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A review by colinlusk
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard
3.0
Religious mania is a fascinating thing. Looking back at the great ranters and ravers of the past - George Fox, William Blake, Ann Lee, John Wycliffe and all the rest- I sort of envy them the certainty that fires them up to stand up for (their opinion of) God's will.
Of course, this is fine in history, and I'd almost say everyone should have a little sense of that zeal in their lives, but of course when you meet one of these guys in the present tense, for all they might talk about wanting justice, the route to get there seems to lead through a wasteland of stabbed authors, murdered women, blown-up abortion clinics, demolished towers. This guy seems better but maybe that's just because he never got to put his ideas into practice. Would he have made things better if he'd won? Maybe, but he was too much of a chaos monkey to get his plan together and got most of his followers slaughtered, so I suspect that his new regime would have been shit in its own way too.
Of course, this is fine in history, and I'd almost say everyone should have a little sense of that zeal in their lives, but of course when you meet one of these guys in the present tense, for all they might talk about wanting justice, the route to get there seems to lead through a wasteland of stabbed authors, murdered women, blown-up abortion clinics, demolished towers. This guy seems better but maybe that's just because he never got to put his ideas into practice. Would he have made things better if he'd won? Maybe, but he was too much of a chaos monkey to get his plan together and got most of his followers slaughtered, so I suspect that his new regime would have been shit in its own way too.