Republican Party Reptile

Rating:
Summary: Good collection of pieces
Review: So far, I've had the pleasure of being an O'Rourke reader for this one and Parliament of Whores (more will no doubt follow). Republican Party Reptile isn't as good if you appreciate PJ for the way he does a detailed analysis which is still funny and controversial - as Parliament was a very organised, topical book. This one is a bit too much of a random knapsack for that.

That still makes it a great book as his pieces will drive home his views on drugs, politics, cars, drugs, international relations, teenaged girls, crime and fast cars. My favourites were Ship of Fools (a bunch of lefties and peaceniks cruise the Volga in the USSR during the Cold War, PJ is with them), Ferrari Refutes Decline of the West (PJ and boss get to deliver a Ferrari from NY to LA over several days of high speed cross country), Holiwood Etiquette (a great take on the neurosis etc) and How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink (self explanatory I trust!)

So if you want to acquaint yourself with an earlier, more personal PJ, this book is good.

Rating:
Summary: sophomoric and unfunny
Review: There's one great essay in this book; the one satirzing Hollywood culture is dead-on. For that, it deserves one star. Aside from that one essay, the others are duds.

O'Rourke has a sophomoric humor, trying to shock us with how "bad" he is. He regales us with drugs & booze jokes, like a standup leftover from the early 1960s Brat Pack era. He tries too hard to be funny. His "jokes" are old and obvious.

And there's much phony posturing, for he pulls his punches lest he TRULY offend his PC employers at Rolling Stone.

He opposes "Democratic big government" because, he says, he likes to speed while driving drunk and fondling big-breasted women. Not the sort of "scathing" commentary that would offend Democrats.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed, with a few gems
Review: This book is somewhat of a mixed bag. Unlike some of his other works, this has no central theme, but is instead a motley collection of articles written over the years for various and sundry publications on subjects ranging from why he hates bicycles to chasing down a story in the Bahamas about the involvement of high government officials in the drug trade. A few are real clunkers, such as a fictionalized account of his family life back in Ohio, titled "The King of Sandusky" or an over the top piece called "Just one of those days" in which he portrays an executive whose daily routine includes gunfights with his neighbors, raping his secretary and setting off bombs on the subway in order to get to work on time (so his boss won't have him shot). Most are OK, like the aforementioned bicycle piece, which he wrote for "Car & Driver" magazine back in the mid 80's. It was funny at the time, lampooning bicycling just about the time it was becoming trendy, especially with the eco-weenie set. In fact, this article brought howls of protest in the form of letters in the following issue, thus basically making his point appear all the more valid, namely, that too many bike nuts at the time suffered from an acute overdose of self righteousness accompanied by a chronic lack of a sense of humor. Like I said, it was funny at the time, but now seems rather dated.

Still, this entire effort was greatly redeemed by a few pieces that were absolutely spot on. One was "Ship of Fools" in which our intrepid reporter signed up for a cruise ship tour on the Volga in the USSR, based on an ad he'd read in "The Nation" magazine. He joins up with myriad groups of American leftists whose desire to see Soviet life in the best possible light overwhelms any qualities of observation or common sense they might happen to possess. These unfortunates are the targets of PJ's satire at its absolute best as he rips into them repeatedly for their blatant toadying on behalf of the Soviet system. Rarely has the banality of evil been described with such zest.

But even this pales in comparison to the book's crown jewel, namely a short article entitled simply "Ferrari refutes the Decline of The West". It is, on one level, a great road trip story, in which he and his boss drive from New York to LA in a brand new Ferrari 308GTS at speeds as high as 140 mph. Anyone who's ever lusted after exotic sports cars, or fantasized about driving on public roads at double or even triple the speed limit will love it on a purely visceral level, but that's only part of the pleasure, since PJ uses this drive as a metaphor for what makes Western Civilization, and America specifically, great. PJ describes an encounter with a black salesman in a Cadillac on the top of Hoover Dam in which the latter, after hearing their account of blazing through Arizona and New Mexico, looks at the Ferrari and says, simply, "Goddam, that's BEAUTIFUL!" PJ states, after finally turning over the car to a Hollywood studio "It was a glow that wouldn't fade. And I still felt good when I flipped the keys to the receptionist ...... And in fact I still feel good today." So will you after reading it, it is, in fact, worth the price of the entire book.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading.
Review: This is not P.J.'s best work, but it's far from his worst. Better than, say, "Modern Manners" or "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, And A Bad Haircut", but not nearly as good as "Parliament Of Whores", "All The Trouble In The World", or "Give War A Chance"; about on a par with "Holidays In Hell".

For those of you unfamiliar with P.J. O'Rourke, be warned: P.J.'s humor is not for everybody. He is outspokenly politically incorrect, and can be downright insulting to those who disagree with him politically. What I find to be his saving grace on that score is that he doesn't seem to take himself or those who DO agree with him terribly seriously, either. So if you're politically to the left of Spiro Agnew, and easily offended, this book is not for you. But if you're thick-skinned enough to be able to recognize humor even when it's insensitive and coming from someone you disagree with, there truly is a great deal of very funny material here.

If you're only going to read one book by P.J. O'Rourke, this shouldn't be it. It should be "Parliament of Whores", unquestionably his best. But if you've tried that and liked it, you may enjoy this as well.

Rating:
Summary: Savage, hilarious collection of essays
Review: This was PJ's first anthology and it's a wicked delight. Two highlights: the immortal, "How To Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed Without Spilling Your Drink", the essential guide to irresponsible driving: "There's lots of argument about what kind of car drives best. Some say a front-wheel drive car. Some say a rear-wheel drive. I say it's a rental car. There are things you can do with a rental car that are just impossible with any other kind of vehicle." (I may be paraphrasing slightly here.) Equally dazzling is "Ship of Fools", a stunning and riotous account of PJ's trip down the Volga "as seen through the bottom of a vodka glass" in the company of some very dodgy "peace activists": "She thought the Soviet Union was heaven on earth, but she was bringing her own toilet paper."

I've howled over this collection (which also contains the first of PJ's brilliant travel pieces, which have come to dominate his writing for Rolling Stone) innumerable times. Pour some iced Stoli, kick back and enjoy.