Over the years since, I've often drawn inspiration from Africa's extraordinary literary tradition. As I prepare for this trip, I wanted to share a list of books that I’d recommend for summer reading, including some from a number of Africa’s best writers and thinkers – each of whom illuminate our world in powerful and unique ways.I'm pleased to have the opportunity to use my old "Obama is bland" tag. So... should we read some books Obama recommends, something that illuminates our world?
There are 6 books on the list, and the first 5 are by African writers, with African subject matter. But the 6th book is "The World As It Is" by Ben Rhodes:
It’s true, Ben does not have African blood running through his veins. But few others so closely see the world through my eyes like he can. Ben’s one of the few who’ve been with me since that first presidential campaign. His memoir is one of the smartest reflections I’ve seen as to how we approached foreign policy, and one of the most compelling stories I’ve seen about what it’s actually like to serve the American people for eight years in the White House.Few others so closely see the world through my eyes like he can. Does it take nerve or just obliviousness to write that when the freshest image we've got of Ben Rhodes seeing the world is...
Ben Rhodes reacting to Hillary Clinton's hilarious defeat in 2016 is the funniest part of the new Obama Documentary on HBO.— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) May 30, 2018
What makes it even better is throughout the documentary he brags how she is going to win. pic.twitter.com/MGBQNE5ATY
Posts
105 comments:
Diversity uber alles.
Some African countries are holier than others.
The culture is so 'thriving' that people are leaving in droves for Europe.
". . . each of whom illuminate"? Should be "illuminates." But since Obama also uses "Michelle and I" as the object of verbs and prepositions, we shouldn't be surprised.
Diversity? What is he talking about?
I doubt he read those books. Virtue signaling.
And Ben and Barack cooked up that horrible Iran deal. Barack, Val and Ben got paid. Trust me.
I'd be more impressed if an African wrote about something other than Africa. A great science fiction novel, for example.
"Diversity" is code-speak for "black" so he could've just said that Africa is a continent full of wonderful black people.
(eaglebeak)
Chinua Achebe was a great Nigerian novelist (he died in 2013) who wrote the amazing book Things Fall Apart.
As to Obama's blandness, personally, I thought he was an enraged and bitter creep, but anyhow, read Achebe.
I read mystery books by Deon Meyer. He's an Afrikaner, so I don't know if he counts.
Rhodes almost makes me embarrassed to be a Rice graduate.
Having travelled to Nigeria and Benin on business in the 1980's, I don't see this as a great destination. Trysweating in an African night at Murtala Muhammad airport in Lagos at 0230 in the morning waiting to clear immigration--where the prime question was, "Do you have a return ticket".
The answer (thought, but not spoken) was, "My mother didn't raise any idiots." Yer goldangeds straight I have a return ticket.
I was at a reception at the US Ambassador's residence in Lagos when the US diplomatic group that had staffed our Chad embassy had been evacuated to Lagos. Obama is welcome to Africa. He can have my share.
Meanwhile I have been interviewing African applicants to the US military.
Two Nigerians in the past month had Engineering education, one with two degrees.
I met a Ugandan about a year ago who had his next 20 years planned, Join the US Army, get his citizenship, go to college on the GI Bill, then medical school.
About ten years ago I had a girl from Eritrea who was so poor she could not afford a laptop, the modern equivalent of a microscope.
She did fine and graduated.
At the same time, I had two black students from California. One played water polo at UC San Diego.
The other had the typical victim complex. He failed in spite of two tries at year I.
Obama could have done a lot for the kid who tried to live at home in LA. But the victim complex was too powerful.
The one who played water polo (how many black college students play water polo?), did fine.
"Wonderful diversity, thriving culture, and remarkable stories. And yes I got all my shots. I may be dumb but I am not stupid."
"Obama is welcome to Africa. He can have my share."
The smart ones are coming here. They know a good deal when they see it.
Africa is the only continent in the world where children are both fat and stunted and diverse.
Diversity? He must be referring to quantity, and quality, not color. A progressive heretic.
". . . each of whom illuminate"? Should be "illuminates."
Jack Cashill (at American Thinker in 2008) said BO has a recurring problem with subject-verb agreement when he was comparing his small amount of known writing with Dreams, which Cashill believes was written by Ayers.
Bill Clinton had the same misunderstanding regarding I and me.
I'd add to the list Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa by Keith Richburg
Who has done more to help the average African...George Bush or Barack Obama?
