Books as pacifiers

My apartment is kind of annoying right now, as the only comfortable place to sit is in front of the computer. I could also lie down on the bed, which, believe me, I’ve been doing a lot. You see, I’m going through a furniture purge, and I’m a dimwit so I didn’t realize that if you want “nice” furniture you have to wait 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 months for it to get made in Italy or wherever and hop on a boat and come live with you forever. I am now an adult, it would seem.

So when I came home hungry and had nowhere to sit and nothing in the fridge, and most frustratingly nothing to read, I became cranky. So I hopped on to the Seattle Public Library site to see if I could at least get some books coming my way. (I’ve had kind of bad luck finding anything I wanted to read at Bailey/Coy or Twice Sold Tales recently.  I read a lot of nonfiction, and they keep letting me down.) But hey wow! There were 3 books waiting for me at my local branch!

Brainiac, by the dork who won a lot of money on Jeopardy!

When Genius Failed, about the collapse of Long Term Capital Management.

Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History, by my new pal Fawn Brodie.

I started reading the T-Jeff book over a burrito and two margaritas at the new Bimbo’s — Mondays are happy hour all day! — and I think it looks promising. Now that I have 3 books in the house, I’m less cranky.

I also added two more books to my SPL wishlist: No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, about the Roosevelt’s stateside activities during WW2, and Team of Rivals, her book about Lincoln’s cabinet. Let me pause for a second to strongly recommend her amazing first book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, especially if you’ve ever had any interest in reading something about LBJ. It’s not a blow-by-blow of his political life, it’s much more a personal history. Dude was a horribly flawed beautiful genius of a politician, and this book is a really quick and fascinating read.

Vinny out!

That Nixon… what a weirdo!

I’m more than halfway through Richard Nixon, the Shaping of his Character, and I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat waiting for an early summary of my thoughts. If my past blogging behavior is any guide, I won’t sit down to type about it after I finish, so I’ll do it now while it’s still on my mind.

* In the introduction, Fawn Brodie makes it clear that most observers regard Nixon’s behavior in office as a terrible stain on the Presidency, and that she’ll be trying to explain where all the odiousness came from. But what seems odd to me is that she’s far more perturbed by his deviousness during Watergate than the decisions he and Kissinger made about Vietnam/Laos. Maybe it’s true that more Americans are shocked by burglary and enemies lists than they are by the murders of Vietnamese civilians? War just occupies a different category in people’s minds, I guess.

* Brodie says that people want assurance that Nixon was damaged mentally, that he was “not like us” and that his weird crimes are not something we should worry about someday seeing in ourselves. This opens up a lot of questions about whether anyone is “sane”, and when society can explain or excuse some behavior based on difficult childhood experiences, and I’m unqualified to say anything smart about it. Nixon’s childhood was definitely traumatic and strange — the death of two brothers, an abusive father and manipulative mother — but apparently his surviving brother turned out to be a warm and personable fella.

* So, was he sane? Was he nuts? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Thinking about his childhood makes me sad, though, and angry about child abuse, which gives me an excuse to mention one thing I loved about Howard Dean back in 2004. In Vermont, he created a pre-natal wellness program that offered free healthcare to poor mothers-to-be. Most new mothers took them up on the offer, which included several nurse visits to the home to help women with information and preparatory info on nutrition, child care tips, etc etc, and the results were amazing. Child abuse (physical and sexual) dropped substantially… something crazy like a 50% drop over 6 years; I don’t know what that comes out to in terms of the number of kids who grew up not being abused… hundreds? (Google “Dr. Dynasaur” for more answers… Wikipedia’s kind of thin on it.) Anyway, us liberals allegedly believe in the perfectability of society, and I obviously don’t. But finding inexpensive ways to prevent child abuse seems like a giant leap towards a more perfect union.

* There’s a pretty strong suggestion of sexual confusion and/or torment in the book, too. Richard and Pat had an extremely strange relationship by any standard — whether it’s today’s or according to the values of the 40’s and 50’s. Nixon seems to have been both hostile towards and disparaging of women in virtually any capacity besides a docile and supportive wifely role. I don’t know if this had anything to do with his pathological dishonesty, etc., but Brodie’s judgement in the book is that he sought acceptance and love through political channels because he was mostly unable to accept it otherwise.

* This is getting kinda long. The book is fascinating, but really sad. Next I need to read about his White House years, and then find a good book on Joe McCarthy; ugh, that’ll be a three-razor-blade read, I’m sure. Reading about Adlai Stevenson might be more uplifting… he might be too much of a pedantic fussbudget, even for me.

Before the Storm is out of print

I finished Nixonland last night, and now I don’t have anything to read. People have been recommending things lately, and I’ve seen a couple of interesting book reviews, but I’m still on the fence. What I’d really like to read is Before the Storm, the book Rick Perlstein wrote before Nixonland, but it’s out of print… and it’s selling for $150 on Amazon and abebooks.com.

<gulp>

Who knew that a book published in 2001 could fetch so much?! According to my local bookstore, the publisher is bringing it back in softcover next year, but I wanna read it nooooow.

Anyhoo, Nixonland was fantastic, 740 pages of page-turning delight. It bogged down a bit towards the end as it turned away from the riveting figure of RN to the upright, largely decent but boring George McGovern. Nixon is so compellingly sick and twisted, it makes me want to hunt down a good psychobiography of the guy… evidently there are quite a few out there.

What’s absolutely incredible after reading this book is to hear Pat Buchanan say to the author during an interview: “How did [Nixon] cheat during the ‘72 election?”, as though it was a ridiculous assertion. Why is Pat Buchanan on television? How can he ask that question with a straight face?

Books I’m thinking about reading next:

• Kluge, about the evolution of the brain
• On Being Certain, epistemology is fun
• New Kings of Non-fiction, compiled by Ira Glass
• Nixon psychobiography… hm…
• Eleanor Roosevelt biography, but they all seem kinda long

It’s weird not having a book in my bag! Really I should probably just go back and re-read the Moral Animal… it was way too complex to absorb in one pass.

Update: Holy smokes, Rick just commented on my blog! The world seems very small sometimes. OK, off to find a copy of Fawn Brodie’s book…