Eeking out another book review before the end of the year is easy if your book happens to be The Harbinger by Johnathan Cahn. It’s easy as the clarity of the book is immediately apparent. Cahn has adopted a narrative format in the guise of a mystery so that he can go about interpreting the events of 9-11 in light of a prophecy that occurs in Isaiah whereby God proclaims that He intends to ‘cut down the Sycamores’ concerning Israel which is a type of metaphorical and actual phrase that means He intends to cut off the prosperity and security of the nation.
Cahn, for his part, sees this kind of judgment as a pattern and advances his case for it being so. In other words, what Cahn has here is more like a thesis on judgment cycles and how that thesis is being applied to the nation of America. This thesis is solidly argued and the evidence is quite clear. The only thing I think Cahn might be missing is that he asserts that those who echo the words of this prophecy who are in charge of the nation are doing so ‘not really knowing what they are doing’ and are more like puppets in the will of God. A more disturbing interpretation is that they know exactly what they are doing and what Cahn sees as a subconscious ballet is an outright defiance of God and a mocking of this prophecy.
Of course, if Cahn said that, the absolute rage that would follow is probably predictable and he would be branded an even more extreme pastor/rabbi than he all ready is considered to be. However, it does not do to let traitors off the hook so easily as to suggest they are unwitting mouthpieces of God if in fact they are choosing to allow the nation to fail.
Cahn gets close to understanding or stating this realization when he determines the Lehman Brothers collapse to be an echo of the Twin Tower attack. He remarks that Congress ‘decided not to pass a bill to allow Lehman Brothers and the economy to collapse’. If this is indeed the “second iteration” of the first ordeal, then it is the second iteration that, and this is key, was allowed to take place by those who had power to do otherwise.
As for the rest of the book, the format is ingenious by having a mysterious stranger explain the prophecy with a series of seals that Nouriel, (a name of a Clinton era economist by chance called Dr. Doom) our main protagonist, must decipher. The mystery level of the stranger is, perhaps, a little too high as we never even learn his name, but the fact that he always shows up just when needed while certainly being a trope, works in the parameters of this novel.
It can be rather hard to explain to those not familiar with literary symbolism and Biblical imagery how a prophecy is being fulfilled since the language is at once poetic and exact. It is not an archetype, as we usually think of archetypes, because an archetype is usually not the thing itself but is the thing itself showing up in multiple guises. In prophecy, a literal Sycamore tree will typically fall ALONG WITH all the symbolism it entails. It is not just a symbol. It is the symbol and the fulfillment of the symbolism.
Therefore, having the seals as a type of background mystery is an ingenious method to explain how God works. At the end, Cahn even gives the reader a little wink as the conversation with the would-be publisher is had concerning how to write the material he has been given. He is told perhaps a narrative format would be best but there Cahn cautions and says, “But if I write it as fiction, then people will simply think it is fiction.” This leaves us wondering how much of Cahn’s narrative is imagined and how much of it he, in one way or another, has experienced.
This book occurred before the previous review on this site of The Paradigm and whereas The Paradigm is a lot more straight Biblical interpretation into modern times or at least efforts are made to indicate this is so, The Harbinger is more of a story that happens to also relate to 9-11. The difference is that The Paradigm can not really stand as a story on its own in the sense of there being a narrative. The Harbinger by contrast, can.
If you are a fast reader, this is not an especially difficult read but it is fascinating to see the connections that Cahn highlights. One should not be deceived by the simplicity of the read as there are many, many parallels and further mysteries hinted at that this book begins to explicate. Cahn is, as far as The Book Light is concerned, two-for-two in terms of Biblical scholarship even if, surprisingly, he took a little time to also try to make it entertaining.
There are a handful of books in the world that a person should read if they think they have an idea of what the world is all about. Ostrovosky’s book is one of those reads. It is not an especially new book as it was first published in 1990. There was a coordinated effort, however, to silence it. The reason for this becomes clear once it is understood that the subject matter concerns Israel’s intelligence agency–The Mossad.
