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Page 1 The Dartmouth Review February 4, 2013

Dartmouth’s Only Independent Newspaper

Volume 32, Issue 10

February 4, 2013

The Hanover Review, Inc.P.O. Box 343

Hanover, NH 03755

of Books

Also inside:

What we need from

President Hanlon

An appeal

from the

writers and

editors of

The

Dartmouth

Review

The Dartmouth Review

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



What We Need from President HanlonBy The Dartmouth Review Staff

I. Focus on Students

Restore Pre-Matriculation AP Credits

Pre-matriculation credits allow some students graduate

early, save roughly $15,000 in tuition and fees. The fac-

ulty can explore other avenues towards the aim of raising

academic standards.

Introduce Coherent DDS Pricing

The “revamping” of DDS last year was a bitter pill

for the student body to swallow. It replaced the popular

declining-balance account with a convoluted combination

of DBA and meal swipes. Problems persist with the meal

plan despite tinkering by the College. The school should

allow students to opt out of the meal plan altogether and

also introduce a rollover system to conserve the often

hundreds of dollars in unused meals and DBA at the end

of a term.

Value Student Input

When Blitzmail finally shuffled off

the mortal coil last year, the student body

expressed a clear preference for Gmail as

the new email provider. The administration

had promised to consider student opinion,

but Microsof t Outlook was chosen for

undisclosed reasons. As far as students are

considered, the meal plan redesign was a

disaster. Those few students who are even

aware of the recent AP/IB credit changes

are livid.

The issues affecting student life at

Dartmouth today are the result of an ad-

ministration that prioritizes its bottom line

over the happiness (and financial stability)

of its students and families. The College hasdemonstrated that it sees student opinion as

an obstacle and not than a guide.

Student input should be sought for every

import decision affecting student life at the

College.

II. Prioritize Safety

Protect Students From Hanover Police

The Hanover Police Department has a

relationship with the College campus that

is plainly harmful to students. Dartmouth

has pushed back before, and it needs to do

so now.

Over the last three years 231 Dartmouthstudents have been arrested on campus

property for drinking-related charges, with 118 arrested in

their dormitories. Only 66 arrests occurred on non-College

property. In the same time period, the College undertook

132 drinking-related disciplinary actions, about half the

number of arrests.

By contrast, Middlebury College has seen only two

drinking-related arrests; Harvard University has seen

four. In the same time period, Middlebury has undertaken

171 drinking-related disciplinary actions, while Harvard

has undertaken 113. Clearly, drinking is still happening

at these schools, but it is being moderated and punished

by the school administration

and not by the city gov-

ernment. This is the safer

course: students who areafraid of legal repercussions

are less likely to seek help

when it is needed.

Even at other schools

with high rates of drinking-

related arrest, like Yale, the

police are much less active

on campus. Of the 224 total

arrests at Yale in the last three years, only 81 of them occurred

on campus property, compared to 231 of Dartmouth’s 297.

In recent years at Dartmouth, arrests are up and disciplin-

ary actions are down. This is incomprehensible. The College

needs to do its job of protecting students from the ever eager

Hanover Police.

End the Ill-Advised Keg Ban

Why did the College ban kegs in the first place? The

decision seems senseless. An easily regulated, centralized

form of alcohol distribution was replaced with chaos:

underage students can much more easily snatch a can

than surreptitiously pump a cup from a keg. Cans are

distributed faster, pose a significant problem to oversight

of consumption, and make for an incredible amount of

waste. Frankly, the current policy is indefensible.

We’re still waiting for an answer on this one.

Bring Back Green Team

Starting in February of 2011, a promising new student-

led initiative called Green Team assigned sober monitors

to fraternity parties. The monitors assisted in checking IDs

and passing out wristbands and conducted a walkthrough of

the house every twenty minute. Green Team also provided

“party packs” – food and water – to ensure that students

weren’t drinking on an empty stomach.

Last May, Brian Bowden, the coordinator of the Col-

lege’s drug and alcohol education program, praised the Green

Team initiative for it success. Speaking for a Dartmouth

article, Mr. Bowden pointed out Green Team’s access to

unregistered parties as its biggest asset. “The College is

aware that these types of unregistered parties take place,

and if they are going to be taking place, then we’re bet-

ter off having people with training in those settings,” Mr.

Bowden argued. Unregistered parties play host to the riskiest

drinking but are the most difficult to regulate; Green Team

helped solve this problem. This is particularly important in

the summer term, when few of the parties on campus are

registered because fraternities

do not have enough 21-year-old

members on campus.

The College had finallycreated an initiative that im-

proved student safety across the

board: parties with Green Team

involvement generated only one

call to Safety and Security for

intoxication over the course of

the entire program.

However, this past July

the administration changed the way Green Team is funded,

limiting its access only to registered parties. Using student

safety as a bargaining chip with fraternities to force them to

register their parties is irresponsible and dangerous. Green

Team was a well-received and successful harm reduction

initiative. It should be restored to full efficacy.

Stop Harmful Drinking Initiatives

Despite the administration’s attempts to demonize

fraternities and sororities, Greek membership has grown by

31% in the last decade. Almost 70% of eligible Dartmouth

students are now affiliated.

The more the administration antagonizes the Greek

system, the more reluctant fraternities will be to host social

events where drinking, if inherently dangerous, is observ-

able and regulated. Harsh and mercurial penalties, random

walkthroughs, and other such regulations will only serve to

push drinking into less visible and more dangerous situations.

III. Get the House in Order

Show Leadership through Action

In recent years, the College administration has picked

up a habit of deferring to “task forces” and “committees”

when addressing campus issues. The former President Kim

(whose seven-figure salary was a disaster in itself) was in-

famous for his belated reaction to the Andrew

Lohse scandal. He responded not through the

existing offices of GLOS or Student Life but

with the creation of the Committee on Student

Safety and Accountability (COSSA). Despite

its 12-person staff and high media profile,

COSSA (chaired by Dean Charlotte Johnson)

has failed to meet once since May of last year.

We need real leadership and less bureaucratic

nonsense.

Prioritize Efficiency and Affordability

Dartmouth should show leadership on

the issues facing American higher education

today. The system is caught in a bubble, with

tuition increases rapidly outpacing inflation

and distorting the nature of college education.

The liberal arts tradition cannot survive in aworld where a college degree becomes a luxury

few can afford. Tuition inflation is a national

problem with many underlying causes, and

Dartmouth should acknowledge it as such.

Streamline Offices and Departments

Pushed and pulled by an increasingly

antagonistic progressivism, the College has

followed trends in higher education to danger-

ous extremes, adding departments and offices

for an array of non-essential functions. As a

result, Dartmouth currently has 98 distinct,

non-academic offices that it funds each year,

and redundancy abounds.

Few students must realize, for example, that between the enormous office of the Dean of

the College, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity,

the Office for Student Accessibility, and the Office of Plural-

ism and Leadership, there exist four separate departments or

committees for Asian-American advising and outreach. The

same is true for most other campus groups and initiatives,

each served by a number of umbrella and group-specific

initiatives.

This overlap not only wastes money but also makes the

system more complicated for everyone, students included.

We would be better served by a sensible reorganization of

resources.

Reduce Non-Student Liabilities

Each year, Dartmouth spends tuition dollars fundingnearly a dozen offices and facilities with little relevance to

students. These include the Institute for Lifelong Education

at Dartmouth, the Center for the Advancement of Learning,

and the Office of President Emeritus James Wright (all of

which possess websites even less instructive than their titles).

Given Dartmouth’s stated focus on the education of

undergraduates, one wonders what we as an institution gain

from funding these liabilities year after year. n

F

ew students must realize, for example,

that between the enormous office of

the Dean of the College, the Office of In-stitutional Diversity and Equity, the Office

for Student Accessibility, and the Office of

Pluralism and Leadership, there exist four

separate departments or committees for

Asian-American advising and outreach.

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13


February 4, 2013 The Dartmouth Review Page 3

Friday, January 11th marked the rst public appearance

of Dr. Phil Hanlon ’77 as President-Elect of Dartmouth

College. After brief introductions by Interim President Folt

and Trustee Board Chairman Steve Mandel ’78, Dr. Hanlon

spoke of his experiences at the College, drawing comparisons between present-day Dartmouth and the school presided

over by President Kemeny in the 1970s.

It makes sense that Dr. Hanlon would invoke President

Kemeny, who presided over both coeducation and the insti-

tution of the D-plan. Kemeny was president throughout Dr.

Hanlon’s undergraduate years. Similarities exist between

the two beyond their penchant for numbers and fashionable

facial hair.

For instance, Dr. Hanlon’s speech highlighted the

importance of undergraduate research, a sentiment that led

Kemeny (who was himself a research

assistant to Albert Einstein at Princ-

eton) to pioneer the eld of computing

on the Dartmouth campus.

John Kemeny’s connection to

computing was perhaps the mostinteresting aspect of his long rela-

tionship with Dartmouth College.

When he joined the faculty in 1953,

the closest computer was at MIT.

Kemeny made the 135-mile commute

frequently until Dartmouth got its own

computer six years later. He oversaw

use of the LGP-30 by undergraduate

students, encouraging their exposure

to the new technology.

Kemeney’s enthusiasm was

matched by Thomas Kurtz, also of

the Dartmouth math department.

The two partnered not only in their

personal research, but also in the promotion of computing

as a research tool for undergraduates. “We at Dartmouthenvisaged the possibility of millions of people writing their

own computer programs,” Kemeny wrote. To that effect,

Kemeny and Kurtz invented the Dartmouth Time Sharing

System, which greatly improved computer efciency and

allowed for multiple users access to

a CPU from individual terminals.

They also invented BASIC in 1964

as an effective, but accessible coding

language.

When Kemeny assumed the

presidency of Dartmouth in 1971,

his perspective evolved. Computers

were more than academic tools, they

were fast becoming an integral part

of society and a subject worth under-

standing by virtue of itself. Kemenywrote, “While computers alone cannot solve the problems of

society, these problems are too complex to be solved without

highly sophisticated use of computers.” It was crucial, he

held, to promote a computer-literate society. President

Kemeny not only identied the crucial role computers

would play in all aspects of society, but took that intuition

and co-opted it into a part of the Dartmouth education.

That point brings us at last to Dr. Hanlon’s speech onJanuary 11th, in which he identied globalization as the

newest trend Dartmouth College must address. As he told

the audience in Spaulding Auditorium, “our graduates are

entering a workplace that is itself undergoing profound

changes, a work environment that is characterized by

increasing levels of volatility, complexity, workplace

diversity, and global reach.” Dr. Hanlon has only begun

to step into his role as head of the College, but already

his mindset resembles that of President Kemeny, identi-

fying the larger trends that will in all likelihood come to

characterize the professional ex-

perience of Dartmouth graduates.

Dr. Hanlon has already embraced

the presidency, and while it may

be too early to draw substantive

conclusions about his leadership, itis clear that he is already thinking

like a college president.

Dr. Hanlon further stated that

Dartmouth’s primary task is to

develop students into leaders that

understand and shape the global

conversation. His speech did not

describe the Dartmouth™ envi-

sioned by Dr. Kim, but the school

that provides the best education to

its students. To that end, his stated

intention to teach undergraduates

courses in the math department

is signicant, as it bolsters the

strength of his commitment to the fundamentals of the

Dartmouth education.The importance Dr. Hanlon places on leadership in

also denotes an appreciation for the education gleaned

both inside and out of the classroom. Given that he is

inheriting a role with an impetus to address student life

concerns—which, to wit, encom-

pass not only the Greek system but

all campus organizations including

athletics—such appreciation could

prove meaningful when Dr. Hanlon

inevitably addresses the College’s

insufferable current policies.

