I think George Allen's stunt -- culling all the explicit passages out of Jim Webb's books like some hormonal teenager trying to find the good parts, then compiling them and releasing them to the media, absent any context -- is a sign of sheer desperation.
I haven't read any of Webb's novels or nonfiction books. But I've heard good things about them. They are certainly not pornographic, as Allen's campaign would have you believe based on a few choice excerpts.
In fact, one of the books criticized by Allen, "Fields of Fire," is on two Marine Corps reading lists: the Professional Reading Program and the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps Official Reading List.
Here's what the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program Web site says about "Fields of Fire":
"James Webb. a well-known Marine Corps Navy Cross recipient in Vietnam and former Secretary of the Navy, conveys the experience of combat with rare lucidity through fiction. In fact, Fields of Fire is less fictional than most realize. It is the Vietnam War as the author lived it, and the reader sees and feels it through the eyes of the book's main character, a platoon commander in Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines."
Real life isn't always pretty. Sometimes it's downright strange. People who write about real life sometimes have to touch on sensitive or even bizarre issues. But authors who write about these things aren't necessarily condoning them.
Don't judge Jim Webb on isolated excerpts from a decades-long writing career. That would be like judging Newt Gingrich based on this howler from his novel, 1945:
"Suddenly the pouting sex kitten gave way to Diana the Huntress. She rolled onto to him and somehow was sitting athwart his chest, her knees pinning his shoulders. 'Tell me, or I will make you do terrible things,' she hissed."
Say what you will about Webb. He writes better than that.
Comments
[October 30, 2006 2:19 PM]
Josh"culling all the explicit passages out of Jim Webb's books like some hormonal teenager trying to find the good parts, then compiling them and releasing them to the media.."
Wow. Deja vu. This reminds me of what you people were saying about Ken Starr reporting Clinton's X-rated antics in 1998. You were blaming the guy that found and exposed the filth instead of the guy that created the filth.
[October 30, 2006 2:22 PM]
Dan RadmacherHave you read the books, or just the dirty parts?
Do you have any idea what context these passages were in? The Marine Corps liked one of these books to make it required reading for officers.
Do you suppose a lot of "filth" goes on those reading lists?
[October 30, 2006 8:57 PM]
JoshOh, I get it. Webb's depiction of a man performing unmentionable acts with his young son was "art", and so we must not read anything further into it.
Yet we must read much into the noose George Allen had in his office that he said "was just part of a collection of western stuff."
I get the picture, Dan. Thanks.
[October 31, 2006 8:09 AM]
Dan RadmacherHave you read the book? Do you know if it's art? Or are you going to condemn an entire novel - not to mention the novelist himself - based on one completely out-of-context passage?
[October 31, 2006 6:19 PM]
JoshNo, I haven't read the book, Dan. Have you? If so, perhaps you can enlighten me as to how the context makes this sick stuff any less a creation Webb's mind.
[October 31, 2006 6:31 PM]
Dan RadmacherI haven't read the books, either, Josh. But my understanding is the stuff isn't a creation of Webb's mind, but a reflection of things he saw in Vietnam and other parts of the world.