Ultimata

Five days into autumn, I report that the most disappointing beach read of my summer was Ultimatum 2. I know you both liked the book... at least I think you both liked the book, but I was a bit let down. It's nowhere near as good as the original - which I will remind you we graded 'C' - nor is it as memorable. How well I remember the sexy Deputy Premier of Nova Scotia of Ultimatum; how little I remember of the "amazing, sharp-minded, cool-tongued black woman" who serves as Secretary of State in Ultimatum 2.

Here's looking forward to Ultimatum 3. And why not? After all, Ultimatum is the one Rohmer title that Canadians of a certain age remember. Why stop at two? Coppola didn't. Sure, the premise of Ultimatum 2 wasn't nearly so interesting as Ultimatum, but that isn't to say that there aren't ideas out there. Some suggestions:

Reading Richard Rohmer in The Walrus!

I'd like to think that we've reached new heights, but as my agent will attest, I'm not one for promotion.

Is evidence required?

Consider the simple fact that I'm only now mentioning my 29 June article for The Walrus.

Remember when Michael Cimino was still alive?

Yeah, it's been that long.

You'll find the piece here:

The Brexit Fix-it:

How an obscure forty-year-old Canadian thriller might help alleviate a global crisis

If you judge a book by the cover...

Ultimatum 2 arrived on my desk the same week The Lexicon of Love II was released. You see the similarities, right? Each looks to capitalize on the greatest hit, beginning with the cover.

Because The Guardian is very keen on The Lexicon of Love II, I'm going to force myself to give it a listen.

Because I'm committed to reading Richard Rohmer, I'll be forcing myself to pick up Ultimatum 2. Before I do, I've got a few things to say about it as an objet. 

A few days ago, I wrote you guys an email in which I referred to Ultimatum 2  as a "competent-looking production."

It's not.

Let's look at the cover, which I'll describe charitably as an homage to the original.

I'm certain that the change in the red, white and blue stripes has no meaning. The placement of  "MAJOR-GENERAL" is evidence of ineptitude. Laziness comes in the form of the Russian coat of arms - though "RUSSIA" is helpful to those not familiar - and the old eagle and Canadian flag design used on the cover of Ultimatum... the mass market paperback edition.

C'mon, 300dpi minimum, guys.

A few lessons in Photoshop would help. 

You know it's true.

Has anyone else noticed that not one of the four non-fiction books we've read to date has featured citations, endnotes or a bibliography?

Recognize those words? I wrote them about Massacre 747 last September. You'd think that a book presented as a "definitive work, incisively evidential throughout" would be loaded with references, but you'd be wrong.

You'd think the same about The Green North. Wrong again.

This Rohmer scholar has learned not to expect such things, and try to take the man at his word, even when he serves up contradictory figures:

Canada’s population is expected to grow dramatically in the next 100 years. This country will probably add ten million by 1980 and 100 over the next century. (p. 18) 

Canada itself  is likely to need living space, working space, and playing space for an additional seven million by the early 1980’s [sic], 15 million by the year 2000 and 100 million over the next 90 to 100 years. (p. 136) 

…if we are to believe forecasts that our total population will increase by about 100 million within 100 years of our Centennial Year [sic] – 1967. (p. 136-37)

I don't know that we should really blame Rohmer here; it could be that he didn't make up these figures. How about we say that there were two or three studies - and that they didn't reach the same conclusions, but he presents the data from each so as to maintain impartiality.

One thing we can say, in hindsight, is that those studies were all way off.

• In 1970, the year The Green North was published, Canada's population was 21 million. We didn't add ten million by 1980; it wasn't a third that number.
• We've got to pick up the pace if we're to have added a hundred million between 1970 and 2070. We've added only fourteen in the last forty-five years.

Could be that Rohmer's unnamed forecasters were counting Americans fleeing the coming race wars and those tired of soylent green:

The United States is undergoing tremendous upheavals within its own society and we should be prepared for a sharp increase in the number of moderate Americans who decide to move to Canada. The U.S. population will be busting at the seams at close to 400 million in the next 30 years.