Ultimately, speculation con-

cerning Dr. Hanlon’s agenda based

solely on his initial remarks proves

a limited exercise. More construc-

tive, perhaps, is the agenda offeredhere by the writers and editors of The Dartmouth Review,

who assert that such changes will go a long way toward

improving the College and her vital organs. n

George A. Mendoza • Taylor Cathcart Features Editors

Editorial

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Ke DingSports Editor

Al Johnson, Blake S. Neff, Jay M. Keating III, Michael T.

Haughey, Stuart A. Allan, J.P. Harrington, John Melvin,

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TheDartmouth Review

What We Need from President Hanlon Page 2Making a Deal in D.C. Page 4What’s Wrong with Liberalism? & A War Novel for the New Generation Page 5Winston During Wartime Page 6Islam and Extremism in America & [Expletive deleted]: A Theory Page 7“Cloud Atlas” On Paper and Screen Page 8Goodbye, Texas & Notes on The Boss Page 9Lincoln the Uniter & “Back to Blood” A Return to Form Page 10Front and Center Page 11Last Word & Mixology Page 12

Adam I.W. Schwartzman

Dr. Hanlon has only begun to

consider his role as head of

the College, but already his mindset

resembles that of President Kemeny,

identifying the larger trends that will

in all likelihood come to character-

ize the professional experience of

Dartmouth graduates.

Chloe M. Teeter Media Editor

Hilary Hamm • Kirk Jing Associate Editors

Kemeny, Computers, Hanlon & the World

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



Making A Deal in D.C.

Mr. Harrington is a junior at the College and a

contributor The Dartmouth Review.

By Thomas J. P. Harrington

Fortunately, The Price of Politics is not a story told by

an idiot, but instead a catalogue of idiotic mishaps, miscom-

munications and mistakes from both sides of the political

aisle. Woodward’s newest DC tell-all swamped the nation’s

discussions in the lead-up to the election. The tortuous and

twisted story took outsiders deep into the insides of Wash-

ington, to where the sausage was made. Or in the case of

the debt negotiations in 2010, not made. Yet, given that its

strong condemnation of both Republican Speaker of the

House Boehner and Democratic President Obama resulted in

neither political figures’ unseating, does this tome still have

any relevance?

Yes, yes it does. In fact, it may be one of the most significant

books to be released in the past four years. Why? Because it

actually manages to depict one of the most mysterious and

convoluted political figures of our time in an odd, but hon-

est way. I’m speaking of course, of our recently re-elected

President.

In The Price of Politics, Woodward attempts to present

the first four years of the Obama Administration and thus

demonstrate how the debt ceiling fiasco was born, debated

and finally lost by both sides. By the end, it becomes clear

that President Obama has been anything but consistent or constant. Rather, his character appears to vacillate and change

with the environment surrounding him. As a result, I’ve tried

to divide Woodward’s narrative into the three stages that the

Obama Administration travelled through from 2008 to 2012.

Part I: The Candidate Triumphant

Woodward’s book begins with his first introduction to

then-Senator Barack Obama at the Gridiron dinner. He was

dazzled by Obama’s charm, his elegance and his articula-

tion. But, Woodward tempers his praise and the ebullience

surrounding Obama’s self-deprecating, but insubstantial

palaver with a comparison to another Senator’s speech. In

one brilliant passage, Woodward manages to present the dif-

ference between the charming future President Obama and

the serious Senator Moynihan.Moynihan, then 53, made some good jokes, but his theme

was serious: what it means to be a Democrat. The soul of

the party was to fight for equality and the little guy, he said.

The party cared for the underdogs in America, the voiceless,

powerless and those who got stepped on. It was a defining

speech, and the buzz afterward was that Moynihan was go-

ing to be president. He wasn’t, of course. That was then, this

was now. Obama had not once mentioned the party or high

purpose. His speech, instead, was about Obama, his inexpe-

rience, and, in the full paradox of the moment, what he had

not done. Two and a half years later, he was president-elect

of the United States.

After that far-from-complimentary introduction to the Presi-

dent, Woodward skips ahead to the halcyon days of the end

of 2008 to the beginning of 2009. Well, halcyon at least for President Obama and the Democrats. Not so much for the

rest of the country – and even the world. The stock market

was collapsing, Europe was feeling the first tremors of what

would become a years-long debacle, and of course nearly

everyone was running around like a headless chicken. But

the charming, articulate and self-deprecatory candidate was

now President. At least Bush was gone, everyone reassured

themselves. The real question was, however, how would

Obama govern?

The answer lay in one of the first meetings between

the newly elected President and the congressional leaders

of both parties. At the first meeting, Obama had touted his

willingness to compromise and find a bipartisan path. As a

result, then-House Minority Whip Eric Cantor went to the

drawing board with conservative members of the Republican

caucus to write up a set of principles regarding the upcom-

ing stimulus. President Obama glanced at the document and

then after a brief sentence or two of trite bipartisan pablum,

he laid down the law. “I can go it alone…Look at the polls.

The polls are pretty good for me right now. Elections have

consequences, and Eric, I won. So on that, I think I trump

you.” A few months later as the debate over the stimulus bill

raged, it became clear that bipartisanship was off the table. As

Republicans attempted to alter the Democratic bill, Emanuel

responded: “We have the votes. [expletive deleted] ‘em.” And

so began the first two years of the Obama Administration.

Part II: The Not-So-Great Negotiator

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, Mr. Emanuel

turned out to be quite wrong indeed. After the debacle of the

2010 midterm elections where the GOP took back the House

(thanks to a 9 point swing in the vote) and gained six seats

in the Senate, President Obama just didn’t have the votes

anymore. Pivoting, Obama began his attempts to charm

his political opposition, but it was an empty and obviously

calculated gesture. The President called the new Speaker of

the House, John Boehner, on his birthday to wish him well –

and then dropped an invitation to a major summit with every

congressional leader the next day. Insulted by the extremely

late notice for a meeting that couldn’t fit into his already-

packed schedule, Boehner had to refuse the offer along with

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. This miniscule

miscommunication resulting in a political misfire may seem

silly and unusual, but sadly it was only the first of many such

occasions throughout the debt ceiling negotiations.

As the countdown began, Obama deployed former Sena-

tor (and renowned smooth talker) Joe Biden to discuss the

issues and identify spending cuts with a bevy of congressional

leaders including the new House Majority Whip Cantor. The

divide between the two parties quickly grew. Not only did the

Republicans want spending cuts, but they needed entitlementcuts. Meanwhile, Democrats wanted to protect their beloved

entitlement programs while cutting defense programs and rais-

ing more revenue. The Bush tax cuts for the top two percent

were a favorite target of the left while the right pointed at the

waste and growth in Medicare, food stamps and Medicaid.

Biden attempted to find common

ground, to find those cuts that could be

made. But these efforts were stymied by

disagreement on both sides. Repeatedly,

everyone made comparisons to the budget

deals of Gingrich, Clinton, O’Neill and

Reagan. But no one was ready to make

the first leap. Not while the negotiations

were still on. Democrats became frustrated

with Biden’s continual attempts to com-

promise…but never with an end goal insight. Representative Chris Van Hollen, a

Democrat stalwart who later would be ap-

pointed to the bipartisan Supercommittee

designed to force Congress to make cuts,

quickly grew frustrated with the White

House. Woodward notes: “A growing feel-

ing of incredulity came over Van Hollen.

The administration didn’t seem to have a

strategy. It was unbelievable. There didn’t

seem to be any core principles.” As always,

the White House remained a mystery.

Divisions were not an exclusively

Democratic problem. Woodward

depicts the struggle between the

newly elected Tea Party caucus

and the Republican moderates. Boehner knew that he waswalking a tightrope, balancing the different sides of his cau-

cus. Tensions grew as Cantor became the new spokesman

for the hard-line conservatives and rumors spread that he

was seeking Boehner’s position. All of this division, distrust

and turmoil loomed beneath the surface of the negotiations.

Unfortunately, it took the White House to exacerbate the

situation until it exploded.

As those negotiations festered, President Obama unwit-

tingly contributed to their demise by opening a secret back-

door set of negotiations with Speaker of the House Boehner.

Unfortunately, Biden revealed the existence of the talks to

Cantor in one of his patented gaffes. Fearing a political coup

or a double cross by the White House, the Democrats, or

even his own party, Cantor exited the stagnating talks. Now,

all of the nation’s hopes landed squarely on the shoulders of

Boehner and Obama.

The problem was that the big deal was just out of their

reach. After their aides had spent months squabbling over

minor details, the President and the Speaker had still not

managed to nail down the major sticking points. Entitlements

and revenue…it all came down to that. For months, the two

leaders had left the basic framework up to their minions, but

it had failed. They had to make the final decisions. But then,

at the last moment, President Obama called Boehner and

asked for more tax revenue. $400 billion more – not exactly

chump change.

That was 50% higher than Boehner’s final offer, his so-

called ceiling. And although three moderate GOP Senators had

recently come out in favor of a similar revenue deal, Boehner

knew that would never pass the House. So, the talks fell apart

as Boehner switched to negotiations with the congressional

Democrats. The President was furious. And his anger began

the third phase in the White House.

Part III: The Campaigner-in-Chief

Out went old good Bill Daley and in came Jack Lew,

former head of Office of Management and Budget. The

Republicans had hated Lew. He was a hard-line negotiator

and even worse, obnoxiously arrogant and combative. Was

it any surprise how the President suddenly changed to the

Campaigner-in-Chief?

Bipartisanship was out the window. Now, it was all about

getting back the votes, getting the American people to hate

Republicans. Why? Negotiating was clearly not President

Obama’s strong point, so it was time to try a different tactic.

Thus, out of the ashes of the debt ceiling negotiations, there

rose the Obama re-election campaign platform. Simply put,

it was anti-Congress and virulently anti-Republican.

The President took to using the upcoming expiration of

the payroll tax cut as a bludgeon. Repeatedly, he damned the

Republicans in the House and Senate while pronouncing, “Pass

this bill.” Cantor, to his credit, saw the maelstrom approaching

and urged the leadership to pass the bill and stop the pain.

Unfortunately, they weren’t swift enough. As Congressionalapproval ratings plummeted, Obama surrounded himself with

working men and women, embracing Main Street. How odd

that Jack Lew, a former Citigroup executive who had short-

sold during the housing collapse, would bring this profoundly

populist message to the Obama Administration.

At the end of the day,

Woodward’s book is just that:

a collection of odd stories sur-

rounding the mercurial man in

the Oval Office. But this tome

is less the story of a President,

than it is of his handlers. It

seems that President Obama

changes to match his environ-

ment rather than the other way

around. When Rahm Emanuelwas Chief-of-Staff, the White

House was a steamroller. The

opposition either got out of

the way or found themselves

as thin as pancakes. After the

2010 elections and the depar-

ture of the foul-mouthed and

short-tempered Rahm Emanuel

and Larry Summers, President

Obama transitioned into a calm,

technocratic negotiator. Not too

dissimilar from good-old-boy

William Daley, the

recently arrived Chief

of Staff.

Except Obama just isn’t that person. He just couldn’tseal the deal. So he transitioned to a full-scale broadside

against the Republicans for 18 months in order to ensure his

re-election. He intentionally fought tooth-and-nail to crush

the opponent – tossing any hope of negotiation or bipartisan-

ship to the wind. But now, we have a second term to look

forward to. This time, though, President Obama has even

fewer friends in Washington.

Going forward, the worrying thought is who will Barack

Obama be for the next four years? Unfortunately, Woodward

leaves the reader with no answers, only more questions. In

that, his terse prose reflects the reality of our current situa-

tion. Still looming overhead, just as it did four years ago is

the ultimate question: who did we just elect President? The

campaigner, the negotiator, or the candidate? n

The Price of Politics

Bob WoodwardSimon & Schuster, 2012

Book Review

— In his latest work, veteran journalist Bob Woodward traces

the many facets of professional politician Barack Obama.—

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



was no longer an entity entrusted by the people to protect one

man from another; it was a benevolent parent with a duty to

demonstrate “compassion” and improve quality of life. After

Wilson, Kesler goes on to discuss FDR and LBJ in similar

veins, covering FDR’s New Deal and the re-denition of

the word “liberal” as well as LBJ’s doomed Great Society.

