The Ricochet Podcast - A Novel Approach

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Conservatives love their histories; they lose themselves in great biographies; they have a voracious appetite for news and avidly devour op-eds. But the menu for literature on the right is, regrettably, if understandably, a bit limited. To add a bit of variety, Chris Scalia joins Peter, Steve, and Charles to discuss his soon-to-be-published book, Thirteen Novels Conservatives Will Love (But Probably Haven't Read). The boys quiz Chris on his selections and on the broader premise that the novel deserves greater attention from keepers of the cause. Plus, the hosts prattle on about the Pope, nationwide injunctions, Trump's trip to Riyadh, and the blasted SALT caucus.- Sound from this week's open: the president says his piece about neocons in Saudi Arabia.

My other favorite Churchill story is when his great granddaughter, I think, granddaughter, ran into the room. This is after the war and he's sitting writing his memoirs and she runs into, you may know this, she runs into the room and she sees him sitting there and she gasps, she stops, she goes, and she goes, um, great granddad, um, is it true that you're the greatest man in the world? And he says, yes, now f*** off. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 741. James Lilacs is off today, but I am joined by Peter Robinson and Charles C.W. Cook and our special guest, Christopher Scalia. Let's have ourselves a podcast. The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives.

Welcome, everybody, to episode 741 of the Ricochet Podcast. James is off today. I'll be your host, Steve Hayward, joined as always by Charles C. W. Cook. And today, a stranger is filling the third slot. It's a guy named Peter Robinson. Hi, Peter. How are you? Peter Robinson Hi, Steve. I barely remember myself. Steve Hayward Right. Well, we've got a lot to do and our special guest today will be Christopher Scalia with a terrific new book on novels that we've got a lot to do and our special guest today will be Christopher Scalia with a terrific new book on novels that we've been neglecting. But before we get to Christopher, quickly, Peter, and I mean very quickly because this

could be the whole show, but give me your just initial impressions of the new pope. Pete Slauson The new pope. Listen. Pete Slauson I mean, I like him. I like the looks of him. Pete Slauson I like him. I like the looks of him. Yeah, yeah, no, I do too. I'm just trying to explain that I feel myself in the position of a dog rescued from the pound that was grievously beaten by its former owner.

It is going to be a while before I unclench and give my full trust to a new master. That's the kind of beaten dog I am after 12 years of Pope Francis. Now I'm sure there will be some, and I speak of him with respect because he is the Pope, was the Pope, and so on. However, Pope Leo is just, he seems to be a man of good sense, well-spoken, loves the Church, and loves the Church in every particular of its history. So he speaks beautiful Latin, he sings the Regina Celi in front of the people. Every bit of this is just a relief and an inspiration to a Catholic such as me. So truly I love the man. I love the man right down to his brothers who are ordinary

Americans. Right. Just the sense of normalcy. Now, of course, the left will be outraged because one of the brothers is pro-Trump. I remind the left that Trump won the popular vote last time. You can be a normal American and pro-Trump. Just the sense of a kind of normal love of the church, love of country, love of this country, not however that he hasn't dedicated almost all his life to the poor in Peru. But so far I love him.

I find myself my heart going out to him. Right. All right, well let's go from the sacred to the mundane. I'll put it that way. Charles, I got up early yesterday out here on the left coast to listen to the oral argument in the Supreme Court. Yeah. Oh, wow.

On the birthright citizenship, although really the case is about whether district courts can do these nationwide injunctions. So I listened to the whole thing and have my thoughts, but did you get a chance to listen or review it, Charles? I did. I have thoughts on both of those. Which do you want? Either, describe it whoever you like. Charles is this wonderful intellectual constitutionalist jukebox.

You put in a quarter, right? I need more than a quarter. And press your button. Go ahead, Charles. Right. Well, I wish that this case was not also about national injunctions, because I think there'd be a better vehicle for that. And also it may get in the way of the on the merits decision. I have very complicated thoughts about national injunctions, Steve. I think that ultimately the problem we have

with judges who come in and usurp the role of the other branches is that the judges are hacks, not that national injunctions exist, because there are many circumstances in which it makes sense to have national injunctions. I think the problem is we have a lot of bad judges on the question of birthright citizenship is funny. I think Trump will lose this if it's decided. I am less persuaded than I was that it is easy. I thought last year I'd say, well... Yes, that's a profound point actually.

Yeah, Wong Kim Ark is settled law, the originalist meaning is obvious. I still think that's probably true on balance. I certainly think that there would be five votes for that position, three of the Democrat appointed judges, and then probably Robertson Kavanaugh on precedent inertia grounds. But I am less sure than I was. I haven't got to that because of yesterday's oral arguments. I've got to that slowly over time. Randy Barnett raised some questions for me.

