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Title: DAMASCUS GATE by Robert Stone ISBN: 0-684-85911-4 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.94 (117 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Boring, irrelevant, slow, and misleading
Comment: The back cover of "Damascus Gate" offers a summary of what the reader should expect to discover inside. The first two sentences of the summary are as follows: "On the cusp of the millennium, Jerusalem has become a battleground in the race for redemption. American journalist Christopher Lucas is investigating religious fanatics when he discovers a plot to bomb the sacred Temple Mount."
I reached page 50 of 500 (in the paperback) and was disappointed that the excitement of the bombing plot had not yet been revealed to Lucas. I thought, "it's just got to be right around the corner." So, I kept reading. Page 75, no plot. Page 100, no plot. Page 125, no plot. Page 150, no plot. At that point, I decided that if the book is really this slow to get to the promised excitement (and the blurb on the back this misleading), I did not want to continue. I put the book down and am now loving "The DaVinci Code."
Yet, deception and pace are not the only reasons I stopped reading this book. In a land filled with Jews, Muslims, and Christians, the author, Robert Stone, has managed to write a book whose key characters are a Sufi, a Jew for Jesus, and a half Jew/half Christian. Page 132 begins: "We're all mutants here. De Kuff became a Catholic, communion every morning. I was with Jews for Jesus. Sonia is a Sufi, she was a Communist."
If you like a slow read about fringe personas, not particularly relevant to the struggle over the Holy Land, I recommend this book to you. However, if you are picking up this book because of your interest in the region and its people, skip it and move to the next book on your reading list.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Total Trip
Comment: I found this book to be haunting, cautionary, and at the some time both hallucinogenic and sweetly human. It comes highly recommended, offering a unique and balanced glimpse and the confusion, misery and hope of the world's most troubled region while taking the reader on a magic carpet ride worthy of Kerouac.
Rating: 4
Summary: Incisive look at religion and politics
Comment: There are a lot more negative reviews here than I expected to find. Many reviewers seem to be complaining that the book cover contains too many positive reviews, like it's Mr. Stone's fault that all those elitist, liberal, East coast reviewers liked his book. Truth be told, there were some elements in this book that were a bit irritating. Most of the characters speak in a coy, sardonic fashion that would drive me crazy if I heard it in real life. They also tend to be unconvincingly brilliant. I just haven't met too many drug abusing musicians that have read voraciously on every subject under the sun, and can quote by memory ancient religious texts in several languages, but there are a couple of characters like that in D.G. Nevertheless, the positives of the book totally outweighed these concerns. First of all, D.G. is set in a city that is constantly in the headlines, and he does a pretty good job at depicting the political undercurrents at work. While many will naturally complain that Stone wrote too favorably of one particular group or the other, I thought he was relatively dispassionate and balanced. The political action is kind of at the margins, however. Stone is more concerned with spiritual matters. I liked the idea of the main character, Cris Lucas, writing a book on religious fanatics. This gives Stone the chance to introduce all sorts of eclectic characters. Many people complain that Stone focuses too much on these "fanatics," and does not feature enough "average" Israelis. However, Stone has always written about marginal, disaffected characters, these are the people who interest him. If you don't want to read about people like this, then don't read Stonee. And not many novelists have written convincingly and intellectually on religious fanaticism. Besides, millenialism is hardly a marginal ideology in this day and age, just turn on the television and check out all of those suave evagelists urging Christians to support Israel. Stone has some very interesting things to say about this. And, while the main character, Mr. Lucas, may at times seem too "hip," I found him to be likeable and could sympathize with his spiritual plight. All in all, I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the Middle East and can read about political and spiritual matters objectively and intelligently.
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Title: A Flag for Sunrise by ROBERT STONE ISBN: 0679737626 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395860253 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 02 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395860288 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Bay of Souls : A Novel by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395963494 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Children of Light by Robert Stone ISBN: 0679735933 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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