The movie of "Dog Soldiers" was horribly retitled, though. "Who'll Stop the Rain." I only saw it cut to shreds on TV, so I can't say how good it was. It came out too late to be very topical. The Nolte character, Ray, I think, was supposedly based on Neal Cassidy; I think Stone was supposed to have been on the bus with Ken Kesey. Nolte was playing Cassidy in a Keroac movie that year too; he probably didn't know he was playing the same guy twice.
Stone's first book, "A Hall of Mirrors", also got a movie, WUSA, with Paul Newman no less. That one was set mostly on the other side of the political fence, and foreshadowed the current political culture in some ways, which I guess shows things don't change that much.
I really like Robert Stone, but after reading "A Flag for Sunrise", it all got a little too grim for me.
I liked DeLillo's "Libra" a lot, I read "Underworld" and mostly liked it, too. They both had sort of incoherent endings, though.
Cheers, Dan. |
