Word: forde
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Memories of the Ford Administration...
...there ever a Ford Administration? Evidence for its existence seems to be scanty," writes Alfred Clayton in a rambling exegesis to the Northern New England Association of American Historians (NNEAAAH) on his Memories of the Ford Administration for a symposium of the same title. The document doubles, in its post-modernist way, as John Updike's latest novel...
...didn't pay much attention to politics in the two years and five months that Ford was in office. But he does have a story to tell, and he starts in the beginning--watching Nixon's resignation with his three children whom he had recently "abandoned" when he and his wife separated. He is babysitting because his wife, Norma, is out on a date with Ben Wadleigh--husband of Wendy Wadleigh, who is in turn having an affair with...
Updike has the ability to evoke a precise and charming picture of whatever era he presents--whether he is talking about the hit songs during the Ford administration or the elements of Buchanan's dinner on the eve he loses his only love...
Buchanan may seem like an odd choice for this work, but he actually meshes well with the feeling Updike wants to evoke about the Ford years. In describing this era, Alf is more concerned with himself than the world around him. Ford wasn't a monster and he wasn't a hero; he provokes no more interest in himself than that he stewarded the country during Alf's life. The same with Buchanan. He might have had a more profound effect on the country's history than Ford, but he didn't provoke much interest in himself--the bulk...