Redemption

by Tariq Ali

Primeiro romance politico do autor, lancado originalmente em 1990, mas ainda inedito no Brasil, REDENCAO e uma satira ferina a esquerda tradicional. A trama aborda a trajetoria de um velho lider trotskista, cosmopolita e desenraizado que, em Paris, acompanha a queda do ditador romeno Nicolau Ceavcescu, preso e executado no Natal de 1989. Chamado a reavaliar suas teorias com as mudancas que varreram o bloco comunista no inverno de 1989-1990, culminando com a queda do Muro de Berlim, Ezra Einstein, o lider revolucionario, decide convocar um Congresso Mundial de Emergencia para discutir uma politica unida para enfrentar as desconcertantes mudancas na Europa

Genres: Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Tariq Ali (Punjabi, Urdu: طارق علی) is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.

He is the author of several books, including Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1991) , Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), A Banker for All Seasons (2007) and the recently published The Duel (2008).

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like if Curb Your Enthusiasm was a book, and all the characters were members of different Trotskyist sects.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

You really know you have brain worms when you can organically identify the side characters and who they are parodies of.

Most of the jokes basically boiled down to ‘left gurus’ have sex lives - which was not particularly funny then, and has aged like milk since. Given the systematic nature of interpersonal violence in organising spaces, it is quite horrifying to read at times.

Anytime anything did seem entertaining or humorous, I just immediately imagined Tariq Ali sitting in some big townhouse, chuckling to himself and muttering ‘that’ll show them’. Deciding to write a psycho-sexual fan fic as crushing defeat after crushing defeat was dealt out in the world. This then filled me such fury to at least keep me awake long enough to read the thing.

[Simon B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tariq Ali has written much better novels than this, but his excellent historical fiction is nowhere near as amusing. It's a cynical and sometimes crude caricature of post-war Trotskyist sectarianism. I hope it was cathartic for the author. The humour exclusively relies on understanding the history of the post-war anti-Stalinist left & knowing who Ali's thinly veiled characters are supposed to be. It's one long in-joke ... there's probably little point reading this unless, like me, you're spent many years in the organised far left and are prepared to laugh at yourself a little.

[Nathaniel Flakin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely cynical bullshit. Not even very funny or entertaining.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 4 out of 5]

i enjoyed this book quite a bit. i picked it up for all the inside jokes and the exaggerated foibles and peculiarities of the historical leaders of the world trotsyist movement but i ended up liking this book on a much deeper level. i don't really know what to make of this entirely. the role of satire usually is to situate real problems within fantastical settings or events in order to critique them. it is not clear in either case whether satirical writing is required to offer solutions to those problems or only to point them out so the reader (or the collective readers) can determine solutions. ali does a good job dealing with the problems associated with sects and he does a great job skewering some of the personalities involved but what makes it all work is that there is very little bitterness over all. ali is not a burned radical who retreats rightward while launching blistering invectives towards his previous comrades but is someone who cares about oppression and exploitation. but, as i said, i don't know what to make of this. i am not sure what his point in writing this was. in some ways it would make more sense if it were much more bitter (though that would also make it somewhat unreadable) but as it is, there is respect here. and there is sorrow as the sectarian nature of things. and there seems to be a genuine desire for something different though nothing is specifically offered. i am left with the belief that the final scene where ho speaks about the victory of social democracy means something more than i am able to comprehend. on the upside, ho mentions that this victory will be for 20 or 50 years. it has been more than 20 years now since 1990 and once again capitalism has found itself in crisis. perhaps revolutionary politics will soon be on the agenda again...

[Jordan Phizacklea-Cullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in the year after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that saw most of the Eastern Bloc crumble, this is a witty novel charting the existential crises the various worldwide factions of Trotskyism were facing at the time, though it's probably best appreciated by those with a memory of Militant, the WRP et al.

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing for anyone familiar with left-wing political faction fighting, especially in the UK and Europe.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange book – no idea what someone unfamiliar with Trotskyist politics would make of it. Genuinely quite surprised it was published by a mainstream outfit because the subject matter is very niche. What average punter on the street is going to realise "Jimmy Rock" is Tony Cliff? Who still is going to realise his significance in what is a marginal trend of a marginal trend on the already quite marginal left?

The gist of the book is that the Ernest Mandel stand-in, inspired by a love affair with a young woman, realises that the best way communism can persist into the future is by morphing into a religion – this was written in the era of "the death of Marxism" and the idea is that religion has much more of an established staying power than Marxism. He calls a conference of the world's Trotskyist organisations and it goes from there.

Sexual neuroses are revealed to be behind every major figure of world Trotskyism, every major tendency. The Ted Grant character is a closeted gay man, for instance, a kind of metaphor for his political strategies. These can get very gratuitous but the climax of Ernest Mandel breastfeeding is well worth it in the end.

The book is about the inability of Trotskyism to cope with the collapse of the USSR, but considering how Ali left himself out of the book – despite being a major figure of world Trotskyism – perhaps indicates that he himself did not cope with the USSR particularly well, and was even less inclined to view himself critically than he was his factional enemies.

[Ewoudt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tariq Ali's first novel is not his best, but certainly his most absurdist. Set against the disintegration of the east-bloc it shows a disoriented worldwide trotskist movement. It features prominent figures such as Mandel and Cliff, but disguised behind pseudonyms. Ali must have had a lot of fun in writing the satire, but all the side-stories and invented histories are often a bit overdone and cannot disguise his own demoralization in revolutionary politics.

[Edu]

funny as hell. reminded me my time within the student movement.

[Daniel Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, although you need to know some of the history of the Trotskyist movement to get a lot of the references.