Customer Reviews

Homeland

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These two words, engrossing and disturbing, sum up my reaction to Homeland, the new novel by Richard Weber. Engrossing because the author is able to economically sketch characters who are rounded and appealing and to create, from the beginning, a sense of suspenseful menace, that carries the reader quickly to the end of the book. Disturbing because Homeland, very convincingly to my mind, lays out the psychology of how basically decent people become the tools of a totalitarian state. Unfortunately, that state is called USA, and the picture of USA 2008 that Weber paints is not far-fetched. Even six years ago I would have regarded Weber's vision of the future of the USA as a bit paranoid, to say the least. Now, I am greatly afraid that it is a likely outcome. I think this is a book that anyone who cares at all about the future of our beloved country should read and take to heart and, most important, be inspired by, inspired to work for change, so that the real threat of terrorism pushes us to create a future of real peace with genuine justice, rather than of fear and control.

Head-filling and heart-rending. Rich in atmosphere and thick with moral struggle. A book to be read by anyone with an interest in today's news -- or tomorrows.

This novel was written BEFORE the revelations of Abu Ghraib and before we began to find out that a not so numerous group of unelected officials in the United States government, most of them inherited from previous administrations, had determined that the law and the Constitution did not apply to them.

It is a page-turning story about an apolitical American academic who slowly discovers what is being done in his name and then finds that he has neither the resources nor the conviction to do anything about it. As a picture of our disintegrating republic, it's superb. Reminds me strongly of the kind of things the French wrote in the 1950s as they learned about the torture in Algeria.

In strongly personal terms, HOMELAND paints a compelling portrait of life in the U.S. after a few years of highly controversial presidential decrees that reduce the country to a virtual police state, its citizens cringing in fear of dictatorial government.
HOMELAND is a convincing and swift read, hard to put down, memorable, and as such probably a modern classic.

Dick Weber's Homeland is a good read, and it's an important read.

It's a good read because of its compelling texture. The texture works its way into character and incident, thanks to the interplay of apt descriptive detail and incisive psychology. Texture also works its way into story, thanks to the interweaving of the perspectives of three different but finally not so different characters.

It's an important read because Weber's both highly imaginative and highly informed. So Homeland sketches a scarily convincing portrait of how un-American the so-called Patriot Act and the War against Terrorism are making America.

So if you enjoy a good yarn, and if you revere the Constitution and the better angels of the American character, this novel's for you.

"Edgy, quirky, dark, mouthy. Worldly-wise and intelligent writing. I sense the strong presence of an author who likes film noir. Underneath, at the base of this, clearly simmers anger AND a very real passion to change what appears the current destination of our lumbering ship of state. A quick read that doesn't quickly dissipate from the mind - kind of like a hefty belt of straight gin. 2008 might be a sub-title for this short novel. Weber could well be the bastard son Orwell never knew he had - if he ever had one."

Reads like a great classic movie, utterly absorbing, timely, and a critical read for 2004.

A gripping contemporary tragedy which mines the uncertain space between fact and fiction in the war on terror of the near future and reveals some of the costs of ignoring the Constitution in the prosecution of the war. Read it as a polemic but also read it as a richly textured examination of ordinary people, people whose lives get tangled up in and perverted by a government gone amok in trying to root out terrorism in all its forms. The characterization of Paul Vines, the professor on a federal grant who struggles with various demons while trying to teach English literature to Germans in Berlin, is particularly compelling. You'll have a hard time putting down this book once you start it.

Homeland is an amazing job of prediction, and not just (or even primarily) because Weber captures so well the events we have all followed over the last months. He takes us beyond snapshots of body piles - and shocks us with the banality of torture and the ease with which it is institutionalized.
The dangers and possible consequences of the War on Terrorism have been pointed out for some time now and political commentators and journalists have produced many possible future scenaria. Homeland is worth reading - and owning - because of Weber's skill and sensitivity as a teller of cautionary tales. He transcribes the pundits' futures into human terms, anchoring them in everyday life universes both moral and human.
And what timing! More lawyerly deliberations about the line between torture and interrogation have just made the newspapers. The space between Weber's criminal psychologist, Lara Ivans, and his FBI agent and interrogator, Michael James Dougherty, describes a desperate reality which is one consequence of the lawyers' efforts; it is a fine moral and human geometry - and a good read.

Very good political critique, but it could have gone further in its projections. Set in the election year of 2008, the revelations of fascist security measures were less shocking than what we'll probably see in the future. The torture scenes didn't even live up to what torture has already occurred. Good read, but Weber is a cautious futurist.