Happy holidays!
I just finished reading Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson for the U.S. Presidents Reading Project. I really enjoyed the book because I love American history, even though I don't read it as much as I should. The only thing that really hurt it - and this is a big deal - is Vidal's inability to focus. Though this is my first Vidal read, I know that he is a political firebrand. That is not what I take issue with. If you would like to talk at length about how the Bush administration has ruined America, go for it... in a book about the Bush administration. All too often I will lose myself in 1776 with its colorful characters and tempestuous events, only to be yanked out as Vidal takes some 'prophetic' insight from Benjamin Franklin, et. al. to prove that Bush is a hack. Not once, not twice, but often. One of his major points in this book, published in 2003, is that George W. Bush fulfills many of the fears of the founding fathers. Again, it is fine to make that argument, but not in a book that presents the founding fathers and the birth of the nation as its subject matter.
Aside from the present day pontifications, Vidal also jumps around on the founding fathers themselves. One minute, John Adams is president... the next, he is back at the Continental Congress trying to get the others to break with Britain. These are not flashbacks - the story is just told in chunks and pieces. It is very hard to find a thread to hold onto.
Publishers Weekly summed it up best when they said, "This book was surely intended to be thought provoking. Unfortunately, it provokes more thought about its author than its subjects."
Now that I've been all negative, I have to say, it was so well written and captivating that I never once thought of putting it down, no matter how much the flaws annoyed me. I would read Vidal again - I just hope this interjection of political opinion into historical biography is not a pattern with him.
I just finished The Hundred Secret Senses, which is now one of my favorite Amy Tan novels, rivaled only by The Bonesetter's Daughter. Yes, I love The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife and Saving Fish From Drowning - I love any Tan story I come across - but The Hundred Secret Senses (along with The Bonesetter's Daughter) really stands out.
I'm also rereading The Catcher in the Rye for some volunteer work I do at the library. Is it just me, or does that novel get better every time you read it? Maybe I am just getting older and smarter, and can actually see the genius in the handiwork instead of loving it because Holden curses (which is why I loved it when I first read it in high school). Okay, that's not entirely true, but it was certainly part of it - going from reading authors like Dickens and Shakespeare to J.D. Salinger, someone whose work is dated for a child of the 80s and 90s but just as timeless as those other masters, was a breath of fresh air. Holden cursed, he thought most of the adults around him were morons, and he struggled with not fitting in and not being understood. He made me love him from the very first reading.
