George Washington

I wanted this book to go on and on. I’m a nut for presidential biographies, and this is one of the best…

Washington was a flawed man in many ways:

• In his early years, he was unbecomingly ambitious. He obsessed over his dress, and he would not-so-subtly elbow his way into the lives of the rich and powerful with the hope of elevating his station.

• His ascent into greatness had as much to do with his qualities as a person as the fortuitous deaths of his relatives, who passed onto him their lands, fortunes, and slaves at critical times in his early career.

• He loved his plantation and had a passion for agricultural innovation, but he was far from a good farmer, and Mount Vernon was a constant source of debt and disappointment.

• At best, he had an average military mind. Although he may have been the only person capable of keeping the ragged and starving Continental Army together, his military victories were few, and he was often outdone on the battlefield by his lesser generals.

• He never sufficiently spoke out against slavery (in fact, he was often quite cruel to his slaves). Given that he was surrounded by progressive thinkers and exposed to abolitionist thought, this is especially unforgivable.

But we can say this about Washington. He recognized that the country needed a leader — if just the symbol of a leader — and he was willing to play the part. He had stature, presence, discipline. He had the right posture, the right disposition, the right look. American citizens needed a symbol of stability. Bickering politicians needed a leader who stood above the partisan fray. Squabbling colonies, that were being asked to dissolve their boundaries, needed a leader in whom they could place their trust. Washington was, as Adams put it, a “center of union” and the “central stone in the geometrical arch.” Washington’s defeats and retreats on the battlefield were played down or ignored because the country needed a steady leader — a symbolic figurehead — more than military victories.

He wasn’t all warm eyes and a steely jaw, though. He knew how to play the political game better than anyone. He was a good judge of character. He recognized genius, and surrounded himself throughout his career with bright minds. He picked a good wife, who gave him a life of warmth and emotional support. His emotional IQ was off the charts, and he knew how to win people’s loyalty and scold with grace. Although he began his career seeking fame and fortune, he’d eventually, as Chernow writes, “subordinate his personal dreams and aspirations to the service of a larger cause.”

Adams said, if Washington “was not the greatest president, he was the best actor of the presidency we have ever had.” This wasn’t an insult, I don’t think, because sometimes that’s in large part what a leader needs to be—an actor. Washington was in fact partisan, fiery, hot-tempered—this we see after his presidency, when he abandons the facade of the cool and nonpartisan leader and begins to actively conspire against the Jefferson- and Madison-led Democratic-Republicans. But for the the length of the Revolutionary War and his presidency, he mustered all the self-discipline he had, swallowed his tongue, and gave the disparate and loosely bound band of colonies — shaken by war, revolution, and tumult — what it most needed: a symbol of stability and republican virtue (except for the whole slavery thing). I think it’s fair to wonder whether the U.S. would have formed without Washington. The war may not have been won. The colonies may never have come together. The fledgling nation may never have taken flight with a lesser first president. He may be one of those few figures whose existence has dramatically altered the course of history.

Best Books I read in 2017

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

I’d already read P&P, and I was already thinking that I was done with old English lit., so I opened it up without the intention of reading it (figured I’d just thoughtlessly browse the first few lines), but by the end of the first page, I couldn’t stop myself. The mother and father feel so “lived in” and real and precise. Lady Catherine and Collins the clergyman, in their stuffy absurdity, are seriously funny. I must confess that I fell in love with Elizabeth, a shining example of emotional intelligence, good cheer, and uncommon sensibility. We should all strive to be as smart and worldly and kind as Elizabeth Bennett, and I fear Austen would be aghast to see the sorts of ways young people occupy their time nowadays (though Austen might argue that young people could be just as frivolous then, as we see in two of Elizabeth’s sisters). Darcy is essentially the male version of Elizabeth, equally smart and just as well-equipped with “understanding,” though he lacks the awareness to manage his ego and bloated sense of pride. The days after I read the book, I was speaking and writing with enhanced clarity and precision, which tells me that I should always have some brilliant English book being read in the background.

