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LITTLE_DRUMMER_GIRL

                                                November 14-21, 2006

I read the John le Carre novel
"The Little Drummer Girl"
shortly after it was published
in 1984 (a few years after
I'd graduated from college).

This is a tale of a young
woman recruited to act as
a spy on the Palestinians;       A theme that le          "The Honourable
they thought she was ideal       Carre has returned       Schoolboy"
for the undercover work,         to several times is
because of her background        the shapelessness of        "A Perfect
as an actress with an            human character --          Spy"
involvement in left-wing
political organizations          This is a difficult
when she was in college.         subject to write about in
                                 an engaging way -- it
Along the way, le Carre          undercuts the story form
talks a little about the         at a fundamental level.
Israel-Palestine dispute,
and shows characters                                  This novel is
from both sides in                                    le Carre's most
action.                                               succesful
                                                      effort at this.
This was actually the
first time that I                                     The young woman
understood how Israel                                 is turned against
was created:                                          her former side
                                                      through a very
At the end of the second                              gradual, delicate
world war, after the                                  process that's
Nazi holocaust, the UN                                fascinating to
set up a "Jewish Nation"                              watch.
as a refuge...  And the
Palestinians were the                                    A question
people who were actually                                 though: could
living there at the time.                                it be that the
                                                         reason this
   Nowhere in my schooling,                              novel "works"
   nowhere in the American                               is that it's
   media, had I stumbled                                 the one with
   across that simple point                              a female
   of history.                                           protagonist?

   We heard "Palestinian" and                               Perhaps
   "terrorist" paired together                              we don't
   over and over again, without                             reject
   ever getting a sense of the                              a drifting,
   original cause of the fight.                             malleable
                                                            female
       I talked with The                                    character
       Toadkeeper about this                                in the same
       book, and he commented                               way we
       "Can you believe I saw a                             would a
       review of that book in                               male one.
       the New York Times that
       claimed it was a                                         ROMANCE
       pro-Palestine book?"

            I responded:
            "Oh yeah.
            Sure it is."

          He was disgusted: to him it
          was a neutral presentation
          of the issue -- "the reader
          must decide, just as the
          characters must decide"...

                   The thing is: I think
                   we were both right.

                   When everything you
                   hear is biased in
                   one direction, a
                   neutral viewpoint
                   is heard as a
                   contrary argument.

                   Maybe it's not possible
                   to be neutral in a             NEUTRAL_ADVOCATE
                   partisan world.



At that point I remained
tentatively pro-Israel...            As one of le Carre's characters
                                     puts the question: Do you think
But I understood that                Israel should be swept off into
this might have been an              the sea?
artifact of the bias in
American culture.                    Well, no.

                                          START_THE_CLOCK





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