Penn's account of his trip is personal in the way that a Hunter S. Thompson story is personal, but it lacks the zaniness. As you read it, you're waiting for some big payoff, but you're instead treated to bland stream of consciousness.
The first paragraph is a great example of the self-absorption that plagues Hollywood types. Penn cannot just tell us about the Iraqi people, but he has to detail the medical examination he was getting when he was making travel arrangements.
This later part is almost self parody.
When I arrive at the institute, there is a class in progress. For about 10 minutes, I observe as Betsy Hiel, a Weintel Prize-winning correspondent of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, discusses reporting structure, using as a model a multi-part piece she had done on mass graves. When this term "mass graves" is used, one of the young Iraqi students chimes in with laughter: "This whole country is a mass grave. We live in a mass grave." And with that, the fatigue of the trip hits me in the back of the head like a rocket-propelled grenade. As I excuse myself, Hiwa offers me a shot of Glenfiddich. I accept a sip, enough to wash down an Ambien, and then crawl under the covers in the bed they've given me, sinking into a five-hour chemically induced coma.
Let's not think about mass graves. Oh, and how appropriate to compare my discomfort with the horrors of war. Let's take a prescription and make it all go away.
I don't have time to read the whole thing now, but my guess is that Penn doesn't learn the meaning of life, but that we are further subjected to descriptions of his discomforts. Let me skip to the end for kicks.
There's a ski-lodge feel to a house full of war correspondents, their press passes clipped to them like lift tickets, as one by one they return from the slippery slopes of Baghdad's streets and the outlying moguls of Kirkuk and Samarra.
Who are you kidding? You just wanted to get away from your wife.
But for the people and children of Baghdad and the coalition forces, the insurgents and the utter lawlessness of the streets are a constant and real threat. Shortly before the U.S. attack, Hussein opened the gates of his largest prisons and released his worst criminals and killers into the population. Until recently, several illegal taverns posted Arabic signs reading "Killer for Hire." Kidnappings, robberies, rape and murder are commonplace.
Isn't this the guy who played the murderer who we were supposed to feel sorry for at the end of DEAD MAN WALKING? He not only takes the victims side this time but backhandedly endorses Saddam’s brutal political executions as the lesser of two evils.
I can only imagine what he said in the parts I skipped.
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