Thursday 18 March 2010

Book Review!

Anne Applebaum - Gulag

Took me a while, and at the end of it, I wished I'd spent my time on something less perversely, pointlessly and counter-productively skewed/biased - like a weakipedia article.

The Sound of Music has a curious effect on me - it gets me cheering for the Nazis. It's the only thing in existence to do this, and Anne's book is the equivalent in terms of Stalinism. Didn't take long before I was cheering for little, deformed Jozef and wanting to print my own "Go Solovestsky!" t-shirts. All on account of her stupidly twisted portrayal. Any normal person would have presented the horrors of the Gulag and taken a step back from the horror in disgust. I know I would. But no, not Anne.

Let's spend more time trying to link the Gulag to Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, even the British Fucking Labour Party than we will spend trying to point out the pointless, brutal corruption that was Stalinism. Hell, whilst we're at it, let's chuck in an obtuse defence of McCarthy. Stupid, stupid woman. All those resources at her disposal, all that horror to expose, and she spends a welter of her time on a ridiculous politicial polemic. She doesn't deserve the archival access she attained. But then, she doesn't deserve the eyes that evolution/god/reagan gave her, either.

A waste of resources, time, effort, brainpower and clever font. Anne? Fuck off.

Cheers, ta, bye.

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