- The Manchurian Candidate
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For other uses, see The Manchurian Candidate (disambiguation).
The Manchurian Candidate 
1st editionAuthor(s) Richard Condon Country United States Language English Genre(s) Thriller novel Publisher McGraw-Hill Publication date 1959 Media type Print (Hardback) Pages 311 pp ISBN 1-56858-270-6 OCLC Number 52409655 Dewey Decimal 813/.54 21 LC Classification PS3553.O487 M36 2003 The Manchurian Candidate (1959), by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party.
The novel has been adapted twice into a feature film by the same title, in 1962 and again in 2004.
Contents
Plot
Captain Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are kidnapped during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and are brainwashed to believe that Shaw saved their lives in combat — for which Congress awards him the Medal of Honor.
Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all while clinically observed by Chinese and Russian intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncovering the mystery and its meaning.
It is revealed that the Communists have been using Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by seeing the “Queen of Diamonds” playing card while playing solitaire. Provoked by the appearance of the card, he obeys orders which he then forgets. Shaw’s KGB handler is his domineering mother Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a "palace coup d’état" to quietly overthrow the U.S. government, with her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin, as a puppet dictator.
Plagiarism charge
In 1998, software engineer C.J. Silverio noted that several long passages of the novel seemed to be borrowed, almost word for word, from Robert Graves' 1934 novel I, Claudius. Forensic linguist John Olsson judged that "There can be no disputing that Richard Condon plagiarized from Robert Graves." [1]
Film adaptations
The Manchurian Candidate has been adapted twice into a feature film by the same title. The first film, released in 1962, is considered a classic of the political thriller genre. It was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Laurence Harvey as Shaw, Frank Sinatra as Marco, and Angela Lansbury as Eleanor in an Academy Award-nominated performance.
The second film, released in 2004, was directed by Jonathan Demme, and starred Liev Schreiber as Shaw, Denzel Washington as Marco, and Meryl Streep as Eleanor. It was well-received by critics, and moderately successful at the box office. The 2004 film updated the conflict to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and made the setting a dystopian near future America. An American corporation is the perpetrator of the brainwashing and conspiracy instead of foreign Communist governments, and the Johnny Iselin character is dropped in favor of making both Shaw and his mother elected politicians.
See also
- Assassinations in fiction
- Conspiracy thriller
- Homeland (TV series)
References
- ^ Lara, Adair (4 October 2003). "Has a local software engineer unmasked 'The Manchurian Candidate'? Menlo Park woman says author Richard Condon plagiarized.". San Francisco Chronicle. http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-10-04/entertainment/17512034_1_silverio-richard-condon-passage. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
Sources
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 110. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
- Condon, Richard. "'Manchurian Candidate' in Dallas", The Nation, December 28, 1963.
- Loken, John. Oswald's Trigger Films: The Manchurian Candidate, We Were Strangers, Suddenly? (2000), pgs. 16, 36.
External links
Categories:- 1959 novels
- Incest in fiction
- Political thriller novels
- Books about mind control
- Novels about elections
- Korean War novels
- Novels by Richard Condon
- American novels adapted into films
- Works about McCarthyism
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