Lessons for Rudd from the Great Gatsby

Posted June 19, 2013 15:20:15

Kevin Rudd's quest for redemption could fail for the same reason as Jay Gatsby's does; he asks for too much, a restoration so total as to be impossible, writes Paul Karp.

"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can, old sport. And with that, I've gotta zip!"

If there's something familiar about the desperate drama of the Labor leadership standoff this week, it's not just that we've been here before when Rudd challenged in February 2012 and squibbed another opportunity in March this year.

It's also because Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby' has been dominating the cinema screens and national consciousness for three weeks now, and there is an eerie similarity between Rudd's quest and that of the central figure of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel.

Like Gatsby, Rudd is a figure who wants to repeat the past, desperate to be loved like he was five years ago. Rudd's image of himself is bound up in his popularity, so he creates lavish spectacles with casts of thousands at schools and shopping centres around the country in the hope it will capture the attention of his lost love, the Labor caucus. There are fewer finger bowls of champagne and flappers' hats, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that Rudd's crowds of adoring fans are a monument to himself in the same way as Gatsby's parties are intended to testify to the generosity and charm of the host. Rudd's blue ties are causing as much of a stir as Gatsby's fashion excesses - from the pink suit to the flashy yellow car.

Whereas Gatsby was an outsider because he was a new-money man hoping to break into the old-money society of East Egg, Rudd is that rare beast - a non-union man in a labour party. When his fortunes were up, Rudd's outsider status didn't matter, and he had the support of the caucus. But when the foul dust of opinion polls preyed on his dreams Rudd was smashed up by careless people, and it was that unbridgeable distance - that sense that Rudd was never a truly Labor man - which resulted in the speed of his decline.

The numbers were so heavily in favour of Gillard during the June 2010 leadership rout that if Rudd had contested it his vote count would have been as poor as the attendance at Gatsby's funeral. Rudd and Gatsby's greatest defenders were the comparative innocents: Maxine McKew, like Nick Carraway, was on Rudd's side and alone - a defender of his legacy but eventually quitting the whole scene in disgust.

Both Rudd and Gatsby so desperately want to fit in. Gatsby peppers his speech with absurd affectations like "old sport" in the hope of convincing his guests he is an Oxford man, born to some very wealthy people in the Midwest. Kevin Rudd asks for a "fair shake of the sauce bottle", has started chatting about the fortunes of the Queensland Maroons, and repeats the phrase "I've gotta zip!" ad nauseam in the hope of projecting folksy charm and the common touch. Ask him for proof of his achievements, and he will produce a medal from his pocket: "For valour extraordinary in avoiding the Global Financial Crisis," it reads.

If Rudd is the Gatsby of Australian politics, what would it tell us about the way that the saga will end? It would end badly for Rudd, for a start. First, Rudd's quest could fail for the same reason as Gatsby's; that he asks too much, a restoration so total as to be impossible. Gatsby required Daisy Buchanan to tell Tom she never loved him, to erase the past five years entirely. Daisy couldn't bring herself to do it. For Rudd, it appears he may now have the numbers in caucus to win if a leadership ballot were held. But to challenge Gillard would break his pledge, and Rudd doesn't want to win in a slim ballot that leaves him leading a divided team. Rudd requires a more total repudiation - for Gillard herself to stand down, or at least for those that installed her, such as Bill Shorten, to more comprehensively erase the intervening years and allow him to repeat the past. Both those possibilities look less likely to happen. He asks too much.

The second similarity is that if Rudd's quest fails, it will be because it was flawed from the start. Gatsby yearned for Daisy because her voice was full of money and she was loved by many men, which gave her increased value in his eyes. To Gatsby, Daisy represented the acceptance of society and the material comfort of old-world money; it was a confusion of love of glamour and love of a woman which rendered the quest futile and impossible. Rudd, it appears, is motivated either by revenge against Gillard or at least the pride that needs to see himself restored to the office of Prime Minister.

If members of the cabinet and Labor caucus refuse to switch camps and tap Julia Gillard, it will be because they judge his goals were not worthy ones. For Gatsby to succeed he needed to love Daisy for herself; for Rudd to succeed, he needed to want the Prime Ministership to benefit others, not himself.

But the last thing the comparison tells us is that even if Rudd's dream is already behind him, where the dark fields of the republic roll on under the night, he will nevertheless never give up. With a small apology and much credit to Fitzgerald, Rudd believes in the green light on the hill that the leadership represents. It eluded him then but he will run faster, stretch his arms further, and one fine morning ... so he beats on, a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Paul Karp is a freelance journalist with interests in Australian politics and social policy. View his full policy here.

Topics: rudd-kevin, federal-government