{"id":2318,"date":"2008-08-26T07:48:33","date_gmt":"2008-08-26T11:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2318"},"modified":"2008-08-26T07:49:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-26T11:49:12","slug":"lifes-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lifes-work","title":{"rendered":"Life’s work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I had variations of the following e-mail exchange with several NYC literary figures I know:<\/p>\n

GIL: Just wondering: do you know Robert Caro<\/a>?<\/p>\n

AUTHOR\/WRITER: By acquaintance. Why?<\/p>\n

GIL: Would you say he’s in good health?<\/p>\n

A\/W: Not sure. What’s up? Have you heard something?<\/p>\n

GIL: No. It’s just that, well, I loved his biography of Robert Moses, so I grabbed the first three volumes of his biography of Lyndon Johnson. But I know he’s getting up there in years and I’m afraid to start reading it until I know that he’s going to be around to finish the fourth volume.<\/p>\n

A\/W: . . . You’re a cold person.<\/p>\n

GIL: Yeah, but do you think he’s going to finish the biography?<\/p>\n

A\/W: . . . Good question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caro’s own site<\/a> doesn’t give info about how he’s doing and I’ve been afraid to contact his agent with such a crass question, so I’ve held off on starting the series. The first three books add up to around 2,250 pages, and winds up in 1960, as he becomes vice president under JFK. I confess that I didn’t understand Caro’s desire to devote the half his life (figuring that he started around 1976 or so) to this biography; I don’t know enough about LBJ’s presidency or his character. He’s sort of a void for me, falling between the mythologies of JFK and Nixon.<\/p>\n

But, given Caro’s enormous achievement with The Power Broker<\/a>\"\", I picked up the first volume<\/a>\"\" of the LBJ bio secondhand last summer and read the first 40 pages (introduction and first chapter) one afternoon. I was blown away by the combination of Caro’s wonderful narrative prose and his ability to convey exactly how LBJ epitomizes American politics. On top of that, LBJ’s character and his seeming desire to cover up and rewrite his past made him a fascinating literary character (to me, but I still like Thomas Pynchon’s novels). By the time I’d wrapped up those 40 pages, I knew that Caro had made a perfect choice of subject, and was looking forward to reading the whole series.<\/p>\n

Still, I’d seen Caro in Ric Burns’ New York documentary<\/a>\"\" and, while he didn’t look frail, I feared that I’d be taking a risk in diving into the biography, only to see it cut prematurely.<\/p>\n

So I was happy to read that there was a Caro-related party<\/a> this summer as part of the Authors’ Night\u00c2\u00a0 benefit for the East Hampton Library (and you scoff at my devotion to Page Six!). I found out about it too late to break out my seersucker suit and crash the event<\/a>, but I took it as a good sign that Caro was part of the social scene.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I got even more of a boost when I followed an Andrew Sullivan link to a George Packer piece<\/a> in The New Yorker<\/em>, where he discusses the importance of LBJ:<\/p>\n

Whenever Democrats gather to celebrate the party, they invoke the names of their luminaries past. The list used to begin with Jefferson and Jackson. More recently, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been shortened to F.D.R., Truman, and J.F.K. The one Democrat with a legitimate claim to greatness who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be named is Lyndon Johnson. The other day I asked Robert Caro, Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer and hardly a hagiographer of the man, whether he thought Johnson should be mentioned in Denver. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It would be only just to Johnson,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caro said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the Democratic Party was going to honestly acknowledge how it came to the point in its history that it was about to nominate a black American for President, no speech would not mention Lyndon Johnson.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caro is now at work on the fourth volume of his epic biography, about Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s White House years. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am writing right now about how he won for black Americans the right to vote. I am turning from what happened forty-three years ago to what I am reading in my daily newspaper\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the thrill that goes up and down my spine when I realize the historical significance of this moment is only equaled by my anger that they are not giving Johnson credit for it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looks like I have a new reading project set once this Montaigne project is over!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I had variations of the following e-mail exchange with several NYC literary figures I know: GIL: Just wondering: do you know Robert Caro? AUTHOR\/WRITER: By acquaintance. Why? GIL: Would you say he’s in good health? A\/W: Not sure. What’s up? Have you heard something? GIL: No. It’s just that, well, I loved … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Life’s work”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,17,19],"tags":[279,276,275,277],"class_list":["post-2318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-politics-explicit","category-urban-issues","tag-george-packer","tag-lyndon-johnson","tag-robert-caro","tag-robert-moses"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-Bo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4518,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/three-more-years","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":0},"title":"Three More Years!","author":"Gil","date":"October 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a 35-minute video of Charlie Rose's interview with Robert Caro last April, at the end of which Mr. Caro mentions that the final volume of his LBJ biography won't be published for another three years. That should give you enough time to read The Power Broker, his phenomenal biography\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0394720245","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5535,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-august-13-2010","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: August 13, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"August 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I may be questioning\/reconsidering what I'm writing and why, but that doesn't mean I can't share some fun\/awesome links with you, dear readers! Enjoy! Richard Jenkins gets a Random Roles interview! (my favorite part, of course, is the Miller's Crossing story.) * * * MTA's special NYC Subway map just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":925,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/death-life-of-great-american-urban-theorists","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":2},"title":"Death & Life of Great American Urban Theorists","author":"Gil","date":"April 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Jane Jacobs died today. Which means that the next book I start will be Robert Caro's mammoth biography of Robert Moses, Power Broker. You've been warned.","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6366,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-look-in-your-heart","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":3},"title":"Podcast: Look in Your Heart","author":"Gil","date":"May 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories \u2013 season 2 episode 5 John B. - Look in Your Heart The May episode of The Virtual Memories Show is up and ready to go! This time around, my guest is John B., a pal of mine who died last year (but got better!) There's also a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Podcasts"","block_context":{"text":"Podcasts","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/podcasts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3873,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-big-stall","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":4},"title":"The Big Stall","author":"Gil","date":"May 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This lengthy WSJ article on how Chrysler got into this mess is pretty informative. In some respects, it's just another story of how private equity execs were geniuses when credit was cheap, but became dumb when they actually had to come up with ways to run the businesses that they'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":978,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/update-8","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":5},"title":"Update","author":"Gil","date":"June 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry I've been outta the loop, dear reader. I was just in one of those not-writing-so-much phases. I can't afford to get caught in that for long, since I've gotta write profiles on the top 20 pharma & top 10 biopharma companies this month. I've also been reading that Robert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2322,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions\/2322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}