Elon Wurman raised some questions for me. I read a few of the amicus briefs. I've read some other people I respect who have sown doubt in my mind. So this one actually, I think is more difficult than I had thought it was. You know, my impression of it was that they're going to punt completely on the birthright citizenship issue. Yeah. Because it seemed like about 95%, rough estimate of the argument, was really concentrated

on the nationwide injunction question. And I thought Justice Kagan gave away the whole game when she said, with some indignance in the way she put the question to one of the Trump attorneys, the Justice Department attorneys, I can't believe you're bringing this case to us. You know, the subtext was you're trying to shoehorn in birthright citizenship on something that even I admit is problematic, which is district judges giving nationwide injunctions. And then the second thing was the other thing, the weakness of I think the Democratic justices, it's clear they hate

what's going on on both levels. I think they like activist judges doing nationwide injunctions. But the Trump administration plan, or initial argument was, well look, the decision should be bound to just the parties of the case, which was, you know, Lincoln's view about Dred Scott, by the way.

So not a novel or exotic position. Correct. And the Trump attorneys responded sensibly, well look, you can have a class action suit brought to federal district court. And that could give a broader injunction to a whole class of people. But then the comeback from the liberal justices was, well,

what if the class isn't certified? Are you really telling me you'd have to go one person at a time through the federal courts to vindicate their citizenship or vindicate their eligibility for benefits and other rights that come from citizenship? And so you can tell that I think that there's, and I think even Kagan probably thinks that nationwide adjunctions are problematic at the very least, but it was clear that she really hates it, that it's tied up with the birthright citizenship issue. We have a guest joining us soon, so, but may I ask a question of both of you? I did not

listen to all the oral arguments, and I certainly didn't read any of the Micah's briefs the way Charlie did, but I'd listened to bits and pieces of it as it floated through my feed yesterday. And here's my question on national injunctions. I try to put myself in the mind of John Roberts, Chief Justice John Roberts. And we've seen over and over again, and I think it's true of him, by the way, just full disclosure, I've known the man for 40 years. We worked together in the Reagan White House as young men and I like him a lot, which is not to say that I get my head around all of his jurisprudence. However, he really is an institutionalist. He really does take seriously holding it all together. And now we come with an argument, and the argument really, it's interesting for Justice

Thomas and Justice Alito as well, because it's not a question, how do you apply original meaning to the question of national injunctions? You've got more than 600 district court judges who have the power to impose national injunctions. Every single one of them is simply a judge who has the ability to stand up to the President of the United States elected by the entire country, and in many circumstances to the Congress of the United States, to defy on his own bat Article 1 and Article 2 of the Constitution. And it doesn't work. It's almost a purely institutional

argument. The situation is untenable. Now, Mr. Chief Justice, what do you do with it? Yeah, that's a good question. You know what I want to do, Peter? I actually want to pose that question to our guest who is ready to join us in a moment. He may not want the question and you'll see why when I tell you who it is. Our guest is here. It is Christopher Scalia, a senior fellow in the social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, formerly a professor of English at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, and he has a brand new book out that he's

here to talk about. But Chris, you'll get used to book tour interviews where the interviewer wants to ask you about something aside from your book, but I promise we will do the book. The book is called 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love, But Probably Haven't Read. It's going to be out here next week. Chris, welcome. Glad to have you. I've been waiting with great anticipation for this book. Chris Thank you, guys. It's great to be back on the podcast and I'm looking forward to talking to you all. Chris Yeah, okay. Well, just briefly, I mean, because I think listeners, because of who you are and your name, they're going to know if you

have an opinion about the Supreme Court argument this week on injunctions and birthright citizenship. And if you don't, that's fine, because you are a professor of English and not of the law. But since we have you, I have to ask. I admit I have not been following it very closely because I've been preoccupied with with book obligations and opportunities. So it's obviously an important issue, and I agree with the general conservative consensus that these universal injunctions are becoming a serious problem and we need to figure out what the hell is going on with them, as President Trump would say. And they do seem novel. So my own uneducated opinion on the matter is that the judges making these injunctions, handing down these injunctions

are overstepping their bounds, but I don't have a ton of confidence in that opinion. And based on a little bit I heard about of the arguments yesterday, I really don't know what's going to happen with the birthright citizenship decision, but obviously I'm not certain and you can't tell for sure from oral arguments, but it does look like the administration has an uphill battle there. Pete Slauson Enough of this. Christopher Scalia, I have known you since you were a pipsqueak. Now, here you come. Now, here you come, all eloquent, informed, speaking judiciously. Furthermore, you've written a book, and to my intense irritation, it's a very, very good book. Here's the threshold question. In an age in which,

you know as the father of four, nobody reads. Kids are not being raised to read. Here you come saying, we'll come furthermore this disused genre, this old form, the novel really matters. It can say tremendously important things to us. It can help us think through why we're conservatives. It can help us approach life in a healthy and more intelligent way. What the hell are you talking about? You are unfortunately correct that people are not reading much of anything anymore apart from their

phones I guess and that's been going on for a long time but it is getting worse. I won't get into the numbers, but one alarming statistic is that, in the 1980s, young people were the most likely to read a lot. And now young people are just behind the very old in rates of reading as of just a couple of years ago. And no doubt that has a lot to do with the many, many distractions that young people have to choose from. What I do in the introduction to my book is make the case for reading, in particular for reading fiction. I have nothing against poetry, but novels are what this book is about. And fiction has

particular merits that other types of books do not have. History books obviously are important by I know, especially conservatives love reading history and biography, especially conservative men, but novels give us knowledge in a way that those books do not, and they also offer beauty in a way that history books rarely do. And I think conservatives especially should be interested in the novel as a form because it is among the greatest art forms of Western civilization. It's a relatively new form. It's only a few centuries old, but some of our- Spoken like a conservative.

