EBN A Book With a U.S. President in It: Empire by Gore Vidal

I can't even begin to say how intensely crazy the last few weeks have been. We've had surprize baptisms, several weddings, a motorcycle mishap on the freeway, and a gallbladder removal. Obviously this all didn't happen personally to me, but it did all effect me directly. I wish I could say things are calming down now and we will be able to coast our way to the end of the school year and into summer, but I can't. We have at least another six weeks before there is any hope of let up. I've been struggling with my mood a bit and I genuinely hope that the crazy demands of the next month will help improve it and not make it worse.

I finally finished it. This book took quite a while for me to get through. Not only is it pretty epic in its length and scope, but I struggled getting through the lulls in the story. There were moments were it was really interesting and made great progress, and others where I got a little bored. It probably would have been more entertaining if I had been less distracted by life though. So don't take my judgments to heart.

I really liked how applicable the political commentary of this novel was to the modern day political scene. The book came out in the 1980's so things haven't changed a super ton since then. We are still fighting predominately muslim nations. Our votes are still largely economically driven. We still have an "actor" for president. I think that may have been Vidal's point though. The story takes place after the end of the Spanish American War when the United States takes dominion over different territories around the globe; most notably the Philippines. When he portrays the political climate of that time he shows the challenges of running a nation with new responsibilities and leaders that are not entirely up to the task. 

The coolest parallel I found between the events of the book and the events of recent months was the blatant manipulation of media. William Randolph Hearst successfully prints newspapers using what was called yellow journalism. He focused on the sensational, fabricated details to spin things his way, and controlled the beliefs of his readers with his lies. Just a few years ago I would have classified his method as something only silly tabloids use. You know, the ones that say things like "Hillary Clinton was abducted and probed by aliens from Jupiter". Now, it is the method used by many, previously trusted, media outlets. It doesn't matter if it is true, just get it out there so you can say you said it first. Stupid! Why is it that good things always seem to take a back seat to the crazy and negative?

One more thing about this book. One of the main character's is this young woman named Caroline. I kind of loved her and hated her. She was complex. One one hand she was a naive, and expected to follow the typical path women followed in her day. On the other she rebelled against it, taking on her own newspaper, rebelling against her brother for what was rightfully hers, and effectively slapping misogyny in the face.  I really liked her complexity but I didn't really connect to her as a woman. It may just be me, but she was extremely calculating, a characteristic I typically associate with men. Maybe she was just a cold b;#$h and I didn't want to associate that trait with my own sex.