Okay, we have a new deadly virus which has wiped out kazillions of dollars of the world’s wealth. We have “projects” such as 1619 , dedicated to fostering murderous and suicidal self-hatred in our country.
I can’t wait any longer to exhort you all to read Gore Vidal’s 1978 novel Kalki.
In which: a VietNam veteran, James Kelly, styles himself as Vishnu’s latest avatar,Kalki,who will bring the present age of Earth to an end. I dk, does he believe it? There’s an element of fake-it-till-you-make -it at first, but after he and his team succeed in killing off everybody else on Earth with an engineered virus, he’s pretty heavily invested in the idea, so by the conclusion, yes, he does.
He and his team, which includes the novel’s narrator, a female pilot, announce that the world will end on April 3. (And people actually fawn on Kelly and his bride, known as Lakshmi, saying things like, “Oooh, I can’t wait for The End!” ) The aviatrix, who is famous for having written a book called Beyond Motherhood, flies all over the globe dropping leaflets announcing the date. Turns out, the leaflets are impregnated with the virus, and the date is timed to coincide with the end of the incubation period, so…it works! At the appointed hour, Kelly/Kalki emerges from his houseboat docked at the pier in. New York City, with his neck painted blue, and begins the Dance O’ Death, and..everybody dies, cep’n the members of his team, his “Perfect Masters” all of whom have been inoculated in advance, unbeknownst to even them!
Their goal to repopulate the Earth with Kalki and Lakshmi’s descendants does not go as planned, sadly. At one point the aviatrix-narrator muses about the mass destruction they’ve had a hand in: was it fulfillment of the Hindu prophecies, or was it just a stunt by an audacious mortal: “Lord Vishnu could have done this, yes, but so could James Kelly..”
IMHO, Kalki is required reading for 2020. If you read it, let me know what you think.
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Hyp, I’m wondering if WFB will be looking over my shoulder as I’d be reading Vidal. -grin-
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Watching and (reading what there is of) Austen’s “Sanditon” right now, actually….
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Nah, that debate was long before Gore wrote this book. And he’s a better novelist than WFB, who wrote spy stories with a hero, Blacky sump’n-or-other, transparently modeled on himself! BUT:
WFB’s son Christopher really is a great, very funny novelist!
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I had fun with Blackford Oakes poking fun at Bond; Am in the middle of deconstructing Calvin – he’s apocalyptic enough for me right now, really. CB seemed kind of snide – in a way his father wasn’t – when I tried him….
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Nanda , re your comments about Buckley père et fils: well, no accounting for taste! But have you read Christo’s “The Relic Master”? I posted about that in the Mischief a few weeks ago; drop me an email if you’d like to read my witty and quixotic musings…oh and most lately he wrote one called “The Judge Hunter” about the assassins Charles II sent to the colonies to track down the judges who had voted to behead his dad—so funny, say I! (But again: taste….)
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Hyp, I read his memoir, “Losing Mum and Pup” – and wasn’t too impressed….Maybe the novels are different?
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Re “Losing Mum and Pup” o god so sad. WFB wasn’t always the most considerate daddy. But the novels I mentioned are funny. Me, I like novels where I learn some history as well…
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Hypatia, you are making a point that nobody is hearing. At first I dismissed your idea as too crazy to be possible but now I am coming around to your way of thinking.
What are the chances that the inventor of this bug or someone else even in ChiCom’s bio-warfare lab believes that mankind is the biggest threat to Mother Earth and released the coronavirus on purpose? I mean look at my life and some of the women who have loved me. That alone should tell you that stranger things have happened.
FYI: I need to read my (two) brand spanking new Theroux books first. Shout out to ET: I am loving them!
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This AM the markets are skyrocketing again, on word that there’s been a “breakthrough” in developing a Coronavirus vaccine (or is it a cure, must check..).
H’mmmmm: cui bono? Who would benefit from a situation where the world was skeert to death by tales of a virulent fast-spreading murrain, , followed quickly by the miraculous invention of the remedy?🤔
Il ne manque que ça: the antidote, too, was developed in that lab in Wuhan ….
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Il ne manque que ça: the antidote, too, was developed in that lab in Wuhan ….
Somebody tell me that this is not true! Oh God please do not let this be true.
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Um, no, it wasn’t true, at least not yet..I was just speculating..
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But, but, but, surely no one would intentionally kill people just to make a fast buck. Unless of course they were old white men, who we all know are the only race & religion of people who have kept slaves and such since the beginning of time.
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