I've been an atheist for as long as I can recall. My life, in part, has been a false effort towards belief. I know I will never believe, yet I scramble towards God like a tightrope walker over a net of godlessness. The point, I suppose, is to get as close as possible to something I know I'll never reach. It's like a more sophisticated (or perhaps not) version of a kid throwing a tantrum after learning that Santa Claus is just a miserable minimum wage worker with a fake white beard and boozy breath.

Radical Islam particularly intrigues me as it's all about the endgame - in the form of a global caliphate or indulging in an orgy with a bunch of virgins. I remember when the New York Times printed the first pictures of the hijackers. I'd gaze into the printed eyes of Mohammad Atta. He seemed purely evil, of course, but also seemed to be imbued with some sort of secret. But that's nonsense - just a variation of the Kuleshov effect.

Nevertheless, one wonders what it takes to be able to sit in a cockpit, watching the towers grow larger and larger as you push that plane harder and harder, knowing you're minutes, then seconds, then milliseconds from being completely vaporized. The 9/11 hijackers are repulsive, naturally, but in a way, one is almost enviably curious. To believe in something, anything, with such furious attachment is appealing.

I'm intensely curious about these people who have the courage to die in the name of their cause. These so-called pure Islamic warriors who are so critical of America's excesses... yet spent the night before their death at a strip club.

So I read everything I could about the hijackers, bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Sayyid Qutb (who is credited as the father of modern radical Islam) to try and understand the world around me, but also to understand why and how these people came to believe so strongly in all this nonsense. And, of course, a lot of this is political and historical, and they stoke the fires of religion to keep the drums of war beating. But many of them are true-blue, nutball, Quran-thumping maniacs.

Paul Berman wrote eloquently and with great insight about Sayyid Qutb in his excellent book Terror and Liberalism. Lawrence Wright did the same in, perhaps the best book on the subject, The Looming Tower. Martin Amis also contributed. And the whole thing is just strange. It's strange with all these guys, but Qutb seems the strangest. And I'm pretty sure Qutb gets the award for the single most self-loathing homosexual in the history of the planet earth (and maybe paradise too). Like most religious zealots, Qutb hated women. His writings about his time in America (he went to college here) are amazing! He writes in detail about American women's slutty dress, speech, and actions (this was in the 1950s!). He recounts stories about big-breasted blondes coming on to him (um... okay) and him being repulsed. And, of course, there are the stories about Mohammad Atta dressing in drag to go into an office and receive a grant or his leaving explicit instructions not to allow his mother to attend his funeral as a woman would sully the scene. Nice. Anyway, all these stories are incredibly fascinating. With all that eros and thanatos, suicide and repression, self-loathing homosexuality, and just utter strangeness, how could it not be? It seems that only Hollywood could make that kind of stuff boring.

I guess not. Updike tells the story of Ahmed Ashmawy, half Egyptian, half Irish, growing up and being radicalized by Shaikh Rashid in New Jersey. And here's the thing: the book is not as bad as they made it out to be. But in a way, it's worse. It's just dull and incredibly unimaginative. And kind of pointless. It doesn't make sense as Updike has made a career of probing the American psyche and exploring the countless ways Americans fill that God-shaped hole. He's written good and great books about people who are so desperate for existential recognition that they sell everything and move to an ashram, attempt to use mathematics to prove the existence of God, bury themselves in sex and bad behavior, or run away from their families, etc.

Look. My own lack of interest doesn't allow me to further describe the character of Ahmad (or the ridiculous plotting). He really is that dull. And not as a person (I'm sure many suicide bombers are less fun than the keynote speaker at an insurance seminar), but as a character. He's just there. And one doesn't care or get anything other than hollow Islamic platitudes that could have been picked up from a week's worth of scouring American newspapers in the few months following 9/11.

Maybe it's because Updike fell out of touch with the world? Perhaps he didn't do the research (but his earlier novel The Coup nailed a Marxist Islamic dictator pretty well)? Or was he just burnt out after so many decades of novel writing? Or maybe the cancer that killed him two years later was already hard at work. But in all of Terrorist, I found not one passage that spoke to the angst and existential panic that a radicalized terrorist must feel (or an interesting take on the lack thereof) that I find on nearly every page of a story or novel Updike writes about boring New England middle-class schlubs. I guess Updike finds transcendence in the mundane, yet creates something mundane out of the transcendent?