For all the strength of the book’s early parts, the author

seems to run out of steam when he nally gets to Obama.

The former senator from Illinois, Kesler writes, is the “mostleft-wing liberal to be elected to national executive ofce

since Henry Wallace.” Mr. Obama, Kesler claims, “sees

himself engaged in an epic struggle” for the “Swedenization

of America.”

Or perhaps most ridiculously: our president is executing

a “Marxist” plan to hasten the collapse of our government

with massive decits “in order to bring about a crisis of the

American welfare state that would be solved by its engorging

another 10 percent or 20 percent of the American economy.”

Despite the extreme nature of Kesler’s claims, he is noticeably

thin here on details, choosing to mostly ignore Obama’s record

in ofce in favor of the president’s memoirs, the Jeremiah

Wright controversy, and Obamacare.

By Rebecca G. Hecht

In the canon of war novels, the titles All Quiet on the

Western Front , A Farewell to Arms, and The Red Badge of

Courage are among the rst to come to most minds. Shani

Boianjiu’s The People of Forever are Not Afraid is nothing

like any of those, though it may very well prove to be one of

the most notable war novels of our generation. There is no

sympathetic hero, no harrowing scenes of combat, no insight

into what makes heroism versus cowardice. But if it lacks simi-

larities to former war novels, it is due to the fact that the war in

Israel lacks similarities to any war before it. Boianjiu’s work about

three Israeli soldiers—all female—performing their mandatory

service in the Israeli Army explains what it is like to come of age

in Israel, and gives insight into what it is like to live in a country

that is constantly threatened with war. The messages in her book

are made all the more important by the sad fact that they cannot

be found in almost any form of Western media.

An Israeli citizen herself, Boianjiu performed her man-

datory two-year army service after nishing high school in

Jerusalem. She then went on to attend Harvard University

for her undergraduate degree. After graduation she wrote this

book (entirely in English), which won her the National Book

Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award (At age 25 she is the award’s

youngest recipient), and was just named by the Wall Street

Journal’s book editors one of the best novels of 2012.

From chapter to chapter, Boianjiu rotates the perspective

of her novel from her three main characters, Yael, Avishag,

and Lea. All three grow up together on the Lebanese boarder

in an underdeveloped town and attend school in the inside of

a caravan. Yael is boyish and imaginative and is sent to train

marksmen in the army. Avishag is posted at a guard tower near the Egyptian boarder, which seems to provide the only

relief from her endless depression. Lea, dreaming of being

close to the combat, is put in the military police, where she

is stationed at a checkpoint through which Palestinian day

workers come each morning.

Boianjiu has divided the book into three parts: life be-

fore the military, life in the military, and post-military life.

Though these sections prove to be less distinct than one might

automatically believe, as it is seen that having a mandatory

military service requirement affects Israelis at all stages of

their lives. For instance, in the nal section, the characters are

constantly drawn back—both physically and mentally—into

their military life. As if every Israeli, having nished his military

service, can never really escape the effect it had on him.

And meanwhile, throughout the course of the novel,

Boianjiu’s language and realism, her tools used to create

her characters’ perspective on and understanding of their

surroundings, begin to breakdown, and her book becomes

progressively more impressionistic—and quite surreal—as

life itself becomes less clear for Yael, Avishag, and Lea. The

stream-of-consciousness narrative, which starts off simple

becomes increasingly more abstract, makes this book a slower,

more challenging read. But it is a necessary challenge, one

that enhances the experience of the book, as Boianjiu pushes

her readers to fully grasp just how unusual and unfamiliar

life in Israel is from our own.

Though sent to different parts of the country and to differ-

ent types of service, each character experiences the common

hardships of military life. The twelve-hour-long shifts each must

work leave too much time for reection on both the seemingly

pointless task at hand and also their larger purpose in the war.

But the monotony of the long shifts merely reinforces

the endlessness and the wearisomeness of the war itself. And

how, in reality, living in a country ridden with terrorism and

the nearby threat of attack is all these girls have ever known.

The fact that the war is being fought in the place where they

live means that it is forever inescapable. Since home front is

the only front, the war came to them before they came to it.

Though their time in the army gives them a closeness to the

physical dangers (Yael handles automatic grenade launchers

with a physical and mental ease that is hard to fully conceive)

and political conicts of the war, it does not introduce life in

war to any of the girls; they have known that forever.

Boianjiu’s commentary on Israeli life is one of the most

fascinating and gives an insight that those interested in the

Middle East would be wise to learn. Her characters remember

terrorist attacks in their hometown when they were young.

They see how their siblings and friends come back different

people after their army service. They hold the stories of their

parents’ experience in the army. And they live with death al-

ways so nearby. Death has always been a part of their lives,

since they were young, and will always be there, even after

their time in the army is long over. And nothing provides

more eye-opening insight into living in a constant state of

war than the bluntness with which these three girls—and we

reader—nd out about death of their friends’ brothers, their

boyfriends, their fellow soldiers, their countrymen.

Not once is there even a murmur of an end to the war.

But in between the monotony and the death there are mo-

ments of life. Moments when the girls date, play pranks, drink,

gossip at night with the other soldiers—act like the teenagers

they are. If not for these moments, Boianjiu’s characters would

seem completely foreign. But because of them, we realize how

close these characters actually are to ourselves, and how much

more incredible their stories seem because of it.

Boianjiu’s novel is valuable to those want to gain an

honest and accurate understanding about what it is like to

grow up in Israel. If one trusts Boianjiu’s pessimism toward

Israel’s situation ever changing, her novel may prove to have

a lasting relevance she neither imagined—nor hoped for. n

By Taylor Cathcart

George W. Bush turned a surplus into a decit almost

immediately. Clinton’s health care initiative failed more spec-

tacularly than his marriage. So why should we be so scared

of Obama? Charles Kesler sets out to answer this question

in his recent book, I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the

Crisis of Liberalism. Harvard-educated Kesler is a govern-

ment professor at Claremont McKenna College and editor

of the Claremont Review of Books.

I Am The Changeopens on an encouraging note, dismiss-ing those who paint Mr. Obama as “a third-world daddy’s

boy, Alinskyist agitator, deep-cover Muslim, or

undocumented alien.” “Conservatives, of all people,” Kesler

writes, “should know to beware instant gratication, especially

when it comes wrapped in a conspiracy theory.” Instead,

Kesler sets out to outline a history of the left, from Wilson’s

progressivism to FDR’s liberalism to Lyndon B. Johnson’s

Great Society. Kesler tells his history well, recounting the rise

of the modern research university in America, importation

of German philosophies, the conception of an “expert class”

of academics to administer the State, and the reinvention of

the role of government.

The highlight of the book is Kesler’s excellent tracing

of the philosophical underpinnings of 20th century liberal

ideologies, starting with a surprisingly good summary of

the German philosopher Hegel’s work. Hegel, Kesler writes,

believed that:

Each culture or folk mind (e.g., clas sical Greece)

passed from youth to maturity to decline, but handed

the torch to a successor just in time. The essence of

the fading culture was preserved in the transfer, so

that nothing important was lost and the subsequent

folk mind could begin where the last left off. Andso the world mind (Weltgeist) progressed, from the

consciousness, as Hegel put it, that One is free (the

principle of oriental despotism) to the understanding

that Some are free (the Greeks and Romans), to the

knowledge, nally, that All human beings are free

(the Christian insight, perfected in the Germanic mind)...

Progress in the Hegelian sense bred the lofty assurance that

history had a meaning and direction, that it pointed inevitably

to human liberty and human ourishing.

Hegel argued that history was a process of evolution

toward an absolute ideal. Our founders, on the other hand, had

designed the government like an expensive watch, solid and

well-balanced, to ensure it would not break or be tampered

with. Woodrow Wilson, armed with an understanding of the

Hegelian dialectic, proposed that the old idea of a limited

Constitution was merely a reection of the Founders’ anti-quated worldview. He instead supported a living Constitution

which could adapt to contemporary needs and evolve along

with society. The early progressivists’ fundamental innova-

tion was their belief that, as MLK Jr. once said, “the arc of

the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Kesler goes on to consider the logical results of Wilson’s

reimagining of politics. Presidents, once stewards charged

with protecting the nation, were now leaders expected to lead

the people into a dark and ambiguous - but always slightly

better! - future (indeed, Lincoln and Douglas debated for over

twenty-four hours without once mentioning “leadership”, a

feat almost unimaginable today). Leaders now needed “vi-

sions” for the future, a personal idea of what Hegel’s absolute

ideal would look like. Additionally, Kesler writes, Wilson

rejected the “social compact” theory of government in favor

of a family model: “the State of today may be regarded as in

an important sense only an enlarged Family.” The government

Ms. Hecht is a senior at the College and Managing Edi-

tor of The Dartmouth Review.

Mr. Cathcart is a sophomore at the College and Features Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

A War Novel for the New Generation

What’s Wrong With Liberalism?

I Am The Change: Barack Obama

and the Crisis of Liberalism

Charles R: Kesler

Broadside Books, 2012

Book Review

The most impressive aspect of Kesler’s book is its objec-

tive and intellectually honest treatment of early liberalism.

Kesler refrains from paraphrase, preferring to let his subjects

do the talking for themselves. The result is an extremely in-

teresting account of proto-liberalism and liberal philosophy.

The closer Kesler gets to the modern day, however, the less

articulate he becomes, content instead with talk of “liberal

magicians” and extensive close readings of The Audacity of

Hope.

I Am the Change teaches a lot about liberalism and its

philosophy. The book did not, however, teach me much about

President Obama, except that he can make even Harvard-

educated political scientists reach for conspiracy theory. Allthings considered, a worthwhile read. n

For all the strength of the book’s early

parts, the author seems to run out of

steam when he nally gets to Obama.

The People of Forever

are Not Afraid

Shani BoianjiuHogarth, 2012

Book Review

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



Winston During Wartime

Mr. Neff is a senior at the College and a contributor to

The Dartmouth Review.

By Blake S. Neff

Defender of the Realm’s journey to print is a fascinat-

ing tale befitting of its subject. The book bears the names of

two authors, the first that of William Manchester, once one

of Americans most popular biographers for works such as

American Caesar (about Douglas Macarthur) and The Death

of a President (about Kennedy). Manchester’s magnum opus

was a monumental work on Winston Churchill, The Last

Lion, to be published in three doorstoppers of over 800 pages

apiece. The first volume, Visions of Glory, covering his early

life up to 1932, was published in 1983, and the second, Alone,

appeared five years later. After that, however, Manchester’s

suffered from a severe case of writer’s block, a surprise for a

man who routinely produced enormous books and was known

to have writing sessions lasting up to 50 consecutive hours.

Before the gears could start turning again, his health declined

from a series of strokes, and when he died in 2004 less than

200 pages of the mammoth third volume were complete.

While several notable authors and professional historians

were considered as Manchester’s successor, and Pulitzer-

winner Diane McWhorter came very close to being selected,Manchester turned them all down, seeking a successor who

shared not only writing ability but also a complete awe for

Churchill himself. Ultimately, the role of playing Joshua to

Manchester’s Moses fell on Paul Reid, a journalist at the Palm

Beach Post who became a personal friend of Manchester’s

late in the latter’s life. Originally slated to co-write with

Manchester, Reid was on his own eight months later when

Manchester finally succumbed to stomach cancer.

