Comrades

by Dominic Knight

Romeo and Juliet amidst university campus politics.Sydney University is Australia's pre-eminent finishing school for politicians, and its Students' Representative Council is the nursery where generations of future leaders have cut their first dodgy preference deals and performed their first backstabbings. Comrades is the story of one student President, Eddie O'Hara, and the brutal struggle to replace him. A menagerie of campus lefties and Liberals battle for the spoils, along with one candidate who makes the peculiar decision to campaign dressed as a rooster. Principles are abandoned, loyalties forgotten and party lines crossed until the blood of all the candidates but one soaks the sandstone cloisters of Australia's oldest university. And all the while, the decades-old institution itself is under threat from some fully-grown politicians in the Federal Parliament who are determined to drain the lifeblood from political crèches like the Sydney Uni SRC by stripping them of their funding . . . Comrades is the story of an election that's contested as fiercely as though it were for President of the United States, not Sydney University. It's also an affectionate portrait of student life, with its lofty idealism, constant hedonism and irrepressible humour.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Contemporary

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 2, 2010

About the author

Dominic Knight was one of the founders of The Chaser satirical newspaper in 1999, and also one of its destroyers in 2004 after the group finally acknowledged that it would never turn a profit. Since then he’s worked on the team’s various projects in print, stage, radio, television and online. Most recently he wrote for ABC-TV’sThe Hamster Wheel, Yes We Canberra! and The Chaser’s War On Everything.
In recent years, Dominic has begun writing fiction in an attempt to spend less time with his Chaser compatriots. His first novel Disco Boy (2009) portrayed the career travails of a disaffected law graduate suspiciously like himself, and its successor Comrades (2010) delved into the grubby world of student politics. He’s working on a third novel, which may appear in 2013 in the unlikely event that he gets his act together. Dominic regularly appears at various writers’ festivals whether he’s invited to speak or not, and is currently on the board of the National Young Writers’ Festival.

In 2012, Dominic began hosting Evenings on ABC Local Radio in NSW and the ACT. He can be heard from 7-10pm Monday to Friday on 702 ABC Sydney, 666 ABC Canberra, 1233 ABC Newcastle and ABC stations across NSW.

Dominic has lived in Sydney nearly all of his life and plays the bass reasonably well and tennis appallingly. He is overly fond of karaoke.

Reviews

[ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

now this is what all campus novels should be

[Angus McGregor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains too many wonderful cliches and laugh-out-loud moments to mention!

Knights exposes the absurdity and necessity of student politics. All of the idealism and horsetrading was utterly personal. Like every campus novel, the students are never in class!

My only complaint was the annoying theatre sports kids taking up so many pages. Alas, if I get to self-indulge in SRC elections, Knights can indulge in his campus past.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw someone else's review of this and decided to give it a try. Campus novels aren't normally my thing, i avoid them as a general rule, but this was written by one of the guys from The Chaser so i thought it might be worth reading.
Well, i've clearly read this a decade or so too late. It's full of references to the late 90's and the Howard era which give it a dated feel and honestly, it doesn't feel as relevant and cutting edge as it probably would have been when it came out.
This is meant to be a satire of student politics and middle-class University leftists which i heartily agree is a valid target for a good old fashioned satirical skewering....however...i found myself getting angry at these little brats. Perhaps this is due to my background, i never went to University and when i was the same age as these characters i was already a man working for a living.
Perhaps this is a lot funnier if you've been to University and seen this nonsense up close.
Personally i find it depressing that these pampered little brats with their silly political games are the ones who end up running the country. The sooner we get rid of democracy and install a King the better in my opinion.
Not a bad book as such, i'm just not the target audience.

[Victoria Gillespie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t review this seriously that would be so wrong

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

worth reading if you're a campus tragic just for the familiarity of all the characters and reassurance that yes, it has always been like this

[Womony Behrens · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a writing style very reminiscent of Nick Earls, Knight brings his wit and astute observation to this engaging story about student politics. For political junkies like me, I found this hard to put down and read it extremely quickly. Though I must say there are some possibly problematic aspects to his representations of racial and gender identity, I still thoroughly enjoyed this.

[Gerard Charles Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

My book, TONY ABBOTT AND THE TIMES OF REVOLUTION, focuses on the ideological clash in student politics at Sydney University, as reported in Honi Soit, the student newspaper. The (mainly) leftist editors of Honi Soit from 1973 to 1980 fulfilled their undertaking – at least minimally – to print all political views in the letters section where most combat took place. Opponents on the conservative right sometimes complained that their letters were not being printed. They also complained about the sneering facetious headlines and comments the editors attached to letters departing from progressive orthodoxy. What one does not see, and could not see, was the political planning, manoeuvring, and sabotage of the left in the background. Luckily for me, a former activist of the left has penned a novel based on his experiences at Sydney University. Dominc Knight was editor of the Union Recorder in 1997 and Honi Soit in 1999, and a member of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) in 1999.

