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Title: The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor ISBN: 0-316-62659-7 Publisher: Little Brown & Co (Pap) Pub. Date: July, 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: For those not politically inclined...Read it anyway
Comment: I didn't want to read this book. But sometimes, just sometimes, professors sneak a novel past you, one you're positive is just going to make for a horrendous reading experience, but then turns out to be quite a pleasant surprise. In all honesty, *The Last Hurrah* was one of the best books I was "forced" to read in college.
It would seem as though in order to read this novel you would have to have some kind of interest in the political world, that you would need a grand knowledge of it to even keep up. Not true. Edwin O'Connor portrays Boston politics in a very appealing and human way. You notice the characters first--and then you see what they do to maneuver the city to their liking.
Rich in atmosphere and driven by wonderful character interaction, *The Last Hurrah* is a novel to be appreciated and enjoyed.
Rating: 5
Summary: My new favorite book...
Comment: Edwin O'Connor's masterpiece on the demise of the complex and facinating world of old-school Boston politics is simply my favorite book. O'Connor painted a more vivid, compelling picture of this peculiar phenomenon through fiction than any political biography or history could ever hope to.
Skeffington is one of the most interesting, amicable characters I have ever encountered in any book of any genre. Quick-witted, funny, and heroic, he is the epitome of the old-fashioned politician. O'Connor's work truly makes me yearn for the past - when, although far from perfect, politicians had something they will NEVER have again: charisma.
O'Connor's foreshadowing of what local (as well as state and national) politics would become has proven amazingly correct - know-it-all, made-for-TV blank slates that are as charismatic as the processed, artificial backgrounds they are manufactured from.
A great work of fiction, biography, history, and the American experience. A masterpiece.
Rating: 5
Summary: American classic
Comment: I find it hard to be impartial about this book, which is one of my favorites, and is the basis for the great John Ford/Spencer Tracy film of the same name. The main criticism of the novel appears to be that O'Connor was too benevolent in his portrayal of a big city political boss and of machine politics generally. But I think that this complaint really misses the central insight of the story. Whatever Frank Skeffington's faults may be--and it is at least implied that he is financially corrupt and is readily apparent that he has become morally corrupt in the pursuit of power--he is also undeniably an interesting and compelling personality. As the Monsignor says at his funeral :
The bigger the man is in public life, the bigger the praise or the blame--and we have to remember that Frank Skeffington was quite a big man.
What Edwin O'Connor discerned was that the modern, clean-cut, college-educated, television-age, politicians would be equally corrupt, but would be little men. Like news anchormen, they would look well-polished and nicely groomed, but they would be empty suits. Marketed like household products, they would be chosen specifically because they were so colorless, so unlikely to put off the voter/consumer. And so we are left with the worst of both worlds : the politicians are still power hungry crooks, but now they have no entertainment value to redeem them.
Skeffington's ultimate legacy is bookended between two other sentiments expressed after his death. Nathaniel Gardiner, the old line WASP who sparred with but respected the Mayor, thinks to himself : "If only he had not been such a rogue..." but then realizes that had he been less a rogue, he would have been less of a figure. But perhaps the final assessment belongs to the Cardinal who had battled him for so long :
Whether you realize it or not now, you will later on. This man cheapened us forever at a time when we could have gained stature. I can never forgive him for that.
O'Connor, though he makes Skeffington an immensely entertaining and likable character, can hardly be accused of whitewashing the true nature of such men. To say that someone "cheapened us" is, or used to be, a pretty serious indictment.
GRADE : A
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Title: America in search of itself: The making of the President, 1956-1980 by Theodore Harold White ISBN: 0060390077 Publisher: Harper & Row Pub. Date: 1982 List Price(USD): $15.45 |
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Title: Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice: An Exploration of Local Governance by James C. Clingermayer, Richard C. Feiock ISBN: 0791449149 Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: All the King's Men (Harvest Book) by Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Blotner ISBN: 0156004801 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Documentary History of the United States by Richard D. Heffner ISBN: 0451207483 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: City Limits by Paul E. Peterson ISBN: 0226662934 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: November, 1981 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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