Musings from Brian J. Noggle

This book collects some of the handwritten letters sent by Ronald Reagan during his presidency to people he knew, government officials, and the general public who wrote him. Apparently, the editors were noodling among the former president’s library and uncovered this collection written in his own hand, which they felt gave it a personal touch that would get to the heart of who Reagan was or something. They picked some of the best from each year, add an introduction to each year that details what was going on at that time, and let her rip.

Of course this book reflects the best of what remember from Reagan: his optimism, his faith, and his conservative beliefs. These letters, often written in response to common person critics who wrote to him, do reinforce the man’s impression. How cool is the thought, though, that if you had written Ronald Reagan, he might have dashed a couple lines off on his stationery in response. That’s fascinating.

I worked on this book for a month or so, which explains my recent acquisitiveness of Reagania.

I’ve only read two or three books of letters in my life; this, Raymond Chandler’s, and maybe Ayn Rand’s. This one is the most accessible because I have direct memory of the events to which he refers and because the letters are very brief.

Recommended.

Books mentioned in this review:

Well, I’m counting this as a book I read even though it really is a picture book. Aside from an introduction and an acknowledgments section, the book contains photographs, mostly taken by helicopter, of Detroit and its environs. The selections include a number of corporate headquarters (Ford, GM, K-Mart, American Motor Corporation), a couple of old churches, some of the new developments and high-rises constructed to handle the 1980s resurgence of Detroit predicted by Detroit boosters, a couple shots of Tiger Stadium (Home of the 1984 World Champion Detroit TIGERS!), one picture of the Pontiac Silverdome (where a football team and basketball team played, or so I hear), and a several shots of nearby farms/neighborhoods/and so on.

The only thing I’ll remember from this book, aside from the obvious lesson in urban “resurgence” promised year after year by urban moneyspenders, is a catch phrase. The book also sports a number of thumbnail photos of collections of vehicles taken from the helicopter which sport the phrase “as art.” A bunch of schoolbuses in a parking lot, a number of automobiles outside an automotive plant, a number of train cars in a train yard. The caption is “School buses as art” or “Transport containers as art.”

From this day forward, “as art” shall verily apply to any collection of common goods that I want to elevate to the heights of pretentiousness. Think of this blog, for instance, as “English words as art.”

A quick look at Amazon shows that the photographer did later editions of this book, perhaps with later photographs. But this is the 1985 edition, worthwhile not because the city of Detroit is worth anything, but because of the hysterical historical significance.

Man, I am glad this guy didn’t express his affection for Milwaukee this way; otherwise, I’d have to examine and review the book earnestly.

Books mentioned in this review:

This is actually the first of the Walter J. Black Classics Club/Classic Editions books I have completed; not bad for a fellow who’s been accummulating them for a couple of years now. However, the Dickens Classic Editions volumes (with the green stripe on the spine instead of the red for the Classics Club books) are fiction, and I’ve been tearing through it this year, particularly “classic” literature, so I nabbed this bit.

First, a word on the editions. The printing’s cheap, as it’s rife with printing mistakes like double impressions, some lightly washed out inks, and whatnot. But these editions aren’t fine leatherbound things; they’re designed to sell cheaply to the masses from magazine ads, mail order. So why am I collecting them? Because I inherited four from a grandfather, that’s why! Not Classic Editions, though; the Dickens works I have are just gravy. Perhaps I’ll evolve a rationale for collecting these instead of fine leatherbound editions that centers around defense of the middlebrow and the middle class. Give me some time.

Now, onto the story, which I did not particularly care for.

In his defense, this was Dickens’ second work (or so Wikipedia tells me). But the title character is a passive spectator in his own life. In his defense, Oliver is a child; however, if you’re going to title the book after someone, it might be more interesting if that character plays a role instead of plays the prop.

A poor orphan falls in with a bad crowd and participates, unwillingly and sometimes unknowingly, in a couple of crimes in between bouts of highbrow people being taken with him and helping him out, keeping him like a pet. Then all the loose threads are tied up. 541 pages later, the end.

Like many of the classical literature things I’ve read this year, the book really begins to move about 60% of the way through it; in this case, that’s somewhere in the 300s. Modern audiences don’t tend to have that attention span, I expect; if you’re going to have a lot of pages, a clown demon better rip a boy’s arms off in the first chapter.