* Is this true? It sounds in line with the typical repressed (homo)sexuality and hypocrisy of these wicked assholes, but if it's true, how come we haven't seen Candi and Scarlet describing those lap dances to Leslie Stahl?

Forget Stephen King.

This is hands-down one of the most frightening books I've ever read.

John Updike, with his masterful pen, shows us in no uncertain terms how the noble quest for God can be horribly perverted. It turns into a sinister desire to suppress, diminish, and ultimately destroy those who hold different beliefs.

He delves so deeply into the mind of the believer that he manages to seduce you into following their warped logic. Before you know it, you find yourself discarding even the most basic respect for life outside that constricting framework.

The way Updike presents this terrifying reality makes you question everything you thought you knew about faith and its potential consequences. It's a truly disturbing read that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.

Terrorism is a topic that weighs heavily on everyone's mind in these times. I couldn't help but wonder how Updike would approach this subject in a book written after 9/11 but before the more recent wave of terrorist attacks that have spread beyond the United States.

Ahmad, a US citizen, was born to an Irish-American mother and an absentee Egyptian father. Although raised by his mother, he is drawn to his father's faith and is mentored by the mysterious imam Sheikh Rashid to follow the Straight Path of restraint and prayer rather than the Yellow Brick Road of Consumerism. His life seems to be on a trajectory towards carrying out the ultimate act of terrorism against his country, and this is where Updike is truly terrifying. He suggests that those on this path are doomed to harm us without any specific triggering events to set off such behavior.

Ahmad's counterpart is his aging Jewish career counselor, Levy, who feels that at 62, his life's purpose has come to an end. Levy despises his job of trying to guide kids in low-income neighborhoods with no career prospects, due to the grip of large corporations and the "one percent" on America. Levy is attracted to Ahmad and tries to prevent him from taking the extreme path he is on. He eventually has an affair with Ahmad's earthy and free-spirited mother. The plot then takes a Graham Greene-esque turn when Ahmad is introduced to the "job" he must undertake as part of the path he has chosen. Of course, there are unexpected twists that make this obvious outcome a bit more interesting and thought-provoking.

Along the way, Updike offers insights into our current Western society. He observes that "Affordable houses are shrinking in size, like pieces of paper repeatedly folded," and that "America is paved solid with fat and tar." Westerners promote sex because it leads to consumption of liquor, flowers for dating, weddings, houses, baby goods, education, and so on. Christian fundamentalist preachers are just as inflammatory as radicalized imams. Hispanics and blacks dominate the growing security forces due to the terrorism threat, giving rise to a new power order. An open society is vulnerable to the forces of terror because closing the gates would mean sacrificing its very openness. By far, his most scathing observation is that George Washington's ragtag band of guerrillas fighting the British during the War of Independence was no different from the Iraqi and Vietnamese guerrillas fighting the American invasions.

And yet, despite the wealth of social commentary, this is a very introspective book. We are constantly inside the minds of Ahmad and Levy, with excessive descriptions of streetscapes and a long lesson on Islam complete with quoted passages from its holy books, which I thought were unnecessary for the novel's purpose. For those who appreciate complex sentences, this is a great primer.

At the end of the day, Updike forces us to confront the fundamental question: Will an American-born and raised kid, despite being brainwashed otherwise, press the button that will harm his country? As patriotic Americans, we suspect the direction in which the author will lean, despite some of the shocking real-life evidence we have seen since the book's publication in 2006. And that is an answer well worth waiting to discover as Ahmad and Levy slowly make their way through traffic towards the Lincoln Tunnel.

This book is truly astonishingly filled with unconvincing characters and blatant racial stereotypes. It is almost unbelievable that it managed to get published in the first place.

Had it not been the work of the renowned John Updike, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have remained hidden in obscurity, never to see the light of day.

The moment you catch sight of this book sitting on a shelf, it is advisable to flee as if you were escaping from an actual terrorist. The negative impact and the inaccuracies it presents are simply too great to be ignored or tolerated.

It is a disappointment that such a work could be released, especially considering the reputation of the author. One would have expected much better from someone of John Updike's caliber.

Hopefully, future works will be more carefully vetted and will not contain such offensive and unsubstantiated content.

John Updike is a highly accomplished author who has amassed a plethora of awards, including the prestigious Pulitzer and National Book Award.

