You didn't really think the election would go completely unnoticed by the library, did you? Of course not. I will however, start with a small disclaimer. I speak only for myself and not for the Emerson library staff, and I say this in hopes that neither they nor any readers will be offended. I realize I should probably not be worried about offending anyone, but that's the nature of politics. That being said, why would I even think to write about Obama here in the first place? Because, of course, he's a writer. Obama has written two books, Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope. I've not read The Audacity of Hope, and I have only listened to the audiobook of Dreams, and I can safely say that regardless of political affiliation, it is a well written story about the formation of a captivating individual. Of Audacity, Michael Chabon says, "I found that it gave voice to a feeling about America and its history (and by implication its future) that I had always struggled myself to put into words." High praise from a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. And why is it important that a writer will move into the White House? Again I turn to Chabon:
Ultimately words were all we had; that writing and oratory, argument and persuasion, were the root of democracy; that words can kill, or save us; something along those lines. "You can only say what you can first imagine," as I heard Tobias Wolff (the short-story master, not the Obama campaign adviser) explain to a group of people at an Obama fund-raiser. It was a mark of Obama's fitness to lead, to me at least, that he possessed sufficient natural reserves of imagination to kick oratorical ass.
These quotes come from Chabon's essay in the New York Review of Books following the Democratic National Convention. To read its entirety, which I recommend, check it out here, or you can find it on our periodicals shelves.
