The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan)
by Tom Clancy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tom ClancyEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-08-01
ISBN: 0425180964
Number of pages: 1152
Publisher: Berkley
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780425180969
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan)
Book Review: Racist, jingoistic trash
Summary: 1 Stars
There was a time when Tom Clancy wrote enjoyable, if not particularly deep, novels. The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising provided an engrossing read and interesting "what-if" scenarios. But as time went on, Tom Clancy's novels descended into bloated, jingoistic rantings. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where he "jumped the shark" (I'd pin him at the ludicrous Rainbow Six) but one thing is clear: he's certainly not the writer he used to be.
The Bear and the Dragon stands as one of the most offensive and outright racist books I've ever read, and I've read Mein Kampf. As you might ascertain from the title, the book concerns a conflict between Russia and the People's Republic of China, and naturally the intervention of Tom Clancy's America. Unfortunately for the reader, and anyone remotely familiar with Chinese culture, it soon becomes painfully obvious that Clancy did absolutely no research on China at all. Apparently Clancy thinks Chinese officials address each other with "comrade", dress in Mao suits, and act in such a stereotypically villainous manner I half-expected Fu Manchu to make an appearance. To make matters worse, a major plot point is based on his misunderstanding of China's "one child" policy. The hateful portrayal of the Chinese seems to stem not from any bona fide "research," but from the simple fact that they're not white, not Christian, and not American. As it stands, the horrendously inaccurate portrayal of the Chinese is enough to make me not recommend the book to anyone, but it is merely one in a string of literary offences this novel commits.
Then there's our hero, Jack Ryan. He's gone from an everyman who got caught up in extraordinary situations, to a superman who is capable of anything and is gifted with amazing powers of intuition, a perfect wife who is the best doctor around, and perfectly behaved little children. Yet despite all this, Ryan does nothing but whine, and whine constantly, about how much he hates being president. When he's not doing that, he engages in tedious internal rants that present his right-wing views as something that should be obvious to even the most ignorant of people, which became quite tiring and offensive after hearing them for the twelfth time or so. Jack Ryan and the rest of the "good guys" even go so far as to accuse the Chinese of racism, when they themselves are spewing every anti-Asian slur there is. What's worse is that Clancy himself seems to be utterly unaware of this blatant hypocrisy. The good guys are all white, Christian, and all right-of-center in their political orientation, and Clancy lets you know it at least once every chapter. He even engages in tiresome religious diatribes , giving us a lengthy rant from a preacher about the evil, godless Chinese. If it wasn't obvious before, the whole "let's make Jack Ryan president" plot was nothing more than an excuse by Clancy to remake America in his vision, and what a terrible vision it is.
Clancy's writing style has also suffered terribly...and it's not as if it was that exceptional to begin with. He likes to repeat snippets of information, and even repeats dialogue between characters. How many times do we need to hear that Mao liked "13 year old virgins?" He many times do we need to hear that Ryan's little girl "gives the best kisses?" How many times do we have to hear Ed and Mary Pat Foley call each other "honey-bunny?" This is the kind of thing that should have been caught by an editor early on, but apparently the editor was either asleep or too afraid to suggest any changes. Another highly irritating habit of Clancy's is giving his characters multiple monikers, from their names to their positions (SecDef, SecTres) to their Secret Service codenames (SWORDFISH, SANDBOX, etc.) which is gratingly annoying as it is confusing. It's hard to read things like "...POTUS said to FLOTUS" and not roll your eyes at Clancy's hilarious use of jargon in an attempt to seem "in the know." And don't even get me started on the pointless sex scenes Clancy decides to insert. Yes, a Tom Clancy sex scene. Yes, that loud scream you just heard was you.
It used to be that one thing you could count in a Clancy story was an accurate depiction of military hardware and strategies, so much so that you really did wonder if he had been debriefed by the White House. Not so here, where most of the "research" is on utterly dull subjects like trade negotiations and White House procedure. The final battle between the Americans and Chinese is most laughable, as the Americans suffer hardly any losses despite facing the largest standing army in the world. The "climax" serves to provide absolutely no tension or excitement, as the outcome was never in any doubt in the first place. Part of it has to do with one of Tom Clancy's trademarks: the use of blatantly obvious foreshadowing. A group of characters spend a great deal of time discussing how to outfit an Aegis cruiser to shoot down ballistic missiles, which is so tangental to the rest of the plot that it is a dead giveaway to how the story is going to end.
In the end, The Bear and the Dragon is a bloated, racist mess. Fans of Clancy's earlier works are bound to be disappointed, and those with any knowledge of China will certainly be offended. Steer clear of this wreck.
Summary of The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan)
President Jack Ryan faces a world crisis unlike any he has ever known, in Tom Clancy's extraordinary new novel?.
A high-level assassination attempt in Russia has the newly elected Ryan sending his most trusted eyes and ears?including antiterrorism specialist John Clark?to Moscow, for he fears the worst is yet to come. And he?s right. The attempt has left the already unstable Russia vulnerable to ambitious forces in China eager to fulfill their destiny?and change the face of the world as we know it...
Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful--but not when you're the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned U.S. president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he's up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won't stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters' motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogram the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you're Jack Ryan, you'd better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your parade. Bad for reelection prospects. "You know, I don't really like this job very much," Ryan complains to his aide Arnie van Damm, who replies, "Ain't supposed to be fun, Jack."
But you bet The Bear and the Dragon is fun--over 1,000 swift pages' worth. In the opening scene, a hand-launched RPG rocket nearly blows up Russia's intelligence chief in his armored Mercedes, and Ryan's clever spooks report that the guy who got the rocket in his face instead was the hoodlum "Rasputin" Avseyenko, who used to run the KGB's "Sparrow School" of female prostitute spies. Soon after, two apparent assassins are found handcuffed together afloat in St. Petersburg's Neva River, their bloated faces resembling Pokémon toys.
The stakes go higher as the mystery deepens: oil and gold are discovered in huge quantities in Siberia, and the evil Chinese Minister Without Portfolio Zhang Han San gazes northward with lust. The laid-off elite of the Soviet Army figure in the brewing troubles, as do the new generation of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Zhang's wily, Danielle Steel-addicted executive secretary Lian Ming, and Chester Nomuri, a hip, Internet-porn-addicted CIA agent posing in China as a Japanese computer salesman. He e-mails his CIA boss, Mary Pat "the Cowgirl" Foley, that he intends to seduce Ming with Dream Angels perfume and scarlet Victoria's Secret lingerie ordered from the catalog--strictly for God and country, of course. Soon Ming is calling him "Master Sausage" instead of "Comrade," but can anybody master Ming?
The plot is over the top, with devastating subplots erupting all over the globe and lurid characters scaring the wits out of each other every few pages, but Clancy finds time to insert hard-boiled little lessons on the vileness of Communism, the infuriating intrusions of the press on presidential power, the sexual perversions of Mao, the poor quality of Russian pistol silencers ("garbage, cans loaded with steel wool that self-destructed after less than ten shots"), the folly of cutting a man's throat with a knife ("they flop around and make noise when you do that"), and similar topics. Naturally, the book bristles like a battlefield with intriguingly intricate military hardware.
When you've got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies? --Tim Appelo
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