Word: books
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...life with the same closeness he could legitimately bring only to the three years he shadowed him in the White House. And so Morris constructed a story that lies on the shoulders of a semi-fictional narrator, a modified version of himself. The bulk of the criticism of Morris' book, which has been as fast as it has been furious, rests with the creation of this narrator. Certainly unorthodox, this new technique has raised serious questions about both literary and historical integrity. But what must be recognized is that in providing Reagan with an audience, however fictional...
...This departure from the usual techniques of biography is hardly the last, as one discovers throughout the book. Morris revives an old Victorian form with a dialogue chapter, frequently lapses into screenplay scripts, letters, diary entries, speeches, interviews, scrapbook pages and author's notes. This varied format lends a vibrant immediacy to Reagan's life, one which would be hard to recreate within the confines of traditional biography. Morris, who thinks in terms of music, has infused the text with references to music--from "The Old Rugged Cross," Reagan's favorite hymn, to Liszt's Faust Symphony...
...away." One of the most jarring moments of Reagan's otherwise happy childhood is when he comes home one night to find his father passed out, drunk, on the snow of their front yard, his arms spread out as if he were crucified. At the end of the book, Morris charts Reagan's trip to Bergen-Belsen, and the photographs of the white corpses shown upon a black background in cruciform position that he saw at the entrance to the field...
...cosmology, as in psychology, the freak convergence of forces creates a centralized whirl. Momentum enters a field of expansion--nuclear particles seek release, and a man longs to embrace something larger than himself. Morris' keenest insights into Reagan come in such poetic metaphors, and as such, the book has disappointed and awed different audiences. Those looking for a hard-core political history of the Reagan years would be advised to look elsewhere, as Morris' aim has always, and without pretense, been to discover the character of Ronald Reagan. In this aspect, Morris presents a textured, nuanced portrait of the former...
...have stood on the shoulders of giants, but Douglas Coupland decided to step on the giants' toes and give them a swift kick to the crotch when he came out with his novel Generation X only a year after yuppie whining manifesto thirtysomething went off the air. In this book and in Microserfs, Coupland chronicled the effects of yuppie angst on the rest of the world-that post-yuppie generation bit by their own species of the Y2Kare bug. Just as middle-management yupsters lashed out against the oppressive ineffectuality of upper management, so too did young up-and-comer...