The population of the United States in 2000 (thirty years after publication): 282 million.

Could be that they also added a bunch of Brits:

If Britain reaches another economic crisis which she cannot solve and plunges into national bankruptcy thousands of Britons would move to Canada.

Must say, a wave of immigrants that can be counted in the thousands wouldn't make much of a blip. Hardly worth mentioning. Now, ten million, like in Exodus/UK - that would be something!

(What is it with the italics?)

I wonder how long Exodus/UK had been gelling. As long as Ultimatum? About ten years?

About ten years ago, an editorial writer for a Canadian daily newspaper made this comment: "The time may come," he said, "when American carbines will be carried on American shoulders as Americans patrol our streets."
     He reasoned along the following lines:
"Let us suppose that we move into a day in the further - perhaps 20 or 25 years hence. You are president of the United States and you are approached by a group of your most important advisors.  One of them addresses you in this fashion:
     "'Mr. President. It is the conclusion of your study group that the oil reserves of this nation within its continental boundaries are seriously low. As you know, we have had a fairly strict rationing system for natural gas for several years and this situation will become worse very soon.
     "'Our mineral resources, by and large, can no longer be counted in terms of more than two to five, possibly eight, years. If the current situation continues and we foresee no lessening of demand not only by domestic consumers but by our export markets overseas, the standard of living of most of the American people will be reduced significantly and, here and there, dramatically.
     "'We have agreed that the most prolific, the most reliable, the most economic sources of supply of all such minerals and energy resources (including radioactive minerals for nuclear power) in a politically stable and friendly country, can be found to our north in Canada. The conclusions, Mr. President, are obvious. We must take action.'"

(Italics mine.)

Who was this unidentified editorial writer? In which paper was this published? When exactly? Outside of this book I can find no trace, which is a great shame because the influence on Rohmer's themes and style is significant. Recognition is warranted.

Unless he's Arthur Henry Ward.

Or Gator Peters.

Language

Resplendent with anachronisms

As Brian points out in his post, Rohmer's use of "bullshit" is an anachronism, but the book is littered with them.  People speak to each other like we're in the world of Ultimatum!  A few other examples (and there are more;  I gave up writing them down halfway through):

- The word "stereotype"  is used to denote personality traits.  Although the word existed as a printing term, it wasn't used in this sense until 1922.

- "Anyway, I've beaten those lah-de-dah snobs at their own game" - the word "la-di-da"  first appeared in 1889.

- "I wanted to get all my ducks in a row" The expression "ducks in a row"  first appeared in an article in the Washington Post in 1932.

As time is always of the essence (I know this because the expression is used), I kept expecting someone to get on a plane to make a secret meeting in China to discuss the deal.

Don't trip on your metaphor on the way out

"Without changes to that Treaty we'll probably never make a deal with the two-headed Russian Eagle."

Galt grunted. "Eagles. You're up against two proud, friendly eagles, John A.  Friendly with each other, that is."

The intense pain from Macdonald's shoulder made him wince as he agreed. "I hadn't thought of it before, but you're right.  I'm up against eagles - those two at any rate."

"And you and I, John A, an all of us here must do everything in our power to defeat the American eagle and its Manifest Destiny while we convince the Tsar or all the Russias that his powerful two-headed eagle should deposit its Russian American egg safely - and at an enormous price in gold - in our Canadian nest." 

Macdonald paused, then announced, "After that flight of oratory in the presence of excruciating pain, Alex, I think I deserve a tumbler of the best whisky."

As do the readers.

(no idea why Russian Eagle is capitalized and American eagle isn't, but I'm just transcribing here, not correcting)   

I raced through Sir John A.'s Crusade, but only because the copy I had was an inter-library loan and could not be renewed.

Here are a few things to look out for:

Bullshit
Rohmer imagines at least two characters – Robert Wilmot and George-Étienne Cartier – uttering the word. Fathers of Confederation both, I felt this was in poor taste, doubly so since its use can be traced back no further than 1915 America.

