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#5 Platform: They Eat Puppies, Don't They?
Jun. 7th, 2012 08:04 pmThey don't, actually, as far as I can tell in this book, but in the broader world, probably.
Book #23: They Eat Puppies, Don't They?
Author: Christopher Buckley
Provenance: Bought new at Argo Bookshop
I've been a Christopher Buckley fan for a few years now. I'd kind of been disappointed with his last couple of efforts, Boomsday and Supreme Courtship, but I'd still whetted my appetite for his new novel by reading his memoir, Losing Mum and Pup, a month or two ago. As interesting a piece as that was (and as much as it let me catch the little renal health joke in this new novel), it still didn't really fill the Buckley satire hole in my heart, so I rushed out to pick his new novel up as soon as it was published.
They Eat Puppies, Don't They? is pretty recognizably a Buckley book. In order to provide a pretext for his aerospace engineering company to get government funds to build a fantastically expensive new military project - so secret just bringing the name up gets gasps, so preposterous that maybe the details of it match only the most outlandish of fiction - Walter "Bird" McIntyre teams up with a political pundit and resident of the Institute for Continuing Conflict, Angel Templeton, to try to drum up some old-fashioned fear and hatred of China. But since most of America just couldn't care less about the actual things they could try to ping China on, they instead hatch a scheme to imply that China's trying to off the Dalai Lama, and outrage ensues. We then get to see both the American government (primarily the National Security Advisor, and his assistant who always wants to call Henry Kissinger) and the Chinese government, who have some internal rifts that make the president, Fa Mengyao, have to work hard to keep control of the situation and ultimately his job.
Buckley's writing is back to a good place, pretty light, with a good amount of governmental wordplay and humor. I feel like the humor here gets a bit darker than usual, too, which is not a bad thing at all for a satire. The resolution comes about pretty nicely, I thought, and it shows a faith in the world that is interesting for a satirist, too. But I do have to say, there are some plot points that are pretty much de rigueur for Buckley by now, particularly concerning relationships, and I'd kind of like to see less of it in the future; it's never good to be able to see a character turn 200 pages before it shows up.
On the whole, this was a pretty good return to form for Buckley, with a nicely paced, wryly amusing novel with some fun, real characters. I can't speak to how real the Chinese government characters were, but they didn't come off fake to me, and I enjoyed all the Art of War references (on both sides). I wouldn't place this as high as my favorite books of his, but it's pretty darn good, and worth a read if you're into political satires, for sure.
Up next: Monsters of Men. And probably a short review of Fun Home at some point.
Book #23: They Eat Puppies, Don't They?
Author: Christopher Buckley
Provenance: Bought new at Argo Bookshop
I've been a Christopher Buckley fan for a few years now. I'd kind of been disappointed with his last couple of efforts, Boomsday and Supreme Courtship, but I'd still whetted my appetite for his new novel by reading his memoir, Losing Mum and Pup, a month or two ago. As interesting a piece as that was (and as much as it let me catch the little renal health joke in this new novel), it still didn't really fill the Buckley satire hole in my heart, so I rushed out to pick his new novel up as soon as it was published.
They Eat Puppies, Don't They? is pretty recognizably a Buckley book. In order to provide a pretext for his aerospace engineering company to get government funds to build a fantastically expensive new military project - so secret just bringing the name up gets gasps, so preposterous that maybe the details of it match only the most outlandish of fiction - Walter "Bird" McIntyre teams up with a political pundit and resident of the Institute for Continuing Conflict, Angel Templeton, to try to drum up some old-fashioned fear and hatred of China. But since most of America just couldn't care less about the actual things they could try to ping China on, they instead hatch a scheme to imply that China's trying to off the Dalai Lama, and outrage ensues. We then get to see both the American government (primarily the National Security Advisor, and his assistant who always wants to call Henry Kissinger) and the Chinese government, who have some internal rifts that make the president, Fa Mengyao, have to work hard to keep control of the situation and ultimately his job.
Buckley's writing is back to a good place, pretty light, with a good amount of governmental wordplay and humor. I feel like the humor here gets a bit darker than usual, too, which is not a bad thing at all for a satire. The resolution comes about pretty nicely, I thought, and it shows a faith in the world that is interesting for a satirist, too. But I do have to say, there are some plot points that are pretty much de rigueur for Buckley by now, particularly concerning relationships, and I'd kind of like to see less of it in the future; it's never good to be able to see a character turn 200 pages before it shows up.
On the whole, this was a pretty good return to form for Buckley, with a nicely paced, wryly amusing novel with some fun, real characters. I can't speak to how real the Chinese government characters were, but they didn't come off fake to me, and I enjoyed all the Art of War references (on both sides). I wouldn't place this as high as my favorite books of his, but it's pretty darn good, and worth a read if you're into political satires, for sure.
Up next: Monsters of Men. And probably a short review of Fun Home at some point.
