Product Description

Opening with an introduction entitled "Hunting the Virtuous - and How to Clean and Skin Them", the author provides his own comments on the people, places and events behind the newspaper headlines, before launching into an account of the Gulf War. Beginning with a concise history of the Middle East, he delivers a day-to-day chronicle of the tedium of waiting for war in the Saudi desert, signing off with an eyewitness account of the victory march into Kuwait city. The author also wrote "Republican Party Reptile", "Holidays in Hell" and "Parliament of Whores".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23078 in Books
• Published on: 1993-09-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Return of the death of the bride of sanctimoniousness
PJ O'Rourke has been described by bemused interviewers as a Surprisingly Nice Guy. To which the most pertinent response is: Be afraid, be very afraid. To those disappearing into the welcome, sucking grasp of the swamp of BBC/CNN PC convention, the sight of this cigar-wielding, whiskey-loving son of Ohio stalking about in his red, blue and white wellies, giving both barrels to every critter that moves, must be like Dante's first glimpse of Hell. Even more scary, though, is the druggy disorientation this modern Mephistopheles invokes in you when you open one of his books, especially Give War A Chance, and especially if you're committed (as I was when I first encountered him) to the idea, an article of faith in Student Union Bibles across the Western world, that unapologetic defenders of free markets and US interventionism are invariably cross-eyed boondock types who snack on newborns.

This book is probably the best point of entry into PJ's world, representing as it does a perfect fulcrum between the sardonic insults he hurled so devastatingly in 1987's Holidays From Hell, and the exasperated elder-statesman-of-journalism musings of his more recent work. The last quarter or so of Give War A Chance is taken up with his despatches from the frontline of the Gulf War, and are worth the price of the book alone. Before this, however, we visit Berlin in November 1989, Paraguay, post-Cold War Kiev and Vietnam, and free elections in Nicaragua, with detours through the horribly fatuous autobiographical mumblings of Lee Iacocca and Jimmy Carter, and pause on our travels to witness the cruel humiliation of the entire mid-eighties famine relief industry (the banner over the stocks displays the excellent legend: Fiddling While Africa Starves).

PJ O'Rourke is frightening to his enemies for two reasons. Firstly, the most bile-encrusted 'sandalista' (his word) would have a stroke trying to suppress his or her seizures of mirth while reading, for example, the chapter on Dr Ruth Westheimer. O'Rourke is almost intolerably funny. He drops one-liners into the ends of paragraphs with such an incisive eye (and ear) for timing that you have to give up on the narrative for a moment and go back to savour the passage again. Quotes taken out of context generally don't do PJ any favours, but I offer this one nonetheless: 'It's impossible to get decent Chinese takeout in China, Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba, and that's all you need to know about communism.' And that's all you need to know about O'Rourke's punchy, wit-and-wisdom-laden prose style.

The second reason that reading this book will put the willies up anyone who wears left-liberal clothes is that, while O'Rourke is in deadly earnest about what he believes in, he nonetheless lampoons himself, his own profession of journalism, and US politics, with a mercilessness that matches anything he writes about his leftist bugbears. He comes across as an intelligent, cultured person, with impressive knowledge in areas such as architecture, history and literature; and, hardest of all for those instinctively prejudiced against him to acknowledge, he's a kind and humane man, with a bedrock of principles beneath the gonzo exterior. Almost every book he's written has lots to commend it, but Give War A Chance is the third in PJ's late 80s/early 90s trio of really great ones. It's just possible, I suppose, to read this book without having your thought-processes stimulated; your funny-bone, however, will NOT escape.

Give P.J. a chance
If you haven't read any P.J. O'Rourke before, this is a good one to start with, it has many of his best articles, as once more he travels the world in search of trouble spots to write about. His descriptions of the places he visits are, as always, vivid and brilliant. In this book you can read of how he is moved to tears by the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and his undisguised glee at the election results in Nicaragua the following year. There is a long and fascinating article about how capitalism is breaking out all over Vietnam, and a savagely scathing critique of Live Aid. There is a brilliant piece about Josephus, the Jewish historian who told the story of the fall of Jerusalem 'The two thousand year-old Middle East policy expert". His despatches from the Gulf War are perhaps the most fascinating part of the book, as he writes from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He vividly describes how extremely boring life in a strict Islamic state is, but casts doubt on the notion that Saudi Arabia is a totaly male-dominated society. He points out that dress shops in Saudi are full of exotic and expensive silk creations, and jewellery stores full of enormous costly jewels, "if this were really a male-dominated scoiety the jewellery stores would be stocked with plastic pop-beads and the only thing the dress shops would be selling is aprons". A Kuwait Air Force colonel explains to him that Iraq started the war because Kuwait was spending all its oil money on things for its citizens so Iraq "either had to brings its citizens up to the Kuwait level or bring Kuwait citizens down to the Iraq level" 'In other words' O'Rourke explains ' Kuwait caused the war by shopping too much. This loeaves us with little hope of world peace as long as wives are allowed to hold credit cards in their own names.'I don't know why, but Mr O'Rourke seems to think that women are interested in nothing but shopping, I can't think where he gets that idea from. This is a very funny and brilliant book.

Hilarious! PJ at his politically-incorrect best
PJ O'Rourke is something of a professional iconoclast, but he's at his wicked best exposing the frailties and hypocrisies of people with 'a cause'. Join him for a world tour of the daft, depressing or plain baffling extremes of political activity. Although written several years ago, neither the humour nor the political observations seem dated. Well worth a few quid - even if you don't agree with PJ's politics, I guarantee that his writing will make you think while you're laughing.