He has an astute understanding of people and the hardships that can exist even in the most ordinary of lives. Moreover, Updike is a master of the written word.

In his latest novel, “Terrorist,” he delves into the lives of “normal” individuals with flaws and empathy. The story follows eighteen-year-old Ahmad Mulloy, the American son of an Egyptian exchange student father who abandoned him at the age of three and an Irish-American mother who raised him.

Ahmad, a good and quiet boy, has been influenced by a strict Imam in his hometown of New Prospect, New Jersey. He thrives in Islam, the religion of his absent father, and discovers a love for prayer.

Updike juxtaposes the strong influence of Ahmad’s Imam with that of his mother Teresa, his Jewish high school guidance counselor Jack Levy, and his African-American classmate Joryleen Grant, with whom he has a mutual attraction.

The novel’s title foreshadows the direction of Ahmad’s story, and Updike manages to make the reader empathize with an America-hating, radical Islamic character. “Terrorist” both criticizes America and offers it a complex and ambiguous tribute.

Most remarkably, John Updike takes us inside a fringe element of Islam and vividly shows why they hate us and want us dead. It all makes a convoluted kind of sense, which is both fascinating and terrifying.

Five days after finishing “Terrorist,” it still lingers in my mind, coloring my perception of the news, the newspaper, and what I hear at church. Radical Islamics, like some Christians, seem to choose their own truths and prejudices and then search their holy books for justification.

We Christians have found justification for many atrocities throughout history, and today, the fringes of our religions can justify a wide range of actions. While God mourns our stupidity, loves us, and hopes we will figure it all out.

Obligatory DNF, I got about 100 pages in.

I picked it up at a book sale because I had read a few of Updike’s short stories and loved his writing style. His distinct and enjoyable style definitely came through. However, I honestly had to drop it because the approach toward the subject matter felt so weird/off.

I don’t think Updike is good at writing from the perspective of a Muslim high-schooler. I didn’t think it was worth my time to learn what he thought it might be like. I assume he did some due-diligence before forming his characters, but the whole time I was reading, I found myself thinking, “damn, if I want to read a story about being Muslim in America post 9/11, I’d rather read someone by someone who actually knows what that’s like.”

Some lines were straight-up cringe, and the constant focus on young women’s bodies felt so ick. Though I recognize that Updike was trying to build a narrative, it just wasn’t hitting. It sort of read like 9/11 happened, and Updike thought “ah I should contribute to this convo.” He did not, in fact, have to contribute.

The book seemed to lack authenticity and the ability to truly capture the essence of the experiences and perspectives it was attempting to portray. Maybe Updike should have stuck to the themes and characters he was more familiar with, rather than venturing into territory that he didn't seem to fully understand.

Overall, it was a disappointment considering my initial expectations based on his previous works. I hope that future authors will be more careful and respectful when approaching sensitive and complex topics such as this one.

I picked up this John Updike book while on vacation in Prague.

The subject matter of the book was truly fascinating. It should be one of his more accessible novels. Additionally, I had been eager to read Updike for some time as my favorite writer, Joyce Carol Oates, is constantly compared to him.

I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story held my attention captive, and I found myself constantly thinking about it. Wondering if the reality he描绘的 is true. Wondering what one should do if he is correct.

The story revolves around a young Arab-American and his journey from radicalism to extremism, as well as the people who variously assist him and stand in his way.

One of the strengths of this book is the way Updike describes Western society and how it must appear to a devout believer. In this Western society, deadly sins such as gluttony, sloth, and lust have lost their significance, and hedonism prevails.

I adored Updike's use of language, and this book has definitely made me eager to read more of his works - although I feel that the ending of this book could have been a bit more powerful.

Boring and predictable. That's the best way to describe this work.

To be honest, even if the ending had been the complete opposite of what was blatantly foreseeable, I wouldn't have given a hoot.

This is the first Updike piece I've read, and it'll almost certainly be my last if this is the kind of thing he produces.

He attempts to dress up an otherwise completely forgettable story with an excessive amount of detail and trivial ramblings.

Curse my inability to leave a story unfinished. I really wanted to give up on this one early on, but my stubbornness prevailed.

It's a real shame that a work that started with such promise could end up being so lackluster and uninteresting.

Perhaps I'll give Updike another chance at some point, but for now, I'm left with a rather negative impression.

