Conservative Novels and Novelists
John Yoo ·
Nov 21, 2011 at 10:08am
To continue the Shakespeare theme from the National Review Cruise (btw, when is Ricochet going to schedule it's own cruise? With Rob Long in charge, I foresee a three-hour tour on a boat named the Minnow), where speakers discussed the "conservative novelist." Are there novelists who are conservative? Are there any great novels that are conservative? Or is there no place for liberal or conservative in art (as one of the cruise panelists argued)?
Here is a chance to combine our discussions with Black Friday–I am interested if any great conservative novels will make for good Christmas gifts.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
It would be hard to say there is no place for "liberal" in art, especially since the one uniting factor in both is fantasy.
Nov '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Evelyn Waugh is my favorite.
Apr '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
One of my favorite novels is "Fallen Angels" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. It doesn't deal with the entire spectrum of conservatism but it addresses environmental doomsday-ism. Live Free or Die by John Ringo is a a terrific book that features a capitalist as hero.
Mar '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
I enjoy a good Blackford Oakes novel.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert Heinlein. A colony of oppressed people on the Moon is taxed to the point of destruction by a distant authority, and wages a revolution to restore freedom. More libertarian than conservative, a lot of the dialog in the book speaks directly to the problems of government and the necessity of freedom for the human spirit to thrive - and the difficulty of keeping it.
Social conservatives need not apply, as the society is depicted as having evolved its own unique social norms, including a positive take on polygamous marriage as an adaptive mechanism for the peculiar conditions of that society.
Jan '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Didn't Michael Crichton did this, as well, with State of Fear. I have not read it but I've heard that's what he did. I did read Next, though, and trial lawyers and lazy people come off badly in it...as they both should.
It may not be considered gift-giving worthy because not many have heard of him but Warren Meyer's BMOC is interesting and is loaded with themes that a libertarian or conservative would appreciate. Same thing with Russ Roberts three novels -- the first three on this list; the last one is not his.
Jan '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Yes! I enjoyed the heck out of that book. It is a bit long but, man, is that a good book. Every once in a while i'll break out my Simon Jester picture and use it as a profile picture somewhere.
Feb '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
I've enjoyed Walker Percy's 'Moviegoer' and 'Thantos Syndrome'.
Also, I just finished C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, which was fantastic.
Nov '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Jane Austen and Gustave Flaubert are conservative, beyond reasonable debate.
But if you want one that's debatable, how about Milan Kundera? " In Immortality, Kundera's character, Paul realizes that "to be absolutely modern means to be the ally of one's gravediggers." That concept, "the briliant ally of his gravediggers," updates and broadens the concept of "useful idiot."
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
"The Auctioneer" by Joan Samson
Aug '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
I'm all for the early Heinlein, and Jane Austen. What of the Wizard of Oz? If we are going back in history, "Darkness at Noon" comes to mind.
I have found in my classes that the novels which most strongly open the students' minds up to conservatism are in fact the most Marxist novels. Read in 2011, even the most encouraging leftist descriptions of things like Chinese Land Reform, terrify even my most anti-capitalist students. If you want to reaffirm why you are a conservative, read Hinton's Fanshen :)
Dec '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Not expressly conservative, but leaning that way and fun to read. despite the title PG at worst.
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Lives-Cannibals-Equatorial-Pacific/dp/0767915305
Edited on Nov 21, 2011 at 11:22amJul '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
LowcountryJoe
Didn't Michael Crichton did this, as well, with State of Fear. I have not read it but I've heard that's what he did. I did read Next, though, and trial lawyers and lazy people come off badly in it...as they both should.· Nov 21 at 10:40am
Crichton did other novels that have conservative elements as well: Jurassic Park is about unintended consequences, and Airframe is pretty critical of the institutionalized safety advocacy movement.
Tom Clancy is unabashedly conservative and his works are still just about the best political thrillers you can find. If there was ever a Conservative Novelist, he's it.
-E
Mar '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
I favor technothrillers ala Tom Clancy and spy/specops novels ala Vince Flynn, who I would argue are both pretty conservative not only in their novels but also in their personal politics. I am open to the charge that these types of novels are not art, but then again, de gustibus non disputandum est...
Mr Clancy has covered 'environmental doomism' in 1998's Rainbow Six, and many other conservative themes in his Jack Ryan series.
Vince Flynn has created the prototypical hand of doom for bad guys via his Mitch Rapp character. He has no problem doing the dirty work, and isn't going to let little things like silly political rules (or even laws) get in his way. I think many conservatives live vicariously through these types of novels.
Aug '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Mark Helprin writes some fantastic novels. A good starting point might be either the magical-realist Winter's Tale, or his WWI novel A Soldier of the Great War. Both of these are usually listed as among his best. I also think Memoir from Antproof Case is very good, though it took a second reading for me to see the brilliance.
His most recent novel was Freddy and Fredericka, a comic novel in which a sort of alternate-universe Charles and Diana are sent on a quest to reclaim the American colonies for the throne. It's DeTocqueville by way of Mark Twain, and features, among other things, a thinly-veiled satire of the 1996 presidential race.
A few weeks ago we spoke here of his defense of copyright law, Digital Barbarism. But I think the novel format is really where he excels.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
First thought I had was Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch.
Here is little taste:
Over the weekend the vultures got into the Presidential Palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows, and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.
It has been over twenty years since I read it, but I still remember how much it made me hate tyranny. Marquez takes you in to the mind of the dictator and his prose immerses you so you begin to feel that dreamlike loss of agency, that state of Belial that overwhelms, pollutes, and debilitates the oppressed.
A wise man hates oppression, and through this novel Marquez added to what precious little wisdom I have.
Jun '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Here's a miscellany:
Apr '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
I recommend Heinlein's Starship Troopers. (Forget the movie.) The book examines a society with a conservative ethic: who is burdened by a decision makes the decision and no one else. The novel begins with a high school civics lesson and launches into an action with the Space Marines. The novel explores the main implications for voting rights and military service.
Also, I recommend Madame Bovary. It's a profound critique that anticipates the worst of modern Romantic culture. It explores the delusions that beset the modern eros, agape, philia, and storge.
Nov '11
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Jeff Y.: * * *
Also, I recommend Madame Bovary. It's a profound critique that anticipates the worst of modern Romantic culture. It explores the delusions that beset the modern eros, agape, philia, and storge. · Nov 21 at 12:06pm
Excellent recommendation! Of the modern afflictions, front and center in Bovary is ennui, of which OWS is a contemporary manifestation: the desperate boredom and directionlessness that follows the apparent negation of every possibility of true eros.
Oct '10
Re: Conservative Novels and Novelists
Three not mentioned so far are Richard Powell, Saul Bellow, and P.G.Wodehouse.
Saul Bellow conservatism was prickly and smart, befitting the man.
P.G.Wodehouse was reportedly non-political, but his conservatism shines brightly in his books. Christopher Hitchens, a great Wodehouse fan, is so irritated by this fact he wrote an article positing that Wodehouse might've been Liberal in his youth (he doesn't even attempt to prove that the mature Wodehouse was Liberal. There is just an overwhelming mountain of evidence counter to that).
I say Richard Powell was conservative, but this is based only on a reading (and rereading and rereading) of his books. I don't expect a big Liberal push-back on this point, he's is/was not a prestigious writer and all but one of his books are out of print. I keep meaning to do a post on my favorite of his books. Very light reading but great stuff.