(urth) An Amazon review of LAND ACROSS I found interesting

[David Stockhoff]

On 12/18/2014 6:05 PM, Brian Doherty wrote:
> Now, i do not think this interpretation is necessarily Wolfe's intent, 
> indeed likely not, but it IS intriguing and is one of the few I've 
> seen that IF true make the novel's confusions and misdirections 
> actually in service of an interesting and complicated theme. (Again, I 
> don't think the novel as I understood it says anything interesting 
> about "totalitarianism" or conspiracy or govt paranoia write large....)
>
> The review:
> "This book is about post-Communist Eastern Europe and the post Cold 
> War world. Today, the elite of the old system are the elite of the new 
> system, in business and politics. Vladimir Putin, after all, was the 
> top KGB official in East Germany. Grafton is coopted into this system, 
> and he is a thug. Told from the first person unreliable narrator 
> position, Grafton, not surprisingly, does not assume that he is a 
> thug; the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions. Grafton 
> has a security background in the US, and indeed, the Cold War national 
> security establishment continues its elite ways in the US, as the 
> recent revelations of Snowden again highlight. I spent 15 years 
> working in Bulgaria, and the old Communist security and political 
> elite continue to dominate the scene, and now they partner with the US 
> in the various overt and covert endeavors of US agencies and actors. 
> (Note: Wolfe lives outside of Chicago, the capital of Eastern Europe 
> in the Western Hemisphere). Grafton fits well in this world, beating 
> up a bar owner on command by his monitor/colleague/mentor/lover, Nala, 
> for not delivering their supper. Instead of imaginary devilish enemies 
> like the capitalist imperialists or godless Communists, the new comic 
> book enemy are the Satanists (Islamists? whatever), who Nala and 
> Grafton the old system, accompanied by the ghost of the old Leader 
> (Ceausescu? Zhivkov?) utterly smash! Welcome to the New World Order, 
> and if you play your cards right, maybe you can hitch along for the ride!"
>
> Brian Doherty

I think this review is dead on.