Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Book Review: A genius hope-up
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is written about:
the ability to recognize,
the butterfly at a caterpillar,
the bald eagle at an egg,
the Saint in a selfish person.
It's seldom longbreathed.
It's love, hope-up and trust in one.
It's the american dream for down-to-earth people.
Book Review: The authorship of Obama
Summary: 5 Stars
I have followed Obama's career since the keynote speech in 2004 when my mother and I spoke, almost in unison, saying that 'this wonderful man will be our first African American president'. Soon after followed the purchase and reading of all his books. Dreams From My Father, I re-read rather often. If Obama doesn't make it to the White House (And I pray he will) he has an easy option for an alternative career as an author. "Dreams From My Father is a masterful book, poetic in nature and detailing an incredible array of gifted and very special relatives that figured into Barack's life and DNA. Even if you aren't an Obama zealot as I am, you will love the rich detail of an extraordinary life beautifully written and well crafted. This book is worth several reads. Book Review: An autobiographical novel, of course....
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a novel based on the author himself. Interesting, but deceptive, of course..Not a pure auto-biography. A display of conceit..Book Review: I hope Mr. Obama gets the help he needs.
Summary: 3 Stars
"Dreams from my Father" is a well-written and interesting memoir by the emotionally disturbed neurotic who just captured the Democratic nomination for president. Mr. Obama- whose therapeutic efforts at dealing with abandonment, self-esteem and identity issues involve writing books, running for public office and generally sticking it to Whitey- here reveals the detailed roots of his very obvious mental problems. Despite being debunked as self-serving fiction by the very people populating this narrative, this book nevertheless serves a valuable function as insight into Obama's imaginary personal mythology. What's important here isn't the literal truth of the events described but what this inventive tale that Obama has woven about himself actually tells us about the man. And what that story tells us about the Man Who Would Be King is that this country is on the verge of enthroning a delusional Black nationalist fanatic with a Messiah complex and daddy issues. Just as the world had no excuse for being unaware of Hitler's ambitions, since he had detailed them quite openly in "Mein Kampf", we are unable to plead ignorance of the fact that Obama should be in a psychiatrist's office, not the Oval Office. Don't say you haven't been warned, America.
As I mentioned, this is a well-written book with an engaging story. I find it hard to believe that it wasn't written without the help of a ghost-writer, since it seems to employ way too many slick novelistic tricks for a young, first-time author to have mastered, but since no attribution is given we'll have to give the devil his due. Obama is a sympathetic protagonist; one can well understand his anger and obsession with a horndog father who abandoned him. We feel his confusion and pain growing up without a clear racial identity. And we can see his frustration with a irresponsible mother whose sole purpose in life seems to have been to chase after dark-skinned men, whatever the consequences for her children. I think we can understand why Obama was driven to become a drug-abusing, emotionally fragile, half-crazed, Black nationalist SOB. The only problem is that he doesn't seem to have gotten over his problems at the time of this book's writing, and I am unaware that he has overcome them now that he's running for president.
Despite the fact that it was his mother and grandparents who raised him, Obama displays little love or sympathy towards them. Instead, throughout the book, Obama's attitude towards his White family (the only one he knew) seems to be one of dismissive scorn. He constantly cuts down his grandparents and derides them as clueless buffoons, i.e. the "typical White" people of recent political controversy. His mother he reduces to nothing more than a silly liberal girl with a bad case of jungle fever, which was probably true, but it's still a good example of the man's egotistical callousness that he could trash his own mother like that, especially when she did a darn sight more for him than the rutting dog who sired him. What's funny is that other accounts describe his relationship with his mother and grandparents as warm and close. Perhaps he threw them under the bus here to gain a little "street cred" in the Black community. Towards White people in general he has nothing but contempt. From around the age of 12 he began to identify himself as Black and see the world through a Black nationalist lens. One example of his madness is his admission that the presence of a White Santa Claus in a Sears catalogue drove him to rage. We are given no indication that his views have ever changed, especially since he attended a racist Black church up until a few weeks ago and only disavowed its pastor under political pressure. Far from being the post-racial candidate that idiotic college students see him as, Obama is utterly obsessed with the issue of race and the advancement of the people he sees as his own. However, Black people should take cold comfort in his racial and political loyalty; in an unending series of internal monologues redolent of JD from "Scrubs", Obama critically analyzes the character and motivation of everyone he comes across and almost invariably finds them- Black and White- pitiable in comparison to his Royal Superciliousness. Barack Obama is the Black Holden Caulfield- he's the only pure and righteous teenager in a world full of phonies.
Obama's famous trip to Kenya may have given him the satisfaction of knowing (half) his roots, but we have no evidence that it quieted the demons that disturb him. Even at the end of the book, Obama admits that he longs for "a time before Babel" when, presumably, there are no races, nations, or bad people, where cupcakes are plentiful and he can have his daddy back. Such sentiments are fine for poets and small children, but the man with his finger on the button needs to have his feet on the ground. Get over it already! Barack Obama reveals himself here to be an angry and arrogant 34 year old man who sees White people as the enemy, who is still pining over an absent daddy, and whose childhood scars seem to have left him with a juvenile desire to live in a fantasy world unrelated to realistic possibilities. Has he really changed that much in the intervening years? I'm not carrying water for McCain- I think they're both certifiable. As a wise man once said- "If Obama and McCain are the answer, then it must have been a pretty stupid question."
Book Review: Obama's quest of self-discovery
Summary: 5 Stars
Although the title says the book is about race, after reading it, I don't agree. The issues of race are there, because after all, he is bi-racial, but that is not what the book is about.
Any young man who never really got to know his father starts out with a disadvantage in the "search for who I am" department. His search was complicated by distance, culture, racism, family dynamics on an island, two continents and an archipelago, polygamy and more. It's no wonder that he came to a place where he just had to figure it out.
The book is divided into roughly three parts. The first covers his childhood growing up in Hawaii, Indonesia, back to Hawaii and school, the second encompasses his time as a organizer in Chicago, and the third is his first trip to Kenya where he met his father's family and learned his father's story from them.
This man may very well be our next president. It is not only a good read, but it will let you know just who he is. For that reason, I encourage everyone to buy it.