Stephen King is writing a bi-monthly article for "Entertainment Weekly" and he recommended some authors recently, one being Peter Abrahams. Just finished Crying Wolf and enjoyed it immensely, though the ending was a little anticlimactic.
The best thing about the novel is the continual riffing and rippage on the evil bastard philosopher Nietzsche. Dying insane and riddled with syphilis was too good for that son of a bitch, if you ask me.
Abrahams creates an interesting dynamic by presenting a Nietzscheian superman (the evil character of the book, natch) who's contrasted by a college professor who's enamored of Nietzsche. This misguided, prissy prof. foists his crap on clean, young minds using the standard lies that Nietzsche was a "free thinker" who was unencumbered with our stale notions of morality while the bad buy lives the nightmare. (My theory about Nietzsche is that he was so putrid that he was driven by the sole need to improve his impoverished sex life; thus, he sought to expand his potential mating pool by convincing others that screwing anyone was fair game. In short, he was the Pauly "the weasel" Shore of his day.)
However, all the characters with a little savvy expose him for the gumball machine diamond ring he was:
"Nietzsche didn't mind a little rudeness, did he, Leo?" said Mr. Zorn.
"He was rather correct in his personal dealing, in fact," said Professor [Leo] Uzig. "Excluding the period of his madness, of course."
"Let's exclude Lizzie Borden's one bad day while we're at it," said Mr. Zorn.
It's nice seeing Nietzsche upended like the bucket of turds he was.
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