The Reagan Diaries

The Reagan Diaries by Ronald Reagan (Edited by Douglas Brinkley)

When anyone (myself, anyway) first buys one of those Amazon Kindles, it’s very tempting to spend hours each day browsing through all of the free and/or bargains that are available.  For a brief time, this book was advertised at only $1.99.  How can you pass up a deal like that?  Especially when the regular price was about 8 or 9 times that amount.  And, unlike a real book, Kindles purchases that you decide you didn’t need are much easier to be disposed of after your initial disappointment.

Apparently, Ronald Reagan kept a diary when he was President from 1981 through 1989.  He did a pretty good job of keeping his entries consistent.  There are some noticeable gaps (like, you know, when he was shot), but he was pretty faithful in journaling his daily activities.  And this is just what this is, daily entries in a personal diary.  Most deal with the presidency, but there’s a lot of personal stuff here as well.  As lengthy as this volume is, it's also heavily edited, which is probably a good thing.  I must say that, while I can’t say that I’m disappointed in this book, it’s definitely not something I would want to read again, nor would I recommend this to others.  It’s, well, a diary.

When President Reagan does mention his day to day work schedule, there are so many different world leaders, cabinet officers, and members of congress that flow in and out of his office, that you simply can’t keep up with all of the names unless you’re a devout study of history and you have a sharp enough memory to retain such minor players in world politics 33 years after the fact (yes, it has been that long).  When political leaders are mentioned, there’s never much thought nor detail around the major events of Reagan’s presidency here.  Some of the most auspicious occasions of his tenure are barely glazed over, or even talked about at all.  Example, there’s nothing in here about his famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech, but there might have been a flighty reference to him “going to Berlin to make a speech”.  So you may feel cheated, but again, it is what it says: a diary.

You do, however, get to see many of his idiosyncrasies which can be quite interesting.  The man definitely had a big heart, and regardless of your politics, his journals dictate that he only wanted what was best for his country, and put up with a lot of left-leaning journalistic flak.  There are a lot of entries that go something like: “Delivered a great speech to the Working Women of Tomorrow and received four standing ovations during my talk.  Of course, none of the three major networks mentioned any of that”.  He also loved his wife tremendously, loved his kids as well even though he felt they were a bit flakey, got a lot of haircuts, and ate a lot of lunches with his Vice President.  He also, as you may recall, had a lot of medical issues.  He goes through these in quite nauseating detail, but I suppose that if I were keeping a diary, I might write about such things as well.  He never curses beyond “damn” or “hell”, and when he does, he enters the words in his diary as “d_ _ n” or “h _ _ l”.  He also misspells Quayle (“Quaale”) and AIDS (“AIDES”) several times as well.

As I read this book, I found the first couple of years enjoyable, so I decided to plow through once I had reached that point even though I had lost interest.  I found myself reading this diary as one might write a diary (i.e. I would spend a few minutes a day going through maybe one month’s entries at a time).  Again, I imagine a diehard admirer or astute historian would deeply enjoy this book, but I can’t see many other people finding that much to enjoy.  I imagine that there are many other detailed retrospectives that give a much better perspective of the presidency.  I can’t be too critical, though, because the book is essentially exactly what it says it is (again) a diary.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

My first reaction after completing this Pulitzer Prize novel from 1980 was “Wow.”.  Not “wow, this was a great book” (which it was, more on that later), but “wow, what an incredible human being.”  Let’s just say I now have a new hero.  Like most Americans, I knew what could be described as the “Cliffs Notes” version of the life of Theodore Roosevelt - a few sporadic highlights from his life, and the fact that he was one of the four faces on Mount Rushmore.  And, I mean, if he’s on Mount Rushmore, he had to have been one of the “good ones”.  Right?

This book details his life from his birth, up until he’s nominated as William McKinley’s Vice President in 1901.  In other words, before he got to the White House.  For starters, let’s just say that this man was simply incredible.  I don’t see how he could possibly have done all of the things that he did throughout his life.  The man had unorthodox energy and drive, simply couldn’t sit still, and even when his ventures were less than 100% successful, he always took his shortcomings in stride, and relished the learning experiences that these lessons would provide.