He only barely proved up

to the task. Although a journal-

ist, Reid had never written a

book in his life, and he was

woefully unprepared for the

brutal task of producing a

highly anticipated 1000-page

biography. Even worse, he hadto bear expectations that he faithfully carry on the legacy of

his successor, knowing that any failures would fall on him

while Manchester would receive the lion’s share of credit

for success. To his immense credit, though, Reid treated the

project as a solemn obligation to his departed friend and

committed nearly a decade of his life to seeing it through

successfully. While Manchester bequeathed hundreds of

pages of notes, he relied on a personal coding system that

was nearly impenetrable and took Reid years to decipher.

Reid himself first struggled to imitate Manchester’s style,

and after tat proved impossible he still had to spend years

learning to write at a high level, coached along by his editor.

What was hoped to be a two-year project ended up taking

nine, while Reid himself was forced to sell his house and

burn through all his savings to keep writing after using up

his $200,000 advance.That the book managed to finally come out at all is a

major personal triumph for Reid, but it’s less clear that it

can truly be considered a completion of Manchester’s work.

Manchester favored complex, grandiose sentences imbued

with the same larger-than-life vigor that animated Churchill.

Reid, befitting his journalist background, favors a more

utilitarian prose that is serviceable but hardly distinctive,

and often reads like a very, very long news story (fittingly,

Reid always calls his subject “Churchill,” while he was

“Winston” to Manchester). Additionally, Reid’s personal

research led him to construct a significantly different image

of Churchill himself. Manchester’s Churchill was moder-

ate with his alcohol and suffered from severe depression,

while Reid’s Churchill is a borderline alcoholic who simply

handles it spectacularly well, and has no signs of mental

illness at all. Though both revere Churchill, such signif icant

differences make Defender of the Realm its own indepen-

dent biography, which in turn

makes one wonder if going

through with a third volume

made sense in the first place.

Whatever its shortcom-

ings as a sequel and fulfill-

ment of Manchester’s work,

“Defender” is still a powerful,

immensely detailed look at

one of the most titanic figures

of the 20th Century. Though

Reid clearly adores Churchill,

the book is anything but an

idealized portrait. In fact, it

is very plain while reading

that had history gone a little

differently, it would be easy

to remember him as one of

history’s great bunglers rather

than as a national savior. An

amateur’s amateur, Churchill

routinely dabbled in areas

outside his expertise if they

grabbed his attention, a habit

which would not have been

harmful had his interests not

included nearly every ac-

tion of His Majesty’s armed

forces. Like a boy playing

with toy soldiers, Churchill

tinkered with every part of

the war effort, from grand

strategy to battlefield logistics and

fleet dispositions. Often, his plans

seem driven by mere whimsy: One general remarked thata bizarre plan to invade Norway during the war was driven

by nothing more than a remark that Hitler had unfolded his

map of Europe from the top down and Churchill would roll

it up in the same manner.

Churchill’s ideas were not harmless fancies but in fact

severely endangered the war effort. In 1941, he compelled

his North African generals to send half their available forces

to support a doomed effort in Greece, which only led to se-

vere defeats in both regions

and the near-capture of the

Suez Canal. Later, his boy-

like fascination with large

battleships and failure to

see their obsolescence with

the advent of carrier-borne

aircraft would get nearly athousand British sailors killed when he sent the ships without

air cover against the forward-thinking Japanese navy. For

the amount of meddling he did, it is remarkably hard to find

any examples where Churchill’s involvement produced a

positive effect, and the book frequently notes the frustration

and dread felt by Britain’s professional soldiers at dealing

with the harebrained schemes of

the eager, very powerful novice

who commanded them.

In addition to his general

shortcomings, conservatives who

read the book may be surprised

that Churchill does not precisely

match the image of him they may

have in their minds. Unsurpris-

ingly given his accomplishmentsand party identification, Churchill

is a popular figure for American

conservatives; Steven Hayward

at National Review even promoted

Newt Gingrich by suggesting he could be an American

Churchill. The comparison is an apt one, though this mainly

means that Churchill would probably annoy modern American

conservatives much as Gingrich does. Although a Conserva-

tive, Churchill switched parties more than once, and prior

to becoming prime minister he was tolerated at best by the

Conservative establishment. He was a routine opportunist,

changing his mind on almost every great issue of the day. He

accepted the Beveridge Report that led to the creation of the

postwar British welfare state, yet later tried to brand Labour

as totalitarian for embracing the same policies in 1945. He

claimed to be such an ardent free-trader that it drove his de-

fection to the Liberal Party mid-career, yet by the 30’s (when

the Depression made free trade unpopular) he abandoned

this position almost entirely. On top of his inconsistencies,

Churchill had a spectacular ability to deflect and evade

blame for mistakes

that were manifestly

his fault, an ability

he put to frequent

use in 1940 and ‘41

when almost ev-

ery military venture

by the British went

dreadfully wrong,

often after extensive

Churchillian input.

C h u r c h i l l

would displease

most modern con-

servatives in plenty

of other ways as

well. He was almost

totally irreligious,

bordering on blas-

phemous at times,

though he had no

trouble utilizing

Christianity when it

was useful for aiding

his political goals.

Instead of God, he

put his faith in the

British Empire,

whose preservation

he invested with

an almost sacred

character. This made

him a dinosaur even in his own

era, and aside from Pat Buchanan

types who wax nostalgic for the days when Britannia held aquarter of the world’s population in subservience, it is likely

not an ideology that would appeal to the modern Tea Party

crowd.

For all Churchill’s shortcomings as a leader, conser-

vative, and human being, though, the astute reader will

still almost certainly come away from the Defender of the

Realm with an enormous regard for him, because as the

book makes clear Churchill is not a leader who can be

evaluated properly by simply surveying his life and tal-

lying its successes and failures. Rather, Churchill endures

as perhaps the greatest statesmen of the century for one

simple, straightforward deed in the summer of 1940. The

highlight of the book is Reid’s deft portrait of that period,

where defeat seemed certain and Churchill braced a nation

for the greatest test in its long history. France had been

crushed utterly, and the dismemberment of the BritishEmpire seemed imminent if it fought on. Hitler dangled

the promise of a lenient peace before Britain, and with

its allies defeated and no immediate prospects for victory

such an offer was sorely tempting.

Had any other leader held the office of Prime Minister,

Britain likely would have cut a deal. Adamant in his hatred

of Hitlerism and prescient in

his belief that it was among the

blackest philosophies ever seen

on Earth, Churchill refused to

even consider peace, and never

wavered from this position, no

matter how certain annihilation

seemed.

Given the enormous and

seemingly avoidable risk Britainchose to fight to the bitter end,

Churchill’s stand must be seen

as a moral one, taken without

regard for the immediate national

interest, and that he was able to marshal every segment of

British society to fight on no matter what the cost is an almost

unparalleled accomplishment. “Time Magazine” spoke truly

when it remarked in 1941, that were the Allies to prevail,

Churchill would prove not merely man of the year or of the

century, but a man of all time. For all his failures and foibles

and shortcomings, Churchill passed the one immense test put

before him by the God he only half believed in. If reading

Defender of the Realm can help one be ready to pass a similar

test, then it is easily worth its 1000 pages. n

The Last Lion:

Winston Spencer Churchill,

Defender of the Realm (1940-1965)

William Manchester and Paul Reid

Little, Brown and Company, 2012

Book Review

—The two authors paints different pictures of

Britain’s iconic prime minister.—

Manchester’s Churchill was moderate with

his alcohol and suffered from severe de-

pression, while Reid’s Churchill is a borderline

alcoholic who simply handles it spectacularly

well, and has no signs of mental illness at all.

Given the enormous and seemingly

avoidable risk Britain chose to

fight to the bitter end, Churchill’s stand

must be seen as a moral one, taken with-

out regard for the immediate national

interest, and that he was able to marshal

every segment of British society tofight on no matter what the cost is an

almost unparalleled accomplishment.

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



By Caroline Sohr

What was it like to be a Muslim growing up in America

before 9/11? In his debut novel, American Dervish, Ayad

Akhtar aims to answer this question. Akhtar largely suc-

ceeds in conveying a cultural experience that had previ-

ously been unexplored. While there is an abundance of

literature analyzing the challenges facing young Muslim

Americans today, very few authors have dealt with the

struggles of those coming of age before September 11th

and the widespread fear of Islamic extremism. During this

time, Muslim immigrants still faced challenges adjustingand becoming accepted to mainstream America, a place

far different from their previous homes in the Middle East.

American Dervish tells the story of Hayat Shah, the

son of Pakistani immigrants growing up in a suburb of Mil-

waukee, Wisconsin, Akhtar’s hometown, in the early 1980s.

The story opens in 1990, with Hayat, who is by this time

a college student, learning that Mina, his mother’s closest

friend, has just died. Hayat is distraught, and his grief is

coupled by guilt; while Mina was on her deathbed, he con-

fessed to having done a horrible thing to her as a young boy.

We then move back about a decade. At age eleven,

Hayat is observant, curious and wholly aware of his

parents’ marital problems. His life is comfortable until

Mina Ali, eeing an abusive husband and oppressive

divorce laws, arrives from Pakistan with her young son

Imran. Hayat immediately makes a connection with the

capitvating Mina, one stronger than that which he hadhad with any other person, including his own parents.

Mina loves Hayat unconditionally, though sexual un-

dercurrents strain their relationship as Hayat develops.

Mina begins Hayat’s religious experience by intro-

ducing Hayat to Islam and the Quran, and they bond

during nightly reading sessions. Mina inspires Hayatto become a haz, someone who can recite the entire

Quran from memory, and encourages him to not just read

the printed words, but to truly understand their mean-

ing and use them in order to become closer to Allah.

Although Hayat’s parents are Muslim, his father regu-larly speaks out against the leaders of the local religious

community while his mother

blames her husband’s indel-

ity on Islam, believing that

Muslim men do not know

how to properly treat and

respect their wives. Thus, it

is primarily Mina who gives

Hayat spiritual guidance.

As he continues his

religious journey, Mina be-

gins dating Nathan Wolfson,

Naveed’s Jewish coworker

and best friend. Hayat, an-

gered by the lack of attention

Mina has been giving him, becomes jealous of Nathan

and conicted over the pros-

pect of his beloved “aunt”

marrying a non-Muslim.

After both Mina’s relation-

ship and Hayat’s devotion to

Islam become increasingly

serious, Hayat commits the

ultimate act of betrayal.

Sparked by deepening anti-

Semitist feelings, he sends a telegram to Mina’s parents in

Pakistan, alerting them of Mina’s plans to marry Nathan.

While living with a guilty conscience, Hayat begins to

understand the complexities of spirituality. He ultimately

feels abandoned by his faith, causing both Hayat and the

reader to question what it means to be a good Muslim.

Besides being an easy-to-read and enjoyable story, American Dervish is serious and insightful. It depicts not just

Islamic fundamentalism but blind devotion to any religious

doctrine as bigoted and hypocritical. Mina’s spirituality is

inspiring. Her faith is grounded and her beliefs refreshing,

especially when considered against those of the dogmatic

Muslim leaders, atheist Naveed, and wavering Muneer. American Dervish honestly presents both anti-Islamic

and anti-Semitic sentiments that were common through-

out our country at that time. Though both Hayat and his

Jewish friend Jason are teased at school, Hayat ultimately

develops extremely negative feelings towards Jews, even

telling Imran, Mina’s son, that Allah hates Jews more than

he hates pigs. Furthermore, Hayat and his family struggle

to adapt to mainstream American life. Early in the novel,Muneer does not allow Hayat to attend an ice cream social

at a local church, believ-

ing that, although the

event was free, in doing

so she would be support-

ing Christianity. Though

Naveed and Muneer con-

demn a radical Muslim for

forcing his wife to wear a

burqa , they nonetheless

face challenges adapting

to a secular culture. Mina,

however, smoothly adjusts

to her newfound freedom

of expression, getting an

attractive new haircut anddiscarding the conserva-

tive and loose clothes

typically worn by Paki-

stani American women

very soon after arriving in

America. The characters’

cultural experience adds

another layer of conict to

the novel beyond spiritual

and religious struggles.

