It's a been a long dry stretch since I last finished reading a book. I always have mixed feelings when the last page has been turned. If it was a truly good read I can't wait to get to the end but I still want to read more. If it took forever to wade through I'm glad to see it done and I get a special feeling of accomplishment at having stuck with it to the bitter end. But always there's that anticipation and excitement of knowing I get to go to my library and scour through my collection and decide what book to pick up next. That's my favorite part of ending a book.
Frustrated at my ability to remember what I've read within a short time of reading it, I've started trying to blog book reviews. Sadly this is only my second. But I learned with the first that taking time to jot down my thoughts about the book and the person (or people) it was about forces me to reflect - on the book overall, the nature of the main character(s), and sometimes the author's writing (although this is usually my weakest observation). Unfortunately it has been nearly a year since I read a book. Other hobbies take up my time but mostly the problem is that I read all day for a living (I edit legal manuscripts), thus I often find it hard to do much reading when I come home at night. A poor excuse perhaps, but a somewhat valid reason for the length of time it has taken me to read this book - nearly a year!
One of my literary collections - perhaps the largest - in my library is my collection of biographies of U.S. presidents. I'm fascinated by their lives and legacies, and by the changes they made to the American political, social, and economic landscape. This particular book is President Obama's autobiography - written long before he became president. I was pleasantly surprised by how lyrical and fluid Obama's writing was. Someone suggested he must have had a ghost writer but I was not able to find evidence of one. He just clearly has a writing style that is engaging, sometimes almost poetic, and easy to read (making the 11 months it took to read it all the more pathetic).
Until today I thought the book was titled Dreams OF my Father. Realizing now that it is titled Dreams FROM my Father actually gives it a whole different spin in hindsight. But both titles would work really. You see, part of the book is exploring WHO his father really was. In reality Barack Obama only met his father once, when he was 10. It was an awkward meeting and he never saw him again. His father remained something of a myth and Barack was always trying to learn about his father and who he really was. In that sense, Dreams OF my Father would also have been a fitting title.
But really this book goes beyond Barack's need to learn who his father was, this book is really about Barack's need to learn who HE himself was. And in a sense he was the product of his father's dreams - his father's dreams to be successful, accepted, and respected. Dreams that affected Barack's young life and how he was raised, dreams that took his father away thus leaving Barack constantly searching for who he was and where he fit in. Throughout this book Barack is searching for a place to belong - and by 'place" I don't just mean geographic, though that's part of it, but by place I really mean place with a people, a community, a heritage. Barack is trying to figure out where he fits in.
And no wonder the question causes him such a long and difficult search. His father is African, his mother American. His early years are lived in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents. His mother remarries and they move to Indonesia where he spends some time. Then his mother decides he really needs an American education so sends him back to Hawaii to be with his grandparents and then he eventually heads for the mainland where he remains. Not fully black, not fully white, not fully African, not fully American. With that background and upbringing how could one possibly really understand who they were without a long and questioning search?
He spends his first few years out of college working with community organizations on the southside of Chicago. There he gets quite an education on organizing people and getting them to find ways to help themselves. This period in Chicago is an interesting part of Barack's life. He discovers how painfully difficult it is to get people to work together to help themselves change their situation in life. The biggest stumbling block he finds is apathy - people are so beaten down by poverty that they've become apathetic and aren't able to see the power they could have collectively if they were to come out of that apathy and work together. But so many efforts before his had failed that getting people to help him in his organizational efforts was very difficult. The wall of apathy was high and thick and difficult to break through. He made mistakes along the way but he learned from them. He had successes too - but he learned that you have to start small and help people change what really matters to them - like heating and clean water - before they can change bigger things like the run-down schools in their neighborhoods or the daily violence.
After working in Chicago for awhile Barack decided to go to law school and was accepted to Harvard. However, before starting school he decided, with much encouragement over the years, that it was time for him to go to Kenya - to learn about that part of his life and to find out who his father really was. I think Barack felt that he would find all the answers he was looking for if he want back to Africa. The blacks that he worked with in Chicago constantly encouraged him to go "home" - believing that somehow going to Africa would help him learn of his real roots and heritage, that in Africa he would understand himself better.
Barack had a fairly lenthy stay in Kenya - several weeks. I think he was disappointed at first. In some respects things weren't that much different in Nairobi than they were in Chicago. Poverty and apathy were the same in both places. Corruption brought by power and greed - no different in Kenya than America. But as he met more and more relatives he learned more and more about his father. A father who, as was the tribal tradition, had several wives and a number of children. A father who had learned the ways of the British who'd taken over in Africa and learned to be successful amonst them. A father who dreamed of being more but who had really become quite successful and had made a respectable name for himself. But also a father who went too far in opposition to those in power and took a long hard fall from grace, losing his money and dignity and turning to alcohol to escape the shame. However, his father did eventually redeem himself to some extent. Barack, who carries his father's name, was surprised at how much people respected the Obama name and felt in some ways that he did truly fit in there in ways he hadn't totally experienced in the states. Eventually Barack's grandmother told him the long story of how his father had come to be the way he was. How learning the ways of the white British had alienated him from his family. He learned of his father's mistakes, his shortcomings, his successes. Somewhere along the way he seemed to make peace with who his father was - no longer a myth and some glorified stories but who his father really was.
Africa didn't hold all the answers for Barack's searching - it couldn't because it was only half of Barack's history. But going there, learning for himself the truth of his father's life, being with his relatives and learning about his paternal heritage seemed to have brought him some closure and given him some grounding. The book stops shortly after that, ending with his marriage to Michelle, a time when he knew he was truly happy. I got the sense that Barack wasn't as restless and searching after his trip to Africa. I think maybe he found enough answers that he could lose that restless uncertainty that seemed to haunt him and move forward with his life.
I thought this was a well-written book, though I found myself not always believing that anyone could be as retrospective and introspective as Barack seemed to be constantly - even as a child. In that respect this book didn't always ring true for me - but I admit I just may not have encountered anyway as truly introspective as Barack Obama before and that some people maybe do find every situation to be a time for examining the past and people's histories and behaviours. I hope I think back on this book 20 years from now, after Barack's presidency is over. I hope I can remember what I've read and see if I can understand a little of how his past and his searh for belonging, how the lessons learned in Chicago, all worked to shape Barack Obama the president. He learned many powerful lessons during his early adulthood - if he remembers them and draws on them he will make a great president.