I found Knights’ Comrades a good read, holding my attention to the end. More to the point, I found what I expected. Knight does not go into the ideology of the opposing student factions. That is a given. His story is about the political planning, manoeuvrings, deceit and uncompromising bastardry of three political groupings, one of which has an almost cameo role to prove what everyone knows, namely that the political right are a pack of rich uncaring bastards willing to sell their mother to achieve power and steal the goods of the poor. We will overlook Knight’s stereotyping of conservatives. The interest for me was the conflict between the two leftist groups fighting for the position of Students’ Representative Council President and thus the control of the SRC and its funds.

One group is the Socialist Left (of the Labor Party). The other group is the ‘Left Alliance, a loose conglomeration of Greens, radical feminists, anarchists, Resistance activists, queer activists, Spartacists, Socialist Worker and Green Left Weekly newspaper sellers and adherents to half-a-dozen other fragmented permutations of left-of-Labor ideology.’ The idea and aims of the Socialist Left and the Left Alliance are of a kind, but they hate each other with a gut-busting passion because (according to Knight) the Socialist Left is aligned with a political party (Labor) and the Left Alliance is not in principle. The Left Alliance is affectionately known to the Socialist Left as the ‘Trots’, a moniker they detest.

The action gets going when Socialist Left Sunita Shahane, a girl of Indian background, approaches Eddie Flanagan, the hero of the story and current Socialist-Left SRC President, to support her candidature for SRC President. Critical to Sunita’s appeal for support (its use unknown at this point to Eddie) is that Sunita (‘Sunny’ to her ideological mates) ended up in bed with Eddie one evening when they were both smashed. Eddie has no memory of what happened – only that he awoke in the morning to find stunning Sunny lying next to him. Sunny’s efforts to win Eddie’s support fail. Eddie says he wants to do things the ‘right way’ – follow their democratic processes. Sunny is furious calling Eddie ‘Mr Principle’ and ‘ridiculously naive.’ He knows very well she’s their best candidate. ‘Haven’t you read [Labor head-crusher] Graham Richardson’s book, Whatever it Takes?’ she says, ‘You guarantee your win by any means that doesn’t involve being arrested, and then, only once you’ve got the gig, do you have the luxury of thinking about principles.’

At the Socialist Left meeting to elect their candidate, Eddie throws his weight behind Lloyd who he thinks has the better policies. Sunny plays her overnight-in-bed card and asks Eddie to recuse himself because ‘our history means that you have a personal agenda.’ The trick doesn’t work because it turns out that everybody knows Eddie slept with Sunny and nobody could care less about their ‘one night stand.’ Eddie is everyone’s hero. Lloyd is elected candidate. But Sunny has not finished. She contacts Eddie’s girlfriend Rosie, the previous year’s SRC President. Rosie is ensconced in Canberra in ‘real’ politics with the Labor Party. Rosie agrees that Sunny is the better candidate. They collude to pressure Lloyd to withdraw for the sake of the higher political purpose.

Eddie is incensed that democratically elected Lloyd has been undemocratically deposed, and Sunny taken his place. When Eddie contacts Rosie and accuses her of ‘interfering in the caucus,’ she replies, ‘I wouldn’t call it interfering, I’d call it helping out the person who’s obviously the best presidential candidate, and therefore the Caucus.’ Rosie warns that half-Tibetan Perma Adams was sure to be the Trots candidate and she would wipe the floor with Lloyd. Eddie ditches Rosie and Rosie ditches Eddie.

After some bitter arguing with Sunny, Eddie caves in, accepts the trashing of policy and procedure, and agrees to act as Sunny’s campaign manager. But the conflict doesn’t end. SRC voting is on a preferential basis and Sunny offers Perma a preference deal that stinks of unfairness. Eddie, developing more than a little sympathy for Perma, objects to Sunny’s ‘whatever-it-takes’ tactics to such an extent that Sunny wearies and sacks him. Labor-Left Eddie is free to develop the relationship with Trotskyist Perma. Campaigning begins in earnest and the dirty tricks of student politics are the order of the day for Sunny’s team.

(Spoiler alert from now on!)

Sunny is not the only one to think nothing of making sneaky deals. She finds out that upper-class conservative Giles Kendall, Union President, is just as keen to prevent Perma Adams from becoming SRC President. The issue is voluntary student unionism on which they both agree. Sunny agrees to allocate half of her preferences to Giles’s choice for SRC President, namely his girlfriend Bianca, in return for his support. Sunny omits to tell Perma that the preferences she agreed to allocate to her are the ones she has now promised to Bianca. She lets Perma print her how-to-vote card with her preferences unchanged.

Eddie is outraged. Apart from the disgusting deceit, he would never ever enter into an agreement with a conservative. Sunny’s team members sympathise with Eddie’s ‘principled’ feelings but are not reluctant to preach to him about the realities of politics. Lloyd, whom Eddie supported, says, ‘So Sunny did what she had to do to win. It’s not nice, it’s not friendly, but it’s smart politics.’ Andy, another of Sunny’s team, tells Eddie, ‘Look, as a Caucus, we try to win... That’s the way it was for you, and that’s the way it’s always been.’ The Trots would ‘shaft us just as hard if they could... There are no saints in this game, at least not successful ones. Except perhaps you.’ Eddie and Perma are so disgusted with the bastardry of the political left that they withdraw from the arena to set up house on their own.

