Today I looked over at Greg's nightstand and saw:
For real?!! A big fat book called Bureaucracy?!
For real.
(And for those of you curious about what exciting tome is awaiting Greg beneath the beauracray behemoth...it's a DeLillo novel. I'm not kidding. White Noise, to be exact. What the heck? I thought I had the monopoly in this family on reading plotless postmodern lit. Speaking of boring books and plotless postmodernity, the most boring book on earth is, not surprisingly, a little specimen of postmodern lit. Alain Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy. It will send you running to the 1957 Federal Tax Guide, found here, for relief. But it's short. So go for it. Then you can say you've read the most boring book on earth.)
But, really, I can't talk because I recently finished a big, fat book on the history of the CIA.
I'd been toying with the idea of reading a book about the CIA in Afghanistan. But I decided to go whole hog, at Cyndie's suggestion. (I'm not the only person who likes boring books! Cyndie is a Duke Law grad, which is basically special training on how to read boring stuff so the rest of us don't have to.)
It was a long book, coming in at 812 pages.
Fortunately, over 200 of those pages were end notes. (Unfortunately, I know that the most interesting tidbits in a book are often found in the end notes.)
This book is meticulously and thorougly researched. I cannot fathom the amount of work that went into it. The book is a bit of a downer (understatement), but fascinating. I have three things to say.
- The CIA is so NOT cool or sleek or sexy like you might expect. Bummer.
- The CIA has been (is?) so much scarier and more powerful than you would ever expect. But not for the cool or sleek or sexy reasons you might imagine. Double bummer.
- I served as a missionary in the Dominican Republic. Sometimes Domincans would call out accusatorily to us Americans, "See-yah! See-ya," meaning "CIA!" Fellow American missionaries throughout Latin America have similar experiences with the populations being paranoid about the CIA. I always laughed a little at this, with a condescending attitude. "Why are these people so paranoid about the CIA? Oh, how little they understand the world. Oh, how little they know about America and our goverment." Um, let's just say that after reading Weiner's book I have eaten some humble pie. Yes, people on the streets of Santo Domingo knew more about the CIA than I as an American citizen did. And they have every reason to be paranoid.
While we're on the subject of drunken, self-deluded, power-hungry men (eg. the CIA), let me tell you what book I'm reading right now.
I believe it's my first foray beyond American history since all the Lawrence of Arabia/World War One stuff. Within the first pages, I was reminded of why I agree with Gail Collins, who, in her acknowedgments in Scorpion Tongues, thanked her ancestors "who thoughtfully left Europe for a land that contained a more manageable amount of political history."
The Wives of Henry VIII is so detailed about whose sixth cousin was the stepmom of the Duke of Wherever back three generations that you very quickly realize what a breeze that AP American History test was. All the criss-crossing of royal bloodlines and royal influence is a headache. But soon I realized that I could skip those parts--paragraphs at a time (I am an America, after all, and accordingly don't care much about royal bloodlines)--and still follow the action.
I have found that a lot of pretty dense nonfiction books lose steam towards the end. Sometimes, with even a very interesting and engaging one, it can feel like a chore to finish the last hundred pages or so. Not so with this one! The Wives of Henry VIII starts out slow--because his first marriage did last a couple of decades. But then it picks up. Real quick. Because he starts dropping wives faster than the GOP drops its presidential hopefuls. You know it's not a good sign when the chapter about his fifth wife has begun--and he hasn't yet married his fourth wife.
This is a really fascinating read! In part because there is so much documentation from the period. All kinds of people wrote all kinds of stuff down. There are love letters and confessions and myriad conversations recorded. Sure, the author has to make a few speculations. But we really are able to see, based on evidence from the day, the individual personalities of each of these women. Fraser does a great job of keeping the women and their lives central in the book. But, of course, along the way you learn about King Henry, European politics at the time, and the religious reformations taking place.
In case you're curious, Henry VIII's wives were--
Catherine of Aragon
Anne Bolelyn
Jane Seymour
Anna of Cleves
Katherine Howard
Catherine Parr
And if you are an English school child, this is how you remember them, with this little poem--
Divorced, beheaded, died;
divorced, beheaded, survived.
In case good old simple American history is more your thing (and good old-fashioned gruesome American medicine), I would be remiss if I did not recommend this book:
James Garfield won my heart this summer when I read 1861 (still my favorite book of the year--and, bonus, it's not boring). He is my favorite president, and I don't mean that in a wry, ironic, geeky-cool way. I mean it for real. It is so, so sad that he did not survive the bullet wounds from the assassination attempt. (Garfield, a hard-working, intelligent, thoughtful man who never wanted to be president, was shot by a lunatic bitter that he wasn't made the ambassador to France. If Garfield had been left alone, he would have survived. It's the medical care that actually killed him.) The title, Destiny of the Republic, is about as a generic a title as it gets--but the story is not. The book is not perfect--the parts about Alexander Graham Bell (yes, he's in here) should be more of a footnote than an integral part of the story. But it's a good, solid, interesting (and easy) read.
By the way, James Garfield is from Hiram, Ohio which is right near Kirtland. One time when we were visiting Kirtland, I noticed a sign directing visitors to James Garfield's home. I laughed and said, "Who would ever want to visit the home of James Garfield? Who cares about him?"
Well, guess what. I do! I do!
And that concludes this edition of boring (and not-quite-so-boring) books I have read. King Henry still has one more wife to go, so I'm off to read.