Yeah, that's right. It's basically a new kid on the block, but it's some of the greatest thinkers and writers of our civilization have expressed their ideas and written in this form. And we need to be aware of it. We need to remember and maintain our ability to engage with novels, because once we lose that ability, I mean, you're not born with it, it takes some practice to appreciate a novel. It is much easier to scroll through TikTok or whatever, but if we lose that, we're cutting ourselves off from a great literary tradition. Okay, you give me about three sentences. I'm going to hit you with some of the novels that you discuss here, and at some point, at any point, Steve Hayward and Charlie Cook are going to jump in

to take issue with you or ask why you left this or that novel off the list. But let's begin with one that I myself always just loved. Rossellus, Samuel Johnson. Yeah. What's the point of it? When, what's the story and what's the point according to Scalia?

Samuel Johnson, Rossellus, technically not a novel. I cheat a little bit here. It's an oriental tale, but nobody's going to care enough to raise a big fuss about that. 1759, it is a tale of a young man who is restless. The pun on his name suggests that. He has a great life. he's a prince, and he lives in a kingdom. Everything is given to him, but he doesn't have to work, he doesn't have to do anything. And his experience and knowledge are so limited, he wants to go out and learn more about the world. And what he learns is that life is full of disappointment, not because it's unfair or anything like that, but once you reach your goals, you immediately want to do something else. There's an innate restlessness about us. And the novel is also about a very conservative idea of universal human nature,

human behaviors and ideas and values that transcend time and place. And what I do in my chapters, I connect a lot of what Johnson wrote to what the founders wrote. Even though Johnson was not a fan of the American Revolution, a lot of their enlightenment ideals overlap. Tell us about the astronomer. Well, the astronomer is somebody who gets, he's a character in this book who gets so absorbed in, basically in his one bit of knowledge, impressive knowledge that it is, that it deforms his mind. And it's a really important lesson that really any expertise

deforms the mind. I think Nietzsche said that. I should have quoted that. And so they have to kind of rescue him and bring, he believes he has all sorts of powers he doesn't have. So they have to dissuade him. Pete I read Rosalice because it was assigned. I read Rosalice in college. It is, I'm so delighted that you started with it because it is for young men particularly. Jared Yes. Pete I leave the brickbats from the women to you, although they're, we'll come to that in a moment. But the astronomer seems at first to young Roslis, like, though he

has finally found a wise man, a man who studies the � and then gradually as you read through the work, it becomes clear the astronomer believes that he is not merely observing the moonrise, that he is causing it, that all the movements of the cosmos have come to depend upon him. And I have to say, I have found that, as I've gone through life, I have found that particular touch of insanity in one otherwise wise, sane, accomplished person after another. It is a profound... Okay, now we come to... Pete Slauson You described that much better than I did, Peter. Thank you. Can I butt in, Peter, for a minute?

Of course, Steve. Well, I think we ought to set a broader scene for the listeners first before we get into some particular novels. I mean, we could do each one of these for an hour each almost, but I'll put it this way, Chris. When I saw that you were working on this book, and I've been looking forward to this, by the way, so I'm glad now to have it, and I saw the title, you know, what is it? Thirteen novels. Gosh, I just lost it here. Thirteen novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read. Right. Well, you know, my first assumption was, well, it's probably going to be the, you know, the usual list of the books that I cherish, you know, Orwell, Darkness at Noon,

Brideshead Revisited, C.S. Lewis's novels, several others you can point to. And you make nods to those in your introduction as you explain how you've done it. And instead, the list we've got, as even some of the prominent authors, you haven't done their most prominent novel. So for example, you have George Eliot,

and of course I say, oh, Middlemarch, like one of the five greatest things. Instead, you have George Eliot, and of course I say, oh, middle march, like one of the five greatest things. Instead, you have Daniel Duranda instead. So I'm wondering what your thought process was of picking novels that you might say are not the ones that would be the A-list that the rest of us would do if we're asked by, say, National Review to give the five most important conservative novels or something. Steve says, Steve says, how interesting. Explain to us how you took all these offbeat novels by great authors. And Robinson is thinking, yes, Scalia, what the hell were you doing?

No, I didn't think that at all. I thought it was, I thought it was genius, Peter. I wish, I wish to reserve, I yield the floor back to you guys, but I wish to reserve a moment or two to bitch and moan about selecting Waverly. But go ahead. How dare you? How dare you? Well, I don't know if it's hereditary, but I am a little bit of a contrarian. And I wanted to, I wanted readers to encounter books that were off the beaten path, in large part because conservatives do have this bookshelf at their hands that is, for the most part, pretty impressive. But by always going to the same books, and you mentioned a lot of them, we're selling ourselves short. We're not recognizing the rich literary tradition

that kind of reinforces or develops or depicts some of the values and ideas that we hold dear. And these aren't, these novels do not proselytize, these novels are not didactic, they are first and foremost great works of literature that I really believe people of any political persuasion would enjoy. But conservatives in particular would enjoy these books because they're surprising and they are sympathetic to things that we hold dear. In the case of Daniel de Ronda, Middlemarch is the better novel by George Eliot, but more people are familiar with Middlemarch. i think daniel de ronda is underrated

