FAR FIELDS ARE ALWAYS GREEN

Ariel Dorfman's Death And The Maiden continues its run at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Is the revenge of the victim best served cold? Or do we become as bad as the torturers by indulging in it? (See my effort to tackle the subject in a short story, Anubis, on http://jottify.com/works/anubis/  Marie-Celie Agnant also uses the device of rendering the oppressor helpless in Un Alligator Nomme Rosa, when Antoine catches up with the obese, immobile Rosa Bosquet. He drives her mad, cuts out her tongue (that's the way I read it) and dumps her in an old people's home under a false name, where the residents are strapped to their chairs in front of the television. Perfect. Still, we rarely get our hands on the big fish. Put Hussein and Ghadaffi aside for a moment, and consider the comfortable, untouchable careers of bloodstained creatures like Kissinger, Bush and Blair. Why is Baby Doc back in Haiti? Where would our revenge end? One ends up calling for civil war and guillotines, ushering in more tyrants. I guess it makes more sense when it's personal. Dorfman's PBS interview with Tavis Smiley, http://video.pbs.org/video/2163553821/ , develops the idea of Art ventilating the stench of History's unburied corpses. If we can't have justice, at least we can dream about it and let the criminals know we've got their number. I still wouldn't like to be an investigative journalist in, say, Putin's Russia. Fiction is a safer bet. For instance, a lot of Latin America's recent history finds its way into crime novels. In Russia, who can look at that Mafia State without thinking of John Le Carre's 'vors' spreading their tentacles around the world?