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Mission Compromised

   MISSION COMPROMISED New year went ave 08-Jan-03 noname
     Thank You Noname ji Aha! finally, a r 08-Jan-03 SITARA
       good one noname ji.. 08-Jan-03 forget-me-not
         Thanks SITARA and forget-me-not. (The 08-Jan-03 noname

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noname	Posted on 08-Jan-03 06:45 AM MISSION COMPROMISED New year went average in terms of my selection of books. From couple of months, my book shelve was asking me to do something with those books I acquired with green dollar. MISSION COMPROMISED was one of them and I picked it for New Year reading. It's a matter of trivia to know about convictions and belief of Oliver North and accordingly adjust the mind frame to welcome what he has to preach. A conservative, nationalistic and veteran in peak of cold war conspiracy, North is predictive throughout the book and his physical presence is felt everywhere. North is obvious when he portrays a Democratic administration as betrayer and questions role of UN in resolving the conflicts. He does not believe in Political solution and stifles at the fact that Military is not the decision maker when it comes to the national level policy and security issues. The Mission is to terminate an international terrorist ring and thanks to the Congressman, Security Advisor and other policy makers who are easily swayed by election-fund contribution from corporate houses, it is compromised. Newman - Marine Corps, off course - is assigned the duty to work in direct command of National Security Advisor who is serving for a Democrat president. The mission has to be carried out under the surveillance of UN. The mission was destined to fail from its birth as the UN too is involved and moreover, a person with Russian surname – who had worked as double agent for KGB, is representing the UN. So far, North is obvious. Having served for US Millitary and being a key figure in Iran-Contra arms dealing, North comfortably moves ahead with military jargon and thrilling army operation. North gives a comprehensive insight of working command in White House and influence of corporate houses in decision-making. And, advance technology that US military uses. Where it strikes odd is when he turns an evangelist. Newman, our hero, has a wife and house but fails to turn it a home. The troubled wife is confused and North wants to make sense of her trouble and solicits way to overcome it by quoting few lines of Bible that does not make sense at all. Her friend quotes few lines from New Testament and the poor lady taking solace in extra-marital affairs takes U-turn to be a believer. North has not been able to give a smooth transition from her torrential life to a life of faith and those few lines of Bible stand there lifeless. Mission Compromised, a novel well above 600 pages, needs patience to read and to find that so much paper has been wasted. To quote Francis Bacon: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Mission Compromised deserves to be read, but not curiously.
SITARA	Posted on 08-Jan-03 07:13 AM Thank You Noname ji Aha! finally, a readable thread! :)
forget-me-not	Posted on 08-Jan-03 04:22 PM good one noname ji..
noname	Posted on 08-Jan-03 07:07 PM Thanks SITARA and forget-me-not. (The following information may be useful of fellow SAJHITES. I took this information from Times Online ( I am not sure, though!) sometimes back.) The top 100 books of all time Wednesday May 8, 2002 Full list of the 100 best works of fiction, alphabetically by author, as determined from a vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries as released by the Norwegian Book Clubs. Don Quixote was named as the top book in history but otherwise no ranking was provided. Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions Emily Bronte, England,(1818-1848), Wuthering Heights Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems. Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man Euripides, Greece, (c. 480-406 B.C.), Medea William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c.1800 B.C.). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls Guenter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger. Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea Homer, Greece, (c.700 B.C.), The Iliad and The Odyssey Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC). James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek D.H. Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers Halldor K. Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories Mahabharata, India, (c. 500 BC). Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays. Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c. 1300). George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984 Ovid, Italy, (43 BC-17 e.Kr.), Metamorfoses Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo Jalal ad-din Rumi, Iran, (1207-1273), Mathnawi Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c. 1200-1292), The Orchard Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories Anton P. Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500). Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Valmiki, India, (c. 300 BC), Ramayana Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway To the Lighthouse Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian