Throughout the book, Carroll discusses the events since 9/11 in these terms. He places particular emphasis on George W Bush's defining reference to "this Crusade, this war on terror".
To Carroll's mind, he has done just that; led a Crusade.
In case you didn't know, what happened back in the day was that The Pope decided that the best thing to do for to keep The Church in so prominent a position, and to reignite the evangelical flames so dimming in the faithful, was to instigate a war against all enemies of Christ. The resulting Crusade, you may have read, was a thing of utmost repugnant barbarity. A campaign of spiteful slaughter. As Carroll notes; "With the Crusades, the violent theology of the killer God came into its own."
Thank fuck that things have moved on an inch or two since back in 1096 or whatever. Stuff like tolerance and all that made something of a come-back, just like when Elvis realised he'd spent too long dithering around Hollywood and got the old hips gyrating again. Carroll, though, he paints a fairly unsettling image of a world headed in that direction once more.
These thoughts aren't necessarily revelatory or shocking. There's no shot of Bush reading My Pet Goat for everyone to get all slack-jawed about. Carroll's book, unlike Michael Moore's film about temperatures or precipitation or whatever, doesn't spend its time saying about Bush is a bastard, Bush is an incompetent fuckwit etc, but rather mourns the state of humanity in general, and worries about the direction in which it's headed.
Page after page, the story unfolds like some horrific narrative one might encounter in one of those speculative fiction numbers set 200 years in the future, the kinda thing you put down after every paragraph and shudder and think about thank God I'll be dead by then.
Well, except The Duke. You may or may not know that The Duke is something of an immortal, in that I have no plans to die for the foreseeable future.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
exceptional, thoughtful, humane, and - dare I say it? - fair and balanced review, Duke, another home run. And for you cricket fanciers out there, that's a good thing
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Thanks Eric! Since i've read at least seven books, i feel i can offer something of a learned response to such.