How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
I read some of the responses to his post about the books. They remind me of the crushes my friends and I had on Bobby Sherman in middle school.
Obama has never impressed me as either a brilliant speaker or brilliant intellect. I think "lazy" would be a better term. Much of his "legacy" is being dismantled because he never did the work of getting it passed. If you do something with a "pen and phone", it can be undone with a "pen and phone" - which is what Truump is now doing. Although I don't think Obama is brilliant, he isn't stupid either. As long as people keep responding to him as the people responded in the post, he will continue to be able to do and say what he wants with little consequence - and be well compensated for his efforts such as they are.
Here's my contribution to the reading list - a relatively short essay on writing about Africa that I was assigned to read in a writing class.
https://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/
Miss me yet?
Ah, no.
I'm a long time reader, but first time commenter.
Now, I must come forward. Folks can't find this sorta Alt genius anywhere else.
Althouse is brilliant. Obviously, the brightest mind in MadTown. Probably, re the entire universe. And, all the multiverses, too.
Too bad I can't buy a new jet w/ the portal. Her wisdom and logic has, obviously, earned the kickback.
Please keep up this Uber-high level of jabber. It's the best eva!!
Duh.
"Obama could have done a lot for the kid who tried to live at home in LA. But the victim complex was too powerful."
Don't worry Doc Mike. The famous black serial rapist already told the blacks to shape up and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
So, it turns out that the blacks' problems are already solved. They just needed a good talkin' to. The rapist got that covered = problem solved.
Ass kiss reality. Sadly, Africa is in part those things but it's mostly really poor and ruled by corrupt dictators.
Yep, tell that to the Rhodesians. Soon to come, if not already arrived, to South Africa. Ask many of the Africans who want desperately for the Europeans to return. Not Obama types, more the Napier variety.
I love how there are over a million views of Ben Rhodes choking on the Hillary loss.
Sadly, Africa is in part those things but it's mostly really poor and ruled by corrupt dictators.
=
http://fortune.com/2018/07/09/donald-trumps-china-tariffs-dont-apply-to-ivanka/
"It's kind of refreshingly mellow and relaxing, isn't it?"
"Does it take nerve or just obliviousness to write that when the freshest image we've got of Ben Rhodes seeing the world is..."
Mellow AND oblivious. That's some major league trolling right there.
Nothing is more devastating to Trump support than rich guys like ADS bragging about their money and spouting the whole “America’s already great!” line, albeit, obfuscated with a copius slathering of irony.
What empty gasbagging. I am so glad I don't have to listen to him anymore.
And "African blood" sounds mighty racist. Unless it includes all the white people who live in Africa. Many of whom are in danger for their lives.
What does Obama think about the albinos of Africa who are hunted so their body parts can be used for witchcraft? Does he ever pontificate about that? Is that included in "diversity"?
Well yuseveni of Uganda who started out having been taught by walter Rodney hasbmorexsense than most.
Don't worry Doc Mike. The famous black serial rapist already told the blacks to shape up and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Who are you talking about ?
Is this supposed to be funny ?
How many Africans do you know?
"Over the years since, I've often drawn inspiration from Africa's extraordinary literary tradition."
Library check out cards, or it didn't happen.
"There are 6 books on the list, and the first 5 are by African writers, with African subject matter."
Africa's extraordinary literary tradition. Did he read them in the original Austrian, I mean African? And what are the candidates for the great African novel. Do any of them pre date 1950?
Barack is going to Africa to make money. Admit it, you fake. King Obama! I wonder if he will meet his broke half-brother?
"There are 6 books on the list, and the first 5 are by African writers, with African subject matter."
Was one of them "Out of Africa", or "The English Patient", or "Flame Trees of Thika" ?
A lot of Americans are in Africa. They are shooting and bombing the bastards with diverse weapons, and showing the culture of Islam how the Christian crusades.
Refreshing. You can almost hear the church bells chime.
I have vomited on my shoes.
Dinesen was dutch oondatje is from sri lanka, i dont know the last one.
Just simply and crudely: no one's every been more full of shit than Barack Obama.
There is a powerful book by two missionaries in Rhodesia, the axe and the hammer, they have been there for nearly four decades, through an attack on their church by zanu elements, ignored by the west, decades later one of the perpetrators was driven to confess and ultimately turn to christ
Dinesen was Danish. All three wrote of African subject matter.
