“The Bear and the Dragon” is 1137 pages long. It could have been less than 600 if Clancy had left out the political propaganda. The book’s focus is anti-China rhetoric. President Jack Ryan’s trusted SecTreas calls them “little slant-eyed fucks” and “Chink bastards”. SecState uses “our little yellow brothers” followed by “conscienceless motherfuckers” (“motherfuckers”, “cocksuckers”, and “barbarians” are primary descriptors of the Chinese). A Treasury hero calls them “little chinks”, “backwards commies” and “Chinese barbarians” who eat “fried panda penis” and “think they’re the fucking master race”. That is affirmed by the US Ambassador. All non-Christian Chinese characters are evil, (except one naive girl who likes sex), and Chinese-Americans, even those in the CIA and military, aren’t trusted with sensitive information (and don't get a single word of dialogue). The president’s private discussions refer to them as “aliens” or “Klingons”. The president calls China's policy “incomprehensible barbarism” and talks about the “incomprehensible stupidity” of the “Fuckin’ barbarians”. President Ryan compares them to Nazis, visits Auschwitz, then promises to defeat the Chinese so it will never happen again. There’s lots of actual preaching, including ten pages of evangelical sermon (broadcast by CNN) in the middle, and the pastors focus on the “heathens”, “godless pagans”, and “Sons of Satan” in China, how evil they are, how Mao was “the voice of Satan” and the “mouthpiece of the fires of hell” and how they love pretending they are gods. The main sermon ends with:“When Jesus looks into our hearts, will he see people who support the sons of Lucifer? Will Jesus see people who give them money to support the godless killers of the innocent? Will Jesus see people who support the new Hitler?”Anti-Communism statements are omnipresent. Dozens of characters monologue about how stupid and unworkable communism is and how only idiots could believe it. Even the thoughts of the Communist characters are depicted as stupid. In a book set in 2000, the focus on Mao’s sex life is mind-boggling:“’They have this big, perfect theoretical model, promulgated by Karl Marx, refined by Lenin, then applied in their country by a pudgy sexual pervert named Mao.’‘Oh? Pervert?’‘Yeah.’ Ryan looked up. ‘Mao liked virgins, the younger the better. Maybe he liked to see the fear in their cute little virginal eyes— kinda like rape, not so much sex as power. Well, I guess it could have been worse—at least they were girls,’ Jack observed rather dryly.” – page 52“Chairman Mao’s personal habits were not recorded, but his lifelong love for deflowering twelve-year-olds was well known in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” – page 130“Few men of his years had his vigor, Fang was sure, and unlike Chairman Mao, he didn’t abuse children, which he’d known of at the time and found somewhat distasteful.” – page 168“Hell, Chairman Mao liked doing twelve-year-old virgins, like changing shirts. I guess old as he was, it was the best he could do—“ – page 505“Mao was like that, as we all know….”“I must be too Catholic,” the President thought aloud. “The idea of Mao popping little girls makes my skin crawl.”“They didn’t mind, Mr. President,” Weaver told him. “Some would bring their little sisters over after they got in bed with the Great Leader. It’s a different culture, and it has different rules from ours.” – page 794"What would the fathers of those barely nubile little girls have thought? Honored to have their daughters deflowered by the great Mao Zedong?" - page 794The book also focuses on China’s one-child policy. The secretary for a top Chinese official tells a Japanese businessman that as a woman, “I suppose I’m lucky to be alive”. The middle 200 pages is devoted to a couple who wants a second child after their first child dies, climaxing when doctors attempt a forced birth-abortion, a Vatican City cardinal and a Chinese Baptist stop him, and the police murder both, with the government supporting the police. Wait – a police officer murders an unarmed diplomat and a pastor in front of CNN cameras, and the government supports them? The next day Chinese police brutally beat 34 Chinese Christians, including the dead pastor’s wife, on her own front lawn (again in front of CNN cameras). Clancy even suggests that the Chinese government might be harvesting the organs of aborted newborns and selling them on the black market.Besides constant rips on China, Mao, and everything Communist, there’s lots of pro-capitalism. A big theme is China’s unfair trade laws and how America deserves a level playing field (ignoring that we have unfair trade laws against most 3rd-world countries). There are speeches about why wealthy people are the smartest, the hardest working, and make the best government leaders. Jack Ryan is Clancy’s consummate hero, and the book frequently brags about his $80,000,000 bank account, million-dollar jewelry, and collection of fine furs. President Ryan also makes a point of emphasizing that there is no such thing as “class” in America and everyone can have wealth if they work hard. He lauds the superior morality of Wall Street capitalists several times. At one point the ultra-rich SecTreas and former Wall Street tycoon sincerely declares: “Oh, okay, up on The Street we trade jokes and stories and even plot a little, but deliberately fucking people over—no! I’ve never done that!” This same major Wall Street player expresses incredulity that America even does business with the Chinese. Copious displays of wealth – private jets, fine cigars, fine jewelry, fine art, fine clothing – are made by those smart, hard-working, and righteous enough to have earned them. Clancy attacks politicians for being greedy while mocking them for not making enough money:“Congress had