A truly chilling and deeply unsettling tale unfolds, unfortunately highlighting the inadequacies within the United States' system regarding our youth. Composed just five years after the fateful 9/11 incident, the story is set in northern New Jersey. A short drive from there offers those who live and work in the area a view of the world's most recognizable skyline - that of NYC. The towers have crumbled, and insidious plots are underway to commemorate the symbolic fall of capitalism in America.

Amir, an 18-year-old of high intelligence yet socially awkward, lacks a father figure, and his mother, who is often absent, struggles to find even small morsels of happiness in the world. Amir found solace in the Qu'ran and its teachings from a young age. However, due to the way the American system has marginalized him, he succumbs to the clutches of extreme thinking. He becomes the perfect candidate for extremism and devious plots. The only individual who senses that something is amiss is a down-and-out, aging guidance counselor. This counselor takes an interest in Amir, but alas, it is a bit too late, with only a few months remaining until graduation.

Although it serves as a commentary on society, Updike does not shy away from blatantly delving into the intricacies of fanatics. He makes it painfully evident how our youth are lured into various types of pernicious influences, ranging from gangs to religious zealotry and even disturbing capitalist thinking.

Ahmad Ashamy Mulloy, an eighteen-year-old youth, is a smart teenager who adheres to the teachings of his religion. He lives in the materialistic and hedonistic New Prospect (New Jersey) with his Irish-American mother, Teresa Malloy. His Egyptian father passed away when Ahmad was three years old. At the age of eleven, Ahmad embraced Islam, and since then, twice a week, he has been studying the Holy Quran under the guidance of Sheikh Rasid, an imam at the mosque on West Main Street in New Prospect.

In school, Ahmad is known as a bright student. His religion protects him from prohibited drugs and immoral behavior, although this makes him a bit marginalized from his classmates. Due to growing up without a father for many years, living with his Catholic mother who has no faith, and being strictly indoctrinated by his religious teacher, Ahmad has grown into a devout servant of Allah, making HIM his closest and true friend.

The influence of Sheikh Rasid is so great in Ahmad's life that no one can divert his attention from following the teachings of his religion, which is called the "Straight Path." Besides learning to read the holy verses of the Quran, Ahmad is also required to follow Allah's instructions completely in his life, including carrying out jihad and dying as a martyr to fight against the enemies of Allah, including the American nation, which he considers a kafir nation.

After graduating from high school, his guidance counselor, Jack Levy, recommended that Ahmad continue to a prestigious university. However, Ahmad obeyed Sheikh Rasid's advice to become a truck driver. When he obtained a job as a truck driver at a furniture store owned by a Lebanese family, it turned out that a number of plans had been carefully arranged. From the beginning, Ahmad was prepared by Sheikh Rasid to carry out jihad and a suicide mission by making himself a truck carrier filled with bombs ready to be detonated in the tunnel in Lincoln, New Jersey. Will Ahmad be willing to carry out the mission that he believes is a holy mission to destroy the enemies of Allah?

The story above is the latest work of John Updike, a productive senior novelist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (1981 & 1991). This twenty-second novel by John Updike is titled "Terrorist" (2006). The novel has received a good response from its readers. Just a few weeks after its release, the novel has been reprinted six times with a total of 118,000 copies and sold out quickly.

What is interesting about this novel? The novel is not as scary as its title. Readers may be misled by its provocative title and assume that the novel is full of violence and shootings with a fast and tense plot.

No! We will not find shooting scenes or various explosions that adorn the pages of this novel. The novel has a rather slow pace and focuses more on character exploration, psychological conditions, and the thoughts of its characters. Wikipedia categorizes this novel into the Philosophical and War genres.

Just like in his other novels, Updike indeed likes to collate philosophical themes with current themes. In "Terrorist," he plays a lot with what is in the minds and dialogues of the characters, which are full of philosophical and theological debates due to the conflict between the beliefs of radical characters and the secular characters who live a hedonistic and materialistic life, which can be said to be a general picture of American society.

From this novel, John Updike appears to have mastered Islam. According to Amitav Ghosh in his review published in the Washington Post, Updike not only read the Quran but also studied it intensively. No wonder Updike includes many quotations from the Quran and his interpretations in this novel.

