I like this story. I like it because I hate it.
It leaves me sad and empty, fills me with feelings of bitterness and regret at the sheer awfulness of what I just heard. But this sadness is to a point: It illustrates the tragic stupidity of terrorism. How anyone could construe this story as glamorizing or encouraging terrorism is beyond me: This is as anti-terrorist a piece as you could write.
I think the greatest strength of this piece is that it treats the subject with such compassion. Antonio is not a lunatic or a fanatic. He isn't mad with idealistic zeal. He is a man with deep and legitimate grievances. His pain is real and his anger is justified. While what he finally does is wrong, it is important to see his story, the string of tragedy and injustice leading up to his final wrong choice. This teaches us to remember that those who do evil are still human and to recognize that none of us should consider themselves "above" such acts. Antonio could be anybody: There is no one endowed with the inherent goodness to make them immune to temptation in the midst of despair.
This piece was brilliantly written, top to bottom, but there's one part I want to comment on especially, and that is the descriptions of nudity. I've complained about gratuitous sex in past episodes and if I laid out my moral beliefs, some of you would doubtless gasp that such extreme prudishness endures into the 21st century. But this was good: The description of Enola's body was not neither gratuitous nor pornographic. It let me feel what Antonio felt toward her, that mix of desire, awe and protectiveness that a woman's nakedness does (and should) inspire in her man. I empathized, and so his motivation for violence and his anguish at the horrid end both hit me at a deeply emotional level. Again, brilliant writing.
Along those lines, I was very impressed with the detailed and authentic portrayal of everyone and everything. The Martians are violently oppressive while thinking themselves benevolent: So like real people. The conversations around the dinner table vividly lay out the frustrations of the family while they give us insight into their unique personalities. The authentic Italian details were great: You could smell. The condom was a poignant illustration of Antonio and Enola's stifled romance. All wonderful, all literary, all adding to the tragedy of the conclusion.
And what a tragedy! In his sorrow and desperation, Antonio is conned into an act of violence he does not really understand, and he ends up destroying all the things he had wanted to protect. What is this Sundial Brigade, really? We don't really know. Antnio doesn't really know. The comment about terrorism being "true to period" leads me to doubt that the Sundial Brigade is anything more than just another group of exploiters. They exploited Antonio, certainly: He would never have planted the bomb if he'd had even a glimmer of understanding about the consequences of that action or the motives of the people goading him into it.
And that, I think, is probably a reflection of terrorism in the real-world. I always wonder what exactly, the young men (and the occasional woman) who strap bombs onto themselves and blow up strangers are hoping to accomplish. They are surely motivated by idea about revenge, or justice, or pleasing Allah, or patriotism, or something. But their actions accomplish nothing at all except pointless death and maiming of people who have nothing to do with them. What have terrorist accomplished in Iraq? Thousands of dead Iraqis... and that's it. I don't know whether the bombers have their minds twisted from the outside–as did Antonio–or if they have convinced themselves, but they must surely believe that their ambiguous, arbitrary violence is serving some purpose, some greater good. But they aren't. If these people could be given a clear view of what their actions were really accomplishing, free from egoistic delusion, free from blinding hate, then I think they would be far fewer in number.
But there is never a shortage of evil men willing to exploit hopeless, frustrated people, people desperate for a way to do something, anything, just to feel some kind of empowerment. "Strap this bomb on yourself: It will accomplish something." Given the right circumstance, such a lie would be easy to believe.
...As is illustrated by this story.
Both thumbs way up.
