a life’s reading

This is somewhat dated by blog standards, such as they are, but it struck me as an opportunity not to be missed.

Karl Rove, writing in the The Wall Street Journal, reminisces about his friendly “contest” with the then-incumbent President of the United States of America. For the final three years of the Dubyah administration, from 2006 to 2008, Messrs. Rove and Bush, Jr. participated in a duel to see who could read more books.

The use of the terms “read” and Dubyah in the same sentence is surprising; what is shocking is that Dubyah managed to read – again, I use that term loosely – 95 books during their first 12 month window. Broken down, the books fall into the following categories:

• Fiction: 37 titles, including Michael Crichton’s Next and Vince Flynn’s Executive Power.
• Non-fiction: 58 titles, of which 
  • • History & Biography: 44 titles
    • Sports: 6 titles
    • Current Events (“mostly on the Middle East”): 8 titles

Or, in percentage terms: 38.9% (fiction), 46% (history and biography), less than 8% on issues related to the Middle East. Included in the list of 37 fiction titles are eight “Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald” (more than works on the Middle East, count ‘em!). Apparently, the “Travis McGee Series” is famous for it “having a colour in the title” (no kidding).

First, let’s look at the numbers, the criterion the gentlemen utilised. Ninety-five books over 52 weeks entails reading close to 2 books a week, or a book every 3 and a bit days. That is prolific page turning, especially by someone moonlighting as “Leader of the Free World”. Perhaps speed-reading was something the former President developed while at Yale; perhaps the material was no challenge to cerebral capacities. But let’s leave aside the speculation and ask: What does it mean to participate in a reading contest? Is it meaningful to race through books? Is that what a book is for, to be numbered and consumed – “read”? – as part of an annual book target? I am sure Rove has never heard of  Paolo Freire, who wrote in The Act of Study the following:

The act of study should not be measured by the number of pages read in one night or the quantity of books read in a semester.

Numbers and words – let alone raw data and comprehension – are no clear equals, and the premise is founded upon incomparables which betray a basic incomprehension. Some things are just unimaginable. It is simply indecent to race in reading.

[...] In a critical vision, things happen differently. [...] To study is not to consume ideas, but to create and re-create them. (source)

Predictably, “the competition soon spun out of control” and Mission: Quantify reached its nadir with the following confession.

We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book’s pages — its “Total Lateral Area”

I’m sure no-one has yet described this practice as infantile, though it merits such judgement. Think of it: the President of a once proud nation and the President’s Senior Advisor measuring … total … lateral … area. It reminds me of when Thomas the Tank Engine raced against James to the wharf. The chorus is marvellous:

Thomas and James are racing, racing to the Wharf. Everyone likes to be the first not second, third or fourth! Pistons pumping wildly, boilers fit to burst. There’s something really special for the engine who comes first.

Rove does not mention why their respective tallies tailed off from 2006 (Dubyah’s 95 and 110 for Rove) to 51 and 76 (2007), before ending on a complacent 40 and 64 (2008) respectively; nor does he volunteer the composition of succeeding reading years, whether there was a development of themes or return to first principles, or even whether the fictional works were primarily comics or graphic novels. It bears considering that there is no mention of Finance or Economics related titles, nor titles that cover jurisprudence or religion.

Indeed, it appears that Dubya’s history background remains as his guiding Light. As Richard Cohen observed,

The list Rove provides is long, but it is narrow. [...] But [Bush's] books reflect a man who is seeking to learn what he already knows (source: The Washington Post)

Cohen is brutal in his damming indictment.

But the books themselves reveal – actually, confirm – something about Bush that maybe Rove did not intend.  They are not the reading of a widely read man, but instead the books of a man who seeks – and sees – vindication in every page

While correct, it is neither brutal nor damming enough. Let’s be clear on one thing: the tomes of history that Bush Jr. revisits and seeks justification from is best described as popular history, hence the appearance of Rick Atkinson on the list, and David King. Hardly the most rigourous. Indeed, viewed from this perspective, the most apposite ridiculing of Dubyah stems from within the very mirror that he has chosen.

Rove concludes that

Mr. Bush loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them.

These words ring hollow. This is Alan Brinkley reflecting on Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy:

The Bush whom Weisberg skillfully and largely convincingly portrays is a man who has rarely reflected, who has almost never looked back, and who has constructed a self-image of strength, courage and boldness that has little basis in the reality of his life. He is driven less by bold vision than by a desire to get elected (and settle scores), less by real strength than by unfocused ambition, and less by courage than by an almost passive acquiescence in disastrous plans that the people he empowered pursued in his name. (source: The New York Times)

If, as if often observed, the American Presidency is prone to rapid historical revision, Rove’s hasty Yuletide interjection is but the first salvo in the re-casting of the Dubyah years as – hold on – the Renaissance Years, the Golden Age of American Empire where there is only Right and Wrong, where Right is always backed by Absolute Might, where Might only favours Right.

God save America; it needs saving.