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3.0
Mike Gravel, A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Man's Fight to Stop It (Seven Stories Press, 2008)
Every once in a while I will break my self-imposed no-memoir rule for something that's either entirely on point with my life (memoirs from chefs, poker players, jockeys, that sort of thing) or something that's so completely off-point that I find myself attracted to it in a weird way (David B.'s Epileptic is the first one like this that springs to mind). Never, though, have I encountered a memoir that embodies both of those concepts until this one. It's on point because I voted for Gravel in '08 (though by the time the election rolled around I had to write him in), and not on point because I've never been what you might call a dove, where Gravel has always personified that characteristic, and as you can tell by the subtitle of the book, he focuses on his anti-war activities, when discussing himself, in this larger introduction to the rise of the military-industrial complex in America.
There's not really a huge amount of info in the history bits the average American who's kept his ear to the ground, especially since the beginning of Gulf War I (when the anti-military-industrial-complex folks started really publicizing a lot of this stuff), won't already know, but it's nice to have it all wrapped up in one package. And I'm sure Vietnam War historians already know the story of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, though I didn't and I found those bits just as fascinating as anything in All the President's Men. What ultimately saves the book from being dismissable as simply a rehash or a survey is Gravel's ability to tell a story; the guy simply keeps you wanting to read by sounding like the raconteur sitting next to you on a barstool, sipping Calvados and regaling everyone around him with the tale of his latest conquest on the golf course or at the races or what have you. Not a bad little book, this. ***
Every once in a while I will break my self-imposed no-memoir rule for something that's either entirely on point with my life (memoirs from chefs, poker players, jockeys, that sort of thing) or something that's so completely off-point that I find myself attracted to it in a weird way (David B.'s Epileptic is the first one like this that springs to mind). Never, though, have I encountered a memoir that embodies both of those concepts until this one. It's on point because I voted for Gravel in '08 (though by the time the election rolled around I had to write him in), and not on point because I've never been what you might call a dove, where Gravel has always personified that characteristic, and as you can tell by the subtitle of the book, he focuses on his anti-war activities, when discussing himself, in this larger introduction to the rise of the military-industrial complex in America.
There's not really a huge amount of info in the history bits the average American who's kept his ear to the ground, especially since the beginning of Gulf War I (when the anti-military-industrial-complex folks started really publicizing a lot of this stuff), won't already know, but it's nice to have it all wrapped up in one package. And I'm sure Vietnam War historians already know the story of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, though I didn't and I found those bits just as fascinating as anything in All the President's Men. What ultimately saves the book from being dismissable as simply a rehash or a survey is Gravel's ability to tell a story; the guy simply keeps you wanting to read by sounding like the raconteur sitting next to you on a barstool, sipping Calvados and regaling everyone around him with the tale of his latest conquest on the golf course or at the races or what have you. Not a bad little book, this. ***
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