I think the only great book I've read from an African author was West With the Night by Beryl Markham. I did read Out of Africa but was not terribly impressed. Interestingly, Dinesen and Markham were acquaintances, friends at times, enemies at others. Markham was a skilled pilot a well as being a very talented writer.
Doris Lessing is pretty good.
I see no answer from "de sitter" or whatever his pseudonym is today.
Just another piece of crap thrown against the wall.
"This week I'm traveling to a shithole for the first time I left office..." doesn't sound as nice, but it is more honest.
Not a chance in Hell Obama actually wrote those comments. They are so predictably boilerplate, there’s probably some dude churning this stuff out as soon as Obama’s secretary updates Obama’s calendar.
His mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
I hope he's taking Ben Rhodes and his wife with him, so they can visit the Iranian military advisers stationed in the desert. Talk about old times of duping the press.
Or anything by John Coetzee (white novelist, Nobel Prize) or David Benatar (white philosopher, promoter of antinatalism)
I’m in South Africa for a couple of months, currently in Cape Town. It’s a beautiful, thriving city. Mandela day celebrations start on Wednesday at noon. Obama will be blithering in Johannesburg, a city I probably won’t be visiting.
Never trust a politician when they make Book recommendations. What does Rhodes have to do with Africa?
Nelson Mandela? Apartheid died over 20 years ago. And "Things fall apart: was published in 1959 and set in Africa of the 1890's.
Talk about "old School".
Something from Jonah Goldberg's latest podcast: https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-remnant-with-jonah-goldberg/
Goldberg's guest, Jay Cost, explains that Obama is not an intellectual, he is a politician for intellectuals. This means he has mastered the art of making intellectuals think that he is one of them.
I suppose the same thing could be said about Trump & the working class, with the exception that no one believes Trump is working class.
VS Naipaul did some Africa books. Bend in the River was good. I do believe he doesn't some time there.
Then there was Evelyn Waugh..
..spent some time...
I think David Benatar, and antinatalism, might be right. There’s a Sam Harris podcast on his site of the 2 of them thrashing it out.
"I've read all the African authors. All the white ones, anyhow." #SomethingFitzgeraldCouldHaveWritten
"Over the years since, I've often drawn inspiration from Africa's extraordinary literary tradition."
A bleeding-heart librarian friend (Quaker and Bernie voter to put things in perspective) many years ago made the trek to the dark continent with boxes of books, thinking that she was bringing enlightenment.
They used the pages of the books she had hauled not for enlightenment, but for ass wiping. True story.
Obama still sounding like his head is still up his own rear - it's almost frightening .....until I remember he and his are gone, gone, gone (almost). Halleluja!
Marchons mes deplorables!!
“‘Few others so closely see the world through my eyes like he can.’ Does it take nerve or just obliviousness to write that when the freshest image we've got of Ben Rhodes seeing the world is...
Ben Rhodes reacting to Hillary Clinton's hilarious defeat in 2016”
The obliviousness is to his display of narcissism. What book reviewer thinks that it’s acceptable or even interesting to assess whether the writer sees the world through the reviewer’s eyes? Why would a reader of that review care? Obama must think very highly of himself to put that out as a virtue of the book. He’s a parody of himself.
" anti-de Sitter space said...
I'm a long time reader, but first time commenter."
Not that it matters, but anti-de Sitter space has commented several times recently - Nov. 2, 2017, Feb 15, 2018, May 1, 2018. Perhaps he was being negatively hyperbolic but the sign got changed.
Why didn't Obama mention Sanders of the River? It's pretty much the same genre as Ben Rhodes' book - unrealistic versions of adventures in a swampy area inhabited by several warring tribes.
Every now and then, one of my rich neighbors, often a retired Professor, will regale us about a recent trip to Africa. Most everyone will swoon, and fawn over him, and shower the enlightened fellow with praise and frankensense and myrhh, and then the clouds will part, and harps will gently play, as streaks of sunshine burst from the heavens to our little block party BBQ, warming our souls, while vaporizing the plumes of white liberal guilt.
Myself, I'm like "Africa? Why the fuck would anyone wanna go there? Y'all want cheese on this burger?"
I read Things Fall Apart years ago and disliked it intensely but over the years the situation described and the way it worked out has repeatedly come back into my mind. That's one definition of a classic.
Obama is no Oprah but I bet there's a spike in sales for all these books including his buddy BR's.
Wild swan
Same experience.
A Bend in the River was like that. Of course it was deemed "racist" and "pro-colonialism."
