Winkie by Clifford Chase
"Of all the anti-Bush books out there, none is as wonderfully strange as Chase's debut novel."- Entertainment WeeklyIf this book is anti-Bush then I obviously wasn't in on the joke. This was one of the worst books I ever read in my life. If you think that this is really not a fair statement, your wrong, it is an understatement. I picked this book up because I saw it everywhere for a period of time and figured that it was calling to me to try it out. http://www.freewinkie.com/
I spent at least a few nights this week reading a few pages at a time and then all of Mon. cramming to get it in with the last 40 pages left for Tues. morning. What a relief I had when I put this ridiculous book down.
Review: I am so fed up with this book that I do not think I will even do the summary justice. Here is a review from Amazon:
From Booklist
With the recent controversy over domestic spying, the literary world is ripe for skewering America's unwieldy War on Terror--but good. In this wryly comic, paradoxically touching first novel, Chase delivers a cleverly original allegory on the absurdities of our terror-obsessed culture. After suffering years of neglect by children who have grown and moved on, a tattered teddy bear named Winkie miraculously discovers the power of movement and runs away to the forest to begin a new life. Unfortunately, this particular forest has been pigeonholed as the hideout for a notorious terrorist, and militant FBI agents quickly surround Winkie with drawn weapons and whirling helicopters. Unsure quite what to make of the diminutive quadruped--Is he a Middle-Eastern midget or a bizarre genetic experiment?--the authorities nevertheless trot out their standard interrogation techniques while charging the little bear with unparalleled barbarism. In the surrealistic courtroom circus that follows, Winkie faces a gauntlet of bizarre witnesses from the trials of Socrates, Galileo, and Oscar Wilde--an ordeal he endures by retreating into memories of the early years that nurtured his awakening. Inspired by a stuffed animal from his childhood (photographs of the bona fide Winkie are sprinkled throughout), Chase turns in a masterfully measured social critique featuring a protagonist as endearing as any from the classics of childhood literature.
Carl Hays Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.
Final Note: The back flap of this book has a quote from a musician Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields who says he is seriously considering getting a Winkie tattoo. Is he nuts? Yeah, and here is another nut who devoted a whole blog to Winkie. http://www.freewinkie.blogspot.com/