it is her longest novel is her last novel but i find it remarkably accessible for as long as it is i think it moves pretty quickly and it is it's about duty it's about what you all other people the sacrifices you make you have to make the other people one of the main characters gwendwendolyn Harliff, is a beautiful, funny, very likable character in some ways, but very selfish. And she learns the hard way, the dangers of that selfishness. But

more remarkably, it's a Zionist novel. This novel, George Eliot was not Jewish, but this novel predates the first Zionist Congress by two decades. And it's a case for a Jewish state in which the Jewish people are able basically to secure a national identity in the way that European peoples are able to do it. So, it's, for that reason, a very controversial novel, but in this day and age perhaps especially relevant Well, you know Chris, I think that you've got a wonderful list here I just sent from Peters a crankiness about How you picked it, but I'll say to listeners that this is a perfect list to snuggle up in your cozy earth sheets

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Visit CozyEarth.com and use our exclusive code, RICOSHE, for up to 40% off Cozy Earth best-selling sheets, towels, pajamas, and more. That's CozyEarth.com code Ricochet. And if you get a post-purchase survey, tell them you heard about Cozy Earth right here from the Ricochet podcast. And so, we thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. All right, so Christopher, we're back. But before I turn you back to Peter for his completely unfounded criticism, I'll just say that I enjoyed you saying that one of the subtexts of the book is, as you put it, read another book.

Something that's not on the regular list. And you said you thought of calling the book read another book, but the publisher wisely said that wouldn't attract a lot of buyer. I do remember from back in the what, 60s and 70s, it was either Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman or one of those old yippies had a book that they called, Steal This Book. Yes. You know, sort of, anyway, so I kind of think read another book was maybe not such a bad idea.

Anyway. It would have been a more fun title. My title just tells you exactly, you know exactly what you're getting. That's the advantage of 13 novels conservatives will love. 13 novels conservatives will love. 13 novels conservatives will love and as I read, so read the book, read Christopher's essays about each novel because the son of a bitch writes just beautifully. Boy does it annoy me to see to see somebody coming up behind me who's going to who's already in some ways past me. Boy do I hate that. I just stick my leg out hoping you'll trip over it somehow or other. The novel's on the list. I decided, I resolved, and I recommend this resolution to everybody,

read Christopher's book, read the essays one by one, and then take the books that you haven't already read and read them. And I have to confess, in the final chapters, I read about but never read The Children of Men by P.D. James, and then I have never read anything by Leaf Anger, Christopher Recommends Peace Like a River, nor have I honestly even heard of Christopher Baha, how is that? I don't even know how it's pronounced. I think it's Baha, yeah. Baha, Christopher Baha, The Index of Self-Destructive Arts. So I said, terrific, I'm going to take this and do what I think everybody ought to do, get the book, read the essays, and then read what you haven't already read. And so

I got to Waverly. What were you thinking? I was thinking I was... Waverly digresses all over the place. Yes! That's half the fun! That's half the fun! That's half the fun! It is like watching your life drift by in some muddy river that just trickles on. Furthermore, it's nobody's favorite book by Walter Scott. I can't find a good edition of it. Even on Amazon I can't find a good edition.

I went to a used bookstore. Go ahead. This is all, this is slander and calumny. Okay, so why did you choose Waverley? I've chosen Ivanhoe with knights in armor. I know specializes in calumny. So Ivanhoe is great. And in some way I Ivanhoe is his best structured novel But Walter Scott's best novels are the one set in Scotland You one of the one factor in determining what books to include in this in my book, all of these book novels you can find easily in paperback editions, including Waverly,

Penguin World Classics and Oxford World Classics editions of these are easy to find. Conservatives throughout history, or at least since Walter Scott was writing, have loved Walter Scott. G.K. Chesterton, Russell Kirk. Kirk called him basically Burkeian. He did more to spread Edmund Burke's ideas than Burke himself did. Scott was the most significant novelist of the Romantic era and arguably the 19th century until Dickens came along. And yes, I'm not forgetting about Jane Austen. When George Eliot writes about the romantic period in middle March to establish the setting,

she has all of her characters talk about Walter Scott because he was such a big deal. And the digressions, I think, are half the fun. It is difficult because he's writing about a time period we don't know about. He's writing about the Jacobite uprising. But it's such an important novel for conservatives to know because, A, it conveys this really important point that it's not enough just to read and not enough to read widely, but you need to read with some purpose. You need to read, and especially if you're young, you need people to guide you when you read. So nowadays, we see a young person reading something below their grade level or something, we think,

oh, at least he's reading. But that can be dangerous. And Scott is also important for conservatives. As I said, he's Berkian, and this novel is, I think, one of his most Berkian novels because it reminds us of the dangers of revolution and sudden change rather than incremental change and gradual process. Oh, all right. I'm sold. I'm sold. And also, it's fun. It's funny. Christopher, I would like you to account for my failures. I have read one book. Can I guess which book you read?

