Urth Net
missing from the archive
The list delivered this and never kept it. What survives is what the reply below quoted of it.
Now, i do not think this interpretation is necessarily Wolfe's intent,
indeed likely not, but it IS intriguing and is one of the few I've
seen that IF true make the novel's confusions and misdirections
actually in service of an interesting and complicated theme. (Again, I
don't think the novel as I understood it says anything interesting
about "totalitarianism" or conspiracy or govt paranoia write large....)
The review:
"This book is about post-Communist Eastern Europe and the post Cold
War world. Today, the elite of the old system are the elite of the new
system, in business and politics. Vladimir Putin, after all, was the
top KGB official in East Germany. Grafton is coopted into this system,
and he is a thug. Told from the first person unreliable narrator
position, Grafton, not surprisingly, does not assume that he is a
thug; the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions. Grafton
has a security background in the US, and indeed, the Cold War national
security establishment continues its elite ways in the US, as the
recent revelations of Snowden again highlight. I spent 15 years
working in Bulgaria, and the old Communist security and political
elite continue to dominate the scene, and now they partner with the US
in the various overt and covert endeavors of US agencies and actors.
(Note: Wolfe lives outside of Chicago, the capital of Eastern Europe
in the Western Hemisphere). Grafton fits well in this world, beating
up a bar owner on command by his monitor/colleague/mentor/lover, Nala,
for not delivering their supper. Instead of imaginary devilish enemies
like the capitalist imperialists or godless Communists, the new comic
book enemy are the Satanists (Islamists? whatever), who Nala and
Grafton the old system, accompanied by the ghost of the old Leader
(Ceausescu? Zhivkov?) utterly smash! Welcome to the New World Order,
and if you play your cards right, maybe you can hitch along for the ride!"
Brian Doherty