Errors in calculation
Foul-mouthed Cartier pegs Macdonald's age at 52. In fact, he was 51.
     Macdonald describes the year in which all action takes place as the twenty-ninth in Victoria's reign. In fact, it is the thirtieth.

Exclamation marks
I'm certain that there are more here than in any other Rohmer novel.

Kelly
Rohmer likes to position himself as something of a seer.
     "Balls!" you say. "The man couldn't have been more wrong about the Soviet Union."
     "True enough," I reply, "but consider last week's events in Buffalo. One of the dead was found in a car covered by snow."
     As if further evidence was needed that Rohmer is in tune with Geller, I point out that Sir John A.'s Crusade features a villain with the very same surname as one of his future critics.

Resplendent
Reading Richard Rohmer, you begin to recognize common threads. Vodka and how to dull its effects is one example. Not everything is so obvious. It wasn't until Sir John A.'s Crusade that I first noticed "resplendent", a word I don't think I've ever used in my own writing.
     Going back, I see that it was there from the beginning. In Ultimatum we find members of the RCMP "resplendent in their traditional red-coated uniforms". It's used in describing Patton's garb in Patton's Gap. The word appears in Red Arctic and – spoiler – Rohmer's biography of E.P. Taylor. Resplendent is used four times in Generally Speaking. It also appears four times in Sir John A.'s Crusade. Which brings me, finally, to…

Fetishism
You'll not find so shameless a display of perversity as this passage from Sir John A.'s Crusade:

The Right Honorable Henry Wellesley, Earl Cowley, was resplendent in his ambassador's uniform. He wore a black jacket, with a high collar and epaulettes; the gold braid decorating it was enhanced with royal reds and blues. A crimson sash crossed from the right shoulder to the opposite hip; half a dozen medals on multi-coloured ribbons were pinned to the left side of the jacket, over the ambassador's chest. Below them sat thge star of his rank with which his Queen had vested him. His black trousers bore wide gold stripes down the outside seams. Those stripes disappeared into highly polished half-Wellington boots.
     A short ceremonial sword in an elaborately engraved and embossed scabbard hung from a broad gold-decorated belt that encircled Earl Cowley's considerable girth. On his head sat, foursquare, a large black cocked hat covered with more gold braids, its forward point jutting straight out from his wigless wide forehead. Across the hat's crest several white plumes…

There's more, but you get the picture.

Lest you wonder, I don't mention the "busby-capped soldiers of Her Majesty's Grenadier Guard" because "resplendent" is not used.

Yes, I am hurt.

Speaking generally...

About Generally Speaking, I'd say Chris is right - overall, he has led an interesting life and comes across as pretty likeable.  But that said, his aversion to editors is (once again) his undoing.  There's a pretty good 300-page book in here about someone who lived through interesting times and had a hand in a lot of historically significant events.  The problem is, of course, that the book is 581 pages long (counting the appendices).

There are far too many chapters here about things that he was only marginally connected to, at the expense of his own story - the family anecdotes dwindle to almost nothing once he becomes a lawyer.   Chapter after chapter seems to exist because everything that crossed his sphere of influence deserved a part in the story.  Why?  Because he doesn't seem to want to let even the smallest story go by if it means he can mention the Reichmanns, Galen Weston, Conrad Black, etc, etc.  He's a tad star struck by these leading lights of Canadian business (wonder what he thinks of Conrad since his fall from grace?) - the fact they are rich means that any chance to mention them is taken.

A good example - there is the story of how he, Weston, Black and CUAW president Bob White ("as far to the left in things Canadian as Black and Weston, each a tycoon in his own right, are to the right") are all made Officers to the Order of Canada at the same time.  Seated alphabetically, Weston and White end up next to each other.  The result?  They chat amiably.

This is an anecdote?

The short shrift given to his family makes for some weird elliptical passages.  Out of the blue, we get this: "It was 1999.  Mary-O and I were visiting her mother figure, Elspeth Gormley, in England...".  Who?  We never heard of her before or after this cryptic reference.