Is it scoop? That's right. That's right. Now, now, now here's the thing. I have read everything Evil in War wrote. Yeah. I have read, I think everything else from George Eliot except Daniel the Rhonda and then if you Put a bunch of books in front of me by the same author

I've probably been through those for a whole bunch of all this Jane Austen. I've read everything Jane Austen wrote all well Shakespeare so here's my question as somebody who's not as well well read as I would like to be or could be, but is nevertheless not a slouch, why haven't I read all the books on this? There's more than one of them. So there's got to be something about these books, because you say in the book, conservatives probably haven't read them. That's a very good guess, at least in my case. Why haven't they read these ones? Because I recognize a lot of the authors. I just haven't read

these books. I think part of it is, going back to what I was saying earlier, we're just, conservatives in particular are stuck in a rut about the same handful of novels. So if you talk to somebody about George Eliot, it's going to be about Middlemarch. Yeah, but why is my question? Why is it? Because the books you're familiar with are great there's it's the point is that those novels are bad but they was jane austin for example

jane austin is obviously excellent yeah the only thing bad about jane austin is that she distracts us from everybody else who was good at her time except for mary shelly and we still read frankenstein i'd i include walter scott uh... as i mentioned he was very important at her time, except for Mary Shelley. And we still read Frankenstein. I include Walter Scott. As I mentioned, he was very important and widely read. I also include my Jane Austen-like novel is Evelina by Fanny Bernie, Frances Bernie. Austen loved her. And when you read this novel, you'll see why. You'll see its influence on Jane Austen, especially Pride and Prejudice. But we don't talk about it because there are, just over the time, certain books assume a place in the canon that they do deserve,

but other books that arguably also deserve that place get overshadowed. But what I'm driving at, and perhaps this is a difficult question, but is Daniel de Ronda a worse book than Middlemarch? Or is it just arbitrary that Middlemarch, I've read Silas Marner as well, are the ones that my school encouraged and that people talk about? I mean, why is that? I think Middlemarch is a little bit better than Daniel Duranda. Okay. But for the purposes of my novel, of my book, Daniel Duranda, I think, is more interesting.

In some ways, I think Daniel Duranda is more thought-provoking. It is still an excellent novel, but it's one that I think is overlooked because Middlemarch gets deserved attention. Some of the later books I write about, I just don't think, I think conservatives have an aversion I write about, I just don't think, I think conservatives have an aversion to later novels. Matthew F. Hickman Fair, I agree. Aaron Norris Conservatives should- Matthew F. Hickman Of myself. Aaron Norris Yeah, I mean, I think after, like, after, after Waa, we get a little bit skeptical. But Muriel Spark, I include the Girls of Slender Means,

she was, she's, if you like Waa, you're gonna like Muriel Spark. She was also a Catholic convert. She was less orthodox in her belief, but she's about as funny as Wa, formally more interesting than Wa. And then V.S. Naipaul, I think he has some important lessons for conservatives. He was loathed by liberal academics because he pushed back against post-colonialism, and he won a Pulitzer. I mean, he was recognized as a great novelist, but I think for whatever reason we're skeptical of him. And then I wanted to include 21st century novels to make clear that people are still doing this. Great novels are still being written, and not every novel coming out is just woke stuff to run

away from. Pete Slauson Christopher, can I ask what 21st century novels were on your possible candidate list? I'm curious about this. Well, the ones I included were Leafanger, Peace Like a River, and Christopher Baha, Index of Self-Destructive Acts. I considered including Gilead by Marilyn Robinson, which is one of the great novels of the century so far, but I thought a lot of people have read that. I considered including Cormac McCarthy, but again, I think a lot of conservatives are familiar with Cormac McCarthy. There are a lot of people already saying, read Cormac

McCarthy. I wanted to advocate novels that were a little more obscure, but I think I prefer them more than Cormac McCarthy, frankly. May I offer an answer, at least a partial answer to Charlie? In my reading of Christopher's book, 13 novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read, I don't take Christopher, who is with us and can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't take Christopher as actually attempting to establish, to add these books to the canon or to establish an alternative canon. I take Christopher, I take this guide as an exploration not only of these 13 novels and novelists, but as in some ways a presentation of Christopher Scalia. And it turns out that taking Chris as a guide is worth it. He's that good. So it may strike you, as I have to say it struck me in some

regards, I'm still a little ticked off about Waverly because it's going to take me hours more to get through that thing. But Christopher's written a really good book and it's fascinating and just because he thinks, this is the point, Christopher is so good that because he thinks these 13 novels are important. They are important. By the way, I am going to make a… Jared Sienaar I love that. Thank you.

Pete Slauson I am going to make a… Yeah, well, I figured you would. Tell Adele to send the check to my home address, please. Jared Sienaar Yeah, right. Pete Slauson So, I have a confession to make and it really is a confession. As far as I am aware, and unless by accident, I have never read a novel written in the present century.

Yeah. But, but under Christopher's guidance, I'm going to read, I'm going to start with these two. There have been a lot of great novels over the last 25 years, and many of them don't espouse conservative views. I'm a big fan of Jonathan Franzen's novels. Nobody would confuse him with the conservative or expressing conservative ideas. But yeah, Peter, I think a lot of conservatives share your wariness, but I think we're missing out when we do that.