Ostrovosky, the book’s subject, is a former Mossad ‘katsa’ or intelligence officer. He is recruited by the Mossad and at first is delighted to be selected for such an elite unit. As he progresses upwards in the ranks, however, he discovers that he fundamentally disagrees with how the agency runs without any apparent oversight. In some instances, the agency is celebrating pool parties with rampant sex within those who work in the organization. In others, it concerns an assassination hit that gets messy. In still other situations, the problem becomes a chain of command and crucial information gathered in the field and whether to report these things to those with authority. In these scenarios, the information, though vital, is puzzlingly not always welcome, and one such instance occurs that leads to Ostrovosky dropping out of Mossad itself.
The seeds of Ostrovosky’s disaffection are evident, however, well before we arrive at the spot where he is “burned” by his higher-ups. The problem it seems, is that Ostrovosky is thinking a little too much for the desires of the agency. He is not going to be content to simply accept a paycheck and do what he is told. He is also not a fan of the abuses of power he sees within the organization.
Reading through the book and remembering many of the events of the 70’s through the 90’s was interesting enough from the perspective Ostrovosky presents with the help of his writer, Claire Hoy. A question that occurs during the reading, though, is how much oversight should an agency have, and how much of it is an hindrance? Does oversight make a difference, really, within any organization that has sufficient power to do certain acts or does it simply create that many more people complicit in ‘covering-up’ things that they do not wish known?
As the subject matter here is the Mossad, we have an inside view to the abuses and perhaps more tellingly someone is still around to tell them. There are, however, many other intelligence agencies in the world without such witnesses left to ‘blow the whistle’. It was not that Ostrovsky got to blow the whistle without consequence to himself. He had to apply his own training to keep from getting kidnapped and likely killed. The fact that he is still alive, though, means somebody, somewhere decided he should be–specifically with the abuses he outlines in this book.
It is a hard problem to solve, as if you are a country and you do not play this game, you are a victim of it by other countries which are willing to pursue it. It seems at certain official levels throughout the world, there are those who lack any kind of authority to reign in their activities. It is not a uniquely Israeli issue.
A different though related question is what to do about evil existing in the world when you happen to be a nation or country? How much of it do you fight on its terms, versus how much of it do you not indulge?
There were some amusing anectdotes in the book concerning the brazen plans that were thwarted. At one point, the PLO wishes to purchase a load of weapons with the stated aim of harming Israel only to wind up with crates of raisins instead. At other times the training exercises feature the need to appear on a balcony by some means or another and the plans the recruits implement are quite ingenious and humorous.
The disturbing content, though, far outweighs the amusing anectdotes. There is a fellow who seems quite eager to use a kind of assasination glove that removes a person’s head from their shoulders relatively easy and quiety. Another person has a “hit” go wrong and has to kill two people in a car to complete his mission, but is concerned only with how long it is going to take because he wants to get something to eat. The blood is certainly cold. Of course, to have any other kind of blood in that world is probably the same as either not being in that world for long, or not being in THIS world entirely!
The thing the book does well is that it fills in a lot of blanks concerning such historical events as Iran-Contra and the Munich Olympic bombings. It is, without a doubt, a fascinating read. It is also, troublingly, full of foreshadowing as when the book is released the date of September, 11th in 1990 makes a guest appearance as the date the court tries to stop the book from being published. Some nightmares announce their presence well before they occur it would seem–or maybe there is more to all those events than is still generally known. Who will the next Ostrovsky be and what perspectives will they have to offer?!
Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver tips the scales at over a thousand pages. None of these pages are wasted in the telling of the tale, as the subject matter concerns the foundation of the Royal Society. The Royal Society oftentimes takes the name of the “secret college” before it becomes the Royal Society, and is littered with alchemists that, after a long period of study, mostly advance what we would normally term modern science. Not all of them do this, of course, and there are fractures within the camps as to who continues to study Alchemy and who goes on to study the “natural sciences” and becomes a “natural philosopher”.
All the characters such as Enoch Root and Daniel Waterhouse make their appearance here, but what is perhaps more accentuated than normal is Waterhouse’s entire eye and purpose toward understanding the Apocalypse and preparing himself accordingly to the task. Indeed, one could examine the years around 1666 as a kind of miniature apocalypse with the fire of London and all the jostling about in royal society between warring powers of Catholicism and Protestantism. Whether or not Daniel Waterhouse wants to be, it seems he is always at a place or near a character that will shape future world events.
