Replies

I read Webb's 'Fields of Fire' which, while not a great book and entirely too derivative of Norman Mailer's and James Jones' works, was a solid, well-written novel, and certainly one of the better Vietnam war novels. A published, award-winning fiction writer myself--and no fan of Webb's political views--I resent this attack on his character by way of his fictional works. One of my short stories is about an acquitted child molester; another centers around four people who killed for money. Does that mean I sympathize or empathize with or secretly fantasize about their crimes? Emphatically, no.

Webb has plenty of weaknesses insofar as his political and philosophical views are concerned, all legitimate targets in a political campaign. This article was shoddy and below-the-belt.

I agree. Writing about an evil character or action is nowhere near the same as ACUTALLY DOING IT. Most of the books I've enjoyed had a great deal of moral ambivalence.

One of the primary reasons for Batman's popularity is because his only superpower is psychosis. Benevolent, certainly, but he is still psychotic.

One of my favorite books growing up was Snow Crash. It has a brief and consensual sexual encounter with a man and a 14-15 year old girl. I can't imagine that the writer was endorsing sexual abuse. And I certainly never thought that that was an invitation to molestation.

>>>One of my short stories is about an acquitted child molester; another centers around four people who killed for money. Does that mean I sympathize or empathize with or secretly fantasize about their crimes? Emphatically, no.>>>

So fine, you story is ABOUT THAT. There is nothing relevant to the story whatsoever in writing about a father putting his son's penis in his mouth for crying out loud.

I read the passage. It's disturbing, but I'll tell you what I think Webb was trying to do: he was painting a scene of a corner of someplace - sounded like Southeast Asia - that has gone over the brink and is reduced to hell and craziness.
That was the sense I got from it.
The act was foul, but seemed normal to the characters doing it.
The observer was shocked, and what happened was clearly on his mind and disturbing him.
But everyone around him was just focusing on the mission.

Webb was painting a background where absolutely everything is baleful, but routine to everyone in it. A place reduced to Hell.

From what I read, he wasn't condoning it. It was supposed to be shocking and nasty. You, the reader, were supposed to be horrified. But the characters themselves weren't horrified, because they were all burnt out from living in hell. The one character-observer was disturbed by it, just like you, the reader, is supposed to be.

That's what I got out of it, and what I think Webb was trying to do.
And actually, I think he did it quite effectively. He painted a picture of a creepy and collapsed place.

He does something similar in a line in "A Sense of Honor", in which he discusses how a physics teacher at Annapolis makes refraction make sense to the Midshipmen. It's effective writing, because I still remember the particular line 24 years after having read the book, and I only read it once.

Webb's a good writer, but his writing does reveal his temperament. A Sense of Honor reveals his temperament. When he was the Secretary of the Navy, the way he behaved, and the way he resigned, resembled very much his hotheaded character in A Sense of Honor.