This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

Matthew Knight · 10 Apr 2012, 03:21 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: jacobeiserman at gmail.com (Matthew Knight)
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2012 22:21:14 -0500
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires
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Most of the reaction is overblown, as Nick has pointed out.

However, I'm currently 100 pages into "Home Fires," and I must say that the
"sharia law--only in the EU" line punched me in the gut.  It made me start
asking myself which particular pundits Wolfe has been reading.  As somebody
who grew up in a very monoethnic fundamentalist Christian milieu, who now
has several Middle Eastern friends, I have been finding myself forced into
the role of the "defender of Islam" all too often lately out of basic
frustration over some of the bald-faced generalizations and lies that get
peddled as fact, and Europe's Islamic future is a meme that keeps coming up
in discussions.  Maybe it's just personal experience making me
oversensitive.

I don't want to inflame anything, as I recognize that Wolfe may indeed have
a larger proportion of right-leaning fans than, say, China Mieville or
Richard Morgan (or...Neil Gaiman?), and of course his writings display
enormous nuance.  I think Wolfe's writing is stellar enough to appeal to
readers of all political stances.  Still, I wonder if any literary scholar
has ever undertaken a Said-influenced "Orientalist" critique of something
like "Seven American Nights"?
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