If I can give a plug for one more novel I write about, this one, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. That's probably the most widely read book I cover. When she died in 1960, really nobody knew about her. She had some success in her lifetime, and then she faded out and died in obscurity and poverty. And then the novelist Alice Walker kind of resurrected her career in the 70s, and now her novel is the most assigned novel by an American woman in colleges across the country. That's why I've stayed away from it! Yeah, exactly, and I think that— This is a bad sign!

I think conservatives are wary of that, and when Alice Walker, revived her reputation in part because Hurston was presented as a, this was presented as a black feminist novel. And there are feminist elements, but it's much more complicated than that. But conservatives, I think, will love this. Hurston was really, really conservative. She was an American patriot. She hated communism. She was so conservative, she hated Brown v. Board. She thought it was a bad decision, in part because it assumed that black students could only learn if white people were around them, which is ironically a progressive argument today. And Their Eyes Were Watching God has some really conservative arguments

and points about race and racial progress, and there's a great passage in which Hurston kind of subtly defends the reputation and accomplishments of Booker T. Washington and his emphasis on self-reliance and education. But like you, Peter, I think a lot of conservatives – and I know I was too, were wary of this novel because it was so popular. It's a contrarian instinct. Pete Here's the last largest question for you. You've got to go on to other podcasts and sell your book. The last largest question is this. We now have, oh, depending on how you count it, three decades, at least, maybe even half a century of the American Academy saying, we need to deconstruct novels, we need to

read them through the lens of gender studies. On and on it goes. And there's not a word of that in your book. You don't even take the time to refute this nonsense. You just ignore it. You present essays about these novels as if you were wearing a tweed jacket with the stem of your pipe sticking out of one pocket in a small Midwestern college in 1955. Why was that? My author photo, I am actually wearing a tweed jacket.

So you're close. Because I don't think, this was written for the general reader, and I don't think the general reader cares about that. And I think there's some hope even in the academy. There's a little bit of a movement afoot, not led by conservatives, led by center-left professors, to move to a more traditional way of teaching literature because they see that the English major is dying, and so is the history major. The humanities in general are in trouble, and people are realizing, even people in the

academy are realizing it's because they've politicized these novels and have over theorized them. So I mean, I have some passing references, especially in my chapter on My Antonia by Willa Cather. I have a nod to some of the damage the Academy is doing, but I just think the average reader doesn't care about that. They just want to know, they want to enjoy the novels themselves and they're open to deeper meanings but only so far. It's easy to become the target of satire with some of these readings. So yeah, I just really focus on the novels and the context of the novels and generally avoid, I really don't get into the theory behind them at all What is your favorite book on this list and why? Lovely

When I started the list I would have said Waverly, but I think now it is my Antonia. Okay. Pete's so upset. Listeners can't see the shocked look on Peter's face. No, I am a Walter, I'm a big Walter Scott stan, but no, my Antonia is such a moving and powerful depiction of, to use the maybe cheesy term, the American dream. And it's about the success and happiness that immigrants can find in the United States. It doesn't idealize immigration. It doesn't suggest that all immigrants will find happiness and success here. And Peter, I quote your boss, Ronald Reagan, in one of his speeches about the contributions

of immigrants. And obviously, this novel is the early 20th century and the situation is very different now. But, well, heck, I'm on a podcast with an immigrant who has made a couple of contributions to the American dream. He's still under probation. Let's not get carried away about Cook. 14 years, I think probation might be over now. Right. I also love My Antonia because it features a big family. And there aren't many novels that have big families. And Antonia finds happiness in part through her many, many children. And this comes towards the end of the novel, and it's a very moving scene for me.

Well, Christopher, congratulations on the book. Once again, for listeners, it's 13 novels that every conservative should read, but you probably haven't. That's close enough, I think. Close enough, yeah. Now, I'll say this in closing, unlike Peter's confused indignant rants about how you've done this, I only have one complaint out of everything I've read, including the footnotes, by the way.

I love your footnotes. I'm an academic nerd too. So don't ignore the footnotes, readers. You confess that you don't like Walker Percy. And you know, those are- I don't, no. I know, those are fighting words, man. I'm sorry, they just are, but that's but that's another occasion so Steve can I just say I know

I I feel like it's a it's a guilty displeasure I feel like I should like him but I've just never enjoyed any of his novels very much yeah they do take a little bit of work and okay I get all that but anyway thank you for joining us Christopher congratulations on the book and to our listeners everyone should go out and buy it all right right. Thank you guys very much. Great talking to you Chris. Congratulations. You bastard Well, you know on that point Peter I mean as I Read the book and thought about it Christopher is making me feel quite old I have to say and that's why I need the help of today's second sponsor,

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ricochet for up to 50% off your purchase and use code ricochet for additional 15%. That's qualialife.com slash ricochet for an extra 15% off your purchase. Your older self will thank you. And thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. One of the things is the three or four books on Christopher's list I have read, I read a long time ago and I've,

I need to reread them because I've really kind of forgotten them. But I have to say, I mean, you know, Scoop is one that I do go back to once in a while, along with Charles. It's got some wonderful stuff in it, but... Pete Slauson By the way, can we agree that Charlie's question was really quite a remarkable display of what I think any properly trained psychiatrist would describe as passive aggression. I am ignorant Christopher said Charlie. I have read only one book of the 13 you list here. On the other hand, I have read the Bible in Greek. I have read all of

Shakespeare. I have read everything by Walter Scott except of course this one. I mean, it was really quite a question that Charlie put. Can we bring that? I just wanted to be clear that unlike with say movies, which I really, I'm truly ignorant about, although I'm trying to fill the gaps. I have read a lot of books. I just hadn't read these ones. I thought it was, I thought it was admirably honest to say, Hey, I've

read one of these 13 books. Well, Charlie, I wanted to set it in the right context, you know. I didn't want to sound like I couldn't read. Right. Right. All right. Well, all right, you guys, before we go today, I wonder if either of you have any quick thoughts on things that will be on the minds of listeners from the news.

