Had an interesting disagreement with my wife earlier today....she watches Fox News and one show she never misses is The OReilly Factor, which many of you know is Bill OReillys platform to sell his books and call people he does not like pinheads. On some occasions I might agree with him and on some occasions my wife will disagree with him (his recent call for a mercenary army to take on ISIL she definitely did not like) but he recently appeared on the show MediaBuzz (also on Fox) to be interviewed about his latest book Killing Patton, in which he and co-author Martin Dugard posit the theory that General Patton was the victim of an assassination with Soviet connections and that there have been many unsolved questions about the generals death (I did not know that there were any questions, having read many books on WWII and Faragos bio of the man years ago and do not recall any of those authors positing a theory or feeling that he died of anything more than complications following a car accident). Since the books publication there have been a bunch of historians that have taken both the book and its authors to task about this theory (one of them being Rick Atkinson, who wrote a brilliant trilogy about WWII in Europe and won the Pulitzer for the first book in that series), pretty much saying that it is the bunk and not to buy into it. OReilly has taken fire before with his Lincoln book and it even caused the National Park Service to not carry the book in the gift shop at Fords Theater because of many inaccuracies leveled against it. I have loved reading history ever since I can remember and am proud to have done research work as a historian for over a quarter of a century for authors and some media outlets and I have always prided myself and the people I have worked for for being accurate and if I/they had theories or felt that there was something that had never been uncovered and I/they had something to back it up, we did with solid facts, primary source documents and either interviews or transcripts with statements which were always backed up before publishing. I have also had the opportunity to meet historians whose work I admire (Kevin Brownlow, Scott Eyman, Leonard Maltin, A. Scott Berg, Edmund Morris, Ken Burns, Kevin Starr, Vincent Bugliosi, etc.) and tell them so and feel that they provided me a bar that I have to leap over if I want to feel that I am doing the best job possible. Some I have only met through correspondence or contact through someone else (Robert Caro, David McCullough, William Manchester, Daniel Okrent, Richard Barrios, the aforementioned Mr. Atkinson, etc.) but again, I was able to express my admiration to them and got very nice thank yous for doing so. But getting back to Mr. OReilly, he made a statement about writing history books that people will buy and read and then he made a backhanded comment about Mr. Caro and his 4-volume biography of LBJ (fifth and final volume to come out in 1-2 years) and about how at least the books that he himself has written are ones that people will read and how history books are dry and no one is buying them. My initial reaction to this was so who has been buying all the books written by Caro and McCullough and Berg that have sold millions of copies, have gone into dozens of printings and have won critical acclaim and even awards-pinheads? Now I realize that Mr. OReilly is someone who wants to sell his books (his show is an endless plug for them and his merchandise in its last 15 minutes) and I cannot blame him for that, but having read his Lincoln book and only leafed through the Patton book I can honestly say that they are not bad books, just-meh. His book on JFKs assassination was basically just a rehash of previous books on the subject, with an emphasis on Bugliosis huge book and all the research he did over 30 years. His books remind me of the works of Simon Louvish and Donald Spoto, both of whom pretty much regurgitated previously published works with little or no use of primary sources but plenty of speculation and occasional bizarre theories (one of them posed the idea that Mack Sennett, one of early Hollywoods most notorious womanizers, was actually gay because he never married when he admitted that the great love of his life-Mabel Normand, whom he betrayed with another actress-he let get away-the theory is piffle). Their books and OReillys are pretty much just compilations with rewrites and not very interesting ones. Well, my wife got a bit upset with my feelings about both OReillys books and his remarks, and she called me an elitist. She then said that she has not read any of his books but when she took an ancient history course in college the book she read in that course made history come alive and make that period interesting to her and that perhaps if people read OReillys books many might look up other books on people like Patton or Kennedy and read those to find out more, and what did Caro spend his time writing about in his first book on LBJ-the time leading to his first BM? I told her that there are many best-selling historians out there and that for this guy to smack them down as a way of pushing his book was not a good thing (personally, I think that his attitude toward other writers smells of elitism itself and perhaps jealousy that no one is showering him with laurels), and that if feeling that deep and thorough research and good writing is elitist, than I am damn proud to be one. When you think about it, elitism is just a new word for choosy or picky, and arent we ALL elitists when it comes to certain things? Some people will only eat certain cuts of meat, or see certain movies, or watch certain channels on TV, or go to certain websites, or watch certain sports and/or teams, or listen to certain types of music and/or musicians, or buy certain makes/models of cars from certain countries, or take routes to certain places we like, or wear certain colors or types of clothes-so what? Since when did said things become such a bad thing? And if everyone has these kinds of things as part of their personality, what is the problem? My wife loves the Detroit Lions and not really any other NFL team-does that make her an elitist or a fan? My stepson prefers Hebrew National hot dogs to others-does that make him an elitist or just someone who prefers wieners that are at least more meat than others? My stepdaughter prefers to make her cakes from scratch rather than from a box mix-does this make her an elitist or just a baker who prefers to put a more personal spin on her cakes? And I love silent movies over many current ones-does that make me an elitist or just someone who loves a good visual presentation that tells the story through composed images and pantomime rather than getting assaulted with subwoofers that might be decalcifying my bones and editing that looks like it was done with a Cuisinart? I know there are times I come off as professorial and perhaps snobbish, but that is me-if I tried to be anything else, no one would believe me. If Bill OReilly wants to write history books that are nothing but chewing gum for the mind, let him, but dont denigrate those who may not write in a juicy way just to sell books. Many great authors of the past who also sold tons of books are rarely read today. A good example-Gene Fowler, who started off as a reporter in Denver before going to New York and making a name for himself there and then going to Hollywood to become one of the highest paid scriptwriters in the business, was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed biographers of his day, with books about Mack Sennett, John Barrymore, Jimmy Durante, Mayor Jimmy Walker of New York, a couple of autobiographical works and a few about more regional subjects. He was popular enough that no one who bought and read his books would be considered elitist, but since only his Barrymore book is the one you usually see these days (since it was printed during WWII and publishers were only allotted a certain amount of paper, his publisher had to buy another publishing house or two for their paper supplies in order to keep up with the demand), I guess anyone who reads him now would be considered an elitist, and perhaps anyone who reads OReilly some 40-50 years down the road might be considered the same. I wear my badge of elitism proudly, and when did it become a crime to like something better than average, anyway?
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:52:13 +0000
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