I think what I found most disappointing was the small amount of space he devotes to his writing career.  There is next-to-nothing about the how and why of any of his novels - nothing much about why he bothers to write, what he gets out of it (except money), his reaction to critics, to readers, what inspires him, what other books he's read etc. etc.  All I got out of the chapter on his writing was the fact he fought to get Ultimatum published his way - without any of those interfering editors.  And if ever a book needed editing, it's Ultimatum...

I note that while he is proudly conservative, it isn't always with a capital C.  Mulroney is barely mentioned and he grudgingly admits to admiring Trudeau.  Sometimes he's off-putting (a throwaway reference to "so-called global warming"), but by and large it wasn't as painful as I'd feared.

 Advertisements for myself:  Not one, but two references to Ultimatum 2, the new novel he is working on.  Both references read like ad copy.

Not only will I not fight you on this, Chris, I'll kinda sorta agree. Massacre 747 has one great cover. Just look at that red foil! I'll bet that caught the browser's roving eye. But does it have to be wrong? Have the Su-15 head up, not down, and Bob's your uncle. The Black Brigade would agree. Coronet got it right with Massacre 007.

On the subject, is this the worst Rohmer cover?

No. Patton's Gap is the worst, but Red Arctic is the laziest. A bit of scribbling with a dried out marker, a logo lifted from some hockey tournament, and those blue, white and red lines from Ultimatum. 

Wait 'til you see the cover of Poems of Arthur Henry Ward, Jr.

  

I devoured the last of Richard Rohmer's Balls! in one sitting last night.  And with that fresh in my mind -- and the horror of the image fresh in yours -- here are my thoughts:

Sir Michael Wilson and Qasim Khan (the man with hooded eyes; The Cobra)

On page 12 of Balls! we are introduced to Michael Wilson, ship broker, and Qasim Khan, ship haver.  Qasim has heard a rumor that pretty soon someone's going to be needing tankers in the worst way, and Qasim wants to make sure Wilson brokers his first.  Qasim threatens to blackmail Wilson if he doesn't get the message and do what he's told when the time comes.

This never comes up again.

Does Qasim know Buffalo's about to get a President-killing snowstorm that will turn America from a nation of many needs, abilities, gifts, dreams etc., into a entity only interested in buying tankers?

If so, how does he know?  Does he own a weather machine? Would a weather machine be more valuable than a boat? If you owned a weather machine, would you use it to attack Buffalo, in order to sell more boats?

Sam Harris, Oil Man

Vanishes, with a golden parachute, on page 175, never to be seen again.

I think the disappearance of Qasim Khan is just one of those things that makes Rohmer Rohmer.  It's like Glenn Gould's grunting.  Abandoned plot threads are part of the fun.  Like getting the same information a half dozen times, or the inevitable appearance of the Mackenzie Delta. (Page 226)

I think the disappearance of Sam Harris -- oil genius/sex machine -- and the appearance of George Stratton -- oil genius/sex machine -- is something else entirely.  It's evidence of a heavy (and hacky) rewrite.

I think the whole book is about Sam Harris, president of TransWhathamacallit,  and "George Stratton", Vice President of the United States, is his Tyler Durden.  Same guy, different name.  And the result of a really late-in-the-game overhaul.

Here's a story that kinda makes sense:  Sam Harris runs an oil company.  They fuck up (or get attacked with a weather machine) and kill almost everyone in Buffalo, NY.  Sam Harris decides that will never happen again, and sets out to buy thousands of oil tankers and convert them to LNG tankers.  He does, the end.  (Yes, that's a lame ending.  But all Rohmer business deals have the same lame ending.  This guy flies around asking people to sell him things. They do. Tah-da!)