American Dervish is not just another coming of

age story. Akhtar’s experience as a screenwriter and

playwright is immediate ly evident. His skillfu lly crafted

novel is very well written. The plot moves along at a

sensible pace, with universal themes and relatable char-

acters. By the end of the novel, Mina and Nathan become

tragic gures, their experiences showing that religion

and love do not always overlap. Hayat’s father, despitehis alcoholism and indelity, is ultimately admirable. His

refusal to accept Islamic extremism undoubtedly affects

Hayat, who at 20 continues to question his own faith.

Ms. Sohr is a ‘16 at the College and a News Editor at


[Expletive Deleted]: A Theory

Islam and Extremism in America

American Dervish: A Novel

Ayad Akhtar

Back Bay Books, 2012

Book Review

— Ayad Akhtar—

Ms. Reynolds is a senior at the College and Vice President

of The Dartmouth Review.

By Elizabeth Reynolds

With a title that cannot be printed in most publications

(we scoundrels at The Review will let it slide, be advised),

Aaron James’ Assholes: A Theory surely catches one’s at-

tention when strolling through a bookstore. The book could

easily be a diatribe against today’s politicians, CEOs, andcelebrities, extended over two hundred pages –at times it

resort to just this–but James also attempts to create a theory

of the asshole that is practically useful and that sheds light

on deeper moral questions.

Dealing with assholes is a universal part of the human

condition, making James’ theory relevant to anyone participat-

ing in social life. When someone cuts in line at the dining hall

or changes lanes recklessly on the highway, we get pissed off

and often times use an indecent word to describe said person

– but what does it actually mean when we call someone an

asshole? James, an associate professor of philosophy at the

University of California, Irvine, elucidates that the asshole

allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so sys-

tematically. James explains that the asshole does this out of

Assholes: A Theory

Aaron James

Doubleday, 2012

Book Review

an entrenched sense of entitlement and is immunized by his

sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.

In other words, the asshole challenges the idea that all

humans are to be treated as moral equals. This is why we get

so angry when we are confronted with the asshole – he thinks

his life is more important than everyone else’s, and walls out

anybody who objects to his alternate reality. Notice that the author’s definition uses the masculine

pronoun. James dedicates a chapter of his book to analyz-

ing a pattern in the gender of assholes: they tend to be men.

Perhaps this discrepancy is simply due to the fact that we

have created other profane words to describe females we find

morally repugnant. James ultimately decides, “Deep gender

culture, not maleness, is primarily to blame for the fact that

assholes are mainly men.”

This launches James into a discussion of how the culture

of the United States is particularly good at breeding assholes,

as if they magically do not exist in other countries. With

this, and throughout the book, James makes no effort to

conceal his (far-left) political leanings and is upfront about

his biases. For example, he proposes that the United States

has comparatively more assholes than Japan does due to the

fact that more of its young people read Ayn Rand.Furthermore, in his chapter “Naming Names,” James

makes a game of identifying modern assholes and classify-

ing them. This brought a smile to my face as I tried to sort

assholes I’ve crossed paths with into his distinct categories

– the boorish asshole, the smug asshole, the asshole boss;

but, alas, he chooses to exploit people like Newt Gingrich,

Lloyd Blankfein, and Steve Jobs, namely, those who stand in

the way of his ideals as a wave-surfing hippie. He then calls

President Barack Obama the “anti-asshole.”

Conservatives beware – it will be painful to get through

some of these illustrations (his blog, On Assholes, is even

more explicit, practically dedicated to outing Mitt Romney

and other Republicans as assholes), but it is possible to agree

with James’ fundamental definition of the asshole regardless

of your political leanings.

After thoroughly describing the essence of the modern

asshole, James shifts his focus to “personal asshole manage-

ment.” It would have been quite depressing if the author’s

lengthy discourse on how bothersome these people can be did

not have some sort of solution or silver lining. While his book

does not fit into the self-help genre, he aids us understandingour guttural reaction to being demeaned by an asshole, and

offers a productive way of handling this situation.

James assures us that retributive feelings towards assholes

are natural. They reflect one’s healthy dose of self-respect,

and the longing to be viewed as a moral equal. However, it

seems pointless to stand up against the asshole when he will

not consider, let alone hear, our protests – he is immunized

against our complaints. James validates the action of resist-

ing assholes by means of swearing out loud, though. It is a

therapeutic way of, “reassuring ourselves that we do deserve

better treatment and that is something that any reasonable

onlooker, were one present, would agree with.”

Therefore, swearing is not meant for the listener, but the

speaker. It is a fight for public status.

This would be an appropriate conclusion to the book,

but James follows with a chapter on “asshole capitalism.”He challenges the “get rich without worrying about the cost

to others” mentality of capitalism and presents himself as the

second coming of John Rawls. James’ assertion that institutions

like the family and religion fail to curb asshole production

in a capitalist society, and his cry for “fairness” are weak at

best.

Despite his far-fetched deduction that assholes are an

obstacle to social justice and threaten to end humanity, Aaron

James’ book is worth reading for entertainment. I cannot help

but think, though, in a world where humans are intrinsically

selfish and greatly disagree about what entitlements people

have, maybe we are all assholes by his definition. It is even

more likely that a man claiming to be an authority on assholes

is one himself.

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



“Cloud Atlas” on Paper and Screen

Mr. Ding is a senior at the College and Sports Editor of


By Ke Ding

I suspect that many other readers were first moved to

read Cloud Atlas the book by “Cloud Atlas” the movie, as

I was. When the trailers first came out for the movie (star-

ring such A-List luminaries like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,

and Hugo Weaving), it seemed like a film that was going

to be both entertaining and profound. Regarding the latter,

I imagined the “Cloud Atlas” film would be kind of like

“Tree of Life” but with more explosions, spaceships, and

well-choreographed chase scenes.

Amid the backdrop of a somber, haunting, and quite

beautiful melody, the camera cuts to characters in various

reflective poses offering vaguely profound sentiments. “A

half finished book is, after all, a half finished love affair…”

says a listless voice with an English accent. “Why do we

keep making the same mistakes…over and over again?”

asks Halle Berry softly, while languidly holding a cigarette.

So the question beckons: did “Cloud Atlas” live up to

its amazing trailer?

Well, the movie sure didn’t. There simply wasn’t any

chance that it would. The trailer was a promise, and an

absolutely audacious one at that. You were going to be

entertained, you were going to be amazed, and you were

going to come away a better person. The rottentomatoes.com spiel says it best when it con-

cludes: “Its sprawling, ambitious

blend of narrative and eye-catching

visuals will prove too unwieldy for

some, but the sheer size and scope of

“Cloud Atlas” are all but impossible

to ignore.” It’s a movie that’s fun

to watch, but one that didn’t fully

measure up in terms of “making

you think”. This makes sense, as if I were a studio head

I would much rather err on the side of fun and mindless

than dull and smart—though these never have to be the

only options.

But what of the book? I will not waste my readers’

time and will say here that sadly, it did not live up to the

trailer either. The book certainly got much, much closer

than the trailer, but it was never quite that intellectually

“meaty” of a novel. Cloud Atlas will be remembered as

a great book, but, its characters and its ideas never had

emotional impact of a “Gatsby” or “Harry Potter” or, to

use some of its “Science Fiction” peers, Ender ’s Game or

Necromancer .

In all honesty, it’s rather hard to even categorize Cloud

Atlas as a science fiction book, though that’s where I found

it in the library. There are science fiction themes to be sure,

but between its covers you can find romance, action/adven-

ture, mystery, and a smattering of philosophy.

The most notable thing about Cloud Atlas is its con-

tribution as a well-written example of the “puzzle novel.”

Puzzle novels include Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes,

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, and One Hundred Years of

Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez. The puzzle refers not

to the content of the book itself—though a disproportion-

ately high number of puzzle novels contain some degree of

mystery—but to the structure of the novel. Puzzle novels

have non-linear structures, frequently

switching between different points in

time and different perspectives.

In the case of Cloud Atlas, David

Mitchell nests 6 characters (and their

corresponding stories) within one

another like a set of Matryoshka dolls.

We start by reading the diary of Adam Ewing, a notary

who finds himself in the Chatham Islands (in the Pacific

Ocean) having all sorts of adventures. The diary cuts out

halfway through, and we jump to the letters of Robert

Frobisher to his friend and lover Rufus Sixsmith. This is

the second story. Frobisher is a promiscuous and talented

composer-apprentice who mentions in his letters the frustra-

tion of finding only half of Ewing’s diary.

The third story is from the point of view of a third-

person narrator, and we learn about the ordeals of a journal-

ist named Luisa Rey trying to uncover seedy practices at a

nuclear facility in Southern California. Key to her efforts is

Rufus Sixsmith, an aging renowned physicist, who leaves

her his prized letters from Frobisher after he is mysteriouslymurdered. The fourth story is

told from the point of view of

Timothy Cavendish, a vanity

publisher who stumbles upon

the first half of Luisa Rey’s

autobiography.

The fifth story is told

from the point of view of Son-

mi-451, a clone who becomes

sentient. In the course of her adventures, she watches an old

film called “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.”

The sixth takes place in a post-apocalyptic earth in Hawaii,

where Sonmi-451 is remembered by the primitive survivors

as a sort of Goddess. When this story ends, we go back to

the fifth story, where Sonmi has begun to lead a rebellion

seeking to liberate the clones. She is caught, and beforeshe is executed, she asks to finish watching “The Ghastly

Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.”

With this we circle back to the fourth story. Then using

similar transitional devices, David Mitchell brings us back

to the third, then the second, and finally, the first. A great

part of the pleasure of Cloud Atlas, once the book’s structure

becomes clear, is reading and discovering how the author

brings us from story to story. It’s an aesthetic kind of joy.

However, the writing itself had the tendency to become a

little bit dull.

The novel also has a difficult time balancing the somber

and the comical. At the end of Cloud Atlas, Adam Ewing,

the notary stuck in the middle of the Pacific, reflects that

his life is no more than “…one drop in a limitless ocean.”

But then he realizes “…what is any ocean but a multitude

of drops?” Adam Ewing is a drop in the ocean, as are the

rest of the characters in the novel, and my impression is that

the author wants us to see this book as an ocean, something

emblematic if not encompassing of a big idea like the human

experience. This is a laudable goal.

But to continue the metaphor, too often throughout

Cloud Atlas it feels as if David Mitchell focuses on taking

us from drop to drop rather than

developing each individual drop

themselves.

Certainly we know what these

drops contain. There’s happiness,

sadness. There’s hope, there’s fear,

there’s ambition, goodness, evil,

and all sorts of in between. There’s also somberness, and

comedy.

David Mitchell knows this as well, but because he

attempts to show us the elements of his character’s lives

by switching the perspectives rather than explicating each

character, the characters feel flat and the changes in the

narrative’s voice and tone become jarring.

To the first point, there were numerous instances when

the reader got the impression that the characters acted the way

they did only to drive the plot forward. This makes for some

boring sequences where the writing feels mechanical and dull,

rather than organic. Some characters were worse than others:

Sonmi-451, though kind-hearted, brave, and inspirational, did

not feel quite “real” or human. The entertainingly narcissisticAdam Frobisher, on the other hand, felt like someone who

might be living and breathing out there in the real world. But

he is a rare example.

To the second point, quoting Theo Tait of The Daily Tele-

graph, “…Cloud Atlas spends half its time wanting to be the

Simpsons and the other half the Bible.” Though it might be

possible for two vastly different tones in a book to harmonize,

I have yet to read one where this happens. In Cloud Atlas, the

narrative is interrupted when the serious, somber, and inspira-

tional tone of Luisa Rey is juxtaposed with the comedic, almost

cartoon-like tone of Timothy Cavendish’s tale.

