Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut [Paperback]

"Age and Guile" caught my fancy because I had heard it was a collection of his pieces from over the years, and I tried to find it at the local library and various bookstores, but was unlucky in my pursuit. I ended up checking out a Books-on-Tape version of the book, read by Norman Deitz, and I was quite pleased.

The early material is amatuerish, to be fair, but there are nuggets of wit to be found amongst the "juvinelia". The Truth About The Sixties was actually one of my favorite parts of the book, I found it very involving and fascinating to hear. The rest of the book tickled my funny bone. I just don't have enough good things to say about this book.

So, I ordered it on Amazon, and I've recieved it, and it's joined my collection of P.J. O'Rourke books. A liberal at heart myself, I agree with a previous reviewer that O'Rourke celebrates individual freedom and doesn't care for those who try and take it away. I only hope I can be as good at conveying that in my own writing, he's certainly one hell of a teacher.

Second, and not quite so foremost: P. J. O'Rourke is a very, very funny guy. He is completely politically incorrect, in most cases, and is therefore more than happy to pull out the jokes, puns, and other humorous concepts his more liberal colleagues have left to the dust.

Third, and not really far up there on the scale, but still worth mentioning: in most ways, P. J. O'Rourke is a tremendous boon to the right-wing American. He's not afraid to take pot-shots at just about anything, including fellow members of the right (Pat Buchanan is roasted almost as often as Bill Clinton), and he's not afraid to admit his mistakes, such as endorsing Clinton in 1992.

Combine those, and for most of this book you have a tremendously funny read, an almost literary roasting of such things as book tours, drinking, stupid sports, Whitewater, various makes and models of automobile, and the like. Unfortunately, it's the part that falls outside the realm of "most" that keeps this from being one of the finest political collections of the past decade. There are times when O'Rourke, who seems to be sitting right on the Libertarian partyline, veers far off to the left, and if he is to be trusted he was stuck out there in at least one case by the head of the Cato Institute (making me wonder how Libertarian they truly are), and he also has many of the strange and illogical hang-ups that keep me from ever wanting to vote Republican. He also, and he is well aware of it, asks a lot of our indulgence in the book's second section, a collection of short stories published (well, most of them) in the National Lampoon during his tenure as editor in chief there. Anyone who still wonders why I abhor the very idea of self-publishing need only read the section "The Truth About the Sixties and Other Fictions" in this book. It's shameless, awful, contorted, constipated prose, and O'Rourke is fully aware of this, and even says so in a few places.

But if you skip that section, and immediately stop reading any time you find one of those places where conservatives suddenly dismiss anything relating to logic (I have often theorized it's remnants of too many drugs during the sixties), this is most definitely a worthwhile book. Both the automobile and sports sections brought forth guffaws. And if you've ever heard me guffaw, you'll know that's soemthing to stay away from.