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The
Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
January
13 - January 19, 2005 Edition
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PRINT A fast-paced, post-9/11 thriller January 13, 2005 By Tony Omer
Since the time of the first crusade right up to and including the United States’ present involvement in Iraq, the Middle East has been used as a rallying point for western greed with only passing shots at designs on expansionism or outright control. The West has found repeatedly that the cultural-political-religious realities of that part of the world are inexplicable, too tricky, too complex and unpredictable, to allow for any long-term control or even for long-term alliances with indigenous political groups. The West has a long history of getting in and getting out with whatever it can take, be it religious icons and precious objects, spices, or oil. The West’s investment is usually nothing more than the bodies of our foot soldiers that are trained to destroy the “enemy.” The one constant is perhaps the political use of the Middle East conflicts to attempt to consolidate political power here in the west and to enrich the already wealthy. It happened in the Middle Ages and it is happening today. “The Final Solution” is a thriller situated in the post- 9/11 Middle East. Moving at mach one, this action- packed first novel by Aquinnah resident Stephen Weinstein hits its stride on the first page and continues to accelerate until the book runs out of pages. Weinstein spent most of his working life with NBC, writing for advertising and promotions in New York. Always wanting to be a little more creative, he has used the first of his retirement years to pursue that dream. In a telephone interview this week while on the road in Utah, Weinstein said that his original idea for the story came when he thought about a world that wasn’t dependent on oil — “What would be the implications of that?” After a lot of research and drawing from his journal, which he has kept for years, the story grew. He said that this is a more modern, visual novel, not like more traditional and classic novels. The plot centers around an Israeli scientist who is on the verge of developing a revolutionary source of energy, which has the potential to end poverty and to permanently realign the balance of power in not just the oil-rich Middle East but also in the entire world. An ambitious Russian military officer, an Israeli spy, a beautiful and smart American scientist, and members of a Palestinian resistance group are all players. A love triangle and the greed of a corporate oil magnate add the necessary human foibles that push the story down a luge-like path to the Final Solution. The title no doubt still hits a raw nerve with many for whom the association with the Nazi Party’s objectives leaves no room for poetic license, but it is an effective double entendre. The book is plot-driven with minimal but adequate details of place and character. The pace is the focus and unlike other recent fast-paced novels like the Dan Brown books (“The DaVinci Code,” et al.), historical background is not a significant part of the journey. “The Final Solution” is only a fraction of the Brown books’ size and may be a good book to read and finish in transit to a vacation site rather than one to help pass the time on the beach. The politics of our post-9/11 world are the set pieces. There are some touching moments and times when the reader can imagine that these characters might be real people living in countries that they love in spite of the conflicts and uncertainties. Home is home. The political dynamics seem to have changed little in the Middle East over the last millennium. Stephen Weinstein’s story demonstrates that our potential for doing good and for doing harm has greatly intensified and that we are uniquely positioned to address possible solutions to many of the world’s ills, if and only if we address the final solution, keeping our greed in check. |
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