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    The New Republic: A Novel
    The New Republic: A Novel
    The New Republic: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    The New Republic: A Novel

    Written by Lionel Shriver

    Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    Acclaimed author Lionel Shriver—author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That, The Post-Birthday World, and the vivid psychological novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, now a major motion picture—probes the mystery of charisma in a razor-sharp new novel that teases out the intimate relationship between terrorism and cults of personality, explores what makes certain people so magnetic, and reveals the deep frustrations of feeling overshadowed by a life-of-the-party who may not even be present.

    “Shriver is a master of the misanthrope. . . . [A] viciously smart writer.” —Time
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 27, 2012
    ISBN9780062115782
    Author

    Lionel Shriver

    Although Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including the Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she in no way wishes for the inclusion of this information to imply that she is more “intelligent” or “accomplished” than anyone else. The outdated meritocracy of intellectual achievement has made her a bestselling author multiple times and accorded her awards, including the Orange Prize, but she accepts that all of these accidental accolades are basically meaningless. She lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

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    Reviews for The New Republic

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      In The New Republic by Lionel Shriver novice journalist/ex-lawyer Edgar Kellogg is offered the temporary post of foreign correspondent for the National Record. His post is in Barba, a fictional part of Portugal, where his assignment is two fold: report on the terrorist activities of the SOB (Os Soldados Ousados de Barba) and find out what happened to enigmatic, charismatic, and missing reporter Barrington Saddler.

      When he arrives in Barba, it is apparent that Barrington is exactly the kind of man that Edgar has always envied. Edgar has been asking himself for years why some people are simply more magnetic and irresistible to others. It is clear, talking to Barrington's friends and acquaintances in Barba, that their beloved "Bear" is one of those larger-than-life characters. It is puzzling, though, that terrorist activities have stopped in Barba now that Barrington is missing.

      The New Republic was originally written in 1998, but publication was held off because of the terrorism in the novel. As Shriver writes in the Author's Note: "[In 1998] my American compatriots largely dismissed terrorism as Foreigners’ Boring Problem and I was unable to interest an American publisher in the manuscript." Then, post 9/11, she felt that any novel which treated terrorism “with a light touch” would have been “in poor taste.” She is hoping that the novel "can now see print without giving offense."
      In the end, though, it is the age of the novel combined with it's light touch and unlikable characters that combine to create a novel that I struggled to enjoy.

      First let me make it clear that I appreciate/lionize Lionel Shriver's writing. She deftly always uses the perfect word in every sentence. Her vocabulary is beyond my comprehension. And she is clever. Very clever. All these traits were present in The New Republic. The problem is not with her writing. It's not with the terrorism either. The problem, for me, was found in the sluggish middle of the book, the dated feeling to the novel (with all the reporters working for print publications), and, most especially, in the unlikable characters.

      However, questioning the role of journalists is probably more cutting edge than the terrorism and it's too bad Shriver didn't rewrite this novel in order to aim her sharp satire at current journalists, all in a frenzy, following the scent of the day.

      If you make it to the end of The New Republic it will redeem itself for the niggling problems it also contains.

      Recommended, Highly Recommended for fans of Lionel Shriver

      Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from HarperCollins and TLC for review purposes.


    • 3/5
      Lionel Shriver is an excellent writer who can deliver blistering social commentary…. but I must admit I was underwhelmed by her tale of international terrorism. I understand that the characters - with their pious liberality, intellectual pretentions and flexible ethics - are meant to be unlikeable… but it doesn’t make them any easier to read about. (And I thought the plot “twist” was painfully obvious.)
    • 5/5
      very good
    • 3/5
      I was pleasantly surprised by Lionel Shriver's book "The Post-Birthday World", which I had assumed would be chick-lit fluff and turned out to be something much deeper and more thought provoking. I was hoping that The New Republic would offer more of the same.

      The story involves Edgar Kellogg who has spent his entire life looking up to idols who let him into their circle but then kept him firmly at arms length. He gives up his lucrative career as a corporate attorney and flies to the Barba region of Portugal to be a stringer for a New York paper. Once arrived, Kellogg finds that he is once again overshadowed by the journalist whose position he's taking, who disappeared shortly before his arrival. As Edgar begins to have lengthy dialogues with an imagined version of the missing journalist, he takes actions that place him firmly in the center of both the social circle of journalists and of international politics.

      As I read this book, I kept hoping that the story would reach some of the emotional truths that I was expecting of this author, however, the absurdity of the story kept taking me out of narrative just enough to void any emotional investment I might have had. The device of having Edgar speak with the disappeared journalist is troublesome because takes away from what should have been a much bigger ending.

      My opinion of this book may have suffered from too high expectations. I didn't dislike it...some of the insights on relationships and the nature of terrorist politics were interesting, but it didn't give me the enveloping story I was hoping for.
    • 3/5
      My fourth Lionel Shriver and alas my least favorite. Granted, it's three stars - I read the whole thing and was interested each night to get back to the story. But nobody was likeable, least of all the awful main character, who had something snide to say about EVERYONE; and since it was told from his perspective, the over all vibe was relentlessly ugly and negative.The protagonist, Edgar, switches careers midlife to become a journalist; and he is sent to Portugal to cover a fictional separatist movement. The area and the ethnic group Shriver is writing about are fake; but even so, I winced at her constant disparagement of the environment and its inhabitants - can something be "racist" when the "race" it's taking shots at is entirely fictional? I think so. This is beyond having a nasty protagonist with a tendency to put everyone down - Shriver is the narrator and she's no better than her character.I'm neglecting to mention a significant part of the plot - the mysterious disappearance of the journalist who preceded Edgar. I guess I didn't much care. I don't want to give away spoilers; what drove the plot and my interest was how Edgar chose to become involved, at first very peripherally but then more and more directly, in the violence that is at first distant from him, then literally surrounds him. This is what kept me coming back night after night.
    • 2/5
      When I read "We Need to Talk About Kevin' several years ago, I couldn't put it down and I couldn't stop talking about it. I passed it along to friends and family, I recommended it to a book club, I wanted everyone to read and experience Shriver's unbelievably moving prose. Her characters and their emotions were truly alive, and I was engaged. When the opportunity for an advance copy of this 'old but new' book, 'The New Republic', I jumped, I couldn't wait to read another riveting Shriver tale. How sad to be so disappointed. The premise behind the book is an interesting and relevant one: the real nature of journalism, and the power of the media to manipulate a story for its own purposes. Add to the mix a fictional, miserable corner of Portugal and the local terrorist group seeking independence for the people of Barba, and you have the potential for a humorous tale. Edgar Kellogg is our main character, a lawyer-turned-journalist and former fat kid whose inability to connect with other humans has left him floundering in his mid-thirties, still yearning for popularity and the approval of his peers. With a stroke of luck, Edgar lands a job as a stringer for a national paper and is sent to Barba to cover the terrorist activity and the disappearance of a revered journalist - once there, Edgar begins to see that all is not as it appears. I just couldn't enjoy this book, I don't need to relate to characters, it's ok with me if they're not likable, but these weren't even interesting. I thought the first half of the book could have been cut in half again, which might have helped move along the fairly light plot, and perhaps made the mild twists a little more shocking. As it was, I felt bogged down in the characters' pretentious speak, and unable to engage with the story. Shriver is a gifted and clever writer, and I look forward to reading something else from her - this just was not the book for me.
    • 2/5
      Way too clever
    • 2/5
      Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World is a very clever book. I read it a couple of years ago, and, although there were things I did not like about it, the good things definitely outweighed the bad. After I read that one, Shriver got put on my list of authors to watch, which is why I requested this one, despite the disgusting cover (note: I hate smoking).

      Immediately, I was once again impressed by Shriver's incredibly writing talent. I love the way she writes; there were so many stellar quotes. The writing is definitely the best part of this book. Edgar I never really attached to as a character, as he's like me but only in the worst ways (The Judgment Express is currently leaving the station).

      I also really appreciated her coverage of the theme of popularity. Certainly, I have known some of those people that others just gravitate to and desperately want to be best friends with. Obviously, this gets covered a lot in YA books, but isn't something that's done too much in books for adults, even though jealousy and cliques do not exactly go away, even if the effect is often minimized just by the fact that you're not generally stuck together in big groups like in high school/college.

