If Dante were writing the Inferno today he’d probably make room down in hell—somewhere around circle number eight, bolgia six—for people who judge others by the books they read.
As a penitent, though unregenerate, book snob you’d find me down there gossiping with the Jovial Friars about other people’s reading lists and justifying my own choices to my fellow hypocrites. (Judge me not on the books I like, but rather on the ones I force myself to read. . .)
Such a mean-spirited vice has sufficient internal motivation and doesn’t need prodding from outside. Yet every year the White House Communications Office leads us book-snob sinners into temptation by publishing the President’s reading list. This year, they’ve unveiled President Obama’s vacation reading:
• The Way Home by George Pelecanos, a crime thriller based in Washington;
• Lush Life by Richard Price, a story of race and class set in New York’s Lower East Side;
• Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded, on the benefits to America of an environmental revolution;
• John Adams by David McCullough;
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf, a drama about the life of eight different characters living in a Colorado prairie community.
Judging the list probably reveals more about my own character than it does about Obama. Indeed, I don’t think it hints at anything we don’t already know about the man. The choices—solid, middlebrow fare—are revealing only if you are under the impression that Obama is anything other than a solidly middlebrow President.
This is not to imply, of course, that Obama is dumb. He is obviously an intelligent man—at least as bright as George W. Bush, though probably not as brainy as Bill Clinton. But he is not some sort of intellectual as many of his more vociferous supporters have attempted to portray him. The “Obama is an Intellectual” meme rings as false now, after seeing him in action, as the “Bush is a Moron” did during the previous administration.
To his credit, Obama has never pretended otherwise (at least that I have noticed). Whereas Al Gore attempted to use cultural markers to signal that he was serious and cerebral—he says his favorite novel is Stendhal’s The Red and the Black—Obama is unafraid to be unoriginal: His favorite book, movie, and painter? Moby Dick, Casablanca, and Picasso. Solid, if uninspired, selections all. Unlike Gore, Obama isn’t the kind of guy to talk about a book or movie you haven’t seen—a trait that makes him all the more approachable to middlebrow populists. If Bush was the kind of guy you wanted to hang out with at your local bar, Obama is the one you invite to your local chapter of Oprah’s Book Club.
The choices for summer reading will neither intimidate the average reader, nor inspire awe at his intellectual prowess. This is reason enough to believe that he chose the books himself: No self-respecting image consultant would have chosen these books for him. A couple of contemporary novels is fine—it is a vacation after all—but three is a bit much. And John Adams? Is Obama the last college-educated American male not to have read McCullough’s tome?
And while it might have once been considered trendy to say you read Thomas “Master of Mixed Metaphors” Friedman, his anecdote-extrapolated trend-spotting is more fitting for the junior executive at Staples than for the Leader of the Free World. (What’s worse is that this is filling the solitary slot of “semi-serious work of nonfiction that isn’t a biography.”)
It’s a bit presumptious—though in keeping with book-snobbery—to propose an alternate selection to the list. But I think there is a book that Obama would find more useful and it even comes stamped with the approval of Oprah. I’m thinking, of course, of The Secret. According to the book’s website, “The Secret reveals the natural law that is governing all lives. By applying the knowledge of this law, you can change every aspect of your life.”
This isn’t exactly the sort of reading in natural law that I would normally recommend, but with the troubles Obama’s had selling his agenda to the American people, this might be the only book that could inspire in him hope that things will change.
In all seriousness, though, what books would you recommend the President read during his vacation? Assuming you had to stick to the same 3:2:1 ratio (3 novels, 1 biography, 1 policy-oriented nonfiction) what books would you slip into his travel bag?
August 25th, 2009 | 10:01 am
The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers, O.P.; A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart by Josef Pieper; The Order of Things by James V. Schall, S.J..
August 25th, 2009 | 10:03 am
Also, The Regensburg Lecture by Fr. Schall
August 25th, 2009 | 10:24 am
I failed to read the last sentence of the post. My list does not qualify. Can it be erased?
August 25th, 2009 | 10:40 am
[...] at the main blog, Joe Carter asks: In all seriousness, though, what books would you recommend the President read during his vacation? [...]
August 25th, 2009 | 10:49 am
Elder Reader: I failed to read the last sentence of the post. My list does not qualify. Can it be erased?
Oh, that was just intended as a suggestion, not a hard-and-fast rule. Your list is a good one.