Here's a story that's a mess:  Sam Harris runs an oil company.  It screws up, and everyone in Buffalo drives their car into the snow.  Sam Harris feels so bad about it, his bosses fire him, because, oh yeah, they also just found out his mother was Jewish.  Sam Harris is never seen again. Meanwhile, the President dies, the new President picks s a completely different natural gas-obsessive, Senator George Stratton, to be Vice President.  The President has a mission for George: America (the country) is going to start buying natural gas by the trillions of cubic feet and America (the country) is going to buy thousands of ships to move it.  So George does just that.  Because he and the President are both Republicans (and so is the Senate and so's Congress, we're told) and they love free enterprise.  A hasty note, very late in the game -- "Oh, yeah, and we'll get the oil companies involved."

It's not just bad storytelling.  It's nonsense.

I think Rohmer wrote another businessman's day dream -- "A guy should buy all those oil tankers and turn them into LNG tankers" and someone (Editor X) told Rohmer thrillers need Presidents.

And maybe some kind of conspiracy?  Or at least a double cross?  Or even a setback?  Anything?  So it's not just:

Hi, will you sell me those tankers?
Yes, I will.
Thank you.
Thank you.

How about a really ugly/beautiful PLO assassin?  Or the most careless hit man in Calgary?  Maybe Balls II?

As Dudley Moore says to Peter Cook, "The main trouble with your story is that it lacks everything."

Air Force One

It was nice to see that Rohmer had improved on Ultimatum by having the President travel by Marine One (which actually exists) rather than his personal Navy helicopter that doesn't.  Also, putting Air Force One at Andrews AFB -- where it is -- rather than Dulles -- where it isn't.  But Rohmer has over-corrected (Glenn Gould: "Hguhnah-uh--uh-uh") and now all airplanes are more or less "Air Force Ones" and he goes out of his way for various cyphers to tell each other the Vice President will be taking the 707 Air Force One -- with its markings painted over! -- and not the 747 Air Force One, or any of the other Air Force Ones that are lying around.

When the President is on a plane, it's designated Air Force One.  When the President isn't on it, it's designated something else.  He also has a plane called Air Force One.  All the other planes aren't Air Force Ones.  They're just planes.  Unless the President gets on them.  Who cares, of course?  But it sounds dopey when Rohmer goes to crazy lengths to get it wrong.

I'll be driving my private car.  It's the 3:15 Greyhound from Amarillo to Dallas.
You'd better have it painted over.
No need.  It's not a bus.  I just call it that.
But not in this case?
Right.  Today it's just my car.

During the last 100 pages of Balls! -- when it became clear that there weren't any twists to the business deal coming, and when it looked like we were setting up to do Ultimatum again, with Canada holding out on the juice, and when he complained about environmentalists again -- for the first time, and I know I'm being childish, I really sort of hated Richard Rohmer.

I think you're on to something, Stan. The characters represent large groups of people, which is why we never saw the public at all in Ultimatum and Exxoneration. In this way, Exodus/UK is something of a breakthrough… something, because Jenny and the tens of thousand of rioting Britons are really just the Communist Party. The Parliament Hill protesters are equally uniform:

Apparently they were all French-Canadians. Shouting in French, they held signs such as, "anglais, stay home," and "Vive le Québec libre," and "Quebec out if anglais in." Nowhere was there a banner to be seen in support of letting the British in. Not one.

Yes, they're all French-Canadian, because no one else would object to the sudden influx of two million refugees. Where's our Communist Party?

Q: What are we to make of those odd bilingual signs and the fact that "Anglais" should be spelt with a capital?

And another: Where were the Israelis in all this? After all, it was their purchase of Rapiers that brought about this crisis, yet there's not a word from Israel in the entire novel.

Why I Love Rohmer

I want to come back to my theory that Richard Rohmer only started reading novels after writing ULTIMATUM.  (Okay, maybe someone left a copy of The Moneychangers in the seatback of a CP Air flight from Toronto to Winnipeg, and he flipped through that, because he'd met Arthur Hailey at a party.  Or maybe he remembered Treasure Island from school.)  What we're seeing is a pretty sharp guy getting interested in a hobby.

He's picking things up on the fly.

