So O.B.L (his terrorism rap name) mentions a book called “Rogue State” on his taped message and next thing you know it went from obscurity to #30 in Amazon.com sales. Next month, I hear he is recommending “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Actually, if he went for “Tropic of Cancer” he could implement literary terrorism. That book sucked on a level only a “classic” could. If everyone started reading that, aside from heads imploding, those who actually understood the book would be mentally incompetent from that day forward, or criminally insane. So maybe he is on to something.


Here is a sample from “Tropic of Cancer.”

I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul. It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!

This was probably the most comprehendible passage and its message was essentially that even a crappy work of art has some redeeming quality. In the case of this book, I did mange to get 75 cents trading it in at my college bookstore.