McCain, Obama share their favorite books
By Marjorie Kehe | 10.29.08
It’s not the first question they generally toss out to presidential candidates, but Katie Couric finally got around to it and asked John McCain and Barack Obama to name their favorite books.
Their choices are illuminating – and yet at the same time completely unsurprising.
Both candidates stuck with American classics, although of different generations. McCain says his favorite book is Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 Spanish civil war novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Barack Obama’s favorite is Toni Morrison’s 1977 novel “Song of Solomon.”
The appeal of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” for McCain is easy to understand. Robert Jordan, the protagonist, is an American fighting on the side of the Republicans in Spain. The mission he is sent on, to blow up a bridge, is a doomed one, but Jordan’s greatest fear is being captured and tortured by the enemy. The horrors of war and the intense camaraderie of wartime are major themes throughout the book.
Interestingly, there are also occasional discussions of politics and even (at least once) taxes.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?” one of the Republican fighters asks Jordan. “There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes,” he replies.
Obama’s attraction to “Song of Solomon” is equally easy to understand. The book is the life story of an African-American man named Macon “Milkman” Dead III, set during the 1950s and ’60s.
The narrative weaves together the points of view of various members of Milkman’s family. It touches on themes of identity, family relationships, the rootlessness of African-Americans who live in northern cities, and the effects of slavery.
Part of Milkman’s quest is his search for connection to a community. “It was a good feeling to come into a strange town and find a stranger who knew your people,” he thinks at one point. “All his life he’d heard the tremor in the word: ‘I live here, but my people . . .’ or: ‘She acts like she ain’t got no people,’ or: ‘Do any of your people like there?’ But he hadn’t known what it meant: links.”
Two very different books – chosen by men with two very different world views.
Comments
2. Steve Rhodes | 10.30.08
The San Francisco Chronicle asked to local writers to respond
to their favorite books on Facebook.
McCain lists All Quiet on the Western Front & History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in addition to For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Obama lists Moby-Dick & Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance in addition to Song of Solomon (he also mentioned the Bible and Shakespeare particularly the tragedies (and mentions Hamlet and Lear in the Couric interview - it is good both of them actually told her what they read rather than getting annoyed by the question & refusing like Palin did).
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/30/DDL113NACJ.DTL
3. Rashid Mughal | 10.30.08
One can see clearly that McCain’s ideas are absolutely anachronistic, loaded as they are with the dead weight of a past that does not exist in our midst.
4. colette malik | 10.30.08
Are these the books they Really have enjoyed, or the books their spin doctors
suggested?
5. Bright Spencer | 10.30.08
Palin may not have given names of papers and magazines so as not to endorse anyone, giving the press even more
non-news to chew on.
6. Drs.Willem K. Gelok | 10.30.08
Just read the comments on San Fancisco Cronicle. And I have came to a astonishing conclusion that there are a quite a fewe writers and professors (of literature, sic!) that all chatter like if the read some obscure hotchpotch of Gibbons Decline and Fall, that seems to conclude, that the failure of the Roman Epire was due to unmanliness and to Christian pacifism……
This is sheer nonsence. Although Gibbon is not exactly delighted by some of the impact of Christanity, he in fact states that Christianity did for some time prolong the Roman Empire: his conclusion is that the (supposed ) Fall was due to the practical impossibility of reigning a vast territory and a to great an army (therefore filled with non-Roman mercenaries).Later under Diocletans reconstruction, capitals, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Lyon, etc. became dominant sees in their respective quarters of the Roman World. In fact William de Burgs Legacy of the Ancient World tends towards the conclusion that the Roman Empire never went completely away.
So Susan Griffin, Michael Krasny, Geoffry Nunberg, and others : start reading, and for your information: Gibbon: 7 Vols.!!!
7. gent258 | 10.30.08
I am glad that both men,unlike Palin, read. She couldn’t answer because she doesn’t read any news magazines. Obama is clearly the smartest of the three; Joe Biden is no dummy either. If you read Susan Jacoby’s The Age of Unreason in America you get a better understanding of our anti-intellectualism and it explains why a complete idiot such as George W. Bush would be popular with some Americans. It is time that we respect education and learning; we need to demand it from our leaders. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and other founders of America were no ordinary Joes. They were well-read, brilliant men and they created our republic. We need a bright person in the White House for the next four years.
8. Jim Hsia | 10.31.08
For whom the bell tolls?
McCain, listen to me.
According to recent polls
It tolls for thee.
9. Geraldine Hawkins | 10.31.08
Rashid Mughal’s comments are those of a typical Marxist. Contrast them with the worldview of Edmund Burke, who wrote of “the wisdom of our ancestors,” and that of Thomas Aquinas, who reminded us that “we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants.” It was Karl Marx who spoke of “the dead hand of the past.” It is amazing (and disgusting) the way many of Obama’s followers disparage older people. Since when have wisdom and experience been of no value?
10. John Martin | 11.03.08
If Obama had listed a story about an American who fights on the side of the communists against the capitalists, how do you think Sean Hannity would have spun it? Same with the fact that Mccain was born in Panama. If Obama had been born in another country (even a protectorate) there would have already been a legal challenge to his right to run for president. I’m an Obama supporter, but Mccain’s list seems more honest to me, with the exception of Song of Solomon, Obama’s list seems to be a blatant attempt to fit in with popular trends, Melville, Shakespear, and Emerson. Why didn’t he just say Stephen King and Dan Brown?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. kitty meredith | 10.30.08
Seems strange to me that Sen. McCain would identify with a hero who was associated with Communists—the Republicans in the Spanish Civil war were primarily communists. For many years after that war, the US maintained cordial a relationship with the Franco government.