Additionally, I have to wonder about what reading all this classical literature does with my sense of the past. Of the four big ones I’ve read (Anna Karenina, The Three Musketeers, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and this) all take place in the past, but the actual centries vary widely. However, as far as I am concerned, the time periods aren’t that different; horse and buggy days, the aristocracy and the poor extremely different, and so on and so forth. Has the last century been that radical that its very decades were different epochs akin to the centuries or millenia of old? Or am I just confused by my own life experience, where I can tell the differences easily because I lived them?

That’s a bit heavy for a simple book report, but I’d like to see those who hit this post for a Google search for oliver twist book report defend that unread and pasted assertion.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book collects a bunch of quotations and a couple of poems about happiness. Eh. But the best part is the photos ca. 1972 of people in various states of happiness and 1970s dress. I highlighted some of them when I bought the book, but let me share a few others. They always bring a smile to my face, announcing happiness. Or perhaps it’s merely a smirk identifying wry superiority; maybe that’s the best I’ve got.

Ah, feeding marijuana to the ducks. Obviously, this is some weird LSD trip; I’d rather have seen an image from about two minutes further into the trip, where the ducks’ bills turn into little aligator snouts with six inch teeth and the hippie girl flees screaming from them, only to jump from a bridge into the dark safety of the water below.

“I’m not giving you the flower, lady; I’m trying to sell these weeds I stole out of Mrs. Busby’s garden so I can afford to buy a shirt or a bottle of Mogen David.”

I’ve had nightmares like this. I am a small child, falling, falling. Instead of hitting the ground, a strange man in a leather vest appears out of nowhere to catch me. It’s my father, and this is the genetical line which I perpetrate through my very existence! AHHHHHHHH!

No, that’s not a fifty yard line or something that would make sense; instead, it’s the gutter of the book because an image this astonishing needs to be spread across two pages.

The prophet ran from the mountains and crossed the fields to warn the villagers that the discosaurs were coming. The villiagers thought he was mad. Only four years later, unheeding of the warning, the villiagers bought velvet suits and silk shirts with the top half of the buttons missing.

This is how the West was almost lost. I’d pay extra for a DVD that features these people in a deleted scene which depicts Clint Eastwood on his walking horse coming into the scene, getting told he was harshing their mellow, man, and shooting the man in the leg and freeing the Indian woman to go back to her tribe.

I think I paid a dollar for this book. I mean, the text is meh (which is about what one expects for a book that collects inspirational junk for review; it’s a hardcover Ideals magazine without the topical relevance). But the pictures are awesome.

Books mentioned in this review:

At worst, this book is nothing more than a set of Bob Greene’s columnesque riffs surrounded by a narrative gimmick and some wish fulfillment (43 year old network correspondent finds true love, sex with 25 year old grad student). As the book begins, that’s about the best I hoped for.

The book follows three friends from high school who, after their 25th high school reunion, take the summer off to relive some of their youth. They travel randomly, whimsically across the country. Ben, the network correspondent, lives alone after his divorce and dotes on his 8 year old daughter from a distance. Ronnie married into money and ended up chairman of a large public company by accident. Michael stayed in their small Ohio suburban town and taught school. Their adult life roles cause some friction for them, as do situations they find along the way. But friendship wins out for some reason.

The story moves along with incidents and asides that don’t add to a larger movement and don’t resolve anything. Ronnie’s father goes into the hospital; Michael meets his first high school love and seems in danger of sacrificing his happy home life to it; and Ben finds out his ex-wife is going to remarry. Then they move on to somewhere else. Ronnie picks up a woman who’s not his wife and she travels with them a bit. They sleep in the Elvis Suite in Las Vegas. Then they come toward the end of the summer and encounter some life-changing events.

I suppose I wanted to see this book as something more than the “at worst.” Perhaps it played to my proclivity toward Bob Greene’s work (see review for He Was A Midwestern Boy On His Own from earlier this month). Perhaps it played to my proclivity to undertaking life-altering lifestyle changes in the summer (or in the spring, as it were). But I enjoyed the book slightly more than I thought I would, and the book was maybe slightly better than the worst case.

But it’s not a good book, and Greene has been wise to stick to nonfiction since.

So it’s worth it if you like Greene’s work; you can find a used copy easily at a garage sale or book fair. Take my word for it; I’ve bought more than one first edition for a buck or two each.

Books mentioned in this review: