"While writing this review, I was more than usually aware that I would be posting it on this website, where, every time I refreshed the page, I'd hope to find that it had clocked up some Likes and comments, each of which would give me a little rush.

That awareness leads me to think about how big a role the 'little rush' plays in my reading life—indeed in my life in general. What would I do if I couldn't write reviews anymore? Would I read differently, maybe give less thought to what I read since I wouldn't have an audience for my post-reading thoughts and discoveries?

Then I wondered what sort of person I have become that I don't read in the privacy of my mind anymore but need to air every reading thought I have in public? But at least I'm producing something with all this, I tell myself. I'm writing a reflection on books every week, and that can't be bad for my psyche, can it?

And so I feel grateful to live in this moment in time that allows me to write and be read, and to discuss and learn from GR friends' review writing and reading. After all, we can't all have review columns in newspapers as Virginia Woolf and many other committed readers did in the past. Readers like us could never have aspired to writing reviews in newspapers!

If you're wondering why this book prompted so much soul-searching, it's because it is about two people who live almost their entire lives on the internet. They are a couple, Anna and Tom, who work from home as graphic designers for websites—which means that every minute of their work day is spent online, and any breaks from work tasks are spent checking their social media profiles for Likes and comments on the well-curated images of their well-curated lifestyle which they constantly post on their social media platforms.

When they are not checking their own profiles, they are searching their virtual friends' feeds for new life-style trends, whether in furnishings, cooking, art exhibitions, or holiday destinations, which they then incorporate into their own lifestyle choices, ordering more and more trending 'things' for their apartment, refining their images of their lives further and further in the search for some ideal of perfection, a search that takes them from Berlin to Lisbon, where there are great sunsets but the food chosen from the laminated menus full of garish photos is served on grubby formica tables, and from Lisbon to Sicily, where the scenery is fabulous but the airbnb is dark and dusty and "crammed with what could only be a dead relative’s furniture", and then back to Berlin because, you've guessed it, the perfect lifestyle is not as easy to create in reality as it is on social media posts. But Berlin isn't the end of the road for Anna and Tom, and Real Life steps in and redirects their lives in an unexpected way.

This book is something of a reality check for the way we live now and yet the really surprising thing is that it was inspired by and based closely on a book from the 1960s—long before internet screens and social media. That book, by French writer Georges Perec, was called Les Choses (The Things).
Perec's book is about a couple called Jérôme and Sylvie who aspired to a particular lifestyle—a classic apartment in the heart of Paris full of rich fabrics, precious objects, fine art, and beautifully bound books.
Perec used a documentary style in presenting the couple and their lives, the narration like a camera panning across their surroundings with little close-ups of their day-to-day activities but never giving much glimpse of the interior thoughts of his two characters—they never speak—so that at the end of the book, they remain as opaque as they were at the beginning. He uses the conditional tense for the first part in which he outlines the life-style the couple aspired to, the present tense for the second part, and the future tense for the final part, their projected future.
Vincenzo Latronico does exactly the same thing—even to the three tenses and the lack of dialogue. And while we hear a lot about Anna and Tom's life, just as in Perec's book, we don't ever get to know them as people. The skill and discipline shown by both authors as they continually keep their characters at a distance from themselves and from us makes their texts a treat to read. At the end of Vincenzo Latronico's book, I still saw Anna and Tom as the blank avatars they were at the beginning, one short-haired, one shoulder length, both in dark grey on a pale grey background.

..................................

I think it was interesting that Anna and Tom's story finished in 2019 when they seemed to have finally found their perfect lifestyle (far from Berlin) because the reader is aware of how their ultimate choice of a way to live would be impacted by the 2020 pandemic, something the author must have been aware of too because he wrote this book during 2020/2021 when he himself must have been living the isolating life he gave his characters though he had situated their story during the ten years leading up to it."

"I was embarrassingly slow to figure out what was going on in this meta-novel, but it kept me hooked all the way nonetheless. I enjoyed watching it elegantly unravel, and the resolution was mostly satisfying, leaving me wanting more.

I like how different the setting is compared to Díaz’s first novel, which was quiet and captivating. This one takes place on Wall Street, far removed from Into the Distance’s solitary landscapes. You can see that Díaz put serious work into the research for this one—it works as both a mystery novel and a sort of literary puzzle à la Pale Fire. Despite its subject matter, one doesn’t need to be up to speed on the mechanics of Wall Street to enjoy it. To me, it was about how power and influence are elusive and unreachable, creating an uncertain, highly volatile atmosphere.

