John Updike
Posted on 06/04/2006 11:36:13 PM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
Those terrorists are really just misunderstood.
The New York Times recently conducted an interview with author John Updike about his newest novel. This interview was revealing of why liberals will never understand this age in which we live. It is indicative of how they just don’t understand the evil we face in Islamofacism. (See story - Click here)
Updike, as obsessed with fallen Christianity as he is with prurient sex scenes, must have seen the writing on the wall while in the midst of penning his newest novel, a sort of Thriller titled ”Terrorist”.
The plot of Updike’s new novel revolves around a young man of mixed parentage who is radicalized into the Islamofascist world. He is given the assignment of exploding a bomb in New York’s Lincoln tunnel. According to the interview we will find the book’s main character, 18 year-old Ahmad, a “lovable” sort of fellow.
In this day when we are faced with Islamofascists who have announced their desire to use nuclear bombs to destroy major US cities -- and other cities in the West -- John Updike wants to make a “lovable” terrorist for us to read along with!
This is the typically convoluted response to this era that the left has so descended into. But, this isn’t the only example of the Left’s confusion evidenced in Mr. Updike’s thought process.
Mr. Updike seems only to have come to his protagonist’s background recently:
“Originally, though, he imagined the protagonist as a young Christian, an extension of the troubled teenage character in his early story "Pigeon Feathers," who comes to feel betrayed by a clergyman. "I imagined a young seminarian who sees everyone around him as a devil trying to take away his faith," he said. "The 21st century does look like that, I think, to a great many people in the Arab world.'"
“When Mr. Updike switched the protagonist's religion to Islam, he explained, it was because he ‘thought he had something to say from the standpoint of a terrorist.’”
"I think I felt I could understand the animosity and hatred which an Islamic believer would have for our system. Nobody's trying to see it from that point of view."
"Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot. My feeling was, 'This is God's language, and the fact that you don't understand it means you don't know enough about God.'"
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Wait, wait. The "Bush theocracy!" at it again!
Geez, these people are clueless. Even the founder of the "Great Society" and a hero to liberals across this nation had something to say about the role of religion in American life:
"An ordering of society which relegates religion, democracy and good faith among nations to the background can find no place within it for the ideals of the Prince of Peace. The United States rejects such an ordering, and retains its ancient faith."
Yeah, Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Inaugural address.
It's very interesting to go back and read about the development of nations. From the Kievan Rus to the French monarchy to the Holy Roman Empire, the stability of nations would have been impossible without religion uniting the people and creating a framework of morality and a sense of identity.
Moral relativism is a quick trip to meaningless, degeneracy, and failure, simply put.
nauseating
Stopped reading Updike years ago.
Ah yes, terrorists are misunderstood.
Liberals misunderstand that if you put 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans in a room wearing t-shirts with the face of their respective 2004 Presidential candidate on the front and tie them all up, and then you put a terrorist in the room and give that terrorist a loaded weapon with 20 bullets...
There will be 20 bodies doing their best to reach room temperature before one can count to 21.
A pity, really -- what with him getting even older and closer to death every day.
</disdain>
That's because most of us are not limber enough to get our heads up our own ass the way Updike is to get to that point of view.
Books are so 20th century.
Updike is a moral-equivocating scumbag. He needs to cut back on the crazy pills.
Based on this article Updike is fool.
OTOH I heard an interview on NPR and he sounded rather on the offense against islam. For ex. in response to a Muslim who called in saying that Updike has completely misunderstood the violence prone Islamic world, Updike asked her to name any Muslim nation in the world living in peace. Silence. Further he said that the Koran was replete with violence and brutality of the worst kind. He had harsh words to say about "imams" who preyed on disillusioned young males especially...the kind that end up commiting suicide or committing terror.
He was quite firm that islam is a flawed violence-filled dangerous utopian ideology.
He was rather unapologetic that Amerca's obsession with materialism was turning off many young people...leading to a nihilistic outlook on life. Kind of like a Solzhenitsyn-lite take on the west.
This guy's all over the place.
The libs are so busy building their global warming platform that the are missing reality as it occurs.
Here is the interview for anyone interested. Listen especially when the Muslim woman calls and his reponse...fascinating. And the host bending over backwards to get Updike to say anything positive about islam...
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/06/20060613_b_main.asp
This is why I often hate to admit to being a conservative. How the mouth-breathers and illiterate name-calling rednecks emerge to vilify the wonderful Updike (a conservative) and thoroughly misinterpret his work and beautiful writing because it doesn't match up word for word with low-IQ sophomoric rah-rah types like Sean Hannity. The shocking, massive waves of stupidity that pour through this thread are embarrassing.
Which proves he knows nothing about Islam at all. The idea is to take the world for Islam by the sword. It doesn't matter at all how they feel about us!
Just because Updike writes about Christianity does NOT mean he, therefore, must be a "conservative". Just about everything he writes about Christianity is self-loathing and pointed. His opinion is always focused on what's wrong, never what's right.
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