From This Day Forward

Rating:
Summary: It takes a narcissist
Review: It takes a narcissist of tremendous proportions to foist this scrapbook off on an unsuspecting public. On the plus side, Cokie Roberts does more than her usual cut and paste from the work of others in From This Day Forward. When not pulling from the work of others, Cokie (and the compliant Steve) offer up tidbits that are supposed to inform the reader how s/he too can have a great marriage.
Apparently the basic rule for a successful marriage is to live in your own little world the way kooky Cokie does. I doubt she realizes how racist she comes off in parts of the book. (Yes, Cokie, condescension is a form of racism.) Or how laughable most will find her book. Reading of the great "trauma" of her life, you realize this is someone who hasn't experienced many character building moments in her life. The great "trauma"? Learning that her new employer wouldn't provide a limo and that Cokie would have to take taxis around NYC. Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame! How did Cokie ever survive?
(Had she been told to take the subway, one gets the impression Roberts would have called it quits right then.)
A vapid celebration of what appears to be a vapid marriage isn't necessarily shocking -- what's shocking is that Cokie (and husband Steve) put their names to it. Had a child offered this slight volume as a souvenir to a wedding anniversary, we all would have "oooh"ed and "aaaawe"d over it. But for grownups to write such a book about themselves is the height of narcissism.
The book works best as anthropological study of When Gigantic Egos Mate.

Rating:
Summary: It takes a narcissist
Review: It takes a narcissist of tremendous proportions to foist this scrapbook off on an unsuspecting public. On the plus side, Cokie Roberts does more than her usual cut and paste from the work of others in From This Day Forward. When not pulling from the work of others, Cokie (and the compliant Steve) offer up tidbits that are supposed to inform the reader how s/he too can have a great marriage.
Apparently the basic rule for a successful marriage is to live in your own little world the way kooky Cokie does. I doubt she realizes how racist she comes off in parts of the book. (Yes, Cokie, condescension is a form of racism.) Or how laughable most will find her book. Reading of the great "trauma" of her life, you realize this is someone who hasn't experienced many character building moments in her life. The great "trauma"? Learning that her new employer wouldn't provide a limo and that Cokie would have to take taxis around NYC. Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame! How did Cokie ever survive?
(Had she been told to take the subway, one gets the impression Roberts would have called it quits right then.)
A vapid celebration of what appears to be a vapid marriage isn't necessarily shocking -- what's shocking is that Cokie (and husband Steve) put their names to it. Had a child offered this slight volume as a souvenir to a wedding anniversary, we all would have "oooh"ed and "aaaawe"d over it. But for grownups to write such a book about themselves is the height of narcissism.
The book works best as anthropological study of When Gigantic Egos Mate.

Rating:
Summary: Good Autobiography, Dull History
Review: Read this book if you are interested in what it is like to, for instance, be a foreign correspondent for the New York Times in Greece. The biographical sections are interesting, but unfortunately didn't make a full book---so they decided to add some filler. The section about John and Abigail Adams in mildly interesting but the remainder of the filler material is dull, dull, snoringly dull.

Now, about the Roberts. They spend a lot of time talking about her being a Catholic and he being a non-practicing Jew. The impression that I got was that she would have been in bigger trouble with her parents bringing home a Republican than a Jew. Since he is somewhat casual about his religion, she picks up the slack by adopting some Jewish rituals like a passover seder, a Hannakuh celebration and the like. When you consider that Jesus celebrated both those holidays himself, its not such a long stretch for Cokie.

What irked me, and really bothered me to the core, was their chutzpah. They have been in the rarified air of Washington and the national media for so long, they don't even realize how distant they are from the rest of us. It is never said, but the implication is clear---we don't count.

The world is controlled by the Roberts who are friends with the Brokaws, who are buddies with the Wertheimers, who are close to the Totenbergs, who hang out with the Hedrick Smiths etc., etc. etc. until it makes one feel rather insignificant. This close knit cult has shared pizza and McGovern, cocktails and Cuomos, pork rinds and Clintons, and thinks of the remainder of us as residents of "flyover country"----the places you fly over on your way from Washington to the Coast.

I actually liked Cokie a lot more before I read this book than I did afterwards. Her "Q" rating took a big drop in my mind. As for Steve, I now know who he is (you've seen him if you watch Washington Week in Review).

My overall impression: they fit a mold---they are "the media elite." Skip it.