| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Literary Angst Is The Devil's Workshop
"He is beyond the beyond. What he’s done with this war.
The murder of the innocent. And now the prisons. It’s too
much. It makes me so angry." --- Jay, one of two main
characters in the about-to-be-released novella, "Checkpoint,"
who spend much of its 115 pages discussing how and whether
or not to assassinate President George W. Bush.
Well, how novel. Or should I say "novella?" One hundred
and fifteen pages of left-wing hate speech directed at the
president. Fancy that. But this time it’s not part of the
production notes from some raving Michael Moore
crockumentary. Nor is it yet another sublimely crafted speech
by Al "I was robbed in 2000" Gore. Nor is it a transcript
containing the grossly inappropriate remarks of some cracked
Hollywood actor’s awards acceptance speech at Cannes.
Nope, this go round it’s a delving and substantive work of
fiction, or so its author, Nicholson Baker, would have us
believe. Never heard of the guy? Join the club. Critically
admired, and chicly sporting two last names, Baker has so far
in his career primarily concentrated on fiction that is written
from some sort of weird angle.
Like "The Mezzanine," for instance, a 135-page work which
focuses on the thoughts of Howie, an average office worker, as
he rides a mall escalator on a lunch hour shopping trip. His
ruminations are less than profound, however, concentrating
instead on things like shoelaces, plastic straws, the evolution of
milk delivery, hot air blowers in public restrooms and other
manifestations of the maddeningly mundane.
And then there was "Vox," another short novel which
consists entirely of an erotic phone conversation. "Vox" was
mentioned, incidentally, in the Starr Report as a book given to
President Clinton by Monica Lewinsky, but I don’t even want to
go there.
Now, with "Checkpoint" Baker has taken a major departure
from his previous topics and engaged in what could be
described as a near masturbatory self-indulgence of his
childish hatred for President Bush. At least we can assume he
hates Bush since most people who don’t hate the president’s
guts with every fiber of their being don’t write angry,
murderous screeds about him. Therefore, we can dispense with
any charade that the character "Jay" is anything other than a
vehicle through which the author is expressing his own
personal feelings. Which he has every right to do, of course,
but then, so do I.
And "Jay" has some pretty nasty things to say, like when he
calls Bush an "unelected f___ing drunken OILMAN" who is
"squatting" in the White House and "muttering over his prayer
book every morning." Cheney and Rumsfeld fare even worse
and are described as "rusted hulks and zombies who have
fought their way back up out of the peat bogs where they’ve
been lying, and they’re stumbling around with grubs scurrying
in and out of their noses . . ."
Wow! Do conspiring assassins really say things like that? I
don’t want to say that Nicholson has taken his "art" and
himself off the deep end, but if he isn’t already in therapy, an
intervention wouldn’t be an unreasonable thing for those close
to him to consider. Sitting around nursing these macabre,
homicidal fantasies can’t be healthy.
In another passage, Jay says he has "never felt so much
anger against any other president, not even Nixon or Reagan."
Most people won’t quibble with Nixon too much, but they do
tend to view Reagan’s winning of the Cold War and the
liberation of hundreds of millions of people from
totalitarianism as a pretty good thing. But since Jay is so
opposed to the war to liberate Iraqis, we can assume he
probably felt the same way about liberating those living under
the boot of Soviet repression.
A funny thing about Jay’s list of presidents against whom he
has never felt so much anger, is that there’s a rather
conspicuous absence of any Democrats, as if they had never
involved the country in any wars. If one could talk to a
fictional character, one might be tempted to say to Jay: Hey,
Jay, what about Truman, who gave us the Korean War? Or JFK,
who brought us as close to nuclear war as the world has ever
come (in between dawdlings with comely courtesans)? Or LBJ,
who mired us in the war that the war-hating antiwar types love
to hate above all other wars?
Okay, maybe Jay isn’t old enough to remember those guys,
but he’s sure old enough to remember Bill Clinton, the man
from a place called "Hope," who gave us the bombing of the
aspirin factory in Sudan and the air war in the Balkans, during
both of which innocent people were most assuredly killed. Did
that even rate a mild irritation with "Jay?"
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. When Saddam Hussein
was in power, "the murder of the innocent" was as routine as
swatting flies. If Nicholson Baker gets so torn up over "the
murder of the innocent," then why wasn’t he cranking out
angry novellas about people plotting to assassinate Saddam?
Or at least a novella about some enraged Shiite who lost 23
family members during one of Saddam’s crackdowns,
fantasizing about killing him as he rides the escalator at
Saddam Hussein Mall in Saddam City.
You name the abuse, you name the depravity, you name the
crime against humanity, and it has been committed by Saddam
against his own people as well as others. But Baker’s
underpants don’t get in a wad until Bush comes along to
overturn the real monster who is responsible for "the murder of
the innocent" on a colossal scale and to deliver to the Iraqi
people at least the hope of freedom.
"Checkpoint" will probably be a gonzo smash hit in those
parts of the world teeming with America’s enemies, like
Hollywood, for instance, as well as the Middle East, France and
The Hague, where the masses have Bush-killing fantasies every
day. But it ain’t likely to make the best-seller list in Peoria or
anyplace else where normal people live and work.