As mentioned above, the characters in the novel are described in detail. Besides Ahmad, other characters such as Jack Levy (Ahmad's guidance counselor), Beth Levy, Teresa Malloy, and Charlie Chebab (Ahmad's boss) are given a lot of space to be dissected, resulting in the plot of the novel feeling slow. Unfortunately, the character of Sheikh Rasid is only slightly dissected compared to other characters, even though he is the character who has the most influence on Ahmad's life.

In this novel, readers will also see the spiritual condition of American society from the perspective of Ahmad, who represents the fighters for truth who are willing to die as martyrs for their beliefs. In Ahmad's eyes, America is a nation that has no God. "And because there is no God, everything is portrayed with sex and luxury goods. Look at the television, Mr. Levy, how sex is always used to sell something you don't need.... Notice how Christians carried out mass killings of the native inhabitants of America and marginalized Asia and Africa, and now they are starting to encroach on Islam, with everything in Washington being controlled by the Jews to maintain their occupation of Palestine." (page 57).

Because it takes the setting of a small town in America, a few years after the September 11 attacks, this novel also reveals how the freedom boasted by American society actually "makes this country more vulnerable to being infiltrated by terrorists, by renting airplanes and train cars, and setting up websites." (page 40). The phobia of American society towards anything related to Islam, including its Muslim community, is also revealed through a dialogue between the characters: "We did indeed cut off phone communication after the September 11 incident. We often received threatening phone calls from the Anti-Muslim group." (page 122).

In the last 70 pages, there is something very interesting. Updike describes in detail the activities carried out by Ahmad as a suicide bomber, including how his inner turmoil when he drives his truck towards the target where he will detonate his truck and die as a martyr to defend his beliefs.

What benefits can we draw from this novel? Currently, several countries in the world, especially America, are always under the threat of a shadowy group often called terrorists. Even Indonesia has several times become the target of suicide bombings. Therefore, the presence of this novel can at least provide a picture of what they are actually fighting for and what is probably in the mind of a suicide bomber before he carries out his mission for a belief he adheres to.

Salam,
h_tanzil
http://bukuygkubaca.blogspot.com

I picked this book up at Goodwill.

At first, I found it rather tedious. However, as I delved deeper, I ended up liking it. The second half of the book was significantly better as that was where the real action began to unfold.

Understanding Ahmed's reasons for being so religious while simultaneously being so conflicted is something that I imagine all of us experience at different points in our lives.

Ahmed's character, unfortunately, is fairly boring. I often found myself skimming through a lot of the pages where he rambles on and on about his beliefs or those of the people around him.

The plot regarding how the student's teacher managed to convince him to stand down was also a bit lacking in substance. It could have been developed more fully to make it more engaging and believable.

Overall, despite its flaws, the book had some redeeming qualities that made it worth reading.

From my blog in 2012

This weekend's capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the brothers believed responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing, brings up many questions. Time and investigation will tell whether the brothers were acting alone, had identified future targets, or were supported by means beyond their own.

But the episode also poses an obscure cultural question - will the events of last week and the coming weeks' vindicate one of John Updike's last, and least regarded, novels?

"Terrorist" was published in 2006, five years after the 9/11 attacks. It follows the life of a teenage Muslim American, Ahmad Mulloy, and his high school counselor, Jack Levy, along with a number of other characters in the forgotten American urban landscape of New Prospect, N.J.

The novel came at an interesting juncture in Updike's career. Long regarded as a possible Nobel Prize candidate, Updike's work landed in bookstores with the regularity of the seasons. Novels arrived every two years, in between short story collections, essay collections or poetry. His reputation was unassailable. But there was a feeling, hovering in the background, that Updike's suburbanite guilt-ridden adulterous Christian protagonists, swathed in his characteristically elegant prose, had grown way too precious. There was a feeling that the Master had become too detached from reality.

The first hints of this came after the triumph of "In the Beauty of the Lilies," still my favorite Updike. He followed this up with experimental works, such as "Toward the End of Time," a pseudo-science fiction work, "Gertude and Claudius," giving the backstory of "Hamlet," and "Seek My Face" and "Villages," workmanlike and occasionally perplexing examinations of the art world and the early days of computers.

Next came assaults from outside. Updike's contemporary, Philip Roth, executed his late career renaissance with his celebrated American trilogy of "American Pastoral," "I Married a Communist" and "The Human Stain." And from the right came Tom Wolfe, fresh off "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man In Full." Wolfe, responding to criticism from Updike that his work was not literature, called Updike a "stooge" who had lost touch with his audience - a critique he didn't reserve solely for Updike but for most of the literati.

