THE STANDARD READER

The Standard Reader Books in Brief Washington Schlepped UHere: Walking in the Nation's Capital by Christopher Buckley (Crown, 160 pp., $16). Don't mistake this charming little book for a...

...Its irreverence (Jefferson, who liked to receive diplomats in his slippers, was "our first grunge president") is balanced by a hearty patriotism, also known in these pages as vitamin P. Once upon a time a speechwriter for Vice President Bush and now editor of Forbes FYI magazine, Buckley supplements fact with resonant anecdote...
...The first walk begins at Union Station (did you know the great hall was modeled on the Baths of Diocletian...
...Katherine Mangu-Ward...
...My favorite is his account of a party at the Air and Space Museum for the 75th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's flight, hosted by the great man's daughter, Reeve...
...But these redeeming bits are lost amid pages of analysis and background...
...His sophomore effort, Being America, is just that—sophomoric...
...The reader works through more than three hundred pages to obtain such insights as: "Peoples cannot take responsibility for each other, but they serve each other when they take responsibility for themselves...
...Claudia Winkler Being America: Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World by Jedediah Purdy (Knopf, - 329 pp., $24...
...Washington Schlepped Here is the perfect gift for a newcomer to Washington, as well as a happy addition to the shelves of the lifer...
...The book contains some interesting tales of encounters and conversations from the young Purdy's travels in the Middle East and Asia...
...The jaunty tone (its early, rejected title was Das Capital) is sustained by snappy writing (the East Wing of the National Gallery has "more edges than a Swiss army knife"), a sympathetic eye (the Air and Space Museum is "the ultimate boy's bedroom"), and political spice...
...Don't mistake this charming little book for a comprehensive guide to Washington, D.C., complete with maps and metro stops and museum hours...
...and takes in the Capitol (whose interior Mark Twain once called "a delirium tremens of art"), the statue of Grant at the foot of Capitol Hill, and the museums on the Mall as far as the Washington Monument...
...Purdy's other bad habit is frequent name-dropping...
...And Purdy's habit of seeing three sides to every question makes for slow reading...
...On one pair of facing pages, he invokes Saint Augustine, the IMF's Jeffrey Sachs, Gautama Buddha (helpfully identified as the "founder of Buddhism"), Plato, and Joseph Stiglitz...
...And the fourth is a tour through Arlington cemetery, ending at the grave of the city's original designer, Pierre Charles LEnfant, which has "the best view in town...
...Buckley describes listening to the god of his youth, John Glenn, reminisce about the god of his youth, Lindbergh, while several Lindbergh great-greatgrandchildren clambered over Friendship 7 "as if it were a playground choo-choo...
...The third walk takes in Lafayette Square, Ford's Theater, and the house where Lincoln died...
...The second walk begins at the Washington Monument and goes to the Lincoln Memorial via the Holocaust Museum, the Jefferson and FDR memorials, and the Korean and Vietnam war memorials...
...Neither the living nor the dead get much rest in Being America, if they have a platitude to contribute...
...Jedediah Purdy gained fame in 1999 with his anti-irony manifesto, For Common Things...
...Such propositions are true enough, of course, but they are far from earthshaking...
...Instead, look here for a breezy guided tour of the heart of Washington, laid out in four walks, hosted by the satirical novelist Christopher Buckley...
...The result is no fresh insight into Purdy's question: What does it mean to "be America...
...Washington Schlepped Here is like a tray of petits fours—colorful, bite-sized delights arrayed in great number...
...And must Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Adam Smith really appear as often as they do...

Vol. 8 • May 2003 • No. 35


 
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