Customer Rating:
Summary: Checkpoint: vindicated by history.
Comment: Upon publication, Checkpoint was given a near-universal thumbs down by the mainstream press. I venture that it's worth re-visiting as a period piece from the absolute darkest days of the quasi-fascist Bush administration and its imperialist war.

Checkpoint is staged as a conversation between two old friends, one on the verge of insanity, the other trying to calm him down. The conversation centers around one man's desire to kill President George W. Bush. Again, the mainstream press - as shamefully guilty as Bush himself regarding getting the United States into Iraq - panned this book as a "screed". I'd say it's guilty-as-charged, but Checkpoint is a worthy, justified, and fairly nuanced screed. It's not really a "novel", and it barely qualifies as "fiction", but it does approach a sort of fiery Truth in its righteous anger. It is, over all, a thought experiment in the philosophical sense. Checkpoint asks: When the State becomes fascistic, undemocratic, and violent, are the people justified to use violence in return? Or, since we get to vote every now and then (an absolute minimum standard for our celebrated "democracy"), have the people eternally surrendered our recourse to such violence?

If we can learn anything from the Bush administration, it's that we should at least be pondering these questions. We should at least be able to write books about them without being labeled "unpatriotic" or "irresponsible".

If this book WERE a traditional novel about the same subject, with narrative and lots of chapters and a complicated plot, it would not be worthy of one star. But Checkpoint is a conversation that should have been going on at the level of public discourse, while instead we only had cowardice and fear and patriotism that, in retrospect, was obviously false.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: An emotional outburst embedded in its time...
Comment: Probably the least controversial thing one can say about Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint" is that it's controversial. Released at a time when the highly polarized American public was awaiting the charged 2004 election, the book's main character spews invective against the incumbent president, George W. Bush. Some four years later the public remains equally divided as yet another tense presidential election approaches. Some things never change. 2004 also saw the release of Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 911," a film which seemed to unify the left by showcasing President Bush and his administration at their absolute worst. Its phenomenal success prompted a catharsis of anti-Bush material. Doubtless Baker, or at least his publisher, saw an opportunity with "Checkpoint." In August, 2004 it appeared to near universal disdain (at least in the mainstream American press). Though the book isn't necessarily political, its timing, subject matter and tone probably made it difficult for many to read it otherwise. Its incendiary topic: the assassination of President Bush.

The cover of "Checkpoint" says "a novel," but it reads like a play. It could easily be performed as one (for the controversy hungry, at least). Every page contains nothing but dialogue and the occasional bracketed stage direction or sound (such as "[Click... click, click]"). Perhaps the cover should instead read "Checkpoint a dialogue." The text involves a tape recorded discussion between two main characters, Jay and Ben ("Room Service" has a few lines later on). Ben has rushed to the "Adele Hotel and Suites" in Washington, D.C. at Jay's behest. Jay soon says "I'm going to assassinate the president." Ben's initial reaction seems a bit far-fetched, but as the book continues the reader discovers that Ben has a history with Jay. Jay isn't well. He hasn't been well for a while, it seems. Plus, he's a little loopy. His assassin's weapons include a large boulder, remote controlled flying saws, and "special bullets" programmed by marinating them with a picture of the intended victim. Jay also reads blogs. From these he's collected information on what he sees as the crimes of the Bush administration. The Iraq war plays heavily here, in particular an episode at a checkpoint in which a mother witnesses her daughters killing by US forces. Jay works himself to a frenzy. Ben tries to dissuade him and threats begin (when Ben threatens to contact the authorities, Jay promises to carry out his act immediately; the story's crucible seems a little contrived, but it suffices). Ben tries to calm Jay with some of the usual palliatives: killing just leads to more killing, all presidents have been bad (he lists them since Truman; only Carter gets a "meant well"). He then has Jay pound on a picture of Bush with a hammer ("[Flump!]"). Whether this provides adequate therapy remains somewhat ambiguous. The book ends with a "[Click.]"

Following publication, a plethora of interpretations spewed from the press and public. Some excused it merely as a diatribe against President Bush a la "Fahrenheit 911." Others saw it as a critique of liberalism, likely building on the seeming "nothing-we-can-do" passivity of Ben in the face of Jay's violent outburst and Jay's iconoclastic views on abortion. A much smaller number questioned the legality of the book. Still others saw its "therapeutic" value in providing a warning to not destroy oneself by raging against the machine. The literary minded tended to dismiss the politics altogether and focus instead on the character's personalities and interactions. Baker himself insisted that the book is "not political," though he also said it was inspired by the events of the recent Iraq war. The book does read like an emotional outburst. It feels rushed and uneven in many places. But it also contains hilarious, disturbing, and moving passages; a few of which seem like harbingers of Baker's 2008 non-fiction follow-up "Human Smoke." Ultimately, the question remains: will this book continue to inspire readers situated outside the political volcano it appeared in? It seems to have disappeared, swallowed up by the 2004 election results, though criticism of the Bush administration continues unabated. Nonetheless, the book contains enough intriguing elements that in a few year's time people may read it with a new perspective. In some ways the book was too close to the historical events that surrounded it. Time may provide enough distance to judge the book by other merits. Or perhaps it will remain a product of its fervent and frenzied time, when the United States saw a degree of polarization unseen since the Civil War.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: a friend stopping a friend
Comment: This is a very politically motivated book where two guys get together and one has a plan to assinate the President. What transpires are the goals of both guys--one to stop his friend from his sick plan, the other to carry out his sick plan. A pretty good fast read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not clear what this was meant to accomplish
Comment: This book is billed as a novel, but it's really a short story told entirely in dialogue form -- there's a guy who's threatening to assassinate George W. Bush, and his old high-school buddy is trying to talk him out of it. The would-be assassin, Jay, seems to be delusional: I don't think we're supposed to believe that his intended plans (or weapons) could possibly work. At the same time, he's very well-informed about recent events, especially the Iraq war. I suppose that combination makes him potentially an interesting character, and the book might work as a character study -- but if that's the intention, it's too short; we don't have enough to go on to really understand this guy, and we certainly don't get anything like a thorough political assessment of the Bush Administration (or even just the Bush Administration's crimes). So I'm not sure what the book really means to provide. I like Nicholson Baker's writing, but I don't know..... maybe too little is expected of novelists these days. This isn't a bad read, but it seems dashed-off and insubstantial -- certainly not the novel that will be looked back on as defining this era.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Horrible and boring
Comment: I read this in 2 hours. It's a boring, short book (in script form). There's no real fowarding of the plot, and the character are annoying. Even if you hate Bush, you wont like this book.

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