Reseña: The Mouse that Roared

(Leido para Reto Popsugar #38: un libro satírico)

The Mouse That Roared 

by  

Leonard Wibberley

152 pages

first published February 195

Edition Language_English

 In Leonard Wibberley’s classic political satire, a tiny backwards country decides the only way to survive a sudden economic downturn is to declare war on the United States and lose to get foreign aid – but things don’t go according to plan.

My rating: 3 stars

My bookshelves: satirical, vi-primero-la-pelicula, literary-fiction,  cold-war

Erase que se era un pequeño ducado en el norte de los Alpes Suizos fundado por un mercenario inglés en el siglo XIV, que pasó a llamarse Grand Fenwick (veáse el escudo arriba). “By remarkable good fortune, Sir Roger had chosen to establish his duchy in a spot which lay on no great trade route, possessed no mines of precious metals or metals of any kind, had no harbours or great waterways and indeed nothing whatever to commend it to a conqueror.”

Sin más que cinco mil habitantes, su economia se encontraba basada en su vino Pinot. Bueno, eso fue hasta que ya no ...

La idea de que un país pequeño pueda defenderse contra los grandes del mundo, puede pensarse risible e imposible. (De ahi el nombre del ratón que rugió.)

Pero el año 1955 se acababa de pasar por la Segunda Guerra, estaba en plena tensión USA vs URSS, y el temor por la amenaza atómica. Todo eso aparece en este libro, varias verdades, y bastante ingenuidad.

¿Cuál es el plan de Grand Fendwick para no caer en bancarrota?

“All in all, as I said before, there is no more profitable and sound step for a nation without money or credit to take, than declare war on the United States and suffer a total defeat.” She smiled indulgently at the two of them.
Count Mountjoy, who had commenced listening to the discourse as if he were hearing a sentence of doom pronounced, was, when it ended, filled with lively interest.“Why,” he exclaimed, “the plan has possibilities that border on brilliant. We declare war on Monday, are vanquished Tuesday, and rehabilitated beyond our wildest dreams by Friday night.

Peeero las cosas no resultaron del todo según el plan...

La enorme paranoia norteamericana por las invasiones 'aliens' aparece en la historia, ya sea de extranjeros o de extraterrestres. Además de la situación de la armas de exterminio y otras cosas, lo siguen haciendo algo muy actual.

All we get for being the most powerful nation in the world is that we have to live in a state of siege, with our frontiers patrolled, everybody eyeing his neighbour with suspicion, and all afraid of being exterminated at any moment if that beastly bomb explodes. We’re a lot less free now than we were before, and I can’t say that I like it.”

Todo envuelto en un cuento , con jaladas de orejas incluidas.

Do not condemn the scientist, young man. Condemn rather the laymen of all nations who control the scientists; the laymen who cannot agree among themselves and as a result compel us to play the part of destroyer. [...]The crime which is done now is that war has made a tool and slave of science, and man’s knowledge, painfully and laboriously compiled, is made the instrument of man’s destruction.”

Comentario aparte, vi la pelicula de Peter Sellers hace trillones de años atrás, y se las recomiendo. Todavia me sigue asombrando la cantidad de buenas peliculas que lograban hacer basándose en ciertos libros (ejem, no como ahora), hasta llegar a mejorar como los veian.