“As for my own country, it is hard to say. We are barbarians of a certain kind, and what is most unpleasant we are barbarians with a certain middle-class, Philistine quality of ugliness and pettiness, raw conceit, and raw sensitiveness. Where we get highly civilized, as in the northeast, we seem to become civilized in an unoriginal and ineffective way, and tend to die out. In political matters we are often very dull mentally, and especially morally; but even in political matters there is plenty of rude strength, and I don't think we are as badly off as we were in the days of Jefferson, for instance.”
Whew! Let me blow out the flames coming from that particular statement. Though it was in a private letter and not meant for public consumption, it's more than candid about what T. R. perceived as the woeful limitations of his beloved country and its (too-often-craven) citizens.
Of course, you're not supposed to like or admire Roosevelt. He killed animals, he seemed to love war, he pounded the podium when he gave a speech. (And those teeth!) But I've always loved the man, and have always wanted to know more about him. To this end, I'm making my way through an 800-page biography by H. W. Brands, called T. R.: The Last Romantic. But I have to tell you, the portrait he paints of the Old Lion is woefully un-romantic.
I watched a PBS series on the Roosevelts (and how I wish they'd show it again, all 8 hours of it!), and my favorite two hours was devoted to T. R. And yes, the portrait that emerged was of a true romantic: fiercely passionate about everything (especially his family - he was devoted to them), sometimes too opionated for his own good, and not one to suffer fools gladly (or at all!) - yet at the same time, warm and gregarious, genuine, sincere in his patriotism (his vision was of what Americans COULD be, but somehow never were), and a lot of other things.
But this Brands character does not even seem to like Roosevelt, and there are little jabs at his character on every page. Talk about thinking in black and white! This fellow has decided T. R. needs to be deconstructed, or should we say, given a hatchet job. I have ordered another bio (there are no doubt hundreds of them) which has been criticized for sentimentalizing Teddy too much. But what the PBS bio got right, and what Brands missed by a mile, was his complexity.
The man was positively Byzantine, and was full of so many opposite traits that you wonder how he got along. But one commentator said, "What you MUST know about T. R. is that he was a depressive." The fierce exterior disguised a very tender heart, and he was hypersensitive, not to mention a ferocious intellect which soared above most of his contemporaries. THAT is the T. R. I want to hear about, read about, get to know better.
I even wrote in my journal about this! The book critic in me never quite dies, and each book I read comes under analytical scrutiny, but this one. . . I kept getting so turned off that I had to unload somewhere:
I am getting fed up with the TR book, which is a
disappointment after a good start. It begins quite positively, but as it goes
along the author gets more and more snide, then just starts taking shots at him
on every single page. He’s literally attacking the man, claiming he did
everything for his own gain and towering ego. Nothing about the latent depression, nothing about the warmth and charm of the man, which his supporters never failed to notice. (They named the Teddy bear after him, for God's sake!) But the book is all about his insufferable ego and how he’s basically a
windbag, hot air that is all designed for self-aggrandizement and political gain. He doesn't befriend people - he "cultivates" them.
I LOVED the PBS program, watched it more than once, and it was far more nuanced, claimed he was actually a secret depressive, his heart irreparably broken by the loss of his first wife. The portrait was of someone far more complex and nuanced than this Brands guy comprehends. I did order another
bio, just out of interest. But it does seem the guy really doesn’t like Roosevelt and even thinks he was a
phony. Typical politician, full of P. T. Barnum hype and even dishonesty.
So
why did he write this? As with the Van Gogh book, I see contractual obligation
on every page. Brands signed a contract to write this, then began to get bored and
irritated about ¼ of the way through, a contempt that just grows and grows. I’m
reading it now because it supposedly helps me get to sleep, though it did not
work last night.
Enough said!
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