Book Review: Karate Is a Thing of the Spirit
Author: Harry Crews
Date: 1971
Publisher: Morrow
ISBN: none
Length: 206 pages
Quote: “She taught killing techniques gently.”
She’s a blonde who’s outgrown winning beauty pageants and gone on to win karate competitions. She’s willing to strip before fighting men in order to distract and defeat them. thing of the spirit or not, this is a novel of sex and violence...well, in 1971 Norman Mailer was considered an excellent writer. It is possible to analyze the sex and violence as expressing a conflict of ideas, and feel that that conflict is resolved in the story...but how many people really care?
Two of the many, many guys who want the blonde Brown Belt make conflicting claims on her. One wants her to live for karate alone; one wants her to give up karate and have a baby. If you’re in any doubt as to which decision the blonde will eventually adopt, remember, once again: it was 1971.
I didn’t like this book. Some people, probably all male, do like it. I’m not trying to shame those people; I’ll even concede the possibility that, while reading it, they thought about the ideas that are being played out in the almost continuous fights and numerous sexual acts. I’ll concede this point because debating it was also a thing of 1971, and I have a life.
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