in his manifesto of a song that was Asshole, Denis Leary sang/spoke of liking "football and porno and books about war". the latter was not true of my good self until i discovered the books of Tom Clancy.
for the most part he wrote fairly straightforward tales of military exploits here, there and everywhere around the world. the undercurrent, certainly, was that America was great and right, and there was always a sense of a right-wing agenda to the morality of the conclusions which always showed the American way to be the right way. pretty much what you would expect from someone who made no bones about his patriotism.
i may not have subscribed to the politics of that, but i, along with anyone else who grew up in the 80s, will recall a time when America was, or at least indeed seemed, to be as virtuous and right as Clancy forever wrote it to be; certainly it was the nation that stood between a free world and Soviet domination.
having enjoyed the dozen or so books of his i have read, it was sad to learn of his passing yesterday, aged 66. quite likely this will be an excuse to pick up and read the books of his i just never got around to.
he was a great writer in the truest sense of the term - his books entertained and were easy to read and enjoy. high quality literature and awards are very nice, sure, but not always enjoyable or straightforward reading. when people pick up a book to read for leisure, they don't want to have to have a brain melt comprehending it all.
hopefully this is not in poor taste, but to quote a certain actor portraying one of Clancy's most famous characters in the first film to be made of one of his books, he "shails into hishtoree", leaving a cargo at port of tales of high adventure.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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