10/2/02
‘Red Rabbit’ falls long short of usual Clancy standards
By Jeff Minick
Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy.
Putnam, 2002. $17.95 — 618 pp.
Over
the years I have enjoyed some of the writings of Tom Clancy. The Hunt
For Red October, Patriot Games, and The Sum Of All Fears were particular
favorites.I had not read a Clancy novel in several years, and when I found his latest book, Red Rabbit in the library, I selected it for review. The book’s dust jacket promised a story of the attempted assassination of John Paul II in the early 1980’s, of the Russian involvement with this thwarted murder, and of our government’s attempts, via Clancy superstar Jack Ryan, to stop the killers.
What I found on reading the book — and I didn’t read it word for word, the sheer repetitiveness of the prose drove me to skim entire sections — was a story desperately in need of a diet. I quickly tired of Ryan’s lame thoughts about his wife and daughter, of Zaitzev’s arguments with himself about leaving the Soviet Union, of details like the Russian affinity for German appliances, found on both pages 88 and 91. With the exception of the last 100 pages, this book slogs rather than walks, and the diligent reader must slog with it.
Given the events of the last few years both in our nation and throughout the world — I refer to Waco, to Oklahoma City, to embassy bombings, to corporate cheating, to the terror murders last September — I wonder that anyone could be so bold as to continue to extol so uncritically our federal police and intelligence agencies. To glamorize secret police operations has always struck me as slightly un-American anyway; such agencies are necessary, but should always be vaguely suspect and vigilantly guarded. Clancy never has unkind words about the machinations or the men of these agencies. Such a complimentary take earns him access to certain government agencies and embassies, but we readers should not be as naïve as Mr. Clancy often appears in terms of the power of government.
There is an Irish song — I know the title as “Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye” — that laments the injuries of war. When the tune came to the United States, the song became the sunnier “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” The review below hobbles along to that spirited tune.
Tom Clancy has written another tome
(It’s long, it’s long)
Which is the reason for this poem.
(It’s long, it’s long)
The Reds are out to murder the pope
And leave poor Poland without any hope.
And it’s up to the feds to save the day,
The FBI and the CIA.
Red Rabbit is the name of the text;
(It’s long it’s long)
Your reviewer’s eyesight is nearly wrecked.
(It’s long, it’s long)
Six hundred pages of tiny print
Of bad dialogue without fundament
Will leave poor readers awash in prose
From all points south to the tip of their nose.
Zaitzev is the Soviet hare.
(It’s long, it’s long)
He wants to tell the pope to beware.
(It’s long, it’s long)
He and his wife and his daughter as well
Flee to the West from the Soviet hell,
To do good deeds and buy lotsa things,
To save the pope and live like kings.
Jack Ryan’s at the head of this tale;
(It’s long, it’s long)
A Russian assassin is gonna fail.
(It’s long, it’s long)
But the Feds and the Brits nab the wrong man,
The pope is shot by a Moslem hand;
Yet all is well with Ryan’s crew,
The pope survives and sees it through.
Now Clancy likes the government.
(It’s long, it’s long)
He pastes it up with compliments.
(It’s long, it’s long)
They’re hardworking chaps protecting you
Who never goof up and always come through;
They’ll frisk your granny, leave the border a sieve,
They’ll snatch your rights, but let you live.
(Jeff Minick can be reached saintsbookco@aol.com)