How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World, by Francis Wheen

I've just read this book for the second time, which might sound like a good thing but 'm not really sure it is. You see, I was at a second hand book sale and saw How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World and thought, "That Wheen chap is supposed to be quite clever; and I enjoyed (while not necessarily agreeing with vital bits of) his biography of Karl Marx a few years ago. So let's add this one to the stack." So I did, and I read it, and it was only after thirty or so pages that I realised with an uneasy sensation of unease that I had read the damn thing before. But completely blanked the experience from my memory. Which is not good, and something I never do. Usually.

What's even odder is that HMJCTW is quite a memorable book - even if you might struggle to remember the detail, the fact that you've spent several days in Wheen's bracing presence should be something that stick.  The tone or texture of the book is good - affecting the scornful rage at crap of Robert Hughes's Culture of Complaint and the hard headed progressive stance of Tom Franks's One Market Under God (which Wheen acknowledges a couple of times, in close enough juxtaposition and in similar enough terms to suggest proof reading wasn't really a priority or inappropriate starry eyed fanboyishness on Wheen's part). It's good, though not brilliant, and better when Wheen is flaying dragons closer to home, such as faux-lefties like Blair or Mandelson, or assailing the reliable hydra of Margaret Thatcher, than when delving into the Hellish netherworld of Post-Structuralist lunacies. That, of course, may be more to do with my personal prejudices and preferences.

Al Gore - another pseudo-leftie who is always given an easy ride because he made a film once about something or other and was robbed of his rightful inheritance, rather like Esau duped by Jacob - receives a roasting, his mealy mouthed defence of the tobacco industry cruelly but appropriately juxtaposed with his elegy for his dead sister, killed by lung cancer after smoking since she was a teen.

It seems to flag a little bit in the final chapter, where you can almost sense Wheen deliberately aiming a few blows at leftwing commentators, with a slightly self conscious air to ward off claims of bias - but it feels a bit half hearted. If you are going to do a take down of Noam Chomsky - and there is a man in need of a thorough taking down - then do it properly, not over a couple of pages. Chomsky's attempts to dismiss eyewitness testimony about the massacres in Cambodia is mentioned, for example - but the obvious link back to the Post-Structuralist attempts to deny reality, and the similarities between Chomsky's tactics and those of Holocaust Deniers is not made. Perhaps Wheen felt anyone who had ploughed through 300 pages of his book would have been sufficiently improved to make the connection without his prompting; and perhaps my chiding is the proof he was right. But I still feel that the final chapter needed to more ferocious than it was.

As with most books of this type, it is easy to read and easy to forget - most of the rage is forgotten after you put it down, and you slide back into a catatonic state of vague satisfaction. Most of the arguments, examples and anger have already faded from my mind - but hopeful, this time I'll at least remember that I have read it.

Book review: Who Moved My Cheese?

Possibly the worst book ever written is the toe-curlingly awful Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, MD.

It really is one of the most remarkably awful things I've encountered in book form, and no opportunity to scorn it should be missed.

Frighteningly, it sells by the ton and has received four hundred and thirtynine 5 star reviews on Amazon (so far ...) though, hearteningly, it has also received 398 1 star reviews. Websites have been set up to spread its trite message further and celebrate its unbearable naffness. Many people I know who are sensible and successful - far more sensible and succesful than I - swear by it, and cite it as a inspirational book, second to none. But it is awful.

I read it when my wife was loaned a copy through her work, when that company was going through one of its regular restructures (as it is again, now). The book tells you how to regard these changes as opportunites and challenges, not as obstacles. I suspect it's appearance in the soon-to-be-liquidated department was not exactly a coincidence.

So, basically, when your employer tries to piss all over you, instead of protesting or - Heaven forbid - involving the union - you have to thank them for giving you a chance to explore your potential elsewhere. I kid you not. It doesn't advocate biting the hand that feeds you, so much as kissing the hand that slaps you.

The means of putting this wondrous message across is ... um ... cheesey (I suspect I may not be the first person to make that joke. But, what the Hell?)

A group of old friends meet up and discuss their lives. One of them starts to tell a story that is mean to illustrate the correct way - in the opinion of the good doctor - to face up to change. Whatever happens to you, roll with it. Embrace change. Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is athe literary level the book operates at. And there isn't a sherd of irony in it.

The story teller mentions that , when his company was gonig through changes, some people clung onto their old fashioned ideas and sufferred losses as a result. How foolish of them to think they might have had any rights what-so-ever, or that anything other than acceting your redundancy notice with a smile and a heart felt thank-you was the right way.

The book is short, which is the best thing that can be said for it. Most of it consists of a parable recounted by the narrator in the group of friends, illustrating different ways to deal with change.

Everything below is absolutely true and faithful to the book. I have not invented it. This is true. This exists. Adults pay money to be told this, and say 'thank you.'

The parable describes the experiences of two 'Little People' (That is, proles, like you and me), and two busy little mice. For reasons that are never made clear, they live in a maze, and every day they eat cheese which is delivered to the same spot by POWERS UNKNOWN.

I repeat: I am NOT making this up.

Then, one day, the cheese isn't there. The little people sulk and protest, unable to accept that SOMETHING HAS CHANGED. The mice immediately scurry off through the maze, and find more cheese.

Eventually, the little people realise that they should follow the example of the mice and go in search of new cheese, instead of sitting about bewailling the change that has befallen them. As they go, they daub the walls of the maze with maxims, just inc ase the readers of the book are too dim to work out the lesson for themselves.

It one of the most patronising books I've ever read. And it is wrong. No consideration is given to the idea that a change may not be appropriate, or that the 'little people' should protest when their jobs are out-sourced to China, that workers - for the book is really telling workers that they need to accept just that sort of thing, hence the reason it appeared in Mrs Lurgee's workplace when the 'little people' were having their cheese moved - might have a say or a stake in the company they work for. Change is always good, especially if it involves you losing your job. Be grateful, grasshopper, for the chance to experience poverty, insecurity and hardship.

The only thing worse than the tedious, obvious, insulting narrative and preachy lessonering, is the way the book is written. It is written in a curdled style that made me want to puke. It made Woman's Day read like Raymond Chandler. Sugary doesn't begin to describe it.

And, I repeat, this book sells by the million, to successful, presumably intelligent, business people. What is so wrong with the world that this is allowed to happen?

Is there no God?