The Librarian

Rating:
Summary: Campaign nonsense
Review: Larry Beinhart recycles not only political myths, but political lies, discredited Marxist canards and lunatic conspiracy theories as well. Political satire is one thing: this is not political satire. Thrillers may be based on outlandish plots and characters, but they should not be based on palpable lies.

This so-called political thriller might play well among left-leaning academics and pseudo-intellectuals who believe Communism would have succeeded if only a few hundred more people were enslaved or murdered by implementing the revolution.

Everything the left considers evil from fast-food to the environment is trotted out in the first couple of chapters along with some outright lies believed so fervently by the far-left.

The plot is mundane. Billionaire invoved in a conspiracy to steal the presidential election. All the bad people are rich. All the good people are poor because their superior intellects are not properly rewarded in the evil capitalist society.

Characters are paper-thin and cartoonish.

On the whole, a waste of perfectly good trees.

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: Finest Kind!
Review: Finest kind of balm in these tragical [sic] times of post-election malaise. Mordantly funny and entertaining. High recommended for the post-elector blues and worse.

Rating:
Summary: Not for Republicans
Review: I can understand why supporters of the Bush administration would be infuriated by this book. But if you're an independent or a democrat who likes political thrillers and doesn't feel that your own beliefs and hypocrisies are being savaged, then this page-turner will keep you thoroughly engaged and annoy the hell out of whoever else is in the room when you interrupt to read passages aloud. Much of the plot action requires a suspension of disbelief (as with most thrillers, I think), but the politically related commentary is as scary as. . . well, Wolfowitz or Cheney or the prez's faith-based foreign policy. Despite a somewhat weak ending, I found this book to be terrifically entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Great Political Thriller
Review: I couldn't put it down. It is such a page turner. A very pro-democrat novel -- if Michael Moore wrote fiction this would be it. I also liked that a librarian was the main character. Being a librarian myself I always feel attracted to books about librarians. Some of the stuff in the novel is over the top but since it is fiction it doesn't matter. I am surpised that the book is not on new book stands in places like Barnes and Noble -- too provocative? Anyway -- read it -- it will entertain you and scare you and you won't be able to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Agitprop
Review: I like Larry Beinhart, a lot, so I was looking forward to reading his new book very much. Alas, it was suffused with heavy handed agitprop, so much so that I threw it away after reading the first couple of chapters. I guess I can take a little bit of light capitalist bashing, and a little environmental hysteria here and there, along with a great story, but in this book the anti-Bush bashing took over and there was little story left over. Beinhart gave rein to every fantasy of the fever swamps of the left - it's too bad, because he's capable of writing books that are fun to read. Let's hope he does better next time.

Rating:
Summary: predictions already come true!
Review: I read the galleys of "The Librarian" in August 2004 and it absorbed me completely: ten minutes before 5 am, having started the previous evening I finally finished it (needless to say, not my best day at work followed 2 hours later). What struck me in a similar way than Beinhart's previous book, "American Hero", was his interweaving of facts any alert newspaper reader could have seen with a high paced fictional plot. The readers' problem of course is to sort the tales from the facts, and I so wished for footnotes (as used in American Hero). But how lucid, plausible and prescient Beinhart's novel really is became apparent when on September 7 Vice President Cheney did exactly what Beinhart's has his fictitional Republican administration do: proclaiming that if a Democrat is elected the US would face the threat of another terrorist attack. I'll wager that Beinhart didn't just get lucky: here's a writer with a very keen observation using the lower threshold of proof afforded to fiction writers to illuminate what the Bush administration (or any highly ideological ruling elite) is capable of. Beinhart's "Librarian" takes the gloves off. Personally, I found some of the violence described somewhat off-putting at first - until I remembered how Black Panthers were assassinated by police, how civil rights leaders were targeted then and are still now under new Patriot Act legislation. Under the democratic veneer power politics takes rather unpleasant forms.
On the more civil side readers will take away at least one excellent reminder, and a term to help remembering it for future reference: Early on Larry Beinhart introduces the memorable concept of the Fog Fact: open secrets that ought to be public knowledge and for which conclusive evidence has long since been presented but which still remain unsaid. Such as the fact that joining the National Guard was one of the methods for avoiding being sent into combat in Vietnam: not "patriotic service" but effective draft dodging.
Anyway, during those last weeks in the current presidential race I'll be curious to see whether the Democrats take some of the strategies employed by Beinhart's fictional Dems - that we'll see more of the more or less criminal moves by Goebbels' eager student Karl Rove is pretty much a given. Read the book and place your own bets on how or whether this election (again) will be stolen.
Martin Voelker


Rating:
Summary: Trashy, Formulaic. Not fun....
Review: This book had real possibilities, especially for political conspiracy afficionados. The story details the forces behind politicians, the big money movers who ensure that a corrupt system maintains itself. It is lifelike and possible.

However, the story as written is too predictable, and at times inane. Librarian turned covert operative who outwits the bad guys. Give me a break! And with gratuitously raw and mean-spirited sex and domination. I suppose if trashy stories are your interest, well have at it.

Rating:
Summary: Wild romp through today's politics
Review: This book, like Beinhart's previous masterpiece American Hero, just republished as Wag the Dog and the inspiration for the movie Wag the Dog, is satire that one has to take seriously. Using his skills as a mystery writer, Beinhart takes one through a thrill ride through contemporary politics centering on an attempt to steal a presidential election (sound familiar)? Displaying a disturbing insight into the mindsets of right wing power players, Beinhart makes salient observations about the current political state of affairs but does so in the context of a wild multiple point-of-view story rather than a dry nonfiction essay. This is agitprop at its best. Anyone who likes being entertained while becoming better informed can do no better than to read, preferably back to back, Wag the Dog and The Librarian. Have your peace of mind disturbed and smile and chuckle at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Wag the Flag
Review: What if John Kerry wins not only the popular vote, but the Electoral College vote as well? Will Dubya and his band of neo-con merry men actually leave the White House on January 21, 2005?

Time will tell. In Larry Beinhart's extremely entertaining book The Librarian, we're presented with a story that has them trying to stay. Unfortunately, the book requires little suspension of disbelief - many of the characters only slight caricatures of real people - one can look at today's headlines and see the building blocks of a right-wing putsch, and Beinhart puts them in a fast-paced, easy to read, almost action novel.

His earlier book American Hero was adapted into the movie Wag the Dog, which seemed prescient when Clinton rocketed Somalia and Afghanistan. This book, despite it's commercial fiction genre, is also uncomfortably believable.

There is one major scene in the book involving a stud farm that seems too much like Thomas Wolfe's Man in Full to me, but it does serve to tie the story together imaginatively.

Rating:
Summary: Great Potboiler
Review: Yes, this is a fun page turner, but it's so much more. For all of us disaffected (I mean stunned and horrified) U.S. voters, it's a much-needed fantasy world -- a world where a corrupt Republican steals the election and deliberately caused 9-11 and exploited it for political gain, and a plucky, good-hearted man of learning, someone who believes in science and free information -- a lowly librarian -- fights an impossible battle to put things right. It's the ultimate liberal escapist fiction where, unlike in the real world, the good guys have a chance to win.