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell (2017)

Like books? Used bookshops? Dry Scottish wit? Bythell uses the diary format better than anyone. Some days are just funny, short entries about running a used bookstore. Other days the prose is enriched with research about the area or the book-selling trade. It makes me wonder whether I could pull off something similar with a travelogue, a style I'd previously been skeptical of.

Here’s a job reference Bythell wrote for one of his employees: Sara worked Saturdays at The Book Shop, 17 North Main Street, Wigtown, for three years while she was at the Douglas Ewart High School. When I say “worked”, I use the word in its loosest possible terms. She spent the entire day either standing outside the shop, smoking and snarling at people trying to enter the building, or watching repeats of Hollyoaks on 4OD. Although she was generally punctual, she often arrived either drunk or severely hungover. She was usually rude and aggressive. She rarely did as she was told, and never, in the entire three years of her time here, did anything constructive without having to be told to do so. She invariably left a trail of rubbish behind her, usually consisting of Irn-Bru bottles, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and cigarette packets. She consistently stole lighters and matches from the business, and was offensive and frequently violent towards me. She was a valued member of staff and I have no hesitation in recommending her.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (2011)

My expectations were low. The book came out soon after Jobs's death, and I was expecting that this was another biography that was hastily written to make money at an opportune time. This isn't the case at all. It's thorough and exhaustive, yet fun, even exciting, to read. Isaacson has somehow made the technical side of Jobs's life engaging, which is noteworthy given that this isn't a subject I usually have any interest in. Jobs reminds me to be dogged about pursuing dreams, meticulous about perfecting one's craft, and always thinking of the future.

Nutshell by Ian McEwan (2016) Worth reading if just for the delicious prose. It had a pitch-perfect Lolita-like caustic sense of humor. Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions.

Game of Thrones Books 4 & 5 by George R.R. Martin (2005 & 2011)

Books 4 and 5 have reputations for being inferior to the first three. They're not inferior. They're just different. The pace is slower and there is less action, but these books still manage to be amazingly addictive. There is wonderful character development and Martin's world is becoming ever more rich in detail. The history and geography of Westeros are getting filled in, and there's a deepening in his world's cosmology.The dialogue and characters and bits of wisdom are as good as ever. The books are not so dynamic as those of Books 1-3, with major beheadings, red weddings, and wildling battles, but I loved these books just as much. Martin’s mind is an international treasure. At the pace he's written these books, there's no way he can finish the series in just two more books...

If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world.

Out of the Wreckage by George Monbiot (2017)

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to discover George Monbiot. He is a kindred spirit. Not only do we share interests in fringe topics like rewilding and the right to roam, but in this book he speaks to all the things I worry about: runaway consumerism, loss of social capital, our shattered democracy. His diagnoses of our country’s ills seem spot-on, and his suggestions are well thought out and practical. He maintains a poised tone, but that doesn’t stop him from dreaming big and thinking of the deep future. His style is exceptional. Warm, honest, smart, direct. He can venture headfirst into an idea, but also treat his detractors with respect.

We are astonishing creatures, blessed with an amazing capacity for kindness and care towards others. But this good nature has been thwarted by a mistaken view of our own humanity. We have been induced by certain politicians, economists and commentators to accept a vicious ideology of extreme competition and individualism that pits us against each other, encourages us to fear and mistrust other, and weakens the social bonds that make our lives worth living.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (2010)

This is one of my favorite presidential biographies, which I put in the same tier as Team of Rivals. John Adams said, if Washington “was not the greatest president, he was the best actor of the presidency we have ever had.” This wasn’t an insult, I don’t think, because sometimes that’s in large part what a leader needs to be—an actor. Washington was in fact partisan, fiery, hot-tempered—this we see after his presidency, when he abandons the facade of the cool and nonpartisan leader and begins to actively conspire against the Jefferson- and Madison-led Democratic-Republicans. But for the the length of the Revolutionary War and his presidency, he mustered all the self-discipline he had, swallowed his tongue, and gave the disparate and loosely bound band of colonies — shaken by war, revolution, and tumult — what it most needed: a symbol of stability and republican virtue (except for the whole slavery thing). I think it’s fair to wonder whether the U.S. would have formed without Washington. The war may not have been won. The colonies may never have come together. The fledgling nation may never have taken flight with a lesser first president. He may be one of those few figures whose existence has dramatically altered the course of history.

