Unconvincing arguments about Islam and the Quran.
Latta presents his wide-ranging thoughts on the Quran in this debut book.
The author begins by calling into question the very notion of hate speech and Islamophobia. He posits that it’s the Western media that are truly afraid of Islam—and with good reason. For the author, supporters of Islam are “misogynistic, slavery-loving, sex-obsessed halfwits.” He believes that “the West, out of a pure need for self-preservation among other things, must banish Islam.” He discusses the misogyny he finds in the Quran, citing verses pertaining to men’s domination over women and the promise of 72 virgins in the afterlife for Muslim men. Latta describes that promise as “land-grabber” Muhammad’s recruitment strategy for his conquest of the “sociopathic, uneducated part of the world.” The author sidesteps many arguments about similarities between the Old Testament and the Quran by asserting that Muhammad stole and corrupted ideas from the Bible, an inherently better book because Christian fundamentalists do not bomb their own “left, right, and centre.” No actual research into ancient texts is supplied, but Latta does provide quotes from an unnamed, personal blog that, for him, proves democracy and Islam are incompatible. The only things that the author seems to hate more than the Quran are the immigration and multicultural policies of Canada, his home country. He offers several vague, anecdotal stories about Canadian immigrants to illustrate these points. (As a former soccer player, Latta himself has “witnessed the behaviour of all sorts of other ethnic…groups.”) His concluding chapters call for an all-out war against Islam. In his passionate book, the author provides some thought-provoking assertions, including that the politically correct culture has made Westerners blind and unwilling to confront the unsettling aspects of Islam’s fundamental text—a controversial yet intriguing contention worth exploring. But Latta’s attempts at brash, tell-it-like-it-is humor create a cruel and rambling voice that spews outlandish and unsupported assumptions. He compares Muslims to neo-Nazis, although he seems to show a bit more sympathy for the latter group when discussing slavery: “Even neo-Nazis are focused on sending blacks back to where they came….This means, of course, even they are not in favour of slavery. You cannot control a slave when he is on another continent.” Ultimately, his arguments are unpersuasive and will likely appeal only to like-minded readers.
Unconvincing arguments about Islam and the Quran.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5255-1551-4
Page Count: 156
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.
The undisputed champion of the self-conscious and the self-deprecating returns with yet more autobiographical gems from his apparently inexhaustible cache (Naked, 1997, etc.).
Sedaris at first mines what may be the most idiosyncratic, if innocuous, childhood since the McCourt clan. Here is father Lou, who’s propositioned, via phone, by married family friend Mrs. Midland (“Oh, Lou. It just feels so good to . . . talk to someone who really . . . understands”). Only years later is it divulged that “Mrs. Midland” was impersonated by Lou’s 12-year-old daughter Amy. (Lou, to the prankster’s relief, always politely declined Mrs. Midland’s overtures.) Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedaris—soon after she’s put a beloved sick cat to sleep—is terrorized by bogus reports of a “miraculous new cure for feline leukemia,” all orchestrated by her bitter children. Brilliant evildoing in this family is not unique to the author. Sedaris (also an essayist on National Public Radio) approaches comic preeminence as he details his futile attempts, as an adult, to learn the French language. Having moved to Paris, he enrolls in French class and struggles endlessly with the logic in assigning inanimate objects a gender (“Why refer to Lady Flesh Wound or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”). After months of this, Sedaris finds that the first French-spoken sentiment he’s fully understood has been directed to him by his sadistic teacher: “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” Among these misadventures, Sedaris catalogs his many bugaboos: the cigarette ban in New York restaurants (“I’m always searching the menu in hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable”); the appending of company Web addresses to television commercials (“Who really wants to know more about Procter & Gamble?”); and a scatological dilemma that would likely remain taboo in most households.
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-316-77772-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
PERSPECTIVES
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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