Captivating, crazy, and cruel

The New Yorker's Andrew Solomon weighs in: "North Africa may recover from the Qaddafis’ embezzlement and brutality, but the falseness of life in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will take a long time to fade. The novelist tells stories to instruct; the psychotic, because he cannot distinguish reality from imagination; the dictator, as a means of exerting dominion. The Qaddafis have the dubious distinction of conforming to all three prototypes: they are entertaining, crazy, and cruel. Turning around that legacy will be the steepest challenge for whoever or whatever is to come next. No one in the [Transitional National Council] has shown any gift for veracity, but as they seem to sweep toward victory, perhaps they will establish a reality as appealing as their rhetoric."