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Toni Morrison, Al Franken, and RFK, Jr. talk about . . . books
by David S. Bernstein
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MONDAY, July 26, 2004 -- Well, I don’t know whether Boston will make or lose money on hosting a national convention, but all over town some of the most accomplished and interesting people in the country are gathering together and talking -- and, surprisingly often, with the public invited. It’s got to be worth something to be able to sit in the First Parish Church in Harvard Square on a Monday afternoon and listen to authors Joe Conason (The Hunting of the President), Toni Morrison (Love), Sidney Blumenthal (The Clinton Wars), Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Crimes Against Nature, soon to be published). Sure, they didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the topic of the panel -- what impact books have on politics and the culture war. But Morrison was eloquent and thought-provoking; Blumenthal had interesting thoughts about the revival of the political book; Franken was hysterically funny; and Kennedy gave a lengthy, breathtaking, off-the-cuff tirade about the Bush administration’s raping of our environment, and our health with it. (Priceless moment: Morrison laughing uncontrollably when Kennedy joked that Franken thought that his book, Crimes Against Nature, was about Strom Thurmond.) It’s too bad, though, that they didn’t really engage the topic. Why is it that in the past year or two almost all of the most important, substantive, timely, and newsmaking reporting and analysis has appeared in the old, slow, dinosaur form of the book? (From a few of their comments, the panel’s answer seems to be: because the news media sucks.) Who is buying these things? Are they reading them? Do minds get changed, or activism spurred? Okay, so those questions didn’t get answered Monday afternoon in the First Parish Church. But by the way the packed house burst forth in a raucous standing ovation after the remarks, they got something valuable. That’s got to count for something.
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