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'Rodham' Review
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
- Start date
I honestly think this is the best review you've written, @SpanishSpy . Critical but also evenhanded.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Certainly worthwhile to consider about what the quality of prose you could be aiming for is regardless of anything else.
Yeah, "the writing part of the writing is very good" should be a thing most writers try for!
The lack of policy, and Sittenham's quoted "yeah so?" about it, do strike me as weird and worth criticising in a book about a politician. If you're going to argue This Would Be Better, we surely have to see how, it can't just be personality based. (Obviously a lot of readers disagreed but I disagree with them so checkmate!)
One thing that has always struck me: it's a book about two people still alive and married, saying "wouldn't it have been better if they weren't?"
That feels a bit Wrong in a way most AH politician stuff doesn't.
The lack of policy, and Sittenham's quoted "yeah so?" about it, do strike me as weird and worth criticising in a book about a politician. If you're going to argue This Would Be Better, we surely have to see how, it can't just be personality based. (Obviously a lot of readers disagreed but I disagree with them so checkmate!)
One thing that has always struck me: it's a book about two people still alive and married, saying "wouldn't it have been better if they weren't?"
That feels a bit Wrong in a way most AH politician stuff doesn't.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Alex's review is balanced, fair and insightful but I must admit I also really like the review from the jewish chronicle by Andrea Long Chu he linked to which just rips the book and the author to shreds.
- Location
- North Alabama
A superb review, @SpanishSpy. A review that makes me both want to read it still (as it's been on TBR list for a bit now, as we talked about elsewhere) and makes me think I'm going to be a tad frustrated with it when I do.
The more AH I read and indeed write, the more right I think you are about writers falling into the temptation of trinketization. Indeed, reading the review, I can't help but wonder if this would have worked better as a Roman a clef like what George Bernau did with JFK and the mid-sixties in Promises To Keep (which I'll be reading in the near future). But, if Sittenfeld had done that, would as many people have read it?
The more AH I read and indeed write, the more right I think you are about writers falling into the temptation of trinketization. Indeed, reading the review, I can't help but wonder if this would have worked better as a Roman a clef like what George Bernau did with JFK and the mid-sixties in Promises To Keep (which I'll be reading in the near future). But, if Sittenfeld had done that, would as many people have read it?
But, if Sittenfeld had done that, would as many people have read it?
This is a weird example of something actually being written/pushed as alternate history for the sake of marketing. Almost always (especially in "pop epic" fiction of this kind), it's the opposite-something that could easily be considered "AH as a setting" but isn't labeled as such because there's no financial gain in doing so. (Or, in an extreme case like Gragg's The Red Line, being clumsily turned from a historical into a contemporary setting).
(And yes, I do find works of fiction involving real, living, politically prominent people uncomfortable)
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
Late response because my procrastination knows no bounds.
It's a book where there's a lot to unpack - I find it easier to write about books like that. Being crafted by a 'literary' author certainly helps.
I had a conversation with @Beata Beatrix once in one of the Zoom calls where we agreed that alternate historians generally need to read more widely, to improve prose quality and literary craft. I can tell that both Harry Turtledove and Kim Stanley Robinson are like that (the latter experiments more with form), and it's what I aspire to be. Of course, I'll probably end up a latter-day Ignatius Reilly.
The book very much treats Hillary as a symbol of a vaguely defined and yet overbearingly arrogant form of upper-class progressivism, who is treated as being enough by virtue of existing. I like Andrea Long Chu's phrasing of it as Sittenfeld thinking that she's the first person to discover that women are people.
I agree with Sittenfeld on one thing regarding that review: it is very well written.
'Frustrating' is a very good word to describe it. I feel like Sittenfeld was so close conceptually to getting something that was workable, but she ultimately didn't care enough to do so.
And I agree that the whole AH aspect acts as effectively a marketing ploy-cum-wish fulfillment for a certain sort of progressive.
I honestly think this is the best review you've written, @SpanishSpy . Critical but also evenhanded.
It's a book where there's a lot to unpack - I find it easier to write about books like that. Being crafted by a 'literary' author certainly helps.
Certainly worthwhile to consider about what the quality of prose you could be aiming for is regardless of anything else.
I had a conversation with @Beata Beatrix once in one of the Zoom calls where we agreed that alternate historians generally need to read more widely, to improve prose quality and literary craft. I can tell that both Harry Turtledove and Kim Stanley Robinson are like that (the latter experiments more with form), and it's what I aspire to be. Of course, I'll probably end up a latter-day Ignatius Reilly.
Yeah, "the writing part of the writing is very good" should be a thing most writers try for!