That's why ULTIMATUM and EXXONERATION have completely pointless maps and drawings of planes.  (I think he thinks it feels like something you put in a book.) And why he tries little thriller tropes and then abandons them.  Sometimes entire plots are begun and abandoned.  And why we're always getting news dumps of information that never turn out to matter to the plot.  (The giant tanker airplanes?  Gaspe's ex-wife and the handsome doctor? The two-million-dollar bribe? The inflatable undersea pipeline that either works or doesn't, I forget?)

He's goofing around.

Exodus UK, his third thriller, is the first one that begins with a list of characters.  I truly believe this is because someone told Rohmer that's how thrillers begin...

Prime Minister of Great Britain        Jeremy Sands
Chancellor of the Exchequer            Michael Hobson

... and 25 more, like...

VC-10 Engineer                               F/O Jason Rupert

But here's the thing.  When you do this in a mystery novel, presumably you're doing it so the reader can encounter a name and quickly refresh his memory without a lot of flipping around. "Weidlinger? Who the hell is Weidlinger?"  You look at the front piece or the back page and it says, "Weidlinger: Col. Forbisher's ex-partner in the jade importing business."

Rohmer has the list backwards.  It should be the character's name, and then who they are in the story.  What he's written is movie credits.  Like the Prime Minister is being played by someone named Jeremy Sands.

Because he doesn't know why other authors put character lists in their books.  He's just doing it because he's trying things out.

In the immortal words of Van Morrison: "Checking it out, taking it further. Taking it further, checking it out."

Brian - turn that counter over to # 2.

"events unfold at such speed, yet both plod".   Brian - you've just summarized everything perfectly.  Exxoneration really does move at breakneck speed, yet every time we build to a scene of potentially high drama, someone has to take the time to explain things at length.  The judge's summary, the Saudi Arabian minister's lesson in OPEC geopolitics - it's always a good time to stop and go over things.

You've both already talked about the extremely discomforting way the President being Jewish is handled.  The big reveal is rather unnerving; even for its time it's a little ......... indelicate.

I know I made a comment about their being no love story in Ultimatum and after the liaison between Cameron and de Gaspe, I'm sorry I asked.  That flirtation scene was particularly painful - Maggie got to tell de Gaspe all about himself ("Here you are, thirty-nine years old, tall, dark and handsome, and enormously intelligent and well educated"), he gets to soak it in and compliment her on being appointed by the PM to both the Senate and Board of PetroCan ("I might say that that was one of his better movements on the day he did it, or should I say actions").

Wait a minute - what?

And can I get picky here, but who copy-edited it?  My quote above reproduces "well educated" as it appears - without the hyphen; in one scene de Gaspe "lay (on his bed) starting (sic) at the ceiling"; in another Judge Avory  praises the Exxon witnesses "expecially (sic) Mr. McGarvey".  I came across 7 or 8 of these; the last two are the only ones I wrote down.

But I must say - in the end it was more fun than Ultimatum - aside from the looney military interlude that I expected would go on throughout most of the book - I find Rohmer has a much better grasp of creating a story that takes place in the financial world.   And in Senator Weinstein, we have a sort-of- kinda villain who doesn't speak in explication.  Admittedly his purposely grating "Pierre Baby"  makes him sound more like what 70s sitcoms told us slick Hollywood agents sounded like rather than a devious politician, at least he didn't sound like every other character in the book.

So do we go on to Periscope Red?

For the record, I didn’t really think that President Dennis’s religion would play a role. It’s really there to remind us all that the novel is set in the far-off 1980s. Black presidents were once used the same way. I’d have used a second Catholic president myself.

Anyway, good that level-headed, likeable Dennis is there, because he does provide balance for Weinstein. I was much more interested in Margaret Cameron and her remarkable dancing eyes. A cha-cha as de Gaspé, the Least Interesting Man in the World™, works to woo her with talk about his nature, his genes, his ideas, his building blocks, and his general superiority.

“Keep going,” she said, “I’m interested. There are certain personal questions I won’t ask you. But I’m interested in what makes you tick.”

And so he does. And his wooing works: Toronto, Thursday, March 26, 1981, 11:00 P.M.