Though the criticism in this review far outweighs the

praise otherwise, I still thought Cloud Atlas was a very

good book and would recommend it. The novelty of the

structure and the fairly entertaining plot make for a fun

read. There are also some truly thoughtful moments. Butdon’t expect to return time and again to it: one time should

prove sufficient . n

Hungry?

Check out The Dartmouth Review.

Meetings every Monday,6:30 at Phi Delta Alpha.

Come for the free pizza, stay for the

provocative, yet tasteful discourse.

Cloud Atlas: A Novel

David Mitchell

Random House, 2004

Book Review

C loud Atlaswill be remembered as

a great book, but, its characters

and its ideas never had emotional im-

pact of a “Gatsby” or “Harry Potter”

or, to use some of its “Science Fiction”

peers, Ender’s Gameor Necromancer .

The most notable thing about

Cloud Atlas is its contribution

as a well-written example of the

“puzzle novel.”

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



By Nicholas S. Duva

Peter Ames Carlin has twice tried his hand with biogra-

phies of famous musicians. He released unauthorized books

on Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney in 2007 and 2010, but

for the rst time has written with the full collaboration of the

artist himself – in this case, the New Jersey-bred rock legendBruce Springsteen.

Such unfettered access, which had not been given by

Springsteen in 25 years, gives the book a tight, coherent

narrative that would not otherwise have been possible. An

unauthorized biography, reliant upon a piecemeal of secondary

sources, would have failed to catalogue the exact trajectory of

his rise to stardom. This is because Springsteen, as the book

shows, is a singular gure. Every band that he has ever played

in has been less headlined than dominated by the rocker. The

prologue acknowledges this, explaining the origin of “The

Boss,” Springsteen’s enduring nickname.

Carlin then moves to the origins of Springsteen himself.

The book does not get to the 1975 release of “Born to Run,”

Springsteen’s breakout album, until after 200 pages. While the

rst few chapters detail the rocker’s childhood, most of that

space is devoted to his rise up through the Jersey Shore music

scene. The portrait of the Jersey Shore in the late 1960s and

early 1970s is a vivid, exciting one. Generational conict, thedeterioration of Asbury Park and Long Branch, and rampant

drug use (by everyone except Springsteen, it seems) serve

as exciting backdrops to the story of Springsteen’s rise.

I write “Springsteen’s rise” and not “Springsteen” because

the book functions more as a musical history of the rocker

than a personal one. Most friendships are described in the

context of his music. The most notable thing said about Diane

Lozito, one of Springsteen’s girlfriends, is that she inspired

“Rosalita.” If anything, more is said about Springsteen’s musi-

cal inuences, including Van Morrison, than his girlfriends.

This approach works because his musical develop-

ment is exceptionally interesting; Springsteen starts out in

a Beatlemania-era teenage band, moving onto soulful hard

rock before releasing “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ” and

embarking upon a career just as musically unpredictable as

his rise. The book is best read near an open YouTube tab,in order to intersperse chapters with clips of Springsteen

throughout the years. Videos of his time with Steel Mill are

a particularly glorious shock.

But the early years of Springsteen

are already engrained in the minds of

fans. The story behind the years since

the release of Born in the U.S.A., when

he hit his commercial, if not artistic

height, is not quite as well-known. In

1989, he dissolved the E Street Band

and spent most of the following decade

living in California. Carlin focuses on this time with the help

of interviews with Springsteen, framing it as an attempt by

the musician to get out from under his own shadow. After

multiple number one hits and worldwide fame, he had become

sick of himself.

Though Springsteen produced some great solo albums in

the 1990s, they are not presented as a happy time. His years

of psychotherapy are mentioned, as is his frustration at his

relative lack of critical and commercial acclaim. Neverthe-

less, the book never really goes past surface level here. The portrait of Springsteen as a person – not as an artist – has

very little depth just where it needs it most. His forays into

acoustic music are explained well, but his mindset is not.

Carlin is a former writer for “People” magazine, and it

shows. The prose is highly readable and accessible, if a bit

corny at times. Although clocking in at 463 pages, the book

is a quick, easy read. It regretfully functions as a detailed

timeline of his musical career instead of an intricate look at

his life.

I remember watching the episode of “The Daily Show”

where Jon Stewart had the opportunity to interview Springsteen

himself. Stewart lavished praise on the rocker, calling him

one of the most important inuences in his life. Springsteen

himself didn’t quite know how to respond. He came across

as sheepish and inarticulate, if anything. The man has always

spoken through his lyrics, his art: rarely through any other medium.

Springsteen therefore is still an enigmatic gure. The

world knows full well about Bruce the artist, but not enough

about Bruce the person. This biogra-

phy does not change that. It serves as

an excellent examination of the man’s

career, but not his life. It is by all

accounts a good book. But although

it was written with the cooperation

of Springsteen himself, it is not and

will never be his denitive biography.

Eventually, a book will come out that really does delve deeply

into the actual life of Springsteen, his relationships, his inner

and outer demons. Unfortunately, this book is not it. n

By George Mendoza

Don’t Mess With Travis by Bob Smiley hit shelves in the

middle of last year but has gained more relevance since its

release. It is rstly a story of a rogue, unpolished governor of

the great State of Texas running a campaign to secede from the

Union, but underlining that is a story of today’s underhanded

Washington politics. The protagonist, Governor Ben Travis,

is a naïve man whom some would call simple-minded. He is

a character relatable to most southerners—easy-going, practi-cal—an everyman with a ranch who speaks in proverbs and

unconventional southern sayings. Beyond that, he is grounded

in practicality, a blue-collar man of the people.

The story’s villain is a progressive and politically cunning

billionaire, Anatole Metzos, who runs non-prots and inu-

ences politicians who support the progressive cause. After the

recent scal cliff debacle and the few-month-old petition for

Texas to secede from the rest of the United States, Smiley’s

book is keenly felt.

Bob Smiley was a research assistant to William Buck-

ley, Jr., whose inuence is not mistaken in Smiley’s work.

In fact, the novel reads much like William Buckley’s son

Christopher’s novel Thank You For Smoking , which waslater made into the critically-acclaimed movie by Jason

Reitman. Smiley writes with political wit and an awareness

of the troubling inuence few men can have in our political

system that satises readers with any ideology. But don’t

be mistaken: it is a conservative novel and a very funny

one. Smiley pokes fun at “ctional” politicians that have

no prescribed ideology or principles but can be bought for

a vote on this or that, politicians that are to ready to please

the other side for the sake of being bi-partisan.

The novel begins with the Texas governor and his number

two, the Lieutenant Governor driving off “the only cliff in

Texas” and perishing in the subsequent crash and re. BenTravis is a Texas State Senator who is elected head of the

branch and is next in line to take the oath. A conspiracy-

friendly radio host tips Travis off about a pipeline running

under interstate highways—which is federal property—con-

necting Texas water resources and potentially her natural gas

and oil reserves to the rest of the country. Travis recognizes

the signicance of nationalized water and energy for Texas

and attempts to confront President Leary, but is denied access

without an appointment. Travis, after a tip, visits a young

Baylor University student who came across a document signed

by Abraham Lincoln granting Texas the authority to secede

from the Union. Travis then hatches a plan to try for secession

to draw a compromise from Washington, but he gives such a

ery and convincing speech to the Texas Legislature that it

votes overwhelmingly in favor of secession. The story really

begins here with the role of Anatole Metzos revealed as Travis

takes on Washington and the liberal elites attempting to take

private industry from Texas and nationalizing it in the name

of the progressive cause.

Part of the fun of the book are Smiley’s thinly veiled

references to real-life characters or types of people. The

President of the United States Michael Leary is handsome,

extremely Irish-looking New Englander who uses charm to

his political advantage. He’s sort of a Bill Clinton and Barack

Obama hybrid: good-looking, suave, racially signicant, and

politically shrewd. Leary began a smart, nice enough guy

with little real political experience, but could be the face for

progressive causes. He is a bit sleazy, but ultimately principled

and not a bad guy.

Anatole Metzos is this universe’s George Soros. He is

extremely rich, and inuential, almost dangerously well con-

nected. He is described as Greek-looking with a heavy German

accent and a short temper. He puts into motion the pipeline

project and controls the president’s staff. Every progressive

political mood begins and ends with him

Ben Travis is named after William Barrett Travis, a

man worshipped in Texas history perhaps as much as Davy

Crockett. William Travis wrote a letter from the Alamo as

Mexican reinforcements approached asking for supplies. He

wrote: “I shall never surrender or retreat…[I will] die like

a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor &

that of his country—Victory or Death!” Our hero Ben Travis

certainly carries that principle when conict comes. But his

demeanor is that more of the Governor George Walker Bush

than of Rick Perry . His daughter Paige is a liberal young

adult, in the same vein as Ronald Reagan’s daughter PattiDavis was during his presidency.

Travis’ friend Damon Cole is a tenured professor at

Princeton, described as a black Conservative that was tenured

because it would look bad for the Administration to deny what

would be only their third black tenured professor, simply

because he was unabashedly conservative. Cole embodies

Clarence Thomas’ argument that afrmative action does not

need to be so overtly enforced. There are many other reality-

inuenced characters, including a colorful Rush Limbaugh/

Glenn Beck-esque radio host.

While the characters are very reminiscent of real life,

so too are the facts surrounding the Texas secession. Smi-

ley has a great understanding of the Texas Legislature and

mindset of Texas citizens. He mentions many ways it could

possibly work including: Texas having one-quarter of the

United States’ oil reserves and one-third of the natural gas

reserves—ninety-ve percent of the United States gets oil

and gas from pipelines originating in Texas; Texas having

the thirteenth largest economy in the world; her impressive

growth during the Great Recession; the fact that Texas gets

back eighty cents of the dollar in taxes she sends to Washing-

ton, allowing for a twenty percent tax break post-secession;

Texas having her own power grid; the Texas National State

Guard and Texas Rangers (though it has nothing on the

United States’ military might, ten percent of our nation’s

military is Texan). But most importantly, Texas has the

right, as stated in her Constitution and agreed upon by the

Union when the Republic of Texas joined the United States,

to split into ve separate states, giving Texas at least eight

and up to ten Republican United States Senators—a scary

and wonderful thought.

Smiley presents a provocative reason for secession, a

mandate nationalizing Texas oil and water. For the sake of

Texas and the principles Conservative Texans and Americans

have, secession was a legitimate action and even, as Travis

argues, a patriotic one. n

Mr. Duva is a freshman at the College and News Editor

of The Dartmouth Review.

Mr. Mendoza is a sophomore at the College and Features

Edutior of The Dartmouth Review.

Notes on The Boss

Goodbye, Texas

Bruce

By Peter Ames Carlin

Touchstone, 2012

Book Review

S pringsteen starts out in a

Beatlemania-era teenage

band, moving onto soulful hard

rock before releasing “Greetings

From Asbury Park, NJ.”

Don’t Mess With Travis:

A Novel

By Bob Smiley

Thomas Dunne Books, 2012

Book Review

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



By Thomas L. Hauch

In his newest novel, Tom Wolfe heads south to take

on the city of Miami. Back to Blood is a return to form for

Wolfe, and a long-awaited comeback from one of America’s

nest literary stylists. Wolfe has been out of the mainstream

for nearly a decade. His last novel I Am Charlotte Simmons,

which poked fun at campus culture and academia, drew a

tepid response from readers. And it raised serious questions

about Wolfe and his relevance. For all his pomp and air, did

he really have anything new to say?