      Unfortunately, the second half of the novel really dragged for me, as the focus switched more to satire and terrorism. Although I do think Shriver has done something very clever, it wasn't especially for me. The more politically-inclined will likely really enjoy what Shriver has done here. If politics aren't your thing, I would recommend starting with one of Shriver's other novels.
    • 4/5
      Originally written in 1998 and rejected by publishers, Lionel Shriver's The New Republic still feels like a modern, contemporary novel. The novel is a satire of terrorism, which sounds preposterous, but Shriver manages to be witty, evocative, informative and engaging. Corporate lawyer Edgar Kellogg decides he wants to become a journalist. With little experience, he lands an interview at a national newspaper. Against the odds, he gets a job covering Barta, an invented peninsula off of Portugal that has a newly active homegrown terrorist group. The reporter who had been covering it, Barrington Sadler, has gone missing. The job is Edgar's until Barrington returns.Despite having read and enjoyed two of Shriver's earlier novels, We Need to Talk About Kevin and So Much for That--which made my top 10 of 2010, I was somewhat apprehensive about The New Republic. Would it really be good enough to publish now when it wasn't in 1998? Or was the publisher simply banking on Shriver's fame, which is much larger, both commercially and critically, than it was then? I was relieved to enjoy the satire so much I was frequently laughing out loud. Shriver's humor isn't one that will appeal to everyone, and some will likely find it appalling.Perhaps more important, some may find this novel incredibly dull. It's a novel about terrorism and journalism with very little action: "Toby figured your law skills would transfer to journalism: interviewing, library research, writing up cases." As Edgar, and by extension the reader, know nothing about Barba, there is a deluge of information. I found it fascinating to see Edgar research this country and people, but I also teach college students how to conduct research for a living. I frequently contemplated how I could incorporate parts of this novel into my courses.What will really affect if you like or dislike this novel, however, is Edgar himself. He is both likable and unlikable. He has more self-esteem but strong self-awareness: "Edgar's biggest concern about his own character was that he wasn't original. He didn't know how to become original except by imitating other people who were." This lack of self-confidence shapes the events of the novel in many ways. While some readers may not relate, this satire straddles just the right amount of reality to both hilarious and prescient. Favorite passage: "Her far-flung general knowledge, for instance, translated neatly into superficiality: she could discuss anything for five minutes and nothing for half an hour. When she professed strong views about new Freud biographies at parties, she'd read the reviews. She subscribed to all the right magazines but only skimmed the pull-quotes, and in movies concentrated primarily on the credits."The verdict: Lionel Shriver's sardonic wit takes center stage in this inventive and funny novel of terrorism, journalism and international life. The New Republic is at times joyously preposterous, but the underlying wisdom and cynicism shine through and make this delightfully funny novel not only entertaining, but also informative and intriguing.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to love this newly published offering by the gifted Lionel Shriver but the painfully slow start to this novel made reading it a chore. Edgar Kellogg is a completely unsympathetic and often annoying character; he tries so hard to be arch adn superior that he often made me cringe. The entire situation in Barba, a Portuguese province now the home of a breakaway rebel movement, is absurd- too absurd unfortunately to make for an enjoyable read. Though the book does raise some interesting questions about journalism and sensationalism, the story itself never pulled me in as a reader. The big twist was something I saw coming once Edgar arrived in Barba and I found his inability to follow the breadcrumbs irritating and unbelieveable.The last third of the book was certainly an improvement both in terms of pacing and dialogue, but it was to little too late to save this book. 2.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Almost from the start I realized that satire isn’t my thing. I spend too much time looking for the joke; am I in on it or is it going over my head? I can’t relax with books like this, but I persevered because I like Shriver’s writing. I do the same thing with Percival Everett, but they both make me feel like I’m too dumb to get what they’re doing.“Finally, when Edgar was requesting his check, Toby would sashay in, double doors swinging with his dozen disciples, all drunk, loud, and dashingly dressed, infusing this old-man’s-bathrobe of a bar with its original camp, smoking-jacket flash.” p 23“Already any reference to Barrington Saddler threw Edgar lurching nauseously between opposing inclinations, as if he were careening up switchbacks in a bus. He both longed to discuss this preposterous fellow and to avoid all mention of the man with the same degree of urgency. When he gave in and pursued the subject, he instantly regretted it, the way you curse yourself for having picked a scab.” p 25“Majority status is no people’s right,” Gluck insisted. “It is an accident, a lucky advantage. Like any advantage you want to hold onto it. But it is typical reasoning of privileged people to assume that just because you have something, ipso facto you deserve it. In truth, this ‘defense of borders’ is naked defense of self-interest - not of justice.” p 73There’s a lot more like that and Edgar is an engrossing character, but plot-wise there’s not a lot going on and I found the episodes with Barrington as imaginary friend to be a bit trying. It isn’t clear whether the whole thing is a hallucination or a delusion brought on by Edgar’s personally wrecking his house. The other characters are just props, there to fuel Edgar’s reactions, opinions, observations and, most importantly, derision. I can understand his yearning to be the BMOC and I loved Barrington’s explanation of what it’s like to be that person. Ditto with Toby. I’ve known people like them, so have you, and I’ve never given much thought about what it must be like to be the object of so much attention and adulation. Trying, I’m sure, but like being rich or beautiful, us regular people can’t offer much pity or consolation. There’s too much upside to match the downside the rest of us also have to endure.