What I find most remarkable about Ultimatum and Exxoneration is that events unfold at such speed, yet both plod. In October, Margaret is the deputy premier of Nova Scotia. Twelve weeks later, she’s sitting in the Senate and on the board of Petro-Canada after having lost a month-long campaign for re-election.

(I blame her defeat on the missing premier.)

We have de Gaspé ordering two hundred or so American soldiers incinerated in October, then making a bid for Exxon in January. No one mentions that "skit" (his word) at the airport, not even straight-talking Senator Weinstein. And no one suggests that the hostile take-over of Exxon just might go over better with the grieving American public if someone other than de Gaspé is seen to be at the helm.

October is so last year.

One last observation: All things considered, two million dollars – $5.6 million today – doesn’t seem like much of a bribe.

Ultimatum begat Exxoneration, but I’m not certain Exxoneration begat Exodus UK. From the little I’ve been able to gather, Periscope Red comes from an entirely different series. But why not? Surely there’s a reason why it’s in the Omnibus.

I see now it's this obsession with inconsistencies that's making Exxoneration such a chore. There can be no other reason.

Two more and that's it. Promise.

In Ultimatum, we're told that Porter became prime minister in August 1980 as the result of a leadership convention (defeating poor, bumbling Otto Gunther from Newfoundland). In Exxoneration, we're told that he became prime minister in August 1980 after his party won a federal election.

In Ultimatum, we're told - but only once - that President Blank is a Democrat. In Exxoneration, he's defeated in the 1980 presidential election by a Democrat. Not the Democratic National Convention, the election.

Look for the new president's religion to play a significant role - it's mentioned a lot.

Chris: The working title of Harriet Marwood, Governess was The Whipping Boy.

Yes, Exxoneration, if only because it's inextricably linked with Ultimatum. Funny, I remembered it as being a sequel, but now see that it's more a reworking - at least for the first forty-four pages. After all that time and attention invested in Ultimatum I'm feeling cheated. All those meetings, briefings, phone calls, and behind the scenes consultations, and nothing on an operation that would've surely been the prime minister's chief concern.

In a way, it's like having a series reboot after just one episode. Remember in Ultimatum when President Blank placed an embargo on the transfer of American funds into Canada? Remember how Porter got really upset? Remember how he managed to get the president to back down? In Exxoneration we learn that not 24 hours later Porter closed the border, then closed the airports, then rounded up all the CIA operatives working in Canada. No mention of any of this in Ultimatum.

All this is in preparation for an invasion - anticipated and discussed entirely off-stage and off-page. What else do we learn in Exxoneration? Well, that the British are at our side, ready to shoot down American warplanes over downtown Toronto. So, how come Governor General Simpson, Her Majesty's representative, doesn't know this? How do Porter and the Chief of Defence Staff justify hiding the existence of Operation Reception Party from Simpson, who as Governor General is also Commander-in-Chief?

Hey, do you think it'll turn out that the Governor General is one of those CIA operatives?

So this means we're all on EXXONERATION then.  I was very happy to see that it picks up right where the last one left off;  not so happy that this meant it was time to discuss options and go over plans.

Chris brought this up already, but do we know how many books he actually sold?  How big was he in the 70s?

Incidentally, I am reading these on the Metro.  I guess this means I am publicly trolling for Rohmer fans to approach me so we can, um, discuss things?

"Hey you're reading Richard Rohmer! Did you know there's a blog about 3 guys who are reading all his books...."

Why all the useless details about equipment?  Kingsley Amis called it "The Fleming Effect."  Of course, with Ian Fleming, some of the things being described were consumer goods and ladies boobies. But the briefing was a standard part of the novels before it was a standard part of the movies, "What do you know about diamonds, 007?"  And Fleming, with a background in journalism, loved to fill notebooks with facts about marine engines and clutches and the street address of SMERSH.  A funny thing Amis discovered? Half the time Fleming was telling the reader things that were true but useless -- showing all his work, for full credit -- and half the time he was just making shit up.  This yacht was made at so-and-so boat yard in Hamburg... except the boatyard doesn't exist.

