October 2013
5. Rainbow Six. In the forward to the Penguin Classic version of Wizard of
Oz by my bed stand Cornelia Funke’s introduction discusses her excitement
discovering it was actually a book first: surely, I remember her saying, all
these characters were the stuff of movies. Rainbow Six, surely, was a video
game. I admit it: this is my first time reading Clancy and it is because he died. I liked this book, it's pacing was OK. Our author certainly shows his research of modern military stuff, but I feel it could have been less heavy on the the aura of the Project (Popov trying to figure it out; each and every member of the project hashing out what will happen when the project is initiated) and instead developed more characters (other members of
Rainbow; Ding and Clark’s wives). During the more
suspenseful pockets Clancy does capture terrorists’ logic well and their horror
of being stalked by a global anti-terrorist organization. I won’t go into the
idea of Rainbow as the first shard of a new police state and the fact that this book glorifies it as the best way to deal with terrorism (USA ! USA !).
3M – Elmer Gantry. I love Burt Lancaster
6. In Everyday Drinking I skipped the quizzes at the end,
which are truly for the alcoholic or aspiring one, but
I enjoyed Amis’ funny-as-hell notes and ideas on etiquette (Hitchens anecdote about tipping over the empty wine glass in front of a host during a part drought.), proper handling of
a hangover (reading Solzhenitsyn!), and his adverse attitude towards vodka,
frilly bar-tending accouterments and food.
