Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Robert Manne, Black Inc., $34.99.
The publisher says this is a “stunning new collection of essays from Australia’s leading public intellectual”. The over-emphasis is certainly valid and his reputation as an independent thinker is justified.
Manne applies his ‘brilliant mind to the topics that have shaped our world’ over the last five years, including climate change, the media, Australia’s asylum seeker policy and the (now) topical Wikileaks. This ‘provocative and challenging’ book features essays on Donald Trump’s alleged links to Russia, Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, the ideas driving Islamic State and a searing critique of Jonathan Franzen’s views on climate change activists.
Manne’s third volume of essays begins with a raw, detailed and confronting account of his 2016 throat cancer diagnosis and consequent laryngectomy — an operation that saved his life, but left him with a greatly diminished means of communication. There’s an aching resonance attached to it.
“In the early spring of 2016,” Manne records, “I woke in the middle of the night, at a time when my defences were down, aware of a lump in my throat.” A fear that an earlier cancer had returned immediately came to mind. When his oncologist first warned him that his voice box might go, Manne’s inherent rejoinder was “I’d rather die”.
For a man who subsisted to debate on news, this was more than a body blow. It was a close shave – and one that also gives this book its title.
The Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University has the last word:
“I have learned that … even a person as naturally proud as I am can overcome embarrassment over conspicuous physical disability … Having lived a professional life part of which relied on speech … I have learned that with a poor quality or unpleasing voice one is expected as a matter of course to vacate the public stage.
I intend to challenge that expectation”.