For the life of Me, I can't see what Obama saw in Rhodes.
Ah Michael K, I think the "serial black rapist" was the fellow who was anointed as "our first black President" in 1992. Ol Billy Jeff needs more than a good talking to.
I will take your point that some of the best and brightest minds out of Africa come to the States for college. USC has had a very healthy international students program for a long time.
That said, tribalism and governmental corruption --and yes a lot of crime and violence (along with indigenization decrees) make it difficult for Western companies to operate in Africa.
You'd like to think that a country like Nigeria (home to the largest black population in Africa) or Liberia or Kenya could get and keep its act together and advance the economic and political lot of the population. I didn't see any of that in my travels there over a period of half a dozen years. But then I also travelled to Venezuela on business working at setting up a joint venture in the late 90s--and it was as bad as Africa.
I've hunted in the northern Transvaal. Reminded me of the San Gabriels, the Santa Ynez and Temblor ranges. Chartered a 182 down to Kronstadt to visit a lion breeding farm where my buddy shot a springbok. It was very similar the the low foothill portion of Amador County Had the best bbq lamb kebobs ever. That part of Africa felt like home.
Blogger Bay Area Guy said...
Every now and then, one of my rich neighbors, often a retired Professor, will regale us about a recent trip to Africa. Most everyone will swoon, and fawn over him, and shower the enlightened fellow with praise and frankensense and myrhh, and then the clouds will part, and harps will gently play, as streaks of sunshine burst from the heavens to our little block party BBQ, warming our souls, while vaporizing the plumes of white liberal guilt.
Myself, I'm like "Africa? Why the fuck would anyone wanna go there? Y'all want cheese on this burger?"
Rule #1 of serious travel: when you go home, only talk about it with other serious travellers. The rest are incurious or resentful and it only bores or annoys them.
Rule #2: sleep with the natives.
We don’t know whether Richard Burton was fucking them by the tens or hundreds on his way to the Nile source and back, because his wife Isabel burned his most intimate journals.
He also translated the Kama Sutra and Arabian Nights. The greatest of the Victorian sex explorers. Best biography is by Fawn Brodie.
I’m in South Africa for a couple of months, currently in Cape Town. It’s a beautiful, thriving city
Six months ago it was out of water and it's located in the rape capital of the world.
Theodore Dalrymple spent considerable time in Africa a d has written several excellent books.
Stanley's diary, 1890s, is pretty good.
And Conrad's Heart of darkness, based on Conrad's experiences in the Congo never gets old. Even ic he had to tone the truth down for publication. The Belgian royals have a lot to answer for.
John Henry
Why does "African" always seen to mean Sub-Saharan, black, Africa?
What are the Egyptians, Libyans, Moroccans, syrianz and so on, chopped liver?
And Afrikaaners, some who trace their roots to the 16th century never seem to be considered "African" do they?
John Henry
Blogger Gahrie said... Six months ago it was out of water and it's located in the rape capital of the world.
Both true. Can’t wait to get to the DRC either.
I second Sodal Ye. I read it a long time ago but The Devil Drives is one of those books that really stuck with me.
John Henry
Blogger johnhenry100 said... And Afrikaaners, some who trace their roots to the 16th century
17th.
For the life of Me, I can't see what Obama saw in Rhodes.
A Colossus.
And Afrikaaners, some who trace their roots to the 16th century never seem to be considered "African" do they?
I always refer to Elon Musk as my favorite African-American.
Ah, the refreshing and relaxing feeling when real, live human beings are abstracted into remarkable stories.
That's Barack Obama, Facebooking platitudes. It's kind of refreshingly mellow and relaxing, isn't it?
Mellow and relaxing.
Shit That’s awesome.
You could almost forget he used the government to spy on political opponents and persecute people he disagreed with.
It will be way more relaxing when Obama is invoking the 5th amendment and shuts the fuck up for once.
I always refer to Elon Musk as my favorite African-American.
I've always been fond of Juliet Prowse, myself.
Obama should be using "naqba" from Palestinean vocabulary.
Is there any footage of Obama "processing" Trump win?
About ten years ago I had a girl from Eritrea who was so poor she could not afford a laptop, the modern equivalent of a microscope.
I've been impressed with the Eritreans I've met. They're a tough people. Smart, too.
This FB post was primarily a gratuitous plug for Rhodes' book, which is a gratuitous account of Barry's foreign policy, which Barry gratuitously endorses. I think this is known as a circle jerk.
