The Laws of Our Fathers by Scott Turow (1996)
After reading the novel it looks like a pretty stupid title. I guess this s---- has to be blamed on fathers since most of us are.
1969 The college age male students are about to enter the draft lottery for service in Vietnam. The plans are to live in California, protest the war, get stoned on booze and drugs big time, have lots of sex, run to Canada and let me fight their war for them. The female squeeze is also there enjoying it all. All funded from home. Active professors who advocate revolution and the Marxist doctrine are in the mix teaching the throng.
1995 The lady and the gent are now new members of and profiting from the society they criticized and abused. The lady becomes a judge much to the dislike of the Chief Judge she works under. Females don't belong. The male is a writer of fame who wants everyone to fell sorry for him.
The real killer for me is the conditions in the getto where murder, crime, drugs sale and use are openly commited without consequences.
Its all covered. Black vs white, Jews and the holacaust, conspiritcy by anarchist, marriage,
divorce, sex drugs, booze, crime.
And we are still going to war, so who are the father?
Recently my son asked me if I was a hippy. No, I said, I was too young, but I was growing up in those times and not really understanding all of what was going on. Then I tried to explain the difference between real hippies and fake hippies. Real hippies, I thought, were after justice, truth, and love and real change in the world (anti-war in a larger way, for instance), and fake hippies were about the drugs and sex, youthful rebellion,and, some of them, evading the draft. Real hippies stayed with their principles and went into work that matched their values. Fake hippies eventually got business-as-usual money jobs and joined the "establishment" they used to criticize.
ReplyDeleteSo it looks like you and I and Scott Turow might be trying to understand the same thing.
Fathers aren't S _ _ _. Some of them stay with their wives,(even though I bet there were times they wanted to leave), help raise their children and even after working for one company for almost 30 years, still go out and volunteer for for organizations that are doing good in the world.
ReplyDeleteYes, what a good man!
ReplyDelete