Dutch A Memoir o Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris

Dutch is a complex work and the most different style of memoir or biography I have ever read.  This was a $1 book sale find; published in  1999; 672 pages increasing to 874 pages with Appendix, Acknowledgements, Bibliography, Notes, Illustrations and Index.  As I read I flicked back to many of the detailed notes.  I am all the more mystified after reading it as to the writer's opinion of Reagan, I truly cannot tell if he admired him or not.  He emphasizes the riddle of Reagan as an inscrutable but likeable giant personality but one which he does not clarify, one which he believes defies clarification by anyone.  Perhaps that's the true purpose of an excellent biographer, not to persuade the reader about the subject  but just to point them out, and allow the reader to ponder.  

Morris is commissioned by the Reagans to be the official biographer, the first time a sitting president would do so.  As such he spent time on the "front lines" with the Reagans and yet was given literary freedom to write. On the first page of the  Prologue Morris describes a conversation with Reagan, ".. mildly amused but wary.  Most public, yet most private of men, he does not welcome undue familiarity with his past."  Page xii continues..." .. Perhaps his youthful readings in Calvin Coolidge taught him not to encourage interlocutors.  It only winds them up for twenty minutes more. Even as a  teenager, he had taken no personal interest in people.  They were and remained, a faceless audience to his perpetual performance. " 

Morris would  drop insightful  hints throughout the book about the Reagan character,  Prologue xv, ..." how quickly and lightly the words spooled out, every punch line dropping like a fly on the stream.  Joke telling requires a special kind of intelligence, as anyone knows who has tried to write one out: a few syllables too many, a vital phrase misstated and the humor dies.  Reagan lacked wit..he was too cautious to risk repartee and many of his jokes were hoary, but one could only marvel at their apparent spontaneity." 

Back of jacket

The cover flap explains that  Edmund Morris is one of the first literary guests at the White House.  Reagan read and admired Morris' Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Theodore Roosevelt and so engaged his services although the author was reluctant at first to accept because he  is planning further research about Theodore Roosevelt.  I love the quote at the opening, from Charles Dickens "Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain  of iron or gold of thorns or flowers that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."  That suits Reagan and this book.   

The book begins as though they are childhood acquaintances although the President never so acknowledges.  It had me thinking so but as I read about the author on the  jacket flap I knew that could not be so, he had embellished and in doing so communicated the mystery of Reagan whom he describes as " the dreamy son of an alcoholic father and a fiercely religious mother."  The epic work begins with Reagan's birth in 1911 and ends with his announcement of Alzheimer's. 

This is a book which makes it difficult to select one or two quotes because it is replete with excellent descriptions but as he details Reagan's gravitation toward politics when he is a spokesperson for GE, I think the first line of a speech Reagan gives to the California Fertilizer Association  is a cross stitch for movie buffs:  "The past is a screen on which memory projects movies..."

Pg 414,  "Are there no flaws, then in this image of a supremely happy person?  What do the 42 million Americans who tried to keep him out of the White House worry about?  Well for a start, his Daliesque ability to bend reality to his purposes..." 

It is an intriguing work that took serious reading.  I enjoyed it but would be hesitant to recommend it to a casual reader, even those Reagan fans.  It is contemplative,  historical and grandly presented.  A massive literary work.  I am glad that I read it increasing my knowledge about our 40th President; I have been a fan since he was our Governor in California and more so after I  became acquainted with his late daughter, Maureen.      I  give it 4 stars  ****

When Character Was King, A Story of Ronald Reagan by Peggy Noonan

Published in 2001, 326 pages this is an outstanding book that I  acquired at our library book sale and one that will remain on my collection  shelf of the political and famous.  I admit before I say another word to being very fond of Ronald Reagan, his philosophy and his accomplishments, a Reaganophile if there is such a term.  I admired him from his time as Governor.  I was  fortunate to personally know Maureen , his eldest daughter, who did not always agree with her father politically.

  Peggy could have written most anything from her career  experiences in the White House , but the way she presents this autobiographical sketch demonstrates her skills as a writer.  She is a fantastic writer who emphasizes thru her story telling the character and dedication of Ronald Reagan as our President.  This book ends prior to his death while he is suffering from the incurable Alzheimer's that robbed him of the wonderful memories he built with his beloved Nancy.  He died in  2004, three years after this book was published. 

I was struck by the similarities between the characters and the backgrounds of  Reagan and Harry S Truman, maybe I was more alert to this because I had so recently read  David McCullough's "Truman", reviewed on this blog.  Then Peggy reveals similarities in both their characters and the  times of their presidencies and the crises they handled.  It thrilled me to read (pg 197) during the mid 1990's, when the University of Texas in Austin held a  symposium about a few  presidents where she represented Reagan and McCullough represented Truman and others represented Jimmy Carter, elder George Bush and Franklin Roosevelt.  I would have relished hearing both Peggy and David. 

This chapter which she titled, "The Power of Truth"  describes the special challenges an author faces in  capturing the work of a great leader.  "When you work for such a man,  when you're in the thick of it each day, you don't, as a rule,  talk about it in a fully forthcoming way to friends and family and reporters and curious people.  Part of the reason is loyalty.  Discretion is a way to demonstrate the loyalty you feel, or to show you feel it to people around you who might be watching.  Part of the reason is sheer busy-ness--people who have some role in a White House, for instance are so consumed with their part of the drama, with smoothing over the scheduling problem or planning the summit, that they don't take time to observe as much as they later wish they had.  Or if you do observe, you tend to see mostly your small area and can't always connect it to the big flow of events around you.  You're too busy to keep a diary (or now too afraid of subpoena)."  A  well written reasoned explanation as to why often it is difficult to write the truth about a leader.  She concludes that by the time  the people who were involved feel free to be somewhat indiscreet, they have often gotten very old.  Their memories  fade.  I am not so sure this is true today which shows yet again the immense differences in character of people  between then and now.  I think they lived in better times.   The copy to the right is the Contents and the titles of chapters.

On page 200 she describes more of Reagan's character and puts the traits in context of this time in history.  I was delighted to read how she insists on context; so many times we interpret through our own narrow prisms without consideration of what was happening during the time being described.  Peggy's readers need  to have grounding, a certain degree of awareness and a perspective of history.  " .. Ronald Reagan loved the truth.  We all do or say we do but for Reagan it was like fresh water, something he needed and wanted.  He loved the truth for a number of reasons, a primary one of which is that he thought it, in our current political circumstances uniquely constructive.  He thought that by voicing it you were beginning to make things better.  He thought the truth is the only foundation on which can be built something strong and good and lasting--because only truth endures. Lies die.  .....He wanted to put words into the air that were honest and have them take the place of other words that were not.  He wanted to crowd out the false with the true....."   That is powerful and  so similar to Harry S Truman, who remarked, "I don't give 'em hell, I tell the truth and they think it's hell."  How different from what abides in the White House today!   

I loved this book which might not be for an average reader who wants mere entertainment.  I love to gain depth of understanding from non-fiction and when it jives with my personal beliefs so much the better. When it is a great read about someone I admire that is like icing on the cake.

 I give it an easy 5 *****  out of 5.  It is a book I will keep.   Well done Peggy; very well done.