A review by sandropology
Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O'Toole

5.0

This book is a powerful dissection of how a culture of English nationalism without political substance has turned into one of the biggest political dramas of the 21st century. O’Tooles reading of Brexit is sensitive to how cultural signs such as the prawn cocktail crisp or a heightened interested in the relationship between domination and subservience as materialised in Fifty Shades of Grey are emblematic of the politics of pain. What will resonate for a long time and intensely is his analysis of contemporary British government officials who are “(f)igures who could have been enjoyably ridiculous in a Dickens novel [but] now get to determine a nation’s fate for a generation”. An absolute must-read for anyone working in contemporary British culture.