The lack of policy, and Sittenham's quoted "yeah so?" about it, do strike me as weird and worth criticising in a book about a politician. If you're going to argue This Would Be Better, we surely have to see how, it can't just be personality based. (Obviously a lot of readers disagreed but I disagree with them so checkmate!)
One thing that has always struck me: it's a book about two people still alive and married, saying "wouldn't it have been better if they weren't?"
That feels a bit Wrong in a way most AH politician stuff doesn't.
The book very much treats Hillary as a symbol of a vaguely defined and yet overbearingly arrogant form of upper-class progressivism, who is treated as being enough by virtue of existing. I like Andrea Long Chu's phrasing of it as Sittenfeld thinking that she's the first person to discover that women are people.
Alex's review is balanced, fair and insightful but I must admit I also really like the review from the jewish chronicle by Andrea Long Chu he linked to which just rips the book and the author to shreds.
I agree with Sittenfeld on one thing regarding that review: it is very well written.
A superb review, @SpanishSpy. A review that makes me both want to read it still (as it's been on TBR list for a bit now, as we talked about elsewhere) and makes me think I'm going to be a tad frustrated with it when I do.
The more AH I read and indeed write, the more right I think you are about writers falling into the temptation of trinketization. Indeed, reading the review, I can't help but wonder if this would have worked better as a Roman a clef like what George Bernau did with JFK and the mid-sixties in Promises To Keep (which I'll be reading in the near future). But, if Sittenfeld had done that, would as many people have read it?
'Frustrating' is a very good word to describe it. I feel like Sittenfeld was so close conceptually to getting something that was workable, but she ultimately didn't care enough to do so.
And I agree that the whole AH aspect acts as effectively a marketing ploy-cum-wish fulfillment for a certain sort of progressive.
Elektronaut
The Grand Buildings (Permanently Closed)
- Location
- Dixville Crotch
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm not sure I have anything to say other than it sounds like one hell of a boring book.
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
I wouldn't call it dull - Sittenfeld's big strengths are her prose and how she develops Hillary as a character. Those two kept me going - that, and a curiosity as to how she'd actually pull it off.I'm not sure I have anything to say other than it sounds like one hell of a boring book.
FriendlyGhost
Haunting history in a good way
This review has done what all good reviews should do: help me decide whether or not I would want to read this book myself. In this case, my answer is a resounding No - but it's clear that there are reasons why others might decide Yes. Too many reviews don't manage this seemingly simple task, so thank you.
Elektronaut
The Grand Buildings (Permanently Closed)
- Location
- Dixville Crotch
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wouldn't call it dull - Sittenfeld's big strengths are her prose and how she develops Hillary as a character. Those two kept me going - that, and a curiosity as to how she'd actually pull it off.
Any piece of work with good prose but no plot or story is a confidence trick.
One thing that stood out:
which I bet is weirder to read than if you're reading about fictional characters Diane Rockingham and Clint Blythe who are Clintony figures. But of course, at college he was a Casanova to her fawning law student and their romance got steamy & physical! Still unsettling to get reminded of it, like if a book about Theresa May opened with her fussing over a dog and going "oosa good boy OOSA GOOD BOY" or something.
It is a phenomenally odd experience to read Hillary Rodham as a fawning law student and Bill Clinton as Casanova in a romance that can get rather steamy, and physically detailed to boot.
which I bet is weirder to read than if you're reading about fictional characters Diane Rockingham and Clint Blythe who are Clintony figures. But of course, at college he was a Casanova to her fawning law student and their romance got steamy & physical! Still unsettling to get reminded of it, like if a book about Theresa May opened with her fussing over a dog and going "oosa good boy OOSA GOOD BOY" or something.
if a book about Theresa May opened with her fussing over a dog and going "oosa good boy OOSA GOOD BOY" or something.
For Want of a Good Boy - while walking in Snowdonia in 2017, Theresa May is interrupted mid-thought by a Border Collie with a stick, and doesn't decide to call an election.
- Location
- North Alabama
I feel like I should apologize for necromancing the thread but after three years, numerous checking outs from the library without ever reading it, reading Sittenfeld's American Wife, and then coming across Rodham in a local Dollar Tree for $1.25, I've actually read the novel. And as I predicted after reading your review @SpanishSpy in 2021, I found myself a bit frustrated with it.
