Tom Clancy Is Dead, But His Frightening Political Worldview Is Alive and Well

The New Republic ^ | October 2, 2013 | Isaac Chotiner

[2ndDivisionVet]

The easiest point to make about Tom Clancy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, is that he was a mediocre writer who penned books with noxious political messages. But he was more interesting than that, even if only as a totemic cultural figure. I haven't read any of his nonfictional output, which mostly deals with military matters, especially the physical details of American military hardware. (Sample title: Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship.) But Clancy will be best remembered for the series of books he wrote about Jack Ryan, the C.I.A. agent from his creator's hometown of Baltimore who eventually becomes president of the United States. (Don't ask.) Four of the books were eventually turned into pretty effective Hollywood movies, which starred (in order) Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford (twice), and Ben Affleck. A fifth, with Chris Pine as Ryan, comes out over Christmas.

The first thing to note about the Jack Ryan novels, and one of the things that made them notable as middlebrow fiction, was their sheer bulk. This no doubt accounted for some of the pride I felt in finishing them at age 16. To even try and describe the structure of a book like Clear and Present Danger would be a feat, but if I managed to do so you might think that I was outlining Middlemarch. I doubt that Clancy intended his books to ape great, sprawling 19th century novels....

[Jemian]

I know who Tom Clancy was but Issac Chotiner is an unknown.

[Ann Archy]

Tom Clancy kind of became a LIBERAL after marrying a Black gal. I saw him a few years ago on TV, and I was SHOCKED.

[rstrahan]

Some of his political forecasts were just plain errie how close they matched subsequent events.

[oldfart]

bump for later