I'll buy the fact that Ben sees the world through Barry's eyes, but who's to say Ben isn't looking through Barry's white half, a half whose existence is not particularly useful on a trip to Africa. Barry certainly couldn't say Ben's unique insight into his mind comes from "white blood running through his veins" any more than he can publicly acknowledge that bovine excrement is the primary literary vehicle Ben used to produce his tome. Plus, Ben's skin pigmentation does not contribute to shoehorning him into a group of actual African authors so as to facilitate the plug, i.e., as they say at the FBI Barry needed a "hook." So, Barry invented the fact that Ben can read the mind of a half-white fellow leftist who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, was educated in elite American schools and lived his entire adult life in North America, and Ben can do all that even though he has no African blood running through his veins! Good job Ben!
Okay, it's a tenuous relationship to the actual African authors, but tenuous ties don't stop the FBI, either, and Barry wasn't about to pay GPS to conjure one up.
Obama, once a scold and uninvited advice giver, always a scold and uninvited advice giver. I don't care, do you?
-sw
Who are you talking about ?
He’s talking about Bill Cosby, who, by the way, still gets a lot of respect in certain quarters of the black community. Just like Booker T Washington. I am curious what ADS thinks we should do about black poverty. What concrete steps he thinks that we can take that will help a community that sure could use some help, if you rule out advocating for personal responsibility. I don’t see it.
There was a white kid from South Africa in my former neighborhood who went to mostly white Westside High. His dad was a doctor. They lived next door to the Mayor. He wanted to be recognized as an African American at school and got all sorts of grief and blow back.
Mostly ADS has become so shell shocked at the ass whooping he gets every time he states a testable “fact” that he has retreated into a style that is deliberately obfuscated and completely lacking factual support. One thing about him though, and I have to give him points for this, he still admits that he supports Hillary instead of lying about it.
Think he'll visit Libya?
My late step-monster's mother was a Boer named Bietz. Both her daughters were both boars and bores and so's her granddaughter. Hereditary bitches.
The daughters had Munchausens and other disorders such as financial incontinence.
Another thing to love about Trump: he doesn’t get interested in something and assign the rest of us homework on the topic.
Ralph,
But were they boors?
Bores was a Freudian slip. They talked enough to drill into your consciousness. I'm still pissed at her 5 years after she croaked.
Obama could to go into south Chicago and see tragedy the same as any place in Africa. Instead he just have the peasants builds a monument to himselves.
Obama has borrowed Hillary's copy of 'How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read' by Pierre Bayard (available you-know-where).
Looking forward to when his memoir comes out and he gives the NYT a By the Book interview.
"I've been impressed with the Eritreans I've met. They're a tough people. Smart, too."
She is ow a doctor but we have not kept in touch as I do with some of my former students.
Her parents got her out of Eritrea during the war to South Africa which was still in the Apartheid period but was much safer. Then she went to France then to Guadaloupe and finally to LA where she lived with a grandmother.
She had a much more harrowing story than the race pimps in LA and has done very well.
Interviewing military recruits, I see quite a few from Africa and they are always (of course they are selected) well motivated and doing well.
One, a Nigerian with two Engineering degrees, was pleased that I asked him if he was an Ibo (Now Igbo). The Ibo tribe are gifted in math and and he told me he always found math easy. Many Ibos are "Quants" in financial firms in New York.
Her parents got her out of Eritrea during the war to South Africa which was still in the Apartheid period but was much safer.
Political separation was never the threat. The conflict between black factions a la Tutsi and Hutu, Fatah and Hamas, Palestinians and Jordanians, was... and then social justice adventurers opened abortion fields.
I sure miss that preening, pretentious, narcissistic prick.
OK. I made that up.
But few others so closely see the world through my eyes like he can
Dear diary,
Ben gets me, he really gets me.
Jim at said...
I sure miss that preening, pretentious, narcissistic prick.
I suggest more target practice.
I'd been aware of that video for a while, but never actually watched it until now. Man, I wish I'd watched it sooner. It filled me with a deep, warm contentment watching Ben try to conjure up a screen performance that would convey the misery he actually felt.
Obama's comment is just the kind of fake, thrice-warmed shit that sends shivers through his empty-headed admirers.
No wonder the Donald's crude tweets seems so refreshing to his empty-headed admirers: it's fresh shit, and succinct.
Post a Comment