I started reading e-books in 2010, when I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook device. I still like actual books, but I love the electronic format. It's nice to be able to carry all of your books in one compact device.
Right now, I'm reading Alistair Cooke's Memories of the Good and the Great, which I purchased for $1.99 on an e-book daily deal site. I have vague childhood memories of Alistair Cooke as host of "Masterpiece Theater," and I knew that he was a writer, but that was the extent of my experience with him. I bought the book based on the description (short essays about 20th-century figures whom Cooke had covered as a correspondent for the BBC), and had no expectations at all.
I'm surprised by how much I like the book. The very short essays telescope in and out: A short discussion of the person's significance (the subjects include FDR, Winston Churchill, George Marshall, George Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Roosevelt, P.G. Wodehouse, etc., so they're all pretty significant) and then a close observation of a moment in the person's life or a particular characteristic or event. Cooke met all of the subjects at some point during his career as a foreign correspondent for the BBC and host of the TV series Omnibus, and although he clearly admired all of his subjects, the essays do not read as hagiographic.
I'm surprised by how much I like the book. The very short essays telescope in and out: A short discussion of the person's significance (the subjects include FDR, Winston Churchill, George Marshall, George Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Roosevelt, P.G. Wodehouse, etc., so they're all pretty significant) and then a close observation of a moment in the person's life or a particular characteristic or event. Cooke met all of the subjects at some point during his career as a foreign correspondent for the BBC and host of the TV series Omnibus, and although he clearly admired all of his subjects, the essays do not read as hagiographic.
A few months ago, more because I was avoiding other things than because of any burning desire to read it, I read Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians. Apart from the obvious similarities (both books contain biographical sketches of prominent people; Strachey covered the 19th century and Cooke the 20th) there's not much resemblance between the two books. Cooke is an interesting contrast to Strachey, whose goal was to take his subjects down a peg or two.
Cooke approached his biographies with just the opposite in mind: He already saw his subjects as great and good and wanted his readers to see them the same way. In a possibly intentional metatextual comment on journalism, Cooke notes that many (if not most) Americans at the time of FDR's presidency never knew that he was unable to walk, and that even the Hearst organization, known for its hostility toward the New Deal and toward FDR personally, observed the taboo against mentioning his disability. Cooke guessed that the almost 16-year embargo on reporting about FDR's physical condition wouldn't have lasted for a week today, that today being 1999, when his book was published. Today as in 2015, it wouldn't last for five minutes.
Did the news organizations that didn't report or comment on FDR's obvious disability do a disservice to the truth? Did people have a right to know that their President was in a wheelchair? I don't know. I do know that I have no interest in the sort of spurious truth-telling that unmasks faults and shines a spotlight on blemishes, not for the sake of honesty, but for the sake of exposure.
Some people actually are great or good. Nothing useful comes of breaking them down in print, making them smaller and more like the rest of us. If unvarnished truth means unvarnished by flattery or a political agenda, then it might also mean unvarnished by kindness or sympathy for human failings. I think I'd prefer hagiography.
Cooke approached his biographies with just the opposite in mind: He already saw his subjects as great and good and wanted his readers to see them the same way. In a possibly intentional metatextual comment on journalism, Cooke notes that many (if not most) Americans at the time of FDR's presidency never knew that he was unable to walk, and that even the Hearst organization, known for its hostility toward the New Deal and toward FDR personally, observed the taboo against mentioning his disability. Cooke guessed that the almost 16-year embargo on reporting about FDR's physical condition wouldn't have lasted for a week today, that today being 1999, when his book was published. Today as in 2015, it wouldn't last for five minutes.
Did the news organizations that didn't report or comment on FDR's obvious disability do a disservice to the truth? Did people have a right to know that their President was in a wheelchair? I don't know. I do know that I have no interest in the sort of spurious truth-telling that unmasks faults and shines a spotlight on blemishes, not for the sake of honesty, but for the sake of exposure.
Some people actually are great or good. Nothing useful comes of breaking them down in print, making them smaller and more like the rest of us. If unvarnished truth means unvarnished by flattery or a political agenda, then it might also mean unvarnished by kindness or sympathy for human failings. I think I'd prefer hagiography.
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