by Jean Raspail. 328 pages. 1973.
I posted earlier when I started this book:
Riveting. Disturbing. Enlightening. Relevant.It is a story of immigration on a short timeline. It is a story of crisis-as-a-means.
All that is still true, but I have to advise that you do not buy this book.
I bought the Kindle version. It is not formatted for the Kindle. There are many typos. The author's writing style and paragraph structure are horrible. I didn't take notice during the fascinating parts of the book (mostly in the first half), but it was a chore to finish the book as the last half looks like something I wrote in high school.
Having said that, I promised a review, and I think this book deserves a review. An excellent story, and clearly a brilliant author.
Review:
I was first shocked that I had not heard of this book before. It read like an Ayn Rand book. The author easily shifts between dialogue of pro-western characters and the pro-immigration useful idiots. He captures the motivations and rationalizations of each. We hear the opinions of townfolk, government bureaucrats, media and elected leaders.
Another Ayn Rand comparison is the publication date. This must have been a widely dismissed book back in 1973. But now, like an Ayn Rand book, it is clearly a warning from a very intelligent and prescient author.
It is an accelerated story of illegal immigration. Mass immigration. Imagine. You have a couple week's notice of a million immigrants headed to your shores on stolen ships. I share the author's assumption that our government leaders will stall, hesitate and ignore the threat until it is too late. He equally predicts the useful idiots who are anxious to welcome the 'citizens of the world' to their shores. The author delivers these themes in such a way that no future book will compare. (I'm only speaking to the first half of the book.)
Another comparison would be to Zombie books. You have a hoard of beings coming for your property. They know nothing of western life, nor have any interest in knowing. They take, then move on to take elsewhere. Their only feelings, per se, are that you owe them and their arrival will restore the world to its natural state.
I highlighted a lot. Here is just a taste:
On this Easter Sunday evening, eight hundred thousand living beings, and thousands of dead ones, were making their peaceful assault on the Western World. Tomorrow it would all be over.---There was no electricity. Obviously, the technicians from the power plants along the coast had fled north too, with all the others, the petrified mob, turning tail and running off without a word, so as not to have to look, not see a thing, which meant they wouldn't have to understand, or even try.---The poor had overrun the earth. Self-reproach was the order of the day; happiness, a sign of decadence.---"No hope, Doctor Hailer?" "No hope, Mr. Mayor. Unless you kill them all, that is, because you'll never change them. How about that?" "Good God, man, hardly! Let's just wait and see what happens, and try to do the best we can..."---And you know what? You'll have to knock at your door, your very own door, to beg for a glass of water!---Real-world drama, served in the comfort of home by that whore called Mass Media, only stirs up the void where Western opinion has long been submerged. Someone drools at a current event, and mistakes his drivel for meaningful thought. Still, let's not be too quick to spit our scorn its way. Empty drivel indeed, but is shows nonetheless how reading the papers or watching the news can provoke at least the appearance of thinking.
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