The Absurdity of Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s “exposé” about the first few months of the 45th President’s tenure, was one of the funniest books I have read in a long while. The type of laughs

emanating from me were of the kind that no humor book could ever elicit. These were laughs of a different kind: laughs filled with both amusement and sorrow, laughs equal parts joyous and miserable. It has the astonishing ability to both enliven and depress, to act as a vehicle for catharsis and as a vehicle for depression.

It brims with passages that seem ripped from a piece of satirical fiction; a rare dystopian novel, perhaps, that dares to inject the inherently disturbing subject matter with a measure of humor: “Early in the campaign, in a Producers-worthy scene, Sam Nunberg was sent to explain the Constitution to the candidate: ‘I got as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.’” Another bit that had me doubled over: “Gary Cohn, once a killer enemy, was now desperate to be named Fed chairman and currying favor with Bannon – ‘licking my balls,’ Bannon said with quite a cackle.”

I could not shake, as I began reading, the feeling that these conflicting responses within me – the uncertainty as to whether an apt reaction to certain passages would be to chortle or to weep – was emblematic of something larger. Perhaps the clash of emotions was symbolic of the clash of cultures that has swept up the United States and the world at large over these past few years, as the disaffected working class has expressed its outrage with the elitism of the upper classes by electing populist, nationalist demagogues to positions of high power. Perhaps the absurdist surface of Wolff’s work was a front for something larger, a mischaracterization meant to coax the layman reader into thinking this was but another National Enquirer-esque piece of “investigative” journalism, interspersed with dubious facts and even more dubious anecdotes. Perhaps there was some deeper, underlying meaning to it all.

As I read further, however, it became more and more clear that there was no such front. The delightful dissemination of absurdity was Wolff’s entire purpose – the extent of his ambitions. Indeed, Fire and Fury is not a piece of journalism meant to provide insight; it is not meant to be a meaningful contribution to dialogue in this political age. Instead, much like Donald Trump himself, Wolff had only one true goal: to entertain.

It was quite liberating to relinquish the pretext that I had set for myself in reading the book, something vague and unformed about how it was my duty as a citizen, it was important for the democracy, and so on and so forth. If I had looked at it in that context, my reaction would likely have been different – a mixture, in all likelihood, of contempt and disgust, perhaps even some astonishment that a supposedly self-respecting journalist had the gall to completely disregard most common notions of journalistic integrity. That one could have the disrespect for his own profession that would warrant the disinterest in duties as simple as fact-checking is a fact as shocking as the book itself wishes to be. The best critique of it in this context is Susan B. Glasser’s in The New Yorker, which ends on this delightful note: “So, yes, a few more facts might have made Michael Wolff’s mind-blowing revelation of a book at least a bit better. And all he needed to do in this case was Google them.”

Admiring it instead as I would a piece of pulp fiction, the type of irredeemable trash with covers so glossy they nearly blind me as I walk by the news shop in an airport terminal, I was able to reckon with the implications of Wolff’s reporting in a more dispassionate way. I was able to realize how downright disturbing it would be if even one quarter of what he writes has some basis in fact. I was able to realize how believable so much of the salacious details put forth were. I was able to realize that the fact I was not nearly as shocked as I would have been if, say, Barack Obama were the book’s subject, how over the course of this presidency the type of despicable and reprobate behavior exhibited by those who grace the corridors of the highest office in the land has been normalized. Preposterous tidbits are hurled like miniature flash grenades throughout, ranging from Bannon’s insulting exclamations about “Jarvanka” to perhaps the most vile allegation of them all, the suggestion of some funny business going on between Trump and his UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley. And despite how completely insane it becomes, there exists just enough doubt in one’s mind to say “yeah, that’s plausible.”

That is terrifying. And that is why Fire and Fury is perhaps the perfect book for this political age. Whether he did so deliberately or not, Wolff has created the literary equivalent of the President himself – something so absurd, so shameless, so unconcerned with the typical rules of the game, that it seems like it should not exist, much less be the viral phenomenon it has become. Yet here it is. Welcome to our new reality, it declares. Like it or not.