I’d recommend both of his novels to anyone unfamiliar with his work."

"Stanley is a thoughtful author and it's good to have smart people warning about things that might, or might not, actually happen. But it's high time he and other commentators stop trying to shoehorn the American polity into a paradigm that doesn’t fit. He spends much of this book doing just that.

Donald Trump’s brand of government is as new and unique as it is volatile and disturbing. Sometimes history neither repeats nor rhymes. Sometimes a whole new species bursts onto the scene.

What we’re seeing today with Trump isn’t dictatorship. Dictators control their countries. They don’t rely on the opposition party to pass budgets; they dictate where money is spent. They don’t get bludgeoned every hour in the press; they dominate the media. And they don’t have their key initiatives stymied in the courts; they control the judiciary.

Nor is this Nazism. Nazis don’t make Nazi salutes at rallies and then try (with mixed success) to downsize the government. Nazis make Nazi salutes at rallies and then go kill a bunch of innocent people. Nazis, moreover, don’t just slap tariffs on their neighbors. Nazis invade their neighbors.

This isn’t fascism, either. Sorry Mr. Stanley. Fascists enforce a coherent vision of government through a murderous, totalitarian regime. They don’t flail around pursuing incoherent and contradictory policies that get blocked as frequently as they get implemented.

Sure, there are similarities between Trump’s presidency and these historical forms of government. Trump’s rhetoric, for example, is often lifted from the lips of history’s worst tyrants. His abuses of executive power, moreover, often resemble certain dictatorial techniques. But, overall, these political pegs simply don’t fit into the American hole. As Stanley glosses over, having similarities with something is different from being the same thing. Both the mouse and the elephant have four legs and a tail.

No, what we have in America today is different. It’s new. It’s unprecedented. What we have in America today is Trumpism.

There are four defining elements of Trumpism. First, Donald Trump is the sitting president and dominates the Republican party. His cabinet includes people with varied pedigrees and ideologies but who share one common trait: slavish loyalty to Trump. The same Trump-first, person-over-party ethos pervades Republicans in both houses of congress.

Stanley is right about this.

Second, several essential pillars of American democracy no longer function. For example, Trump’s executive branch doesn’t respect legal precedent or tradition in its daily workings. Trump ignores rules regarding government ethics, such as avoiding conflicts of interest. An impulsive and profiteering businessman, he naturally gravitates toward, instead of away from, these conflicts. He also ignores other long-held norms and legal requirements governing executive action. Under Article 2, Section 3 of the United States constitution, the president must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.�� Yet Trump and Elon Musk have brazenly confiscated congressionally approved funding to serve their political goals and settle personal scores.

Stanley correctly notes this dynamic, but he overstates the case. Many of his predictions about a second Trump term have not and will not happen.

Third, other essential pillars of American democracy do continue to function. As Trump’s recent deal with Democratic senator Chuck Schumer illustrated, a majority of congress is still required to pass a budget. The judiciary still operates independently from and consistently rules against the president. State and local governments still control vast portions of America’s legal and political systems. A diverse and free press still vociferously criticizes the president every minute of every day.

Stanley doesn't give this nearly enough weight. The things that still work are taken for granted and ignored.

So we find ourselves, today, charting new territory as a nation. Some parts of our democracy still work. Some don’t. Some of our fears have been realized. Some haven’t been. Contrary to Stanley's thesis, we are not under the yoke of a fascist dictator. We are, rather, neck-deep in the dysfunctional scramble of a constitutionally illiterate and shameless bully.

Which brings us to the fourth and final element of Trumpism: unpredictability reigns. Will Trump start systematically violating court orders? Will he and Musk illicitly unwind foundational programs like social security? Will Republicans keep both chambers of congress in 2026? Will Trump try to stay in office after the next presidential election?

Stanley largely gets this aspect right, though again he overstates the case. Our range of outcomes with Trump and the American polity are more narrow than he asserts.

These are, however, big open questions. And we shouldn’t understate the predicament we’re in. But we also shouldn’t confuse where things stand or make them worse than they are. This isn’t dictatorship, nazism, fascism, or any other familiar political paradigm. This is something different. This is something new. This is something as odd, as unique, and as troubling as the man who gives it its name. This is Trumpism."