Best books read in 2016

Best books read in 2015

Best books read in 2014

“The Last Jedi” Review

There will be spoilers.

1. It was a complete waste a time with hardly a redeeming quality.

2. There was no chemistry between any of the characters.

3. Unlike Episode Seven, there was no functional or adult-level humor. (Cute penguins screaming next to Chewy doesn’t count.)

4. The storyline was clunky and confusing, centered on a series of random chases. Characters would get in binds and immediately get out of them. In one case, two heroes were imprisoned, they complained and fumed for a few seconds, and then learned that a fellow prisoner conveniently(!) had the key to get them out. (They were imprisoned for less than a minute!) In another case, the little round robot mowed down professional soldiers by spitting coins at them. Later, it operated one of those robot brontosauruses. (How does a ball roll up a machine as tall as a three story building?) You need to give the audience time to FEEL stuck, anxious, hopeless; you can’t just put them in a prison one second and give them the keys the next. You can’t just incomprehensibly save them. They had forty years to think up these movies!

5. There wasn’t any character development, and, no, I don’t consider Kylo Ren’s ceaseless vacillation between lightness and darkness “development.”

6. Shoddy world building. The setting of Skellig Michael was wasted. It’s a craggy, remote island. It makes no evolutionary sense for there to exist giant lactating dinosaurs.

7. Overall, it was psychologically stupid: Yet more blather about forces of light versus darkness, good versus evil, and how the main characters must make a choice. (Can’t we move on to new moral dilemmas?)

8. Villains were cartoonishly evil, weak, petulant, and completely unscary. Rogue One’s villains had charm and were rational, and they were far scarier because of it. Cersei is scary because she has a complex backstory and a functioning human’s psychology. The Jungle Book managed to make Shere Khan scary because his hatred for humans was relentless and came from someplace real and legitimate. All it takes is a little humanizing. You can’t just have your character be evil; you have to have something BEHIND the evil.

9. This is going to sound alt-rightish, but it seems each frame was choreographed to create an image of post-racial multicultural serenity. It just seemed too obvious and politically “of the moment.” (Can’t one be for multiculturalism and critical of an overly sanitized, Disneyified presentation of it?) Since this truly is a connected galaxy, doesn’t it suggest that there would likely be a lot more miscegenation, or there’d still at least be some racial congregating? I’m not calling for a whitewashing: it would seem truer if non-white races dominated scenes or the main character list. I’m thinking of the first Blade Runner and Cloud Atlas as sci-fi movies that dealt with race in a more thoughtful way.

10. There is almost no continuity to the story line. Every new movie is a standalone episode with little connection to the previous and probably little connection to what will follow. This is the same problem with Christopher Nolan’s otherwise-okay Batman series. There is no larger story; just a series of episodes, each of which builds off the previous, but are not part of larger cohesive, unifying, and far more gratifying whole. Perhaps the only thing planned is that “the good guys win.”

11. The Yoda cameo was unnecessary and derivative. Yoda was brilliant in Empire Strikes Back. He was an original character. With real wisdom. We got to watch the mentor-protege relationship between him and Luke unfold. But yet again Star Wars brings back a character for the sole purpose of stirring nostalgia. Why can’t there be a new Yoda (who at the same time is nothing like Yoda), with a new original character, with new meaningful wisdom? Also, when you’re dead, you’re dead! You can’t just bring back characters whenever you need them. What’s next, Han Solo’s voice echoing from the clouds? The mentor-protege relationship between Luke and Rey was nonexistent. She experienced no changes despite ticking off some boxes on the typical “heroine’s journey” chart: visits to a mentor, visits to a netherworld…

12. I have nothing nice to say. Rey is crush-worthy, but her talents were misused.