There is, of course, the matter of Eliza who is a Turkish sex slave who is rescued by Jack Shaftoe, which we of course see the linkages of and foreshadowings of the Shaftoe family in the Cryptonomicon. The brothers Jack and Bob Shaftoe start out providing a “service” for condemned men. They both hang on the legs of those who are not killed quickly by design of putting on a show in the judicial system of England under Charles the II. The extra weight causes the condemned to die quicker than they otherwise would, as their executioner is none other than Jack Ketch. Jack Shaftoe also has syphilis and is generally a quasi “Judas” anti-hero character. Indeed, Jack shares a lot in common with the plotline of the movie The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly when it comes to nooses and their removal. Jack, however, falls in love with Eliza, a Turkish harem sex slave that he, despite himself, rescues. Their romance is blocked by a thousand differing elements, and we are left with neither of them being on good terms with the other.
Eliza, on the other hand, becomes proficient at the handling of money in Amsterdam and meets Daniel Waterhouse and Leibniz and becomes a type of spy for Lebiniz and then later a double agent for William of Orange. Through the course of her duties, she is carried through many courts most often at the behest of William of Orange.
One of the issues with reading Quicksilver is that it is almost too ambitious of an undertaking in that it jumps in time and through family relations rapidly. There is continuity, for certain, but it becomes hard to tell sometimes who is writing to whom and why. This is partly caused by the plentiful titles and characters in the book and it is a certainty that heraldry was important in those times and so when one is going to write about the era one is naturally going to have large amounts of family trees whether one wants to or not. It is this knitting, however, which is time independent, which jumps about that makes it sometimes difficult to follow. The switchout from the focus being on Jack Shaftoe to his brother Bob is also irritating. One understands the necessity in terms of the narrative, but it is one more character that becomes easy to confuse with Jack. Of course, Jack and Bob are supposed to be aspects of Robert Shaftoe in Cryptonomicon which are really commentaries if anything on ‘treacherous Albion’ in general and the progression of the spy game throughout academia and time.
We also meet other characters famous throughout history and science such as Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, and John Churchill. Present as well are John Wilkes and many other famous names that became synonymous with the Royal Society. The material is rich, deep and well-researched. What is not quite as pleasant to read is the fixation on homosexuality and speculation about who is or who is not a homosexual in the book. For instance, more than once, Newton, a Puritan, is alluded to as being a homosexual. Likewise, it is heavily implied William of Orange is, at the very least, bisexual. While it is a fact many varied sexual orientations have existed in Royal lineages throughout time, it is also factual that such accusations were used as smears against one’s opponents. Either way, Quicksilver at times reads like some kind of historical romance for same sex relationships or in a few instances outright torture. Perhaps Stephenson needed some spice to keep the reader interested in the world of espionage, but the reading would have gone as well if not better without all the supposition of who is or who is not homosexual.
Having read the work, it is difficult to form a solid opinion about it in that it leaves many unanswered questions which is to be expected since it is part of a three-volume set. At times, it is a brilliant read. At other times, it feels like one is only learning about all the possible dark motives of anyone who was ever ‘historically significant’. At times, one hates Daniel Waterhouse. At other times, one can sympathize. The Royal College is made out to be somewhat ghastly with how and what they dissect and on average, the entire novel feels like some gothic, vampiric tale. It is not that such energies were not present–it is simply that they were not the only ones and the real stories are more interesting than any foisted, imagined, lavish yarn. It feels that Stephenson, like Icarus, flies too close to the sun and has his wax-literary-wings melt. Then, just when you think the narrative will not recover, another ascent begins and the process starts anew.
The novel could be condensed and summarized as “This is not the apocalypse Daniel Waterhouse expected, but it is the one he got anyway.” The reader, in reading this work, might feel about the same upon completion of the novel. There is definitely an air of “to be continued” and one is left with many dangling questions.!
ISBN: 978-0312056131