The Demonic Comedy, Some Detours in the Baghdad of Saddam Hussein
by Paul William Roberts
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Perfect cover art on this one. Saddam Hussein in full military getup, complete with aviator shades, grinning evilly, and spray painted with bright red devil’s goatee and horns popping through his beret.
So of course, I just HAD to pick it up and give it a read.
Jackpot!
If you’ve ever wanted to know why things in the Middle East are so goddamnably fucked up, have a gander at this book. Not that you’re gonna get some kind of ultimate answer or anything, but you just MIGHT get a glimmer of an idea. Perhaps.
Demonic Comedy doesn’t just limit itself to the antics of Saddam, but instead ranges from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf as it weaves a phantasmagoric tale that shifts and shimmers madly between pinnacles of hilarity and abysses of horror. Saddam is the eye of the storm, that’s for sure, but just like any self-respecting hurricane, it covers a hell of a lot more ground than just the eyewall.
In a nutshell, PWR took three trips to Iraq, before, during, and after Desert Storm, and wrote a book about it. But that’s kinda like saying the Bible’s a book about God. There’s a bit more to it than that.
Quite a bit, in fact.
I’m not gonna really attempt to say what, exactly, is in this thing. But I will say that the author managed at one time to actually INTERVIEW Saddam while under the influence of the mind-altering chemical known as ecstasy, and that little jewel is contained within. We’ll just sorta let it go at that, shall we?