August 25th, 2009 | 10:54 am
Joe, you come up with posts from time to time that make me feel very glad I am not alone :). I was in therapy a while ago :) and my counselor got on to me because while he was talking I was distracted. He asked,”Randy, you are not listening to me … What are you doing?” I responded, “I am reading the titles on the bookshelves behind you.” He asked,”For what purpose?” and I said, “to figure out what kind of person you are.” To which he, without blinking, responded,”but your paying me to help you find out who you are.”
hmph :)
The books I would recommend in said sequence. Hmmm
3 Novels: The Road by Cormac McCarthy – So Obama can see what America will look like if he doesn’t reign himself in. (sorry, that was indulgent of me.)
Everyman by Philip Roth (he’s a good writer and while his books are mostly for entertainment) I find them thought provoking but not mind boggling.
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
1 Biography – Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
1 Policy Oriented Non-Fiction – The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe. It’s not policy oriented but I don’t think any future policy should be made without considering it. It’s a fascinating sociological look at American History and generational cycles/interplay.
August 25th, 2009 | 11:26 am
I haven’t given much thought to the fiction question, but the non-fiction one is easy: “The Old Regime and the French Revolution” by Alexis de Tocqueville. If every Progressive read this compact book, which details the decline of France from technocracy to anarchy, there would be a lot fewer Progressives.
But it’s even better if read together with “On Revolution” by Hannah Arendt (who cites the “Old Regime” frequently). The tandem makes a brilliant case for the links between technocracy and social and political revolution, and for the brilliance of the American Founders in avoiding both.
August 25th, 2009 | 11:27 am
Novels:
1. Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis
2. The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton
3. Descent Into Hell, Charles Williams
Biography:
Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot, Harlow Giles Unger
Non-Fiction:
Democracy in America: Alexis de Tocqueville
August 25th, 2009 | 12:18 pm
Randy, I’ve also read, “The Fourth Turning”, and found it absorbing, frightening, and ringing profoundly true. Ecclesiastes 1:9, “That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” Yet, though having been familiar with this scripture almost my whole life, I had never considered the American history’s specifically cyclical nature.
Novels:
1. Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky
2. The Road – McCarthy
3. The Power and The Glory – Graham Greene
Biography
1. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchhill, Alone – Manchester
Non-Fiction
1. The Prince – Machiavelli
August 25th, 2009 | 12:41 pm
Quite the intriguing day when the former editor of the Harvard Law Review does not qualify as an “intellectual.”
August 25th, 2009 | 1:39 pm
An ‘elitist’ putdown from Joe, who not so long ago was dismissing “Ulysses” as an over-rated, boring work, I seem to remember?
And the at-least-as-bright-as-the-neon-lit-dullard-Bush remark is priceless. LOL, as the youngsters say.
August 25th, 2009 | 2:35 pm
[...] Joe Carter at First Things: Judging the list probably reveals more about my own character than it does about Obama. Indeed, I don’t think it hints at anything we don’t already know about the man. The choices—solid, middlebrow fare—are revealing only if you are under the impression that Obama is anything other than a solidly middlebrow President. [...]
August 25th, 2009 | 3:21 pm
Fiction:
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Children of Men by P.D. James
Life With Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (he needs a laugh)
Bio:
Why Margaret Thatcher Matters by Claire Berlinski
Non-fiction:
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
August 25th, 2009 | 5:20 pm
[...] and the too-contrived-and-appallingly-written (Tom Friedman). Joe Carter critiques the list and asks: In all seriousness, though, what books would you recommend the President read during his [...]
August 25th, 2009 | 8:13 pm
@JustinR … completely agree. Good list.
August 25th, 2009 | 11:48 pm
Your statement that the President is “at least as bright as George W. Bush” is technically accurate but unfair and misleading. There is simply no comparison between the decidedly “middlebrow” Bush (who famously achieved a C-average at Yale) and the highly accomplished Obama, who was President of the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. President Obama runs intellectual circles around Bush.
August 26th, 2009 | 3:36 am
I think he should follow Harold MacMillan’s advice and read all the policy briefs and so on in the morning and then go to bed with a Trollope.
August 26th, 2009 | 6:54 am
Mr. Hagen–It would be well for us all to remember that Satan is far more intelligent than Obama, or Bush, or even than Bill Clinton.
August 26th, 2009 | 9:29 am
…..And while it might have once been considered trendy to say you read Thomas “Master of Mixed Metaphors” Friedman,….
A year ago on the campaign trail, Obama mentioned that he had read this book. Now its back on his reading list? Either it was so good it merits serial readings, or somebody was fibbing.
Regards,
TSB
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