On Robert Harris (Imperium, The Ghost)

I just read a good novel by Robert Harris “Imperium” about Cicero so I was curious when I saw him on Andrew Marr’s show this Sunday. As usual, the artist did not live up to the expectations as a human.

1) He thinks that democracy was “an interlude” and not a natural/aspiring state of humanity. First “they”* said that democracy wasn’t right for the Middle East and Russia, now they are waiting for the dictatorship to be rolled out everywhere.

2) Robert Harris wrote a thriller “The Ghost” that was adapted for a film, The Ghost Writer, a passable thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan and directed by Roman Polanski. When asked about his thoughts about Polansky’s conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old (after 4’5” in the clip). Harris said: “I don’t see why I should change MY position [regarding Polanski] because the fashion’s changed”.

I could have understood any excuse, for example, “these were different times” (they were). But to think that just as Harris is calmly predicting the death of democracy, he is also waiting for the return of society’s acceptance of grown men having sex with underage girls with impunity along with a return of the flared trousers.

The rule of   “What is permissible for Jove is not permissible for a bull” where Jove is a talented individual as accepted by his peers was written by the same grey-haired white men who keep their ranks closed against “the others” and then use the resulting Pantheon as a proof that the others cannot do anything of value.

I don’t think I’ll be reading his other books.

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*The Establishment that contains 95% of grey-haired white men