A Subtly Optimistic Fable: George Leef’s The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale

American Institute for Economic Research ^ | April 8, 2022 | Jon Sanders

[karpov]

A moment of crisis strikes the title character of George Leef’s new novel, The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale (Bombardier Books, 2022). How will Jen handle it? Does she suppress the feeling and practice what George Orwell called Doublethink: “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them?”

Or does her mind reject the contradiction and actively seek out the truth?

In his story, Leef offers what his subtitle calls “A Political Fable For Our Time.” Jen is a progressive political journalist for the Washington Post, highly skilled at crafting what real-life practitioners call “the narrative.”

It’s a telling term of today’s journalism, “narrative.” It implies storytelling, which is not a recounting of facts but more the sort of “storytelling” that Southern moms talk about when they warn their little ones about lying. Not long ago, as I can personally attest, the craft of journalism still aimed to give readers the who, what, when, where, why, and how in as expeditious and compelling a fashion as possible, this to keep readers’ attention long enough to be fully informed. Now it’s to withhold from readers as much of the who, what, when, where, why, and how as possible to slop out a graspable “narrative,” signaling what they are supposed to think about something and nothing more. An editorializing “news” headline now usually suffices.

Leef’s protagonist, we learn, is a news storyteller par excellence.

It’s this gift of hers that leads to Jen getting the offer of a lifetime. Her idol, the nation’s first female president, Patricia Farnsworth, has asked her to write her official biography, and she’s agreed. Farnsworth remembered how one of Jen’s deftly delivered fictions helped torpedo her first opponent’s campaign.

[karpov]

I liked the book. President Farnsworth reminds me of Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, and the book sketches the dystopia that would result from giving their ilk untrammeled power. The optimistic part is that Jennifer, through experiences and conversations outside her Washington Post bubble, becomes aware of the problems with progressivism by the end and even becomes an activist against it.

[broken_clock]

The optimistic part is that Jennifer, through experiences and conversations outside her Washington Post bubble, becomes aware of the problems with progressivism by the end and even becomes an activist against it.

Author Naomi Wolf seems to be on a similar journey. Her essays as of late are good reads. I’ll have to see how she handles the abortion decision.

Thanks for posting!

[Sioux-san]

Unfortunately the ones who need to read it won’t.

[Louis Foxwell]

...or can’t.