Eddie and Perma are not the only ones to become a loving couple. On the day of Sunita’s inauguration as SRC President, wealthy private-school bred Giles Kendall arrives to pick up his new girlfriend and take her to a swish restaurant in Glebe (progressive territory) to celebrate. He has decided to postpone taking up his Rhodes Scholarship until the following year when his beautiful Sunita can accompany him. She is delighted with the plan but tells Giles her conservative Indian parents will want them to be at least engaged. But Sunita is not going over to Giles’s side as a dutiful wife. Indeed, Giles is the one to show signs of succumbing to Sunita’s views. He has already attended several SRC meetings with his bewitching Sunita presiding as President. Besides, Sunita has told her colleagues that Giles is not really a conservative at all – and certainly ‘wouldn’t be by the time she finished with him.’

There is a lot more to the story than this bare outline of the central action. It was enough, though, to test how closely Knight’s story follows my narrative of what happened in student politics at Sydney University between 1973 and 1980. There are rough similarities between fictional Sunita, Eddie and Giles and real characters and their relationships in my book.

As for beguiling half-Tibetan Perma? I take this, ironically, and perhaps unintended, to be the point of COMRADES. Perma became a girl and fell in love with high-minded Eddie.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I found out that Dominic Knight is part of The Chaser, I didn’t know whether to think the novel would be poorly written (because for some silly reason I didn’t think a TV comedy personality could be a good writer even though comedians are some of the best storytellers around) or that it would be witty and hilarious because of how successful The Chaser is.

Well, I was proven wrong on the first account and my expectations were wildly exceeded on the second.

I observed student politics in my time on campus, but never cared to get involved. The hijinks in 'Comrades' made me wish I'd have enjoyed student politics the way Knight clearly has.

The novel revolves around Eddie, the outgoing SRC (student Representative Council) president, who's torn between supporting the candidate from his own Caucus and wondering whether a change in party leadership is needed in the interests of the SRC and the Union whose common goal is to overthrow the proposed amalgamation of their services under the university-controlled VSU (Voluntary Student Union). Eddie lives in the Mothership, a share house on King St, home to a few other members of his Caucus, and the centre of the party's campaign organisation (and partying, of course). There are backroom deals, shady negotiations, laws, and loopholes.

It's a story of subtle infighting and competition, which not only comes to a head toward the end of the novel, but several times throughout. I found myself hooked a few chapters in and dragged along like someone being taken for a run by their dog. Expect this novel to elicit frequent giggles and wry smiles.

The novel is a perceptive insight into campus politics, as well as how campus politics mirrors politics at every level of the Australian government. That's little wonder seeing as many of our politicians got their start in student politics.

You don’t have to have any interest in politics to read 'Comrades', but you can be sure you'll find politics a lot more interesting afterwards.

'Comrades' is a funny and clever throwback for any USyd student (even if you never got involved in student politics). But I'd also recommend it as an entertaining and astute glimpse into campus politics for any Aussie or any fan of campus novels.

I was gratefully surprised by 'Comrades' and I'm happy I read it. I'm keen to read more by Dominic Knight.

[Kat at Book Thingo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of chapters in and it’s clear that Comrades doesn’t have the same broad appeal as Knight’s first book. There’s a lot of detail around student politics that even someone like me with a passing interest in how it works may find themselves slightly lost and, frankly, indifferent to the issues faced by the characters. Much of the humour and wit in Comrades seem tightly woven to its particular setting. If you don’t know or care much about Sydney Uni or about Australian party politics, you may not get many of Knight’s digs. I also often felt there were in-jokes that I was missing.

So there’s a romance subplot in the story, and because I’m primarily a romance reader, that’s the bit that interested me most. As with Disco Boy, Knight’s protagonist, Eddie, is more of a beta contemporary hero — my favourite kind. I wish Knight would write more romance into his books.

Knight’s wit doesn’t disappoint, and there’s a gentle romance in the story that I found irresistible, but there are aspects of the book that other readers may struggle with.

You can read my full review at Book Thingo.

[Maxy.kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an enjoyable, easy read but really given its subject matter, pretty boring. Some of the characterisations of student politics were spot on but unfortunately the focus on the labor left faction meant the plot was as dull and uninspired as the real life student politicians.
I kept waiting for a dramatic turn or twist that never eventuated.

[Sunili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bless. As a former student representative and member of the Young Labor Left - this was fun. I would like to note for the record that I have never done a preference deal and resemblances to the shouty over-achieving brown girl are ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing enough read but I was a little underwhelmed. Though perhaps this was just because I've seen plenty or similar characters and storylines in real life. Someone not familiar with the insular world of student politics might enjoy this book more!

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes politically interesting, but clumsily written.

[Albert James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and hilarious look into student politics at USYD.