That is a great quote from the book. One of the things I love about great fiction is when the truth is wrapped in an entertaining package. We can take things to heart almost without realizing it. Since I retired I have sort of half watched listen to a lot of "rope operas" that I had seen as a youth. What has caught my attention is that they do not celebrate pure independence of the heroes pulling themselves up by their bootstraps with guns ablazing (well the guns are often belching). No, there is always a sense of common good and community. Then there are the difficult questions of the day that are asked, difficult in the 1950s and difficult now- racism against native Americans, Gypsies, African Americans and more. I wonder how much of this "liberal propaganda" (that's an attempt at irony) helped form my conscience.
About "Hunt for the Red October" I read the book years ago but never saw the movie. I had read Clancy's Red Storm Rising which is a chilling telling of the war in Europe we long prepared for against the U.S.S.R.. M.A.D. still deterred the use of nuclear weapons. This war is fought by conventional and slightly less lethal means.
One thing I learned from Ritual Bath is to gain a deeper understanding of the use of the mikvah in Jewish life. This made clear that David knew that his rape of Bathsheba would likely result in the birth of a child. After menses the woman takes the ritual bath and is in the theoretical most fertile time. So David saw her bathing and took her.
Enough of this rambling. I will do a second reply about my reading- Thanks, hermetic, for starting the thread.
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