'Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, Adultery!'
There is a fascinating article from City Journal’s Myron Magnet titled, “Mr. Sammler’s City,” which gives some insight and background to Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet. This is one of Bellow’s novels I read for my research on Henderson the Rain King, and Magnet’s piece serves as an excellent primer.
Here’s a sample:
As they say, read the whole thing. And then go read the book.
Here’s a sample:
Sammler, for his part, can’t help recalling that almost all modern revolutions, from the Jacobins to the Nazis and the Communists, have ended with the streets running with blood, because murder has been at their heart, rather than an incidental means to an end. For revolutionary leaders like Stalin, “the really great prize of power was unobstructed enjoyment of murder,” while the revolutionary masses in turn “loved the man strong enough to take blood guilt on himself. For them an elite must prove itself in this ability to murder.”
Each modern revolution (the American one alone excepted) overturned civilization’s ultimate restraint and became “a conspiracy against the sacredness of life.”
As they say, read the whole thing. And then go read the book.
Wed, 07/23/2008 11:17
Well, Castro did keep the borders closed in order not to let people to know how much better it’s in the USA. I think now [...]