So we've just seen this Trump tour of the Middle East that's been quite the box office, right? I mean he certainly has the visuals down. Better than anybody I think Peter since Ronald Reagan, right? And I don't know, do you have any sort of summary thoughts on what you observed happened in the last few days? I'm happy to go and my summary thought is help me. Help me because, and maybe this is a little bit like your ad for Qualia, that if you came up as I did under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Donald Trump is really hard to take. And the idea that he would accept a 747 from Qatar and so, and this notion, these unbelievable

images of him, these Arab dances as he enters vast palaces, all of which of course is our money extorted by these tin pot dictators over there, recycled into vast palaces. And so all of it strikes me as so unseemly. Stop. Then we have in the Capitol the Republicans with a very slender majority in the House of Representatives, led by Mike Johnson, whom I read and whom I will be interviewing in a week, I read Mike Johnson is a good guy. And in fact, he strikes me as the most intriguing story in Washington because it's a good guy who's doing an impossible job and he's doing it. However, on the latest news accounts, they're stuck. And do you know what's going to have to happen?

Mike Johnson is going to have to have Donald Trump call half a dozen members of the House of Representatives and swing them back into line. And so this man whom I find just so hard to take turns out to be indispensable. Help me. Right. Well, I mean, first of all, I'm glad you pivoted to the tax bill, Peter, because if you listened to our episode last week with Ben Dominich, it's pretty clear that Trump's not paying much attention. He just wants a big bill to sign and doesn't seem to care that much about the details. And that's a big mistake. As you know, Reagan was deeply involved in the details of both of his big tax bills. I will add this observation and get Charles' thought, which is one thing is different right now that I'm

surprised no one is mentioning in the analysis of it, which is we are no longer supplicants for Arab oil. We now go there on the energy question from a position of strength. And I think that changes the dynamics to some extent. Now that doesn't bear on your puzzlement over the airplane and certain other aspects of the trip, but I do think it's a different world now Just for that one very important fact Charles Well, I'm not a foreign policy expert and so I will Really a reader when it comes to it. No, apparently not

But I am going to join a militia over this tax bill and in particular the salt Provisions which are a disgrace. The very notion that ISF Floridian should pay more for the same federal government because New York and California are profligate and can't handle their own affairs is revolting per se. But as politics from Republicans, it strikes me as being insane because what's going to happen is they're going to massively increase the salt cap probably without making changes to the alternative minimum tax or the tax rates. So people in those states will get a better deal than they had prior to 2017, which means that the governments of California and New Jersey and Illinois and New York are going to increase spending in those states, make themselves more dysfunctional than they were before, have no effect on their own taxpayers, and then send the bill to me. essentially rewards the blue states that have made themselves into a national joke and punish

Florida and other red states that have done all the right things for 10 years. That's conservatism, is it? I just, it's despair. Okay, Charlie, help Speaker Johnson out of the following bind. He has 220 Republicans. Yeah. There is a midterm election coming. He must preserve three, four, five seats in upstate New York, and he must preserve the small but essential delegation of Republicans from here in California. And if he still has any hope of passing any important legislation in the second half of

Donald Trump's term, he actually needs to pick up a couple of seats in Orange County. And that's the reason for salt. It is practical politics. How do you answer that? Let me say a couple things. The first one is, of course it is true that there wouldn't be a Republican House majority without New York, but there also wouldn't be a Republican House majority without Florida. Governor DeSantis' map that he pushed through and used a great deal of political capital to push through is the reason too. So if you end up punishing Florida, which is not a swing state in the way it used to be, but still

could flip back in a couple of areas, then you have the same problem as you have in New York. Second, I accept as a matter of practical politics that you have to do something on salt and Donald Trump, I wish he hadn't, but did promise that he would during the election. But if you look at the moment at how much of the space, the headroom within the bill is being taken up by even the smallest salt offer, it is crowding out everything else. It seems to me to be absolutely disproportionate as a percentage of what has been proposed. And so as somebody who is quite practical and who understands that politics is not an exercise in academic griping, I am not against deals. I know that there were a lot of deals done in the Reagan tax bills as well.

