History, politics, people of Oly WA
I go to Powells every few months, and this time it was to spend down some Christmas giftcard money. In addition to three books (Content, The Laurels Are Cut Down and The Good Rain), I got these off dust jackets of books I didn’t buy:
Archie Binns, the sailing pimp:
And, the only photo evidence I’ve ever seen of Gordon Newell, probably the best historian of Olympia ever:
Me over on Goodreads:
What struck me most about this book was the discussion of the political debate at the time. This will sound as more naive than I am, but nothing has changed in terms of how political debate happens.
Towards the end of the book, Egan points out that Pinchot understands how events need to have a narrative, and the side that succeeds in creating the most compelling narrative wins.
My only criticism would be that the end of the book seems a bit disjointed when he tries to tie up lose ends. Otherwise, great book.(UPDATED 2-24-11) On second thought: I think this book missed some major points of view. Well, maybe not missed them, but I think Egan messed up by focusing too much on Roosevelt and Pinchot and not enough on Ed Pulaski.
In the book, the constant coming back to Roosevelt and Pinchot took away from the history of the fire itself and made it more about their personal history. If Egan had focused more on Pulaski, I think he could have a much more fruitful narrative on the relationship between East Coast and Mountain West. Pulaski seems to embody the well meaning but frustrated attitude towards the East that almost embodies the Moutain West. By making too much of Roosevelt and Pinchot, Egan makes Pulaski seem unreasonable. Even, when in the actual history, he is the most reasonable of all the players.
In the past few years I’ve been in the habit of noting a book of local interest and then filing it away for later reading. While they’ve been a large part of my reading list for years, since my time to read has been narrowed, they’ve been falling by the wayside.
So, this year, for no other reason that the list of books to read has gotten to long, my book mission is to polish off as many of these as I can. Here’s the list of read and to-read books so far. The big ones I’ve tackled so far have been Winter Brothers, Breaking Blue and the Big Burn. I was actually surprised by how good a read Winter Brothers was the second time around (didn’t even get through the first chapter on the first try).
Also, I should be posting my reviews here as well as Goodreads. I have a “on second thought” review of the Big Burn, which I’ll try to post today.
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