Nicholson Baker’s novel “Checkpoint,” which came out Tuesday, has caused a small media firestorm.
Critics quickly shot it down as plotless, vitriolic tirade against President Bush and his policies. Reviews accused Baker of hiding behind a deranged, leftist character as a way to air his anti-war views unchecked.
But I think it’s the critics who fired a cheap shot at a work of fiction that, while not completely successful from a literary standpoint, still stands as a vivid snapshot of at least one prevailing American mood.
Welcome back to the culture wars. Has the nation ever seemed so polarized? Has the rhetoric ever seemed so shrill? It’s not just liberals and conservatives, it’s everyone who feels that America’s future is uncertain–and that the other side will make a bigger mess of it.
In the book, Baker sets up a conversation between two friends, Jay and Ben. Jay blurts out his plan to assassinate the president, which he claims will save the country and “prevent further bloodshed.” Ben reasons with him: Put Bush’s four-year term into historical context. One man is not solely responsible for the nation’s military-industrial complex, the war in Iraq and a trail of dead innocent civilians, he says.
“Checkpoint” deals in fantasy, a kind of political pornography. It relies on sensational description to arouse a fierce emotional response–in this case one that’s in tune with the current fractured, mean-spirited political dialogue.
Don’t think so?
Watch Bill O’Reilly dress down the son of a 9/11 victim for the audacity to disagree with the Iraq war (in a clip from the documentary “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism.”) O’Reilly finally tells producers to cut the guy’s mic and kick him out of the studio, announcing that his dead father would be ashamed of him. The film goes on to paint Fox News as practically a mouthpiece for the administration, a media travesty.
Or consider the outraged reactions by conservatives to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Critics accused Moore of extreme manipulation, playing fast and loose with the truth to craft a persuasive narrative against the Bush administration. Reviews said he used suggestive footage and then stood back to let the audience connect the dots in ways he couldn’t factually support.
In “Checkpoint,” would-be assassin Jay lists incendiary facts about Iraq, the military and the administration, then he takes generous liberties to reroute each problem back to Bush.
But while the book may be a fantasy, the intense anti-Bush, anti-conservative sentiment Baker taps into is very real.
The gloves are off in the pages of newspapers and the halls of government. I hear people discussing the administration at parties, with their waiter or on the bus. The complaints run from the war to the economy to the state of civil liberties. Hot buttons abound: terrorism, stem-cell research or this election’s litmus test: same-sex marriage.
Even strangers are vocal about it during this pre-election frenzy. The clerk at Borders who rang up the sale said to me, “I bet John Ashcroft knows you bought this book.”
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In the public arena, celebrities are banding together to get Kerry elected, but the tenor of their support is extremely bitter.
Meanwhile liberal filmmakers are on a run, producing strident documentaries that slam the right. After “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and “Outfoxed,” there’s “The Hunting of the President,” “Control Room,” “The Corporation” and “Orwell Rolls in His Grave.”
As Ann Hornaday wrote in The Washington Post, “If you’re keeping score at home, it’s Lefties 6, Righties 0.”
And it’s only August. There are 88 game days left to go.
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