I made a point of not re-reading the review prior to reading the novel, I hasten to add, but I found myself reading it in the wee hours of this morning and nodding along. Particularly the frustration that for a novel about the alternate life of one of the most prominent figures in the last thirty years of American politics, the amount of politics actually here and what fictional Hillary Rodham's platform amount to was incredibly vague to put it charitably. Especially after having read American Wife and seeing how Sittenfeld had handled issues there, not to mention the dramatic irony of a First Lady whose own positions (and a past action) stand in direct contrast with her husbands. Clearly Sittenfeld could have gone into the politics if she had wanted to do so. That's without bringing up the fact that I don't think I've seen such contradictory world building in an AH novel since I read Do You Dream of Terra Two? (would an administration led by John McCain, who pursued campaign finance reform in real-life, have caused the same circumstances and Supreme Court appointments that led to Citizens United, for example?).
But in reading both the novel and re-reading this review, I kept going back to this line that Sittenfeld said in an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday that I did listen to before and during my read of the novel:
Hearing that before and while reading the novel, I suddenly felt like I understood why Rodham is the way it is across much of its 420 pages. There's a part of me that wonders if she was essentially trapped by her assessment of reader's expectations that if she was going to write an AH about Hilary Clinton it had to end with her running for President in 2016 (and winning). The politics in that case doesn't matter as much as the destination. Or, as Sittenfeld clearly was, exploring who Hillary Clinton is and might have been without Bill Clinton being her spouse.
While I don't regret the $1.25 I spent or reading the novel by any means (and I've already picked up a copy of the novel for another writing pal of mine), I'm still frustrated with the novel. Especially having read American Wife not that long ago and seeing the superb job that Sittenfeld did taking another First Lady's life and building a novel out of the bones of it, I would love to take a sidestep into the universe where she took a more Roman a clef approach to this idea. One where she might not have been weighed down so much by the baggage of expectation. Indeed, having read the novel a bit in conjunction with an idea of my own, the debate about approach might be worth writing an essay of my own on the expectations of (sub)genre and subject matter.
I made a point of not re-reading the review prior to reading the novel, I hasten to add, but I found myself reading it in the wee hours of this morning and nodding along. Particularly the frustration that for a novel about the alternate life of one of the most prominent figures in the last thirty years of American politics, the amount of politics actually here and what fictional Hillary Rodham's platform amount to was incredibly vague to put it charitably. Especially after having read American Wife and seeing how Sittenfeld had handled issues there, not to mention the dramatic irony of a First Lady whose own positions (and a past action) stand in direct contrast with her husbands. Clearly Sittenfeld could have gone into the politics if she had wanted to do so. That's without bringing up the fact that I don't think I've seen such contradictory world building in an AH novel since I read Do You Dream of Terra Two? (would an administration led by John McCain, who pursued campaign finance reform in real-life, have caused the same circumstances and Supreme Court appointments that led to Citizens United, for example?).
But in reading both the novel and re-reading this review, I kept going back to this line that Sittenfeld said in an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday that I did listen to before and during my read of the novel:
I think that in real life, if she had not married Bill Clinton, I'm not sure she would have led the life that I create for her in the novel. And I think with a novel like this, you know that the reader is bringing some opinions or expectations.
Hearing that before and while reading the novel, I suddenly felt like I understood why Rodham is the way it is across much of its 420 pages. There's a part of me that wonders if she was essentially trapped by her assessment of reader's expectations that if she was going to write an AH about Hilary Clinton it had to end with her running for President in 2016 (and winning). The politics in that case doesn't matter as much as the destination. Or, as Sittenfeld clearly was, exploring who Hillary Clinton is and might have been without Bill Clinton being her spouse.
While I don't regret the $1.25 I spent or reading the novel by any means (and I've already picked up a copy of the novel for another writing pal of mine), I'm still frustrated with the novel. Especially having read American Wife not that long ago and seeing the superb job that Sittenfeld did taking another First Lady's life and building a novel out of the bones of it, I would love to take a sidestep into the universe where she took a more Roman a clef approach to this idea. One where she might not have been weighed down so much by the baggage of expectation. Indeed, having read the novel a bit in conjunction with an idea of my own, the debate about approach might be worth writing an essay of my own on the expectations of (sub)genre and subject matter.
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While I don't regret the $1.25 I spent or reading the novel by any means (and I've already picked up a copy of the novel for another writing pal of mine), I'm still frustrated with the novel. Especially having read American Wife not that long ago and seeing the superb job that Sittenfeld did taking another First Lady's life and building a novel out of the bones of it, I would love to take a sidestep into the universe where she took a more Roman a clef approach to this idea. One where she might not have been weighed down so much by the baggage of expectation. Indeed, having read the novel a bit in conjunction with an idea of my own, the debate about approach might be worth writing an essay of my own on the expectations of (sub)genre and subject matter.
This is kind of the other side of the coin. I've said many times plenty of stuff that could easily be considered alternate history is not advertised as such. The inverse of that is this: Where an author dips into alternate history, and thus has to follow the parallels and blatant divergences of popular AH.