"He is beyond the beyond. What he’s done with this war.
The murder of the innocent. And now the prisons. It’s too
much. It makes me so angry." --- Jay, one of two main
characters in the about-to-be-released novella, "Checkpoint,"
who spend much of its 115 pages discussing how and whether
or not to assassinate President George W. Bush.
Well, how novel. Or should I say "novella?" One hundred
and fifteen pages of left-wing hate speech directed at the
president. Fancy that. But this time it’s not part of the
production notes from some raving Michael Moore
crockumentary. Nor is it yet another sublimely crafted speech
by Al "I was robbed in 2000" Gore. Nor is it a transcript
containing the grossly inappropriate remarks of some cracked
Hollywood actor’s awards acceptance speech at Cannes.
Nope, this go round it’s a delving and substantive work of
fiction, or so its author, Nicholson Baker, would have us
believe. Never heard of the guy? Join the club. Critically
admired, and chicly sporting two last names, Baker has so far
in his career primarily concentrated on fiction that is written
from some sort of weird angle.
Like "The Mezzanine," for instance, a 135-page work which
focuses on the thoughts of Howie, an average office worker, as
he rides a mall escalator on a lunch hour shopping trip. His
ruminations are less than profound, however, concentrating
instead on things like shoelaces, plastic straws, the evolution of
milk delivery, hot air blowers in public restrooms and other
manifestations of the maddeningly mundane.
And then there was "Vox," another short novel which
consists entirely of an erotic phone conversation. "Vox" was
mentioned, incidentally, in the Starr Report as a book given to
President Clinton by Monica Lewinsky, but I don’t even want to
go there.
Now, with "Checkpoint" Baker has taken a major departure
from his previous topics and engaged in what could be
described as a near masturbatory self-indulgence of his
childish hatred for President Bush. At least we can assume he
hates Bush since most people who don’t hate the president’s
guts with every fiber of their being don’t write angry,
murderous screeds about him. Therefore, we can dispense with
any charade that the character "Jay" is anything other than a
vehicle through which the author is expressing his own
personal feelings. Which he has every right to do, of course,
but then, so do I.
And "Jay" has some pretty nasty things to say, like when he
calls Bush an "unelected f___ing drunken OILMAN" who is
"squatting" in the White House and "muttering over his prayer
book every morning." Cheney and Rumsfeld fare even worse
and are described as "rusted hulks and zombies who have
fought their way back up out of the peat bogs where they’ve
been lying, and they’re stumbling around with grubs scurrying
in and out of their noses . . ."
Wow! Do conspiring assassins really say things like that? I
don’t want to say that Nicholson has taken his "art" and
himself off the deep end, but if he isn’t already in therapy, an
intervention wouldn’t be an unreasonable thing for those close
to him to consider. Sitting around nursing these macabre,
homicidal fantasies can’t be healthy.
In another passage, Jay says he has "never felt so much
anger against any other president, not even Nixon or Reagan."
Most people won’t quibble with Nixon too much, but they do
tend to view Reagan’s winning of the Cold War and the
liberation of hundreds of millions of people from
totalitarianism as a pretty good thing. But since Jay is so
opposed to the war to liberate Iraqis, we can assume he
probably felt the same way about liberating those living under
the boot of Soviet repression.
A funny thing about Jay’s list of presidents against whom he
has never felt so much anger, is that there’s a rather
conspicuous absence of any Democrats, as if they had never
involved the country in any wars. If one could talk to a
fictional character, one might be tempted to say to Jay: Hey,
Jay, what about Truman, who gave us the Korean War? Or JFK,
who brought us as close to nuclear war as the world has ever
come (in between dawdlings with comely courtesans)? Or LBJ,
who mired us in the war that the war-hating antiwar types love
to hate above all other wars?
Okay, maybe Jay isn’t old enough to remember those guys,
but he’s sure old enough to remember Bill Clinton, the man
from a place called "Hope," who gave us the bombing of the
aspirin factory in Sudan and the air war in the Balkans, during
both of which innocent people were most assuredly killed. Did
that even rate a mild irritation with "Jay?"
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. When Saddam Hussein
was in power, "the murder of the innocent" was as routine as
swatting flies. If Nicholson Baker gets so torn up over "the
murder of the innocent," then why wasn’t he cranking out
angry novellas about people plotting to assassinate Saddam?
Or at least a novella about some enraged Shiite who lost 23
family members during one of Saddam’s crackdowns,
fantasizing about killing him as he rides the escalator at
Saddam Hussein Mall in Saddam City.
You name the abuse, you name the depravity, you name the
crime against humanity, and it has been committed by Saddam
against his own people as well as others. But Baker’s
underpants don’t get in a wad until Bush comes along to
overturn the real monster who is responsible for "the murder of
the innocent" on a colossal scale and to deliver to the Iraqi
people at least the hope of freedom.
"Checkpoint" will probably be a gonzo smash hit in those
parts of the world teeming with America’s enemies, like
Hollywood, for instance, as well as the Middle East, France and
The Hague, where the masses have Bush-killing fantasies every
day. But it ain’t likely to make the best-seller list in Peoria or
anyplace else where normal people live and work.