Today I read the
next fifty pages of Rachel Kushner’s 2008 debut novel, Telex From Cuba. Kushner continues developing her detailed and
richly nuanced portrait of Batista-era Cuba in at least two directions. Once
plotline concerns French expatriate Christian de La Mazière, a former SS
officer during World War 2, who came to Cuba after serving a prison sentence in
France after the end of the war. He is beginning a liaison with Rachel K, a
burlesque dancer in a Havana nightclub who also has a shady past. This part of
the novel has all the exoticism one might expect of a novel set in the tropics,
and for this reason is less interesting than the second thread of Kushner’s narrative:
a portrayal of the American expatriate community, all of whom are connected to
the United Fruit Company in one way or another (either as managers or workers)
but who are otherwise very diverse in terms of their class backgrounds. The
picture Kushner is developing of the dynamics of this colonial community is
what I find most interesting about the novel at the moment.
I also read the next
fifty pages of Medea Benjamin’s Drone
Warfare: Killing By Remote Control. In this section of the book, Benjamin
discusses the morality of drones, arguing that even in the context of the
immorality of ‘standard’ wars, drones are especially immoral for the way in
which they remove US citizens even further from the realities of war. This is
in turn means that if the US and other governments are more likely to go to war
when they don’t have to put boots on the ground, they are unlikely to meet with
much push back from citizens who are not directly impacted by the conflict.
After such a depressing (albeit accurate) conclusion, it comes as something of
a relief to read Benjamin’s next chapter, which focuses on international acts
of resistance against drones. Granted, the members of these small but committed
groups may not have changed much at this point (as the comparison with the
successful anti-landmines movement makes clear) but the simple fact that some
people are taking a stand always means something.
I also watched episodes
5 and 6 of Hemlock Grove. If one
doesn’t get too hung up on logic and embraces absurdity, this show can be a
real hoot. I recently blogged about The
Following and I know I harped on the lack of logic in that show, but the
difference, as I mentioned before, is that Hemlock
doesn’t take itself seriously, whereas The
Following behaved as if everything it said was dreadfully portentous and
meaningful, which showed up its utter lack of substance even more. Take, for
example, the character of Dr. Johann Pryce in Hemlock. Played to camp perfection by Joel de la Fuente, Pryce is the
evil scientist straight out of central casting, except for the fact that de la
Fuente plays him as such a queen that he makes Vincent Prince look butch. When
he tells Dr. Chasseur that he suffers from an excess of adrenaline that gives
him “hysterical strength” I think I fell in love with this show not in spite of
but because of its ridiculousness. And if that wasn’t enough, we also have
Famke Janssen’s accent, which we find out in episode 5 is meant to be English,
though you could have fooled me. Priceless!
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