Amis thought Fleming thought if he grounded everything that could be grounded you'd have an easier time with the science fiction elements.

So now I have finished the book and read all the previous blog posts.  You've both touched on everything I would have said.  I was going to say something about how interchangeable the characters are, but Chris covered that.  What I will say is what is the obsession people have with writing-by-manual?  Why is "authenticity"  something prized if all it means is that the writer knows more about engineering or flying or whatever than you, the reader?  Why is it a good thing to say "Have you read X?  It's great - it's written by a real pilot".  As if that makes it more interesting to read.  I would like to invoke the ghosts of Strunk and White here:  why can't you write "The President took the controls of Air Force One and after flying over Albany, turned the 747 north."  instead of (and I quote) " As the big aircraft sliced through the clear air on course and at designated altitude, the President checked his flight director instruments and his radio magnetic indicator needles. Their VOR receivers were tuned to a frequency of 117.8 MHz, and as the aircraft passed over Albany the RMI needles moved from pointing towards the nose of the aircraft through 180 degrees until they pointed to the tail."

This harks back to the earlier comment about Ben Bova and the need for some people to have Science Fiction be scientifically accurate above all else.

The ending I was expecting; what I didn't expect was that it was President Blank who made the decision (from Air Force One while up North for some reason - wouldn't want to get Congress, the Senate or more than 2 of his advisors onboard with his benevolent takeover plans) - I had guessed it was going to be the PM, since so much was made about how he wasn't letting anyone know a hint of how he intended to vote.

The coda actually made me laugh out loud: "oh well - there goes the country!"  the Governor-General basically says,  politely and without much emotion.  How very Canadian of him.

Wait, isn't the Premier of Nova Scotia a man? I thought the idea was that he's somewhere in Europe, but no one knows just where, so the hot Deputy Premier has to fill in. I could be wrong because, you know, I would've read this all of six days ago.

Anyway, as long as he's not in East Berlin with Gerda Munsinger.

What makes a guy write a novel when he seems to be actively hostile to the concept of "characters" or conflict? I'm guessing that Rohmer saw these as another way of spreading his ideas about energy and the North. That and money. Success on both fronts, I think.

On that note, I put Exxoneration down a couple of days ago to focus on things that pay. Easy to do – I wasn't exactly on the edge of my seat. The last page read – 34 – begins with Colonel Pierre Thomas de Gaspé:

"I know Colonel Armstrong has briefed you, but I'd like to go over the plan with you myself…"

Half-way down the page:

"As Colonel Armstrong has told you…"

Bottom of the page:

He then turned to Peter Armstrong. "Okay, Peter, let's get into that final briefing…"

I wondered about that too -- why the Premier of Nova Scotia is missing in ULTIMATUM.  Maybe she's just late because she's a lady.  Fellas, back me up.

Reading ahead in EXXONERATION, there are a couple of women, all of them described as small and intelligent, like iPhones, I guess.  There are also quite a lot of briefings that begin with variations on the deadly, "Welcome gentlemen, as you know..."  And some laughably useless illustrations, one of Pearson International Airport, and one a pretty simple drawing of rocket, like someone might doodle, in a meeting where he's lost interest, because the speaker said "Welcome gentlemen, as you know..."

It's utterly random when Rohmer decides to give you information omnipotently, and when he decides to have it come out of some character's mouth.  (It also sounds exactly the same.)

I'd love to know who his influences are.  I mean, who he thinks he's writing like.  Arthur Hailey?  Frederick Forsyth?  Leon Uris?  Morris West?  Edna Ferber?

What makes a guy decide to write a novel when he seems to be actively hostile to the concept of "characters" or "conflict"?

I've just a little way into Exxoneration, and anything can happen, but I still haven't encountered a scene where anyone disagrees with anyone else.  In a typical Rohmer chapter, one guy tells another guy his plan and the other guy says "that sounds like a good plan."

And often the plan is "let's have a meeting."