Reviewing ‘Our’ Books

Greg Johnson, Novel Takes: Essays on Literature, Counter-Currents Publishing, 2024, 224 pp.

In Novel Takes, Counter-Currents editor Greg Jonson reviews more than 20 books that are popular in Dissident Right circles. Among them are some likely to be familiar, such as Submission by Michael Houellebecq, but also more obscure titles, such as Farnham O’Reilly’s Hyperborean Home. Dr. Johnson also reviews mainstream works such as Frank Herbert’s Dune series and Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

He starts with The Camp of The Saints:

Whenever someone says, ‘we need a great White Nationalist novel,’ I hand them The Camp of the Saints, for as a depiction of white dispossession and a call to racial awareness, Jean Raspail’s 1973 masterpiece has never been equaled or bettered.

Dr. Johnson calls it a dystopian work and a murder mystery; the victim is the white race. He writes that in this book, the cowardice of whites was due to the eclipse of the true Right throughout. The natural guardians had been elbowed aside:

The Right foolishly allowed the Left to take over religious, cultural, and educational institutions as platforms to preach white guilt. To the Right, such ideas seemed at best high-minded and impractical, at worst stupid, crazy and evil. But never for a minute did they take them seriously and think that they might matter someday. . . .

Surely some men of the Right understood the importance of ideas and the true goals of the Left. Surely someone understood the magnitude of the crisis and what was necessary to avert it. Such men exist in The Camp of the Saints, just as they exist today. But in the novel, as in today’s world, such voices are marginalized and impoverished . . . forced to beg for subsistence from equally marginalized patrons.

The author agrees with Raspail that the main weakness of whites is our morality — that we are made to think that white guilt is moral while no other race accepts this view for themselves. Dr. Johnson points to a way forward:

To overthrow white guilt is to elevate white pride and self-assertion in its place. A pro-white moral revolution would make a political revolution unnecessary. If white identity and interests become sacrosanct, then we need not tear down old institutions or found new ones. Instead, all existing institutions would simply become pro-white . . . just as today all of these institutions are anti-white.

Dr. Johnson suspects Michael Houellebecq is more of a man of the Right than he lets on, given his familiarity with René Guénon, Savitri Devi, and Oswald Spengler. The Frenchman also discusses demographics, eugenics, and nationalism sympathetically.

The background of Submission is a Muslim takeover of France after all other political parties unite against the National Front, the only party that would have stopped it. France becomes more civilized, as patriarchy is reestablished and feminism disappears. Women dress and act modestly, and rear families rather than have careers. Unemployment therefore drops. Crime falls because it is punished harshly. Charity becomes a family matter and welfare declines.

The main character in Submission is a middle-aged academic who leads an empty life. Never married and with no children, he drifts pointlessly from woman to woman (often his students). He tries to reconnect with his Catholic faith but fails. Non-Muslims are barred from teaching in Muslim-run France, so when he has the opportunity to join the new “Islamic University of Paris-Sorbonne,” he converts without much thought. Along with a prestigious job and more pay, he gets three young Muslim girls as wives.

Dr. Johnson writes: “Now, dear reader, ask yourself: Wouldn’t you wallow in Schadenfreude to see Leftist academics, feminists, and welfare scroungers get theirs? Wouldn’t you rejoice at such pro-family reforms?”

Of course, destroying the worst elements of the Left would mean destroying whites. Dr. Johnson notes:

If there is an overall lesson to Submission, it is that if our civilization falls out of harmony with nature and ceases to pass on its genes and values, it will be replaced by a civilization — no matter how backward and primitive — that is capable of doing so.

Dr. Johnson also reviews Mr. Houellebecq’s latest book, Annihilation (2024). It is less political than Submission, but Herve and Cecile — a couple who are open National Rally supporters and remain true to their nation, religion, and family — are the most sympathetic characters. Even the main character hates jihadis and laments the Great Replacement. He has a health crisis and Annihilation then turns to his attempt to salvage his marriage. Nevertheless, for Dr. Johnson:

In both personal and political terms, Annihilation presents identitarianism as the fundamental alternative to nihilism. That’s an extraordinary message to receive from one of the world’s most prominent novelists.

Dr. Johnson likes Frank Herbert’s Dune series and argues that the author is a man of the Right. Dune is the best-selling science fiction book of all time and greatly influenced the Star Wars movies. Novel Takes has five chapters on the series; perhaps the best is “Frank Herbert, Our Prophet.”

For those who are not fans of the books or movies, it is a good introduction to why we should take them seriously. Herbert believed in eugenics, and weaves race and sex differences into his books — which often gets him branded as a reactionary. However, Dr. Johnson’s reviews go into backstory minutiae and details about characters that only those who have read Dune would appreciate.

Another series is Harold Covington’s “Northwest Quartet” (written from 2003 – 2008), about a militant white nationalist movement in the Pacific Northwest. These four books are violent, but Dr. Johnson finds them surprisingly nuanced and with ideas any serious white homeland movement will have to consider:

Whether or not one ultimately accepts Covington’s outlook, nobody can read these books without coming away with a much more serious attitude about White Nationalism and the conviction that we need real community, real activity, real dedication, and self-sacrifice.

Dr. Johnson dedicates Novel Takes to Tito Perdue, a Southern author whom he calls America’s finest living novelist. Mainstream publishers favored his work in the early 1990s, but rejected his more recent books because of their politics. For the last two decades, he has been published by Dissident Right presses such as Arktos and Washington Summit Publishers.

Perhaps most appealing to racially aware readers would be Mr. Perdue’s Reuben (2022), about the decline of white America. A teacher starts a secret society to raise a vanguard that will revitalize Western civilization. His best student, a 6’6” giant, learns to become a “cultured thug.”

Dr. Johnson offers views on other Dissident Right favorites, such as H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, and Bill Hopkin’s The Leap. Hopkins was one of the original “Angry Young Men,” a group of English writers who were popular in the 1950s and 60s. He was later banned when liberal reviewers called him “pro-fascist.”

Novel Takes is a valuable look at some of the more popular books on “our side.” I could quibble with some of its selections, but it shows that despite leftist control of mainstream publishing, there are still great works to be found.

There has been a rebirth of dissident publishing as well as an increased emphasis on the arts. Artists on our side can now find their voices at Arktos, Antelope Hill, Imperium Press and Dr. Johnson’s own Counter-Currents Publishing.

Passage Press offers an annual cash prize for anti-liberal works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Early results have been modest, but the Right is at least thinking in terms of influencing the arts.

Dissidents gave rise to the meme, Groypers, and “sh*t posting,” and brazenly attacked the hypocrisy and shallowness of anti-white elites. We were at least partly responsible for the rise of Trump and the destruction of Conservatism, Inc.

Almost daily, we learn more about how the Left controlled and corrupted the US. Surely, with so much talent on our side, we will soon see a great novel documenting and mocking this insanity. Our era’s Raspail or Solzhenitsyn has surely already been born.

When our next great book appears, Greg Johnson and his writers at Counter-Currents will find it and give it the praise it deserves.