Dubya’s Inferno will be a fun ride for Bush-bashing liberals, but lacks the nuance to propel it to greater cultural...
The new novel from Kozhimannil (Awake America, 1989) is a highly imaginative tale in which George W. Bush gets the punishment many liberals think he deserves.
A blend of fact and fiction, this scathing satire revisits not only the controversial presidency of George W. Bush, but also his death, resurrection and final judgment. On his merciless march down the path to hell, Bush is joined by a familiar cast of characters, including his chicken-hawk administration, media pundits and historical figures representing everything from peace and justice (in the form of Gandhi) to the darkest iniquity (personified by Hitler). Foremost, the book’s Dantean framework supports some entertaining flights of imagination; Bush and his cronies are brought up on charges of war crimes in the 2020s, conservative environmental policies lead to centuries of Al Gorean upheaval and the end of the world in 2847, demons force Bush’s entourage to battle with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden’s people, Bush’s Scottish terrier, Barney, takes a trip from heaven to hell to scold his former master, and, in the captivating conclusion, a young female victim of the Iraq War forces Bush to sing “Thou Shall Not Kill” as she bounces him off a diving board and into hell’s burning lake of sulfur. However, the commentary has a bit of a hobbled-together, shoot-from-the-hip feel. Often-tangential quotes collected from the media run together and underscore myriad and sometimes random progressive points, such as the danger of junk food. The author has also included a few seemingly local anecdotes, using them to make clear points on a micro level, but apparently settling personal scores as well. Throughout, the venom is poured on thick—especially on Republicans.
Dubya’s Inferno will be a fun ride for Bush-bashing liberals, but lacks the nuance to propel it to greater cultural commentary.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-1439254592
Page Count: 261
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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