But, but look at the cost. And I don't use that to imply that tax cuts cost money. But given that they're trying to keep down the quote unquote cost of these tax cuts, look at the cost of salt. One thing that Trump promised relative to everything else that he promised. It's absolutely enormous and the deal that they struck which was $30,000 which is very very generous was described by the New York delegation as being insulting. So I am looking at this and I'll finish on this question. The reason this annoys me so much Peter is I'm not a Trump guy, I'm not a MAGA guy, right? The listeners know this and I'll finish on this question the reason this annoys me so much Peter is I'm not a Trump guy I'm not a MAGA guy right the listeners know

this but I do like a lot of what Trump has done and I thought the first tax bill was terrific in 2017 but the argument that I get the one I get often dripping in contempt is you don't understand Charles we needed Trump we needed MAGA because this squishy uni party driven by moderates and the GOP, just gives the farm away every time. They subsidize blue states, they won't defund Planned Parenthood, they block conservative policy. And what I'm watching now is that! So it's not that there is all of this oppobrium being thrown at Mike Lawler and the Democrats in New York, the Republicans in New York. It's being thrown at Chip Roy and Thomas Massey and Rand Paul.

So if the argument is, we live in the real world, we have to keep a coalition together, that's fine. That was also true though, in 2013. It was also true in 2015 and 2006 and 1981. So if we're gonna argue we need Trump because otherwise we don't defund Planned Parenthood, well we're giving in to the moderates on not defunding Planned Parenthood. If the argument is, well we need Trump and we need MAGA because otherwise we give away these subsidies to blue states and the blue... Well look, it's very, very annoying as a Floridian to be far more conservative than these people to live in a state that has done all of the reforms that the conservatives have wanted to do for 50 years and to watch them mollycoddling the moderate uni party squishes that I was told had been exiled.

That's why I'm annoyed about. It's not that I don't understand the need for practical politics. Okay, so, Charlie, I just wanted to say one thing to Charlie. Charlie, you're beautiful when you're angry. Well I was just going to say, Peter, will mark Charles down as undecided? It is hard to follow an exquisite rant like that. Any rant that includes molly coddling is a 10 on the scale. But it's actually even worse than that, Charles. We left out completely the number of Republicans trying to preserve a lot of the green energy boondocks.

Oh yeah, right. That's the other bit. And that just blows my mind too. I mean, it was very clever of the Biden people to direct a lot of the money to red states. That was on purpose. And guess what? It looks like it's within ace of succeeding in keeping all that bad stuff. This is just, this is the agony of practical politics

for conservatives. Well, yes. I revert to the, Steve will know the details on this, but I revert to this, that when Ronald Reagan took office in January of 1981, having promised to eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Education had been in effect, had been in existence for one year. If there were ever a time you could have killed it, it was then. And Ed Meese told me that he went up to the

Capitol Hill to discuss the Reagan agenda with our senators. We had recaptured the Senate in 1980. We were in charge and he came back to the White House and said, oh my goodness, even the Republican senators are sticking up. They had already figured out how to use the Department of Education to send benefits to their constituents and they wanted to defend it, not eliminate it. Unbelievable. But now remember Peter though, that by my count, in 1981, yes the Republican Senate,

but 16 of them, that's my count, were moderate to liberals. You still have Chuck Percy, MacMath, and nowadays you only have- That wing of the party is gone now. Exactly. So we have a better- Except for Upstate New York. Right, okay. Well, but even there, I mean, Elise Stefanik is one of the persons backing it. True, true. Look, that's obviously, this is very

transparent. It's in the interest of their constituents, and they're going to do that. And it's hard to ask someone to risk their seat for something, except that's what Democrats did with Obamacare. Also in other times, right? It's absolutely hard to ask someone to do that. And I don't as a result, resent that say Mike Lawler is trying to what I resent is that all of the energy seems to be spent denouncing Rand Paul for saying, hang on a minute, this massively blows open the budget deficit rather than denouncing Mike Lawler. And I get that there is a political element, but then don't tell me that you're pure and everyone else is a squish. Yeah. Yes. Yes. When it comes to it, when it comes to it, the speaker is going to send the White

House a list of half a dozen Republicans that he wants the president to call to get them to back into line. And on that list, it's going to be six conservatives not six moderates, correct? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, for the most part that's right. Let's get out this. Get into line.

That's right. Okay. Let's get out this way. I'll pile on to Charles's rant by saying that one of the things that's cheering to me right now is that we really do have blue states up against the wall, politically, fiscally, in various other ways. And so to give in now to help the blue states is political malpractice of the highest order.

In that regard, I thought one of the most interesting things said this week was not from, not about the budget and the tax bill, but it bears on this question. And it was Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, who's a Democrat by all accounts, thought to have been a candidate for Treasury Secretary for President Kamala Harris had such a thing happened, and he said, I don't understand why we call it red tape, it ought to be

called blue tape, because it's the blue states that are the worst on regulation. So when you have Jamie Dimon saying things like that, and you have, as we know out here, Peter, if you're paying attention, Gavin Newsom's crab marching to the right as fast as he possibly can on so many areas. This is not the time to go, what's the old line from Margaret Thatcher? This is not the time to go wobbly. This is not the time to go wobbly, George, yes. Right?

And let's not go wobbly, Republicans in the House and Senate, but that's where we are. And where we are is at the end of our hour together. So everyone should go out and buy Christopher Scalia's book. We thank him for joining us. We thank our sponsors, Cozy Earth and Qualius Analytic. Please send in your comments at Ricochet and we will see you there in the comments and back here live again next week. Bye bye guys. Ricochet. Join the conversation.