Born in New York City shortly before the beginning of the Civl War, he was fortunate to be brought into the world by an affluent, yet very kind and loving family.  Money was never a concern for the Roosevelts, yet this family was tenderhearted and very socially progressive - something you tend to not associate with wealth and privilege,  especially over a century ago when there weren’t as many laws about to protect the under privileged.

I simply can’t go into detail in terms of all of the paths and directions this man pursued.  I confess I get exhausted just thinking about the man’s life.  To be somewhat brief, he was fortunate to receive a Harvard education, began life as an amateur zoologist, travelled to Europe with his family a few times, frequently took trips out to the wild west and started a cattle ranch, became the police commissioner of New York, served as the Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Navy, became the Governor of New York, and charged up San Juan Hill with his team of Rough Riders during the brief Spanish American War - with no military background nor experience.  And he managed to write about five or six books (the first while he was still a teenager).  All of this before he became Vice President, which he was only 42 years old when he assumed the office.

In addition, author Edmund Morris also spends a lot of time detailing Roosevelt’s personal life as well.  Strangely, the focus on his family life does diminish as the book progresses, and you have to wonder if this is simply because the man had so many irons in the fire of his life.  Particular detail is paid to his courtship of his first wife, Alice.  This affair could have made a beautiful book in and of itself.  Roosevelt, in addition to being such a fastidious task master, he had a brilliant way with words.  Whereas his voice and tone was a bit high pitched and annoying (he’s one of the first Presidents to have his actual voice recorded for history), he had a masterful command of the English language, and reading his prose and observations were delightful.  Many times during my reading, I would break out in laughter while reflecting on his observations - especially when describing callous people (he briefly described one adversary as “mainly wind”.  I don’t know why I find that so humorous, but I’ll probably steal that line sometime.  I must! ) So his wooing of his first bride was a delight to read about as well, and the two were very much in love.

Of course, any life is bound to contain some sort of tragedy, and Roosevelt’s is no exception.  While his wife was giving birth to their first child, she died due to complications.  To compound the tragedy, Roosevelt lost his mother on the exact same day, which happened to be Valentine’s Day.  He would never really recover from the incident, and refused to even talk about his departed wife throughout the remainder of his life.  Ironically, his second wife was a friend of his before he married Alice, and whereas their early relationship was more platonic, there were definitely hints of courtship.  Edith Carow would bear Theodore five more children during their life together, and whereas they were deeply in love as well, you can’t help but wonder if his first marriage still held a grasp on his heart that he could never quite let go.

This books moves at a very fast pace.  It simply has to, when you consider all of the avenues that Roosevelt pursued, yet it never feels rushed and is always such a delightful read.  Each chapter in this book seems to take such an abrupt turn in the man’s life, that you feel like you’re reading about the lives of many men rather than just one.  It helps, as mentioned before, that Roosevelt was such a purveyor of decency.  As soon as he takes over as Police Commissioner of New York City, he sets out to clean up and clean out all of the corruption.  He even goes as far as to stop the sale of alcohol on Sundays.  Not very radical by today’s standards, but he always met up with several walls of opposition throughout his crusades, yet he was never daunted by anything.  The man knew what he was doing was right.  

About the only flaw that I saw in the man’s character, was he seemed to believe that the Anglo-Saxon race was the most pure, and therefore, tools such as war were necessary to keep such standards at a high rate.  There should be some amount of forgiveness in retrospect, however, as this was just common thinking at the time (along with such things as not giving women the right to vote - which he opposed).  This behavior may have lighted an inner fire of passion which help set up Cuba’s independence from mother Spain, which is where the Rough Rider phase enters the story.  Too much detail for me to go into here, but again, a fascinating story within a story.

Morris would go onto to write two more retrospectives on the live of TR.  One about his presidency, and the last one on the life after the presidency.  Although those two volumes don’t have quite the reputation as this one, they’re still regarded very highly in the literary community, and I have added them to my ever growing list of books to read in the future.

The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

First, let me say that I haven’t seen any of the recent onslaught of Jason Bourne movies.  Apparently if you love the books, you hate the movies.  If you love the movies, you hate the books.  If you’ve never been exposed to either, you wonder just what all of the fuss is about.  The first of (what I think is) a three volume series was actually written almost forty years ago (around 1975), and I almost have to wonder why it took so long to make the adaptation to screen in the first place based on the apparent popularity of the series .