largely been populated with people whose life’s ambition was ‘public service,’ a phrase whose noble intent had been usurped by those who viewed $130,000 per year as a princely salary (it was far less than a college dropout could earn doing software for a computer-game company, and a hell of a lot less than one could make working on Wall Street)”There’s lots of other conservative propaganda. Roe v. Wade was a mistake (Ryan’s hand-picked judges will overturn it) and abortion is wrong. Government is evil and politicians are corrupt (except Ryan and his already-wealthy friends). More oil must be drilled and environmentalists are mocked. Clancy’s adoration of violence is throughout. Our law enforcement is at its best when it can "take justice into its own hands". “Real men” have killed bad guys. “Real men” die with a gun in their hands. Pro-military rhetoric is constant.“The United States Army had never been an army of conquest. Indeed, its ethos has always been liberation, and part and parcel of that was the expectation that the people who lived there would be of assistance, or at least show gratitude for their deliverance, rather than hostility. It was so much a part of the American military’s history that its senior members rarely, if ever, thought about other possibilities.” Clancy uses Vietnam as an example, without mentioning that the United States came to STOP Vietnam’s liberation from the French, then stayed for 12 years trying to prop up puppet governments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos against the will of the majority. Our conquests of Native Americans, Mexicans, Spanish, Filipinos, and much of Central America are also ignored. Clancy minimizes the significance of killing enemy soldiers, stating that they should have trained harder or not put the uniform on. Clancy is absurdly blind on this point when he says the US military relies on massive bombing, rather than manpower, because unlike other nations we place a high value on human life. Is Clancy unaware that our massive bombing campaigns kill far more civilians than our manpower-intensive infantry campaigns, or did he actually mean “American life” when he said “human life”? American life does appear to have extra value - after talking about how the Chinese were going to hell, a pastor comments that he loved comforting dying U.S. Marines because he “knew they were going to see God”. A different pastor, getting full-on with the war effort (before the Chinese had even invaded anyone), states “Let’s give those Sons of Satan a reason to fear us”.There are typical anti-liberal attacks. The “bad guy” in the State Department is a close friend of the liberal ex-vice president. He is ripped on for going to Harvard. A Brown professor is portrayed as a detached academic callous about human life, as opposed to the CIA and military personnel he’s speaking to. There’s a reference to “fairyfied French food”, and several rips on Europe, especially their government and media. The American media, with their “lingering liberalism”, are said to not respect the public and have “great solicitude for communist countries”. Feminists are mocked several times, of course, and homosexual and lesbian sex is derided as wrong. Speaking of that, penis and testicle size are frequently referenced. Both individual Chinese characters and the Chinese as a whole have small penises (literally and figuratively), while Americans have large ones (literally and figuratively). An American spy's penis is called a "sausage" by his Chinese lover several dozen times and compared favorably to her former Chinese partners. Every Chinese male’s sexual act is some form of perversion, but for the Americans there are “boys must be boys” sexual conquests. Men’s use of prostitutes, especially the use of Asian prostitutes by the American military, is condoned as expected and acceptable by numerous characters. Though there are no Japanese characters (just one Japanese-American), the “sexual perversions” of the Japanese are referred to multiple times. As far as plot goes, it’s one of the worst that Ryan has written. From the beginning you know the Chinese will start a war with the Russians to get their gold and oil, and the Americans will help the Russians defeat them easily. You know the 75-year-old Russian hunter will shoot some Chinese, the spy will produce critical information, the Rainbow guys will run a mission in Russia, the missile-defense software will prevent a nuclear attack on Washington. I only saw one surprising plot turn – at the last second President Ryan makes the most idiotic decision in presidential history (that is a HUGE bar), but in Clancy’s world it’s heroic. Every military engagement goes perfectly for the American/Russian forces. Every spy move goes perfectly for the American/Russian agents. Every decision President Ryan makes is the right one. As others have noted, Clancy is really sloppy with repetition. Most characters are Clancy mainstays recycled with higher rank to fit whatever roles he needs. Over and over the same jokes are repeated, insults made, explanations detailed, wisdom given. We hear that one secretary gives her boss better oral sex than the other secretary at least 5 times from at least 4 different characters. President Ryan is CONSTANTLY declaring how much he hates being president, to the point that everyone around him would be sick of him if he were a real life character. The whole book is tedious – I grew up loving Red Storm Riding, The Hunt for Red October, and Clear and Present Danger, but this one was trash. I leave you with its final words:“Ming went out to dinner—the restaurants hadn’t closed—with her foreign lover, gushing over drinks and noodles with the extraordinary events of the day, then walked off to his apartment for a dessert of Japanese sausage.”
