THE EXAMINED LIFE
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By Joshua Glenn, Globe Staff, 12/28/2003
BY NOW, IT'S WELL-KNOWN that when Saddam Hussein was captured earlier this month, a copy of Feodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" was discovered in his hideout. (Dostoyevsky's fourth novel, "Notes from Underground," which tells the story of an alienated ex-government official who cannot show his face in public, might have been more appropriate.) What's less well-known however, is that shortly before the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam put the finishing touches on his own fourth work of fiction, an allegorical epic about his own place in history."
Be Gone, Demons!" relates the attempts of Ezekiel Hescel, an immortal, heavyset moneylender -- said by the author's former interpreter to be modeled upon Ariel Sharon -- to incite trouble between Muslim nations during biblical times. When Ezekiel convinces his Roman allies (read: the American empire) to attack Iraq, a resistance fighter named Salim (read: Saddam) drives them out in an apocalyptic battle on the Mesopotamian plains. President Bush might be interested in what transpires next.
Upon returning home, according to an excerpt from the book that appeared recently in Britain's Daily Telegraph, the Roman king discovers the twin towers of his capital city in flames. "The Romans watched the blaze and wondered who had done it," writes Saddam. "The king said: `Our enemies are great in numbers.' Ezekiel Hescel answered no. `Such a fedayeen attack could only be carried out by the Arabs."'
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