It’s no small task for a writer pushing 82 years, even

one as savvy as Wolfe, to navigate our opaque, perplexing,

internet-infused society. But notwithstanding a few minor

tics, Wolfe is more than up for the challenge. Back to Blood

is lled with the same excruciating details that have become

a hallmark of his ction. Every social context is observed,

dissected, and laid bare. Wolfe’s range is on full display, as he

takes us from art shows to regattas, gives us viral videos and

Facebook updates, and introduces us to celebrity doctors and

Russian oligarchs. It feels as fresh as any journalism today,

just as he intended.

Of course, Back to Blood is not going to win any accolades

for originality. The author sticks to the same winning formula

he introduced 25 years ago in The Bonre of the Vanities.

Despite all the changes on the surface, fans of Wolfe will

nd themselves right at home. The tried-and-true Wolfeian

themes are all still here: class, race, status, vanity, pretension,

and opportunism. In fact, the title itself is a phrase Wolfe

coined long ago, and which appeared in the rst few pages of

Bonre. In a world where “religion is dying,” says Wolfe,

our bloodlines are all that we have left to unite us.

It’s the one theme at the heart of Back to Blood , which,

in fact, was conceived as a novel about immigration. Wolfe

began writing about the Vietnamese in California, before

realizing that no one seemed interested

by the premise. So he turned to the

red-hot excitement of Miami, the only

city in the world, as more than a few

characters explain, where foreigners

with a different language and culture

have been able to displace the locals

in just a single generation.

“Red-hot” might even be an

understatement. Back to Blood is

loud and in your face. He writeswith a fervent, bubbling enthusiasm

that borders on obnoxious. The

pr os e al l- too- of te n sp il ls ov er

in the form of exclamations!!!!,

CAPITALIZATIONS, bizarre

punctuation (particularly colons, which

appear in bunches of ten or twenty),

and all sorts…of halt…ing sentence

structures. It’s not exactly detracting

from the novel, just distracting, and

knowing Wolfe, the effect is probably

intended.

As in his earlier novels, Wolfe’s

goal is to characterize not just

individuals, but society itself. What

New York City was for The Bonre of the Vanities, andAtlanta for A Man in Full, Miami is for Back to Blood .

It is not just a setting; it’s really the subject. There is a

protagonist of sorts, the muscle-bound rookie cop Nestor

Comacho. Despite good intentions, he manages to offend

his parents, Cubans, Haitians, and seemingly every other

cross-section of society. His string of bad luck, as well as

the events of Back to Blood , kicks off when he “rescues”

a would-be Cuban immigrant who nds himself between

a rock and a hard place in Miami’s Biscayne Bay. The

Cuban man had somehow climbed aboard a sailboat,

and, to escape capture, clambered to the very top of the

foremast.

As Nestor well knows, Cuban refugees enjoy a special

privilege in America. “If you [a Cuban] touched anything that

is connected to the U.S., like a bridge, then you were considered

a ‘dry foot,’ but if you came in by water and you didn’t make

it all the way in, you could be sent back.” Though he manages,

through a nigh-impossible feat of physical prowess, to drag

the refugee down, Nestor simultaneously commits the man

to the fate of certain deportation.

It’s the kind of noble, conicted,

and polarizing event that can

propel along a string of events

for another 700 pages.

And through those

events, Wolfe takes us on a grand

tour of Miami: it is clear that

he has donehis homework. The

city comes to life. But unlike

in Bonre or Man in Full, thecharacters in Back to Blood

just don’t s tand out against the

backdrop of Miami.

Nest or Comacho is

never more than a likable

stereotype. Neither is his love-

interest, the beautiful nurse

Magdalena, who dumps him only

to struggle through one ill-fated

romance to the next. The aptly

named journalist John Smith,

who sticks around from one

page to the next, is perhaps even

self-consciously stereotypical.

It’s not that Wolfe does a poor

job at characterization – he never makes the effort. It’s asif he intended Smith to be a stand-in for every 28-year-old

over-achieving college graduate. And Nestor and Magdalena

are stand-ins for the entire population of second-generation

Cuban immigrants.

In Bonre, Wolfe gave us a cast of unforgettable

characters: the Wall Street bond-trader, the relentless

prosecutor, the opportunistic community organizer, and the

shameless journalist. Two decades form now, we won’t be

talking about anyone from Back to Blood in the same way,

if at all. But Wolfe’s newest is still worth the read, if only

because no one else has given Miami its due and proper

treatment. And, as always, Wolfe keeps it fast and loose.

For all his tics, there is simply no other writer quite like the

white-suited Wolfe. n

By John Melvin

Doris Kearns Goodwin strikes gold with her book Team

of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which

investigates the lives of President Abraham Lincoln and his

cabinet members as the country crashed into its most devastat-

ing war to this day. Goodwin’s book concerns the masterful

political manipulation of Lincoln to turn his political rivals

into the country’s greatest assets during the Civil War. The

book earned New York Times’ Bestseller distinction after its

release in 2005 and became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s

2012 hit lm “Lincoln.”

Goodwin’s book is a two thumbs up winner because it

appeals to a wide variety of readers. Her fourth biographical

rendition of an American President certainly displays her pen-

chant for analyzing the most powerful men in the world so that

any reader can come to learn and understand history. As a

relatively easy read, the book charms every reader from the

most fanatical history buff to the high school student with

only basic knowledge of the Civil War. No event is mentioned

without a perfect description to put it into context for the

reader. No contention is put forth without the crucial evidence

from which it was drawn. Goodwin’s detailed descriptions

are enough to sate the curiosity of the informed reader while

not straying into irrelevance to turn off the casual reader.

She begins her piece with a detailed analysis of the personal lives of each Republican Party nominees in the

1860 Presidential election. What initially strikes the reader

as an unnecessarily long introduction (over 200 pages) to

Lincoln’s nomination, Goodwin’s individual biographies of

Salmon Chase, Edward Bates, and William Henry Seward

becomes essential to understanding how difcult it was for

Lincoln to persuade these men to join him in his ght to end

slavery and reunite the North and the South. She shows how

each man was born and raised, accounting for the major

events that shaped their political ideologies against slavery

that would give birth to the edgling Republican Party.

Most striking is Goodwin’s account of Lincoln’s early

life and struggles. She displays Lincoln in a way that en-

courages the reader to relate to our 16 th president. He is

depicted as a man who knew unbearable sadness, suffered

crippling depression, and was acquainted with harsh failure

early in his life. The reader comes to understand Lincoln

and later to fully appreciate the masterful manipulation

that deed opposing political factions, heated rivalries,

and seemingly irreconcilable differences. Goodwin leaves

no stone unturned, delving into Lincoln’s philosophies on

justice, morality, marriage, and even the possibility of an

after-life. Her portrayal overcomes the mythical aura of

political fame that surrounds Lincoln, and displays him as

an everyday American who suffers no differently than the

average American today.

Goodwin’s focus and powerful writing is not limited to

Lincoln. She dedicates the same effort to each of Seward,

Bates, and Chase. She writes passionately about Salmon

Chase’s passionate defense of escaped slaves in the face of

mobs demanding their return to the South. She thoroughly

analyzes Seward’s rise as the favorite for 1860 presidential

nomination, and gives thoughtful and strong reasoning for

his unexpected loss to the big underdog Lincoln. The reader

subsequently comes to appreciate how unlikely it was that

Lincoln forged these men together into the staunch leadership

the country needed for the upcoming years of war.

The current reader cannot help but juxtapose today’s political

climate to that of 1860. Lincoln’s presidency, where members

of the Democratic Party and Republican Party united under

one banner to push forward their president’s goals, creates a

stark contrast to today’s climate, where bipartisanship support

for almost any issue is extremely rare. One particular case

that sticks out is Lincoln’s nomination of Democrat Edwin

Stanton as Secretary of War. Stanton, who had known Lincoln

after forcing him out of a defendant’s case in which Lincoln

was originally retained, was well known to personally affront

the President and criticize him among the social circles of

Washington D.C. Lincoln ignored the personal slights and

replaced his sputtering Secretary of War choice with Stanton.

Stanton shined with his new responsibility, and forged one of

the closest relationships that Lincoln had in his entire tenure

as President.

Goodwin lays out a strong argument as to how Lincoln man-

aged to unite these many political players who had rivalries

both with him and among themselves. The book stands as a

remarkable study of the leadership required and hardships to

be overcome by one of the greatest presidents in American

history. This piece has the capability of inspiring its readers

and instilling pride in America’s ability to overcome one its

worst curses since its founding. Goodwin’s piece truly is one

that is hard to put down until the end. n

Mr. Hauch is a senior at the College and Managing

Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

Mr. Melvin is a junior at the College and a contributor

to The Dartmouth Review.

“Back To Blood” A Return to Form

Lincoln the Uniter

Team of Rivals: The Political

Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Simon & Schuster, 2006

Book Review

Back to Blood: A Novel

Tom Wolfe

Little, Brown and Company, 2012

Book Review

—Wolfe gets in your face with Back to Blood.—

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



Front and Center

Mr. Duncan is a sophomore at the College and a con-

tributor to The Dartmouth Review.

By William R. F. Duncan

We all remember anxiously waiting for the announcement.

President Obama had hurriedly organized a press conference:

on May 2, 2011, the news that American troops had killed

Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden excited and captivated

the world. Crowds rallied outside the White House, “USA”

chants swept across the country, and millions were relieved to

know that the world’s most wanted man and most infamous

terrorist had finally been killed. In the media blitz that fol-

lowed, reports revealed the identity of the team that carried

out the operation and SEAL Team Six quickly became national

heroes. The team’s mystery captured a national intrigue.

When he returned home from Pakistan, one Navy SEAL

who took part in the operation was disconcerted by the me-

dia coverage and decided to take action. He saw national

confusion and ignorance on television and decided to “set

the record straight about one of the most important missions

in U.S. military history.” Using the penname “Mark Owen”

to protect his identity, the former SEAL sheds light on the

nature of the mysterious brotherhood of the Navy SEALs.

Owen, whose real name was revealed as Matt Bisonnette, provides a rare glimpse into the secretive world of elite Ameri-

can soldiers in his book No Easy Day. Bisonnette delivers an

action packed account of his time with the SEALs, from his

decision to join, through his training, to his service in Iraq

and Afghanistan, and finally to killing Osama Bin Laden.

Bisonnette’s controversial book helps the regular Ameri-

can understand what goes on behind the scenes to protect

our freedom. SEALs work anonymously and never receive

public credit for their heroic deeds, so Bisonnete provides a

narrative to tell the truth. Although his need for strict confi-

dentiality ultimately prevents the text from gaining a deep,

personal perspective, it still exposes the reader to an integral,

if mysterious, facet of American military might.

The title comes from the Navy SEAL saying, “the only

easy day was yesterday,” and Bisonnette gives credence to

this mantra with his description of SEAL operations. SEALselection and training picks out the strongest, smartest, and

most resilient men our country has to offer. Each member is

driven to endless perfection in all areas of his training. “Every

exercise had to be perfect,” Bissonette says, describing his

physical fitness test during his SEAL selection at BUD/S, or

Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL. His performance could

not just be acceptable, it had to be superior. “Just because

I passed the minimum scores”

remembers Bisonnette, “didn’t

mean anything in the big scheme of

things.” During BUD/S, Bisonnette

had to be the best of the best.

The rigorous training prepares

the SEALs for severe tests of will

and competence in real life opera-

tions. Bisonnette himself turns outto be quite the physical specimen,

enduring grueling feats of strength

and endurance to complete his training and carry out mis-

sions. He shows how tough someone must be in order to join

the prestigious ranks of the SEALs. “One of the key lessons

learned early on in a SEAL’s career,” Bisonnette explains,

“was the ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”

While the brutal training may seem excessive, we realize

how necessary it is as the SEALs traverse miles of impos-

sibly steep Afghan mountains to reach their objectives. The

SEAL pursuit of excellence means that they take no short

cuts in pursuit of their goals. Reading this book gives you

a tremendous amount of respect for these fine soldiers and

makes you glad they fight for the good guys.

