Read Doctor Criminale (2000)

Doctor Criminale (2000) - Plot & Excerpts

I cannot remember exact details about this book (even though I read it not too long ago) but I know that I enjoyed it. I chose it out of a lengthy list of books to write a term paper over because my professor kept talking about what a funny book it was. I am so glad that I chose it because a) it was very entertaining for a book that I had to write a term paper over and b) I think that writing on Doctor Criminale is what got me an "A" in that class! Apparently my professor had been friends with Bradbury. She (my professor) said that this book was semi-autobiographical, and that she was the inspiration for one of the female characters in the book. She didn't tell me any of this until after I had read it and written a brilliant paper over it ... so I am glad that I genuinely liked it and had written favorably about it ... otherwise she probably would have failed me. It's about this young journalist named Francis Jay who is looking for (or just digging up dirt on) one Doctor Bazlo Criminale for a BBC special program. Criminale apparently played both sides during the Cold War and seemed to come out all right on top. Through Francis' adventure Bradbury writes (satirizing I guess) about post-Cold War politics and attitudes. In case you are wondering what class I read this for was about: it was the history of Eastern Europe and what Westerner's mistakenly refer to as "the Balkans." My professor was (and is) a Bulgarian obsessed with her job and correcting history. That is, correcting the Western version of Cold War history not from the perspective of either Communist or Defector ... but simply as a witness. I'm not sure how she manages to stay objective but she was a great professor and so she made sense.Read this book if you're interested in a fictional but still believable depiction of the post-Cold War world.

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