineteen eighty one, having promised to eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Education had been, in effect, had been in existence for one year. If there were ever a time you could have killed it, it was then.
And Ed Poes told me that he went up to the Capitol Hill to discuss the Reagan agenda with our senators. We had recaptured the Senate in nineteen eighty we were in charge. And he came back to the White House and said, oh, my goodness, even the Republican senators are sticking up. They had already figured out how to use the Department of Education to said benefits to their constituents, and they wanted to defend it, not eliminated. Unbelievable.
But now, remember Peter though, that by my count in nineteen eighty one, yes, the Republican Senate, but sixteen of them, that's my count. We're modern to liberals. You still have person Magmaflize, and nowadays you only had.
That wing of the party is gone now exactly, so we have a better except for upstate New York, right well.
But even there, I mean, at least Dephonic is one of the persons.
Accurate.
True, And look, look that's obviously this is very transparent. It's in the interest of their constituents, and they're going to do that. And it's hard to ask someone to risk their seat for something except that's what Democrats did with Obamacare also other times.
Right, it's absolutely hard to ask someone to do that. And I don't ask a result resent that, say, Mike Lawa is trying to. What I resent is that all of the energy seems to be spent denouncing Rand Paul for saying, hang on a minute, this massively blows open the budget deficit, rather than denouncing Mike Lawa.
And I get that.
There is a political element, but then don't tell me that you're pere and everyone else is a squish.
Yeah, yes, yes, when it comes to it. When it comes to it, the Speaker is going to send the White House a list of half a dozen Republicans that he wants the President to call to get them to back into line. And on that list it's going to be six conservatives, not six moderates. Correct, Yes, yeah, for the most part, that's right, Let's get into line. That's right. Okay, let's get out this way.
I'll pile on to Charles's rant by saying that one of the things that's cheering to me right now is that we really do have Blue states on the up against the wall, I mean, politically, fiscally, in various other ways. And so to give in now to help the Blue states is political malpractice of the highest order in that regard. I thought one of the most interesting things said this week was not from not about the budget the tax bill,
but it bears on this question. And it was Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JP Morgan, who was a Democrat by all accounts thought to have been a candidate for Treasury Secretary for President Kamala Harris. Had such a thing happened, and he said, I don't understand why we call it red tape. It ought to be called blue tape, because it's the Blue states that are the worst on regulation.
So when you have Jamie Diamond saying things like that, and you have, as we know out here, Peter, if you're paying attention, Gavin Newsom's crab marching to the right as fast as he possibly can on so many areas, this is not the time to go what's the old line from Margaret Thatcher.
This is not the kind of goes dobbly.
George, yes, right, and let's not go wobbly your Republicans in the House and Senate. But that's where we are, and where we are is at the end of our hour together, so everyone should go out and by Christopher Scalia's book, we thank you for joining us. We thank our sponsor's cozy earth and quality of Synolytic. Please send in your comments at Ricochet and we will see you there in the comments and back here live again next week.
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