Re: RARA-AVIS: Westlake

From: foxbrick (foxbrick@yahoo.com)
Date: 05 Jan 2009

  • Next message: jacquesdebierue: "RARA-AVIS: Re: Westlake"

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue"
    <jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
    >
    > --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "foxbrick" <foxbrick@> wrote:
    >
    > >
    > > That's [that ANARCHAOS is "crazy"] a kind way of putting it. As
    I've noted at
    > length on Ed
    > > Gorman's blog, this is easily and by far my least favorite
    Westlake,
    > > since it so blatantly misrepresnts even the worst of the
    anarchist
    > > figures, much less the best of them, he cites as the progenitors
    of
    > > the insane society portrayed here (a colony of Parkers on
    another
    > > planet).
    >
    > I took it to be just a crazy ride written without much
    seriousness. I
    > didn't take offense at the portrayals, though Anarchaos not a
    favorite
    > of mine, either, not by a long shot. I have a hunch that he had two
    > ideas going and he tried to join them...

    Or his rage was either Deeply Coded, or very misplaced, or both. I'm afraid that I took the initial bit of hostility to be very serious, indeed...it ain't BIRTH OF A NATION (or even, say, Robert Heinlein's FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD or PD James's THE CHILDREN OF MEN), but it ain't the rational observation of his characters' plight that I expect, and otherwise always got, from Westlake, either.

    Todd Mason



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Jan 2009 EST