Our story opens up somewhere in Europe (I forget specifically where).  Some local fishermen discover a body floating out in the ocean and they haul in this near-corpse that is miraculously still alive.  In the nearby small port town, there’s only one doctor, who apparently moonlights as an alcoholic.  The doctor slowly nurses back this mysterious shodden figure back to health, and the specimen is definitely a unique find.  The doctor discovers that this man has had many parts of his body surgically altered to radically change his physical appearance.  Definitely something sinister here.  It doesn’t help when the patient slowly regains consciousness over a period of weeks only to be suffering from amnesia.  He has no idea who he is nor where he came from.  The doctor finds a microchip embedded on the man’s body, which only contains some random information about a bank account in Switzerland.  So this is basically all the patient has to go on if he wants to discover his identity.

So this is where the ride really starts.  Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that the man (he later finds out his name is Jason Bourne) is part of a clandestine government operation, and although he’s supposed to know who he is, no one else is.  So when he starts arbitrarily showing up in places, such as the above mentioned  Switzerland bank, casually announcing who he is in attempt to find out who he really is, chaos, panic and a lot of shooting commences.  A lot of shooting.   Over a lot of pages.

All of this is only the beginning, and we’re taken on an incredibly complex labyrinth of details from this point of the book forward.  It’s very easy to get lost with all of the mysterious figures coming and going, and this is a book that must be read (at least by me) slowly and carefully.  There’s simply too much to digest.  For someone like myself who only speaks one language, it doesn’t help that 95% of this novel takes place in a different country other than the United States.  The author describes a lot of detail in these strange countries, along with elaborate, but appropriate names and descriptions.  I simply found myself getting lost with all of the foreign names and locations.  Example:  If this story took place in the good old U.S. of A., with American characters, it might describe a scenario in this manner:

“When I walked out of the Hilton, I saw a man that looked like Charlie, who was riding in a taxi when they drove past the Olive Garden on the way to the Main Street parade.”

Since, however, we’re in places like Switzerland and Germany, what we get instead is:

“When I walked out of the Les Feltehtraum Sherrabere Deuz Kaptin, I saw a man that looked like Monsieur Von Klappentooff Schertzanhous who was riding in an AutoFrankenheis when they drove past the Gotte Zer Plettz Der Frouihenheppenhurffer on the way to the Des Mont De Shlavovitz on Perre”.

I realize that what I wrote is extreme jibberish, but this is exactly what it felt like to me after reading a couple of hundred pages or so of this book with all of its pristine details.  It made me wish that I kept a notebook on the side so I could take some copious notes that I could use for future reference.  There were several times when I just couldn’t juggle and remember all of these complex foreign names and places.

Another key fault of this book is the female “sidekick”, or “accomplice”.  Apparently, Robert Ludlum decided that if this story was going to have some teeth, he simply needed to give Jason Bourne an ally to help him through this complex nightmare.  That, in itself, is o.k. and probably even desirable.  It also doesn’t hurt that she’s young, has auburn hair, beautiful, etc.  What the problem is, is how she’s thrown into the story.  Near the beginning of this adventure, Jason kidnaps her.  Not out of cruelty, but necessity.  Remember, he doesn’t even know who he is.  Of course, after the initial kidnapping, she’s rightfully terrified out of her wits, and seems to scream “Please let me go!” at least a bazillion times during a dozen or so pages.  Well, without drudging up the plot, let’s just say that these two somehow, amazingly, become not only allies, but lovers.  It seems a bit preposterous for her to address him throughout the remainder of the pages as “my darling...” after what this man put her through.  She’s overall a good character (as I write this, I can’t remember her name.  Not really important),I just wish a bit more care would have been taken into how she becomes involved.

So the story continues, and each page is packed with action.  Although I couldn’t give you a very thorough explanation of who everyone in this book was, and what purpose they served, the story was overall enjoyable even though my head was spinning much of the time due to the complex plot.  The book manages to have a very satisfying conclusion, yet leaves room for more story, which I’m assuming will be picked up with the next books in the series.  I look forward to reading the next couple of volumes.   Some day.