"You still reading that fascist crap?" --Mr. Brady, my 8th-grade History teacherThis book has been brought to you by Drunk Uncle. Hooooly shit, this was bad. I had pretty low expectations going in but, wow, this is easily one of the worst books I've ever read. It's definitely the longest terrible book I've actually finished since Atlas Shrugged. Broadly racist, broadly sexist, and yes, generally fascist in terms of its politics. Nevermind the wooden, monochromatic prose and the contrived, predictable plot, let's just cover some of the cringe-inducing elements, shall we? They all reflect a creepy, repressed-Republican obsession with sexual issues, expressed through mentions of Mao Zedong's predilections (repeated ad nauseum), President Jack Ryan's caveman morality regarding abortion, and the awful depiction of intimacy between Nomuri (American spy) and Ming (his Chinese source.) Can anyone say armpit hair? ("... but it just gave him something else to play with. She giggled...") Clancy even closes the book with one last reference to Nomuri's genitalia as a "Japanese sausage," as though that were some crude joke he alone finds especially funny.Speaking of funny, there are unintentionally hilarious throwback moments, which illustrate just how behind-the-times this was, even for the year 2000. Government officials all apparently use America Online: "You've got mail!" when their latest top-secret communique arrives. Basic computer-age acronyms are repeatedly spelled out for Grandpa Reader ("ISP-- that's Internet Service Provider--") Less funny but still kind of weird: the director of Central Intelligence and her deputy (I believe) are a married couple, and over and over again she refers to her spouse at work as "Honey Bunny." Really? There are a thousand pages and also about a thousand typos, which completely and comically disrupt the meaning of certain lines. Not to mention all the back-story explanations of other events that happened in the Tom Clancy universe, which only serve to remind you of other preposterous stuff he's gotten away with. It's just cover-to-cover crazy.
What do You think about The Bear And The Dragon (2001)?
Tout commence par un attaque à la roquette en plein Moscou, sur une voiture qui aurait pu être celle de S. Golovko, le principal conseiller du président russe ; et par l'assassinat du représentant du Pape et d'un pasteur baptiste par un policier chinois. A partir de là nous suivons l'escalade d'un conflit né d'incompréhensions mutuelles et de considérations géopolitiques. Je me suis ennuyée en lisant cet opus de Tom Clancy. En m'appuyant sur le titre, je pensais que l'histoire concernait un conflit entre la Chine et la Russie, mais il s'agit en fait d'un conflit entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis. L'histoire part de très très en amont et les différents "fils" mettent très, très longtemps avant de se nouer. C'est beaucoup trop long. Quand on ouvre un Clancy on sait qu'on va lire un livre à la gloire de l'Amérique, mais dans ce tome c'est vraiment trop grandiloquent. Les américains y sont les seuls à savoir tout faire correctement, les autres pays ne sont que des incapables. D'habitude j'arrive à en faire abstraction pour profiter du scénario, mais cette fois je n'ai pas pu. Bref, une déception. Je vais relire Octobre rouge ou Jeux de guerre.
—LaurieLire
This is something of a mash of previous Clancy plots with 600 extra pages thrown in for good measure. China, who is facing a major economic problem ( Red Storm Rising), decides to start a war with Russia. The Chinese are lead by a cadre of arrogant, out of touch oligarchs ( Debt of Honor) who are unable to see that they are in over their heads. This culminates in the US coming to Russia's aid, where they wreck all comers (Just about every Clancy book ever), and the Chinese attempting to nuke a US city ( Sum of All Fears), after a failed operation by Rainbow to take the nukes out.Overall, it was OK, but llllloooonnnngggggg. Fortunately these books read pretty quickly, and the action bits were good.One thing I picked up that I hadn't noticed reading Clancy books as a kid: dude is obsessed with money. By the end of this book, you will know the annual salary of most of the main characters and how much more they could be making if only they hadn't lowered themselves to taking key positions running the country, blah, blah, blah. It's pretty annoying, especially Ryan's unending complaining about being the President. Yeah, having the distinct honor of being the chief executive of the greatest nation in history is a real pain in the ass, I'm sure. Hopefully his millions of dollars (which the book keeps mentioning) will console him.Oh, and this book has the worst closing line in the history of printed media.
—Mike
No they don't like it either but will tolerate it if the movie is what they think is exciting. What I meant was that the books and movies that use that sort of language is a certain type of story and character and even if they take a book that has tough language and clean it up (some) the character is still the same and I don't like the character that uses that language even when they don't used the rough language - If that makes any sense.???
—Kelli