Training for the bin Laden mission, codenamed Opera-

tion Neptune Spear, reflected the imperative for success. The

SEALs trained for months in a secure location in Mississippi,

isolated from the outside world and focused entirely on the

task at hand. They meticulously refined their strategy and

tactics to ensure they would be prepared. Every conceivable

contingency was accounted for, notably including the eventual

Black Hawk crash. The professionals left no stone unturned

and no detail unaccounted for. Bisonnette describes how the

planners built a replica of the Abbottabad compound to precise

specifications from intelligence reports, but since the interior

was a mystery, the SEALs saw countless configurations of the

inside during their preparation. Each soldier knew what was

at stake and took no chances; the team’s methodical approach

turned the mission into beautiful, deadly theater. Bisonnette

shows how precise the SEALs are, running dozens of dress

rehearsals and simulations. They are not just brutes trained

for killing. These men are sharp, decisive, and efficient. They

achieve the pinnacle of their craft; the SEALs are the finest

warriors in the world.

The book shines when Bisonnette relives his account of

the hours leading up to the start of Operation Neptune Spear.

He takes you into the mind of someone about to embark on

one of the American military’s most daring, dangerous, and

high profile missions. The stakes could not get any higher.

A few days leading into the mission, the SEALs poke fun at

each other while casting “the Bin Laden movie.” “We’d al-

ready decided that Elijah Wood had Walt’s role in the movie,”

recalls Bisonnette “since he was no taller than a hobbit.” But

this nervous laughter quickly turns into solemnity. Even with

Ambien, no one can sleep. Some kill time obsessively making

batches of coffee. It is not until Bisonnette laces up his boots

that he fully realizes the full gravity of the mission he is soon

to undertake. He fights to put that pressure aside and focus on

the task at hand, but “there was no escaping the significance,

and I wanted to make sure the

laces didn’t come undone.”

When the Black Hawk pilots issue the signal that

they are ten minutes out from

the Abbottobad compound,

Bisonnette snaps to atten-

tion. It is amazing how the

SEAL can suddenly gain full

focus on his mission; he has

rehearsed it so many times, studied the plans so intently, and

been in situations like it many times before. Bisonnette takes

the reader through Operation Neptune Spear step by step. The

mission unfolds, from his helicopter crashing and disturbing

the initial plan all the way to killing Bin Laden and retriev-

ing his body. Though we may know the end of the story, it is

enthralling reading. The SEALs perform flawlessly. When

something goes awry, like the helicopter crash, they swiftly

address the problem and continue advancing the mission toits final goal. When a SEAL finally shoots Bin Laden, it is

almost anti-climactic; so much has gone into a fleeting mo-

ment. Bin Laden is not even able to fire a shot before he is

gunned down. The millions of man-hours spent tracking the

terrorist, training for the mission, and ultimately executing

the operation come to an abrupt conclusion.

Bisonnette illustrates a SEAL force that is f iercely inde-

pendent and resistant to

influence or interference

from anyone. At times he

overdoes this description

to a near ridiculous level.

According to Bison-

nette, SEALs are over-

whelmingly resentful

of President Obama andthe credit that politicians

take for their missions.

“I can see him now,” says one SEAL about Obama, “talk-

ing about how he killed Bin Laden.” While the soldier’s

prediction had some merit, and Obama certainly did not

give enough credit to the men and women who made the

mission possible, Bisonnette seems to believe that soldiers

occupy some space entirely removed from politics. He feels

that his actions have no political consequences, when in

fact they are a direct extension of politics. While mentally

removing greater implications of a mission could help make

a soldier focused and successful, it is misguided to believe

that fighting does not carry broader repercussions. On this

topic, Bisonnette seems too gung-ho, even condescending

to the reader. While it is impossible for a civilian to fully

grasp the perspective of a seasoned veteran like Bisonnette,

he could have done a better job to illustrate this point and

present his perspective.

The book also describes poor policies undertaken with-

out respect to input from soldiers on the ground. Bisonnette

laments time after time when his team would capture an

insurgent just to see him released and fighting again only

weeks later. For all of the ability of the SEALs, government

protocols limit their effectiveness. Bisonnette talks about

the “good idea fairy” – bureaucrats imposing their will over

SEALs who are in a much better position to make decisions.

While current policy was born from good intentions to win

over the will of the Afghani people, it has nonetheless made

the SEAL’s work much more difficult and less fruitful.

While Bisonnette loathes President Obama, he thinks that the

Vice President is just weird. When the SEALs met Obama

and Biden after killing Bin Laden, Bisonnette recalls how

“Biden kept cracking lame jokes that no one got. He seemed

like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken

uncle at Christmas dinner.”

Even before Bisonnette published No Easy Day, the De-

partment of Defense met the bok with fierce opposition. The

Pentagon sent Bisonnette a letter demanding that the author

submit the book for vetting by the Department of Defensedue to the highly classified nature of its contents. Bisonnette

refused, claiming that his writing was general enough as to

avoid revealing any military secrets.

He makes this point several times throughout the book,

and his effort to do so is very evident. It is understandable

that he could not have included these details, but this inher-

ent problem bleeds much of the spirit from the book. The

fine, rich details about people and experiences are gone and

there is nothing to really fill that void. The background and

character of individual SEALs would give another layer to a

book which at times feels more like a summary than a story.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers.

It is for the SEAL’s tradition of secrecy that the book is

so surprising. SEALs are

at home in the shadows

not only in their stealthymissions, but also in their

everyday lives. Their iden-

tities are never revealed

and a SEAL

must speak vaguely to his

family about his where-

abouts and general activity.

In a community that “always prided [themselves] for being

quiet professionals,” Bisonnette breaks the code of silence

(and some Department of Defense regulations) in order to

“tell the true story.” His writing has drawn the ire of many

in that elite community. At the end of the book Bisonnette

offers a list of SEAL related charities that he hopes the reader

will donate to, but the Navy SEAL Foundation refused to ac-

cept any donations in relation with the book. Bisonnette was

shunned by this organization for speaking out.Bisonnette also came under fire for his aggressive tactics

to beat a similar book written by bestselling author Mark

Bowden. Bisonnette took the penname “Mark Owen,” which

is conspicuously close to “Mark Bowden,” possibly in an

attempt to lure readers to his book through name associa-

tion. Likewise, when Bowden interviewed Bisonnette for

his book, Bisonnette insistently asked when Bowden’s book

would go on sale, all the while never revealing to Bowden that

he was writing a book at the same time. Bowden described

Bisonnette’s tactics as “cheesy”, but Bowden was nonethe-

less supportive of the American hero: “To be honest, I hope

he sells a million copies. I honestly think he is an American

hero. Here’s a guy who spent ten years fighting these wars,

and if anybody deserves to sell a lot of books, it’s him. I

wish him well. I’m glad to have had the input [of his book].

I would rather have had it directly myself, but I completelyunderstand why he did it the way he did.” Such secrecy and

aggressive tactics should not being surprising after reading

No Easy Day. SEALs are exceedingly competitive and will

do whatever it takes to be successful.

No Easy Day is a worthwhile read. Gaining and under-

standing of the SEALs is important to know for American

military and foreign policy at large. The organization is so

shrouded in secrecy that the majority of people greatly mis-

understand them. To know the real story of how Bin Laden

died and learn more about his personal life also helps the

reader gain a greater insight into how he ran the world’s most

notorious terrorist organization. Bisonnette is an American

hero and deserves to be recognized for the sacrifices and duty

he gave for this country. n

No Easy Day:

The Firsthand Account of the Mission

That Killed Osama Bin Laden

Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer

Dutton Adult, 2012

Book Review

Bisonnette describes how the planners

built a replica of the Abbottabad compound to precise specifications from intel-

ligence reports, but since the interior was a

mystery, the SEALs saw countless configura-

tions of the inside during their preparation.

Even before Bisonnette published No Easy

Day, the Department of Defense met the

bok with erce opposition. The Pentagon sent

Bisonnette a letter demanding that the author

submit the book for vetting by the Depart-

ment of Defense due to the highly classiednature of its contents. Bisonnette refused.

7/29/2019 TDR 2.1.13



EBAS.com

EBAS (proper noun):

Everything ButAnchovies, a Hanover

culinary institution whichdelivers pizza, chickensandwiches and otherlocal delicacies until

2:10 A.M. every night.The ultimate in

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603-643-6135

Barrett’s Mixology By Adam I. W. Schwartzman

You order a small coffee from a shop just off the Royal Mile. Excuse me,

you order a “Cafe Americano.”

The nice lady behind the counter, we’ll call her “Megan,” prepares it for you while you stare mindlessly at photographs of local ora & fauna on thebare stone walls.

Two minutes later she serves it up and move away from the counter to nd some milk and sugar. Bad decision: both are behind the counter.

So you get back in line and explain your error to Megan, who apologizes profusely, although with that Glaswegian accent she’s nearly impossible tounderstand. After another two minutes she serves you up a steaming Cafe Americano with milk and sugar.

But you forgot to tell her you wanted take away, you numbskull.

So once more you get in line and after one more circuitous explanation, she shoves a Cafe Americano across the counter, milk and sugar, for take away. Now here’s my question: is that the same small coffee you ordered at the

start?And now the answer: it doesn’t matter. You don’t even like Cafe Americano.The truth is, you need a hot drink if you’re going to make it all the way

across the Meadows without freezing to death. You’ve tried tea but you can-not stomach it, not without developing a nearly uncontrollable urge to tossbarrels of the stuff off a boat, anyway.

Coffee works, but it needs a bit of tinkering. Just a few minutes away is theliquor store on Thistle Street--you know, the one with the friendly shopkeep. He’ll sort you out with a good drinking scotch whisky. If you’re polite, he’ll even let you try a few extra on the house.

He’ll sort you out, all right.

gordon haff’s

the last word.

Compiled by Adam I. W. Schwartzman

One cup of coffee

A healthy pour of scotch whisky, preferably single malt

Milk & sugar to taste

Scottish Coffee

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid

it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I

intend to read it.

—Groucho Marx

The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

—Dr. Seuss

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a

book long enough to suit me.

—C.S. Lewis

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re

all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote

it was a terric friend of yours and you could call

him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That

doesn’t happen much, though.

—J.D. Salinger

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1.) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return

it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.

2.) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content

to get through a book for the sake of getting through

the time.3.) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what

they read.

4.) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who

prot by what they read, and enable others to prot

by it also.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The books that the world calls immoral are books

that show the world its own shame.

—Oscar Wilde

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.

—W. Fusselman

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like read-

ing! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of

a book! —When I have a house of my own, I shall be

miserable if I have not an excellent library.

—Jane Austen

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but

only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

—Cornelia Funke

You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never

take.

—Wayne Gretsky

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like

the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read

in order to live.

—Gustave Flaubert

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just

get people to stop reading them.

—Ray Bradbury

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.

One does not love breathing.

—Harper Lee

Books are a uniquely portable magic

—Stephen King

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;

they are the most accessible and wisest of counsel-

lors, and the most patient of teachers.

—Charles W. Eliot

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how

many of them you can get through, but rather how

many can get through to you.

—Mortimer J. Adler

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man,and writing an exact man.

—Francis Bacon

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No

surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

—Robert Frost

You think your pain and your heartbreak are un-

precedented in the history of the world, but then

you read. It was books that tought me that the things

that tormented me most were the very things that

connected me with all the people who were alive,

or who had ever been alive.

—James Baldwin

The world was hers for the reading.

—Betty Smith

Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics,

good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a

carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies

the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If

it’s good, you’ll nd out. If it’s not, throw it out of

the window.

—William Faulkner

Come hither, neighbor Seacole. God hath blessed you

with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is the

gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.

—William Shakespeare

TDR 2.1.13

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