Things that can and cannot be said by Arundhati Roy & John Cusack

"Things that can and cannot be said" by Arundhati Roy & John Cusack - A sudden death.

This book is published by Juggernaut in 2016 and has 132 pages. 

This book consists of Essays and conversations. Participants are Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, Dan Elseberg and Edward Snowden.

Dan Elseberg became famous when he made the Pentagon papers public in sixties during Vietnam war. Edward Snowden's disclosure revealed various surveillance programs run by NSA in 2013 and he had to seek asylum in Russia. Arundhati calls him saint of liberal reforms.

In this book the authors touch various subjects. They talk about Corporate over-reach and privacy rights. Authors accuse big foundations like Ford, Rockefeller and Bill- Melinda Gates for domesticating radicals (NGOs) by providing them financial help and thus controlling them. 

They claim that America tried to topple or did topple states that were not radical Islamic states like Iraq, Syria and Libya under the guise of fighting terrorism. Arundhati terms Women being sent back to Burqa in Afghanistan and Iraq as nothing but non physical violence 

About power they say Physics of resisting power is as strong as Physics of accumulating power. Success of a country is proportional to moral degradation of the country.

Dan claims that during sixties when the number of continental missiles (ICBM) of Soviet Union were estimated from tens to hundreds to up to thousand, in reality, the number obtained by American spy agencies was FOUR. But it was never made public and America developed it's arsenal by deliberately overestimating Soviet Union's arsenal.  Something similar happened in Iraq.

The fire and smoke from an atom bomb can kill hundreds of thousand (This is in addition to thermal and radiation casualties) and the subsequent reduction of sunlight can kill crops and starve millions to death. 

Arundhati has grown up in communist Kerala and has socialist ideology. She doesn't forget to criticize Modi, give unsolicited advise to his party and reminds readers of Gujarat riots.

Discussions between Arundhati, John, Dan and Snowden is the high point of the book but the discussion suddenly ends and so does the book. This sudden death of book leaves a feeling of incompleteness in readers mind. Why end so suddenly?

It's neither a fiction, nor is it a story. So don't look for a flow and continuity. It's a reflection of thoughts and voicing of opinions of the authors. Snowden, however, plays only a cameo. 

Why did I read this book?  Snowden. 

What I didn't like? Sudden death.  

What did I like? Different viewpoint.

Read if you liked this review.