The author of this book kicks off with the ostentatious claim that “I wrote it, to be honest, to save my own soul.” I merely read it, so I don’t know how this repetitious, over-explained, quotation-stuffed cri de coeur affected my soul, but I do know what plowing through it did to my corporeal self. According to my tombstone, “Now she belongs to the pages.”
David Brooks is a leading member of the punditry who writes a column for the New York Times, teaches at Yale, has published several successful books, and is a regular guest on public radio’s All Things Considered and TV’s Meet the Press. At first glance, his search for character would seem to qualify as the thinking man’s midlife crisis, but Brooks doesn’t see it this way, because he doesn’t see himself as an authentic thinking man. “I was born with a natural disposition toward shallowness,” he confesses. “I’m paid to be a narcissistic blowhard, to volley my opinions, to appear more confident about them than I really am. I have to work harder than most people to avoid a life of smug superficiality. . . . I have lived a life of vague moral aspiration — vaguely wanting to be good, vaguely wanting to serve some larger purpose, while lacking a concrete moral vocabulary, a clear understanding of how to live a rich inner life, or even a clear knowledge of how character is developed and depth is achieved.”
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