TeleRead will never promise full nirvana through the spread of the written word. Libraries and books, however stellar as sources of knowledge, pleasure and inspiration, can do only so much. The latest indication of this comes from the Mark Bowden’s article in the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a brilliant profile of Saddam Hussein.
“When I was in prison,” Bowden quotes Saddam through a writer who talked to the dictator, “I read all of Ernest Hemingway’s novels. I particularly like The Old Man and the Sea.”
Lo and behold, the great Saddam is himself an amateur novelist, and here’s part of Bowden’s summary of the plot of the first opus the great man wrote. A young beauty named Zabibah offers comfort to a king. “In time,” Bowden’s summary goes, “Zabibah’s sweet simplicity and virtue charm the court and win the king’s heart
