Boy, do I. Best book I’ve read in a long time, fiction or non-fiction. Throes of Democracy is the second book in Walter A. McDougall’s projected multivolume history of the US. The first, Freedon Just Around the Corner, took us from the European arrival in North America to Jackson’s election in 1828. The current volume continues the narrative to Rutherford B. Hayes’s disputed election in 1876. (And you thought 2000 was bad.)
The books are smetimes glib to a fault. They are surveys of their times, not in-depth analyses. McDougall’s tone is ironic and conservative, with a touch of the gleeful cynic as well. But the conservatism is not the false conservatism of the current day, which wishes to conserve nothing but ts own power. It is an older conservatism that does not believe in the perfectability of humanity, and views all such attempts as vainglorious, dictatorial, and more than a little self-serving. In short, it is a scholarly point of view that is very much out of step with mainstream progressive American scholarship (the NY Times savaged the book), or the conservative backlash that currently represents the other side of the debate.
Whatever you think of the theme, it is a great read. McDougall has no sacred cows (except maybe Lincoln), and savages everyone from the Transcendentalists to the Know-Nothings. (Having been forced to worship Emerson and the Transcendentalists at my New England college I enjoyed their skewering very much.) He views the Civil War as a disaster for all parties, with the freeing of the slaves barely making up for the century of Black American sufferng that followed. His main thesis, that the US has always been a nation of self-interested hucksters draping ourselves in moral hypocrisy in order to justify our ambition and greed is, in my opinion, completely accurate. And very appropriate, given our current natonal condition.
It’s a beutifully written and very interesting book. If you like the bashing of sacred cows, do yourself a favor and take a look.
So sad to hear she’s gone. Her cleverness, her fluid style, and above all the good humor of her books, will be missed. A wonderful writer.
I really, really liked this book by Botswana/South African writer Bessie Head - When Rain Clouds Gather. I picked it up for research purposes (didn’t help much there - the village life described is too poor for my purpose), but it really is a delightful story. Almost no conflict, and way too much telling, but a wonderful, sweet, simple, non-judgmental voice. So much more enjoyable than the world-weary dreariness of V.S. Naipaul. Some sections read almost like Trollope in Africa. And, though race was everywhere in the book, it was also nowhere. Many very interesting insights for someone like me who knows nothing about village life in Africa.
Why is this not a huge cult favorite? It’s even funnier than Sean of the Dead. For one thing it has a better ending. And almost as much gore. Writers should love it - nothing is introduced without being used later.
Favorite bit - the goose.
See? I do like some things. I even like a few things everybody else likes.
But I have a question. Apparently the movie is based on a series of five books called The Crane-Iron Pentology by Wuxia novelist Wang Dulu. Why have these books never been translated into English? Are they written in Manchu or Cantonese?
Anyone out there know?
I must have these books.
I’d forgotten how much I like this flick - one of the best anti-war movies ever made.
Okay, I see the jokes coming already, but really, there’s no crack you can make that isn’t already in the movie.
Does anyone remember this one? From 1999, Dick stars Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as a pair of 15 year old girls who get to walk President Nixon’s dog. Basically, it’s Jan and Marcia Brady as Deep Throat. Really. A wonderful movie, I saw it in theaters when my two oldest daughters were 14 and 16. They loved it; I loved it; and I loved it tonight when I just watched it again for the first time. Dan Hedaya is the best Nixon - ever. I mean, this movie is so much better than Frost and Nixon on so many levels. Nixon was never tragedy - he was only farce.
Favorite line - Nixon, after the girls see a room full of staffers manning the shredders: “My hobby is papier mache.”
Why is this movie not a huge cult hit?
I’d heard this flick gives W. a fairly brutal beating, and what I’d heard was right. After starting very slowly (and cringingly - luckily the movie spends very little time in Guantanamo), things start to pick up at about the thirty minute mark. And then they just keep getting better and better! Dougie Howser returns! Harold and Kumar smoke up with a sitting president! The governemnt nerd has his moment, then wrecks it by falling (literally) back into nerd-dom.
In a lot of ways, this movie was the opposite of its predecessor, which started hysterically and gradually stopped being funny. And the satire was pointed more at the bullying Bush style of government than at W himself. Very broadly done, but very funny.
Had it not been for the beginning, I could even say I liked the whole thing.
I’d forgotten how much I like a good tomato. It’s been so long since I had one. Ten years ago you could buy New Jersey tomatoes in the city with great flavor, but now what’s called a Jersey tomato is only marginally better than the too red, too watery, too tasteless things you get in the grocery store all year round.
So I decided to go to the greenmarket today and try some of those $4.50 a pound jobs that come in orange and yellow and purple. And you know what?
It was worth every penny.
I’m hooked. If I ever have a garden, I’m growing nothing but White Beauties and Azoychkas. And I will die happy.
I mean, how could I not? It’s happy and sweet and funny and weird. And I love the bright colors - Paris as a gigantic Fiestaware table setting.
I’m on a Jeunet kick right now. Can’t wait for the next one to come out.
