American Studies
August 29th, 2004by Louis Menand
ISBN: 0374529000
In this collection of essays, Menand considers the importance (I want to say the real importance) of fifteen cultural figures in the United States. His time frame more than spans the twentieth century, encompassing the end of the nineteenth (William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes) and the beginning of the twenty-first (Al Gore, Maya Lin).
The neat trick Menand pulls off here is in teaching me something about these figures that I didn’t know, and in doing so, creating enough interest for me as he was building his arguments, to care about knowing. Honestly, I felt I was supposed to know more about most of these people (James B. Conant, William S. Paley) than I did, yet I was not terribly interested in learning more (T.S. Eliot, Norman Mailer) about them. I still wouldn’t be interested, if I had not heard good things about Menand (author of The Metaphysical Club, now on my reading list) and decided to pick up this book.
What kind of insight does Menand offer? He recognizes the successes of Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell are both built on shame, and the positions of the two are not as cartoonishly simply as generally portrayed. Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam memorial in Washington, didn’t realize “her relatives designed the Monument to the People’s Heroes” in Tiananmen Square until he talked to her about it. Which is to say that Menand digs around and goes deeper than expected.
Menand’s gift is his ability to consider the influence and importance of cultural figures in a way that educates rather than alienates his readers. He weighs opposing views, doesn’t shy away from controversy or labor to uphold the logic of received wisdom — the reader sees an agile mind at work in these essays. Menand is curious, and he looks for connections without forcing them to appear. His essays are the work of a intelligent writer unafraid to ask real questions about the real importance of culturally significant actors. Highly recommended.
