| Binding: Paperback |
| EAN: 9780395244005 |
| ISBN: 0395244005 |
| Label: Houghton Mifflin (T) |
| Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin (T) |
| Number Of Items: |
| Number Of Pages: 309 |
| Product Group: Book |
| Publication Date: 1976-07 |
| Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (T) |
| Sales Rank on Amazon: 379,966 |
| Studio: Houghton Mifflin (T) |
| UPC: |
Source:Product Description
Hood, a renegade American diplomat, envisions a new urban order through the opium fog of his room. His sometimes bedmate, Mayo, has stolen a Flemish painting and is negotiating for publicity with "The Times". Murf the bomb-maker leaves his mark in red whilst his girlfriend Brodie bombs Euston.
Average Customer Review: 4.5
Total Customer Reviews: 3
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful:
Rating: 4
Summary: a more hopeful Secret Agent
Theroux is reprising Conrad's Secret Agent. The hero, Valentine Hood, is originally a US Consul in VietNam, but quits in disgust after punching a leading Vietnamese politician for saying "These people aren't worth it." Hood is hiding in London, trying to get in with the Irish Provos to bring down the 'Establishment.' The ultimate explosion and shooting deaths destroy only anarchists and their materiel. That sketch is essentially Conrad's Secret Agent as well, but Conrad's story held nothing but stupidity and pointless scheming. The world is hopeless, and the only thing worse than the establishment running it is the nincompoops trying to destroy it. Theroux, on the other hand, offers some hope, based on the family unit, and on normal people who can tell the difference between struggling to make life better, vs. just blabbing about it.
Theroux makes no secret of his take on the Secret Agent; he mentions it explicitly several times, and refers to characters from it an additional few times. Theroux's plot is as full of impossible coincidences as A Midsummer Night's Dream, but he doesn't pretend to be serious about that part.. it's very entertaining to watch him weave all the characters together in one big net.
My personal choice of sentence quotes: "Sex, an expression of freedom, made you less free: the penalty of freedom was a reverie of loneliness." The warmth and feeling of "family" are woven throughout the book.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful:
Rating: 5
Summary: Gripping Tale of London's Poor Laced With Violence
Without question, Paul Theroux has been among our most astute observers of human nature writing in the English language. In "The Family Arsenal", a terse, compelling look at crime in London's slums, Paul Theroux takes an unflinching, often brutal, look at the interplay between adverse poverty and crime. Furthermore he adds to this compelling mixture an intriguing look at IRA terrorism being waged on the streets of London. All of this is told through vivid, well-crafted prose. Fans of Paul Theroux's work will not be disappointed with his latest fictional excursion into an abyss of contemporary Western society.
13 out of 15 people found this review helpful:
Rating: 5
Summary: From the dark side of life...
Theroux has always been an unflinching narrator on human nature. With a novel like Mosquito Coast he gave you a look at the mind of a genius and his estrangement to materialism. With The Family Arsenal, Theroux gives you a look at the close knit troubles of family life in the slums of London, and the frightening results of sudden violence that can arrupt at any moment. A haunting portrait of a society on the downward trend towards hell on earth.
