Update: Jim Webb's Novels
This NYT story is informative. The weirdest of the passages from Webb's novels involve a Thai father putting his young son's penis in his (the father's) mouth as a form of greeting. Webb says that this is a strange but actual practice he observed in Thailand.
Now, I haven't googled this yet because I want to assert some conditionals first:
[A] If this is, in fact, an actual practice that Webb is describing, then it is unlikely to reveal anything worrisome about Webb.
[B] If this is something he made up, then it is more likely to reveal something worrisome about him.
Of course even if you make something up you're not necessarily endorsing it. But if Webb made it up, at least we have to think about the issue. If he didn't, then we don't. As in the case of the stripper passages, the most likely explanation is that Webb is trying to get something across to the reader--specifically, he's trying to show what life is like in certain places.
So somebody who doesn't have to prepare a lecture on logical positivism might want to google that...
I want to point out again that, although there's some unpleasant quasi-sexual stuff in some of the passages from Webb's novels, they do NOT--contrary to what the Allen campaign has been saying--prove or even strongly suggest any reprehensible attitudes toward women on Webb's part. Most of the passages aren't even about women, and most of the passages about women aren't (contrary to Allen's claim) even about sex, and the passages that say something bad about women say something bad about particular women in the novel--a mean nurse or whatever. Undoubtely there are also reprehensible male characters in the books, but that doesn't indicate that he's anti-male.
Of course Webb bears much of the responsibility for this, having set himself up with his stupid essay about women in the military. So my sympathy for him is somewhat diluted.
HOWEVER: you want alarming treatment of women, consider Allen dragging his own sister upstairs by her hair because she failed to obey her father with sufficient alacrity. Now there's a guy to deserves a right good ass kicking.
This NYT story is informative. The weirdest of the passages from Webb's novels involve a Thai father putting his young son's penis in his (the father's) mouth as a form of greeting. Webb says that this is a strange but actual practice he observed in Thailand.
Now, I haven't googled this yet because I want to assert some conditionals first:
[A] If this is, in fact, an actual practice that Webb is describing, then it is unlikely to reveal anything worrisome about Webb.
[B] If this is something he made up, then it is more likely to reveal something worrisome about him.
Of course even if you make something up you're not necessarily endorsing it. But if Webb made it up, at least we have to think about the issue. If he didn't, then we don't. As in the case of the stripper passages, the most likely explanation is that Webb is trying to get something across to the reader--specifically, he's trying to show what life is like in certain places.
So somebody who doesn't have to prepare a lecture on logical positivism might want to google that...
I want to point out again that, although there's some unpleasant quasi-sexual stuff in some of the passages from Webb's novels, they do NOT--contrary to what the Allen campaign has been saying--prove or even strongly suggest any reprehensible attitudes toward women on Webb's part. Most of the passages aren't even about women, and most of the passages about women aren't (contrary to Allen's claim) even about sex, and the passages that say something bad about women say something bad about particular women in the novel--a mean nurse or whatever. Undoubtely there are also reprehensible male characters in the books, but that doesn't indicate that he's anti-male.
Of course Webb bears much of the responsibility for this, having set himself up with his stupid essay about women in the military. So my sympathy for him is somewhat diluted.
HOWEVER: you want alarming treatment of women, consider Allen dragging his own sister upstairs by her hair because she failed to obey her father with sufficient alacrity. Now there's a guy to deserves a right good ass kicking.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:34 PM
5 Comments:
But... But... But...
It's FICTION!
Why should the details of a fictional story be grounds for a character judgement?
In the story I'm writing I've killed off more than a million people--more than half of those children. Doesn't mean I would actually do that myself, it's just how the story went.
With the exception of Anne Perry, I don't think that mystery and suspense authors are actually killers, even though they kill one or more people off every book--and always in creative and sometimes disgusing ways.
So I don't understand at all why the events in a piece of fiction are causing an uproar.
George Allen is a thug and very likely a Klansman. Again, why even give this a nano-second of your time?
WS:
Just be glad you're not in charge of the sheepdip as well:
Bruce here teaches logical positivism, and is also in charge of the sheepdip.
The ol' pecker-suck is a folk remedy in a number of cultures, including Russia. I read about it in Orlando Figes' fantastic book "A People's Tragedy." Even if it wasn't, though, this whole line of attack is a display of breath-taking philistinism.
Assuming the story is true, it's pretty strange. But not a whole lot more strange than one common treatment for hysteria in the US during the 19th century. It's quite possible that it's true; it's equally possible that Webb was relying on urban legend.
In any case, the whole story reeks of Red Herring.
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