{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6710",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6710,
    "subject": "An Amazon review of LAND ACROSS I found interesting",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2015-01-16T02:05:19+00:00",
    "last": "2015-01-16T02:05:19+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<54B871DF.20104@verizon.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David Stockhoff",
        "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net"
      },
      "date": "2015-01-16T02:05:19+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) An Amazon review of LAND ACROSS I found interesting",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On 12/18/2014 6:05 PM, Brian Doherty wrote:\nNow, i do not think this interpretation is necessarily Wolfe's intent, \nindeed likely not, but it IS intriguing and is one of the few I've \nseen that IF true make the novel's confusions and misdirections \nactually in service of an interesting and complicated theme. (Again, I \ndon't think the novel as I understood it says anything interesting \nabout \"totalitarianism\" or conspiracy or govt paranoia write large....)\n\nThe review:\n\"This book is about post-Communist Eastern Europe and the post Cold \nWar world. Today, the elite of the old system are the elite of the new \nsystem, in business and politics. Vladimir Putin, after all, was the \ntop KGB official in East Germany. Grafton is coopted into this system, \nand he is a thug. Told from the first person unreliable narrator \nposition, Grafton, not surprisingly, does not assume that he is a \nthug; the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions. Grafton \nhas a security background in the US, and indeed, the Cold War national \nsecurity establishment continues its elite ways in the US, as the \nrecent revelations of Snowden again highlight. I spent 15 years \nworking in Bulgaria, and the old Communist security and political \nelite continue to dominate the scene, and now they partner with the US \nin the various overt and covert endeavors of US agencies and actors. \n(Note: Wolfe lives outside of Chicago, the capital of Eastern Europe \nin the Western Hemisphere). Grafton fits well in this world, beating \nup a bar owner on command by his monitor/colleague/mentor/lover, Nala, \nfor not delivering their supper. Instead of imaginary devilish enemies \nlike the capitalist imperialists or godless Communists, the new comic \nbook enemy are the Satanists (Islamists? whatever), who Nala and \nGrafton the old system, accompanied by the ghost of the old Leader \n(Ceausescu? Zhivkov?) utterly smash! Welcome to the New World Order, \nand if you play your cards right, maybe you can hitch along for the ride!\"\n\nBrian Doherty"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think this review is dead on."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}