Hunkpoint

Sure, the Village Voice has a decent review of Checkpoint up. But wouldn't you rather hang tight and hear the news from RP's own Book Hunks, Bad Franz and Good Franz? Of course you would.

Ladies and Gents, the Book Hunks:

Bad Franz: Okay. Uh, I’m going to—okay, I’ll just say it. Um.
Good Franz: What is it?
Bad Franz: I’m going to review Checkpoint.

Good Franz: Oh dear. The one where the guy assassinates George W. Bush?
Bad Franz: Yes. I mean, no. The character, Jay, doesn’t assassinate Bush in the end. In fact, he kind of decides against it, it seems. He just talks about it with his pal Ben.
Good Franz: Still, I think that’s an abhorrent premise.
Bad Franz: You haven’t read the book.
Good Franz: No.
Bad Franz: I see. And you’re not planning to?
Good Franz: Life’s too short. It sounds disgusting.
Bad Franz: See, a lot of people are saying that. They’ve been getting into a huge lather without even cracking the damn book open. A very cowardly brand of criticism is polluting the waters—upstream, no less.
Good Franz: You—you’re sounding a bit hostile.
Bad Franz: Well, it’s inexcusable. In fact, a right-winger would find a few things to like in Checkpoint, if he’d deign to read it.
Good Franz: Such as?
Bad Franz: Well, and I quote: “If the Democrats weren’t so bullheadedly pro-abortion we wouldn’t be in Iraq now.”
Good Franz: Wow. Well, I—
Bad Franz: That’s your so-called assassin speaking, by the way.
Good Franz: So he’s not just some lefty nutjob, then?
Bad Franz: Oh, he’s a nutjob. But then again he doesn’t have a nice thing to say about any President since, well, since FDR pretty much. It’s made very clear that he’s lost it, that he’s crackers, and so on.
Good Franz: I remember reading he wants to kill the President with boulders and radio-controlled saws.
Bad Franz: Yes, a boulder of depleted uranium, a punishment Dante could love. Although Dante’d probably make GWB wriggle under it for eternity as a fiery rain strafed his crushed body. And the remote-controlled saws, yes. And homing bullets. It’s pretty obvious Jay possesses none of these weapons. Crackers. His actual plan is to hop the White House fence with a gun and hammer. Both of which he indeed has.
Good Franz: A hammer.
Bad Franz: Yes. It returns in the third act. Or the last third of the first act. But anyway.
Good Franz: You say his friend Ben talks him out of it.
Bad Franz: Admirably. Or perhaps not so admirably, as it turns out. Ben comes off as a pragmatist extraordinaire. He realizes he’s essentially a co-conspirator and is mostly concerned with saving his own skin, his own comfortable life full of Brooks Brothers frames for his glasses and expensive camera equipment.
Good Franz: So the assassin is the hero?
Bad Franz: There are no heroes here. Jay’s just had it. He’s lost his family; he’s declared bankruptcy. Now his girlfriend has left him over his political obsessions, understandably. He’s going about naked in a world where most people are clothed and insulated. He simply goes over the edge when he hears about what happened at the titular checkpoint.
Good Franz: What did happen?
Bad Franz: An Iraqi family fleeing the war zone was mistakenly, but horribly, more-or-less decapitated by American gunfire.
Good Franz: Good God.
Bad Franz: Mmm. War is hell, as they say.
Good Franz: So Jay loses it—
Bad Franz: And he concocts this plan. And invites his pal Ben to a hotel so he can talk to him about it. On tape.
Good Franz: But in the end Jay doesn’t—he—what does he do?
Bad Franz: Ben makes him hit a picture of GWB with a hammer. A “special voodoo hammer,” Ben says.
Good Franz: Ah, the hammer.
Bad Franz: Yes, it’s a puzzling detail. Perhaps an oblique reference to those $400 Pentagon hammers we all remember from the Reagan years?
Good Franz: Or Jesus, the carpenter.
Good Franz: Jay is an itinerant laborer, come to think of it. He also has an obsession for craftsmanship—loss of, in America, specifically. Anyway, there are a few choice details here, Baker being Baker. Not on the level of The Mezzanine, of course, but interesting stuff. For example, did you know that urban sprawl was touted by a certain think tank during the Cold War? So as to minimize deaths in a nuclear attack. “Passive defense.”
Good Franz: Interesting.
Bad Franz: There’s some lovely irony, too. When Jay goes to protest Bush, he carries a sign reading “Murderer.”
Good Franz: Mmm. So, just a minute. Can I confess I’m confused? Is this book about assassination or what? Is it a call-to-arms? A dangerous book or not?
Bad Franz: I think not. Being generous I’ll say it’s a modest examination of gray areas. The line between politician and war criminal, between Defender of Democracy and killer of many, many people. Or the fuzzy line between the haves and have-nots. How quickly you can find yourself dispossessed or dis-eased, or disaffected. And how dispossession, dis-ease, or disaffection is out of your hands, ultimately.
Good Franz: Life is nasty, brutish, and short.
Bad Franz: So it seems.
Good Franz: What would you say if you’re not being generous?
Bad Franz: It’s a book where a daffy guy hits a picture of the President with a hammer and goes home. That’s an apt metaphor for Checkpoint, in a way. Despite all the hysteria, Baker’s essentially taking a few harmless whacks at the paper President. Then he feels better. Whether that works for you or not is another matter. It’s your $16.
Good Franz: So it could just be two guys going on and on about not much at all.
Bad Franz: Depending on your politics. Two curmudgeons-in-waiting, bemoaning the loss of the simpler, better days.
Good Franz: Just two talking heads prattling on and on.
Bad Franz: Yes.
Good Franz: How terrible.

Comments

[Jimmy Beck]

Beautiful. Now cue the music: Peter, Paul and Mary singing "If I Had a Hammer." Natch...

[Sarah]

So is this the Checkpoint Parody day? I guess it was bound to happen...

[Rake]

Totally unplanned, folks. (And a hearty congrats to you, Ms. Sarah.)