"Terrorist" is, in some ways, Updike's attempt to answer back. He fills the novel with as much modernity as he can muster - when he wrote the novel, there was still a lingering criticism that American writers had not fully engaged the ramifications of the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. (Something that still remains largely unattempted.) And "Terrorist" is many things, but most of its main characters are not suburban middle-class people struggling to contain their hormones. It's possible to see the book as a combination of Roth and Wolfe - engaging American society while registering as many status details as possible.

The criticisms of the novel at the time, as I recall, were that Updike's Muslim, Ahmad, was not credibly rendered. Ahmad's mother, as well as Levy, come off as stereotypes, as well as the novel's black characters. These criticisms are interesting when one considers that the characters of Roth's "The Human Stain" are almost all stereotypes, but it works. The sense we had at the time was that "Terrorist" didn't work. Taking it off the shelf, it took a few minutes to remember precisely what happened in the book.

The first line of the novel:

"Devils, Ahmad thinks. These devils seek to take away my God."

Ahmad thinks of his teachers as weak Christians and nonobservant Jews who "make a show of teaching virtue and righteous self-restraint" but whose "shifty eyes and hollow voices betray their lack of belief." From the opening is established a critique - we see the world through Ahmad's eyes and we see America as a false, hypocritical place full of soul-destroying danger.

It's also important to remember that 2006 was when the War on Terror began to take on a different shading. President George W. Bush, fresh off re-election, was no longer a unifying leader but was by now mortally wounded politically due to the aftermath of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. To many, we as a nation weren't in a generational global cultural conflict so much as replaying, in a Middle Eastern setting, our nation's continuing angst over Vietnam and presidential power.

That's why Updike's characters often fill "Terrorist" with liberal political critiques that sound more like a writer airing his frustrations than characters stating their views. It is this lapsing voice that is the novel's most frustrating problem. You find yourself admiring Updike's ambition in tackling the story at the same time you wish his execution was more exacting. When Ahmad's planned attack doesn't come off in the end, the reason, meant to be life-affirming and uplifting, instead feels false and unearned.

Ahmad in some ways fits what we know of the actual terrorists who have shown up in the past 20 years in America. Like their godfather, Sayyid Qutb, the 9/11 hijackers were not Islamic hermits who disengaged themselves from American culture. They were part of it - indeed the 9/11 hijackers conducted a meeting in Las Vegas weeks before the attack. It is the freedom of the culture that outraged them, even as they insinuated themselves into it. Ahmad doesn't square with what we know of the Tsarnaev brothers - Dzhokhar had a Twitter account much like any other, commenting on the movies and sports, and he was known to smoke pot. Ahmad's conduct seems naive, sheltered, abnormally sensitive. In this regard, he does not fit the profile - our real-life terrorists, at some crucial point, leave one with the lingering impression that their faith or the ideology is simply an excuse to inflict pain - ruthless, pitiless pain, on a grand scale.

There is an interesting scene involved Ahmad and Joryleen Grant, a black classmate who later becomes a prostitute. She undresses for him, talks to him, teases him, then sings "What a Friend We Have In Jesus." Is Ahmad being tempted by sex, or Christianity, or both and neither? It is this temptation, whatever it may be, which eventually inspires Ahmad to undertake his act of terrorism - in the end, violence is the only response when one succumbs, even in the mind, to temptation. That is the only way the true believer can earn redemption. At least this part seems true to life.

Updike's career will endure largely because of the length and depth of his talent and the character and quality of earlier novels. "Terrorist" is an interesting book, but it suffers in its critique for one reason at least - the reality it depicts wasn't born out later by events. Updike's depiction of the War on Terror has a disquieting moral equivalency between Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and America's reaction about it, and that reads less charitably after an event like the Boston Marathon attack and the city's response. Writing, perhaps with ideas of rendition, waterboarding, warrantless wiretaps and other causes in mind, Updike has one of his characters remark, "An open society is so defenseless. Everything the modern free world has achieved is so fragile."

If anything, the last week's events - senseless tragedy, national sympathy, patient police work, calm civic resolve - affirm that open societies are well-equipped to fight terror with the same freedom that inspires the attacks in the first place. Perhaps one of the flaws of our time is that we collectively expect something darker in our fiction to ring truer, darker even than evil that can strike in the most public places, when all we want to do is run.