Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

1. What point is the book trying to make about the distinction between “the past” and “history” through its notorious commingling of actual historical fact and completely made up fiction?

2. The most notorious anti-communist figure in America at the time of the Rosenberg trial and execution was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and as such he seems a more ideal choice as historical narrator than Richard Nixon. Why might Coover have made the choice he did?

3. Were the Rosenbergs actually guilty of betraying the United States and committing treason by selling secrets to the Soviets?

Just finished this book today. It was…certainly interesting. I loved the idea of the book how -not just the Rosenberg’s – but so many highly politicized cases and trials in American history make a victim out of the truth. Some of the personifications and literary structures used seemed to service this point well, but I did still feel like there was something about Coover’s writing style that made it difficult for me to enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. It seemed both dense and frenzied at the same time. Frenzied makes sense for the content, but it did seem at the price of ease of reading sometimes. I think this one would have gone over better as an audiobook (especially in the opera dialogue parts- that would be interesting).

1. Yeah I feel like this speaks to the earlier point that the truth is often the victim in these cases- encapsulated through the presence of the New York Times and Time Magazine as Characters. Making this explicit distinction the book does lampshade this theme well. I do like the adage that all art is propaganda- and really history is as well. Knowing the perspective you’re reading from goes a long way to entangling that. There’s a really telling interview from about 2016 I think? Where someone is interviewing ….Newt Gingrich I believe? (Although it could have been Lindsay Graham) where the interviewer keeps bringing up stats like “well crime is actually down” and he says “but Americans don’t FEEL safer” like that is more important than the truth. That’s a huge crux of this book. What harm do we do as a society when the way we are manipulated (by politicians, by media, by corporations to FEEL about things takes precedent over the truth?

2. One thing that is super interesting about this book is how humanized the Nixon portrayal is. This is right on the eve of his ascension to VP if I remember correct, and while he always took a hard anti-communism stance, he isn’t the fully corrupt and hardened Vietnam War- Watergate Nixon yet. The spin, the paranoia, American extremism of events like the trial of the Rosenbergs contributes to the making of that man. It’s the stewing in this culture that pushes the snowballing of extremism- he just represents a really public example of this. But, my goodness, did that penetrate into the population at the time…and now. Joesph MaCarthy is already at full fever pitch around this time, so it would have undermined this point and made the book less compelling. Though of course- he makes his requisite appearance with this being a red scare story and all.

3. Whelp, I’d have to read the full Rosenberg files to figure the degree of this out for sure lol. I mean it’s proven that they did spy and sell secrets, but their children still maintain that while they did spy, there isn’t compelling evidence that their parents specifically gave the Intel needed to create the soviet nuclear weapons…as do many progressive activists. I can’t say that the FBI and CIA seem like the world’s most objectively credible sources. I do think that them being executed wasn’t justified regardless: a real war was never triggered by the Soviets having nuclear weapons (not that I’m at peace with any nation having them- but the US already did), jail would have sufficed to remove them from Soviet contact, etc. Hell, deporting them to the USSR would have neutralized them. They murdered real people likely of only middling to moderate importance to the USSR over symbolic reasons and paranoia.

Final thought on this one is that I found the theme of how justice has been grotesquely commodified to be an entertainment product extremely timely. I gave it 3 stars (balanced my feelings of themes against writing style but may up to 4 stars at some point while I think on it).

1. What point is the book trying to make about the distinction between “the past” and “history” through its notorious commingling of actual historical fact and completely made up fiction?

Amanda's answer is great.
The author does a tremendous job in presenting actual historical events and giving the reader just enough realistic details to illuminate how the media, the political characters and the popular imagination have twisted and tangled the truth in order to sell a specific myth, a specific side or simply to "sell" media.
The fact that so much of the book is totally fabricated did leave me with a touch of questioning about the author's own myth making desires. Although I obviously knew that some of the details about the Rosenbergs were based on facts, nothing is verifiable and therefore although we do not come away with a strong sense of whether Coover thought they were set up, his theme is really about the nature of innocence in a corrupt world and not about whether the "real" Rosenbergs were truly out and out victims or not.

2. The most notorious anti-communist figure in America at the time of the Rosenberg trial and execution was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and as such he seems a more ideal choice as historical narrator than Richard Nixon. Why might Coover have made the choice he did?

In the mainstream telling of US history, Senator Joe McCarthy is turned from being a heroic champion against the Red Menace, into being an evil grandstander out for his own notoriety. The current reflection (again mainstream) is that McCarthy was a buffoon. He was a dangerous buffoon who went much too far but nevertheless there is some national sense that he fell because the US sense of what was right prevailed. Nixon is a much more complicated character as seen from 1977, when this book was published. I think Coover was attempting to capture something very complicated and McCarthy would have narrowed down and limited Coover's theme.

3. Were the Rosenbergs actually guilty of betraying the United States and committing treason by selling secrets to the Soviets?

Again, Amanda's answer is great. The Rosenbergs were minor players in the intelligence world when it came down to what they did and did not do, and it is generally considered that the secrets that they supposedly passed on were available to anyone with any degree of nuclear engineering skills. However, the book is completely uninterested in that aspect of innocence. The Rosenbergs in this book are actors on a national and global stage who must be punished for even considering pulling one over on Uncle Sam during a time when Communism had been made into a frightening horror.

1. We all interpret history according to our own experiences. I found this book both painful and horrifying to read as it flayed the American psyche. In what kind of society is execution deemed desirable? What WAS the fixation with communism as a doctrine which would encompass the whole world? If I had read this book a decade ago I would have condemned its excesses as fanciful. After the shenanigans of last January it seemed almost prescient. And the theme of the public being blindly and willingly duped by politicians is not only a problem of history. Fact in an historical context is always beholden to the phenomenology of the interpreter.
2. McCarthy was discredited by the time this book was written. In fact, he was disgraced on national television not long after the time this book is concerned with. He had died 20 years before Coover wrote his book, although his legacy of hysterical anti-communism influenced a couple of generations to be believe that socialism is an evil doctrine, McCarthyism, which has come to mean the tactic of defaming someone by making wild, unsubstantiated allegations against them, was no longer topical in the seventies. (But not after the antics of the last U.S. president). Nixon, on the other hand, had only recently resigned the presidency in disgrace after the Watergate scandal, so readers would have had his subsequent history in front of mind. This made the book fascinating, at least the parts that Nixon narrated. All the references to his heavy stubble, for example heark back to the presidential debate with Kennedy, when his stubble and heavy perspiration counted against him in a very close election.
3. My understanding is that they did give away secrets, not for much material reward, but that the information they gave was not especially helpful to the Soviets.

I read this book a couple of years ago. While not always an easy read, I was surprised at how much it drew me in.