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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ASSASSINATING ASSES, AND OTHER SUBPLOTS, October 10, 2004
This review is from: Checkpoint: A Novel (Hardcover)
First off, some reviewers on this site fault Baker for trifling the otherwise formalized cottage industry of Bush-slandering with something as puffy as an assassination. Anyone who has read the novel until its denouement will know that this is simply incorrect. The script never equates legitimate anger at the duplicity and dishonesty of the Bush administration with assassination, the whole "plot" of our crazed protagonist is meant to come across as silly as our second character so laboriously keeps grinding at.
That cleared, this scamming little novella may not sport the sparkling prose of a typical Baker tome but it offers a delectable flavour in its own right.
The text is in its entirety a dinner-table conversation between two friends, one a fanatic opponent of Bush's invasion of Iraq and thus contemplating killing the president with a giant rolling ball (and other contraptions like it, let's not dwell on trivia that're to be savoured in Baker's customary bizzare prose), and the other a wiser, more balanced sort attempting to dissuade his friend with murderous tendencies.
With this scaffolding, Baker presents not only some very interesting trivia such as an updated version of Napalm being allegedly employed in Iraq despite all claims to the contrary (apparently because the formula is technically different; more lethal now) but also some very opinionated insights into the heart of the matter.
Barring the somewhat twisted inference that our assassin-wannabe draws from his indignations, or the odd out-of-place rant on evils of abortion and such, this is quite a clever little conversation that shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to devour from cover to cover.
I'd recommend it in a blink.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Makes Your Blood Boil, September 21, 2004
This review is from: Checkpoint: A Novel (Hardcover)
I suppose it's a sign of the times that I feel strange checking this book out of the library, what with the Patriot Act, and now writing a review on Amazon.com. Hell, if the F.B.I. kept a file on Ernest Hemingway, they certainly have one on Nicholson Baker after this brave book.
The novel is written as a transcript of a taped conversation between two friends, Ben and Jay. The book's a quick read at just a little over 100 pages and can be devoured in a few hours. The intense conversation captures Jay's rage at Bush and his bloody crusades in Iraq, and while Ben empathizes, he is the voice of reason trying to keep Jay under control. Jay rails about the mutilated Iraqi children, Bush and friends' shameless self-enrichment while others suffer, etc. Ben, who appears to be more interested in history than the present, tries to get Jay interested in photography, and tells him that he has to concentrate on the beautiful trees, not the metaphorical gnats swarming around him.
If you're at the library or bookstore, do yourself a favor and breeze through this book. Anyone should be able to feel an echo or twinge of Jay's rage when he depicts the gross aggression and hypocrisy of this Administration. While the reader probably won't agree with the entirety of what Jay says, the dialogue is powerful and affecting.
This book will be even more grimly relevant if Dubya manages somehow to win the upcoming election. The neocons are itching for more war and the silver-spoon simian is happy to appease them. We are a few small steps from reinstatement of the draft and other morbid reminders of Vietnam. If this happens, I am sure the streets will be filled with Jays.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a political book, August 27, 2005
This review is from: Checkpoint: A Novel (Hardcover)
I think that people who try to take the political content of this book seriously are missing the point. The point of the book, like any good novel, is not in scoring political points but exploring the lives of the people involved in the novel. Because the political point of view of the two protagonists is contemporary, it's hard not to react to the political statements being made. Not surprisingly, then, many reviewers have considered the book as a political tract and have commented on how valid the political analysis is (maybe it helps to be Canadian).
But that's not the point: The point is seeing two people living in the United States in 2002/2003. While the protagonists do, occasionaly, make points that real political commentators make, they also make absolutely loony points. Like a David Mamet or Harold Pinter play, the pleasure in this book is the dialog (the book is all dialog), the characters, and their relationship.
When reading this book it might be worthwhile to take the long view: Assume that the protagonists are living in the time of Louis XIV and are considering assissinating the king. In that frame of mind, you wouldn't care about the politics and would only interested in the people. On that basis, I enjoyed the book. What is impressive to me is how much the author reveals about the characters and their values through the incidentals of the character's conversation. We see two people who really have given up on any hope of influencing their country's direction (or even the direction of their own lives) and who can not tell the difference between fact and supposition. They have come to the point where the only difference they believe that they can make in the public sphere is through some spasmodic dramatic action.
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