“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, by Peggy Noonan

 

255 pages, Random House, ISBN-13: 978-0679401605

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is Peggy Noonan’s (y’know, Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter?), memoirs of…well, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; as such, it is a hodge-podge collection of thoughts and essays covering a wide variety of topics, with the first part mainly on how a lack of vision by the Republican Party led to Clinton’s election in 1992, and the later essays being mainly about personal transition, including that of becoming a single parent and returning to spiritual values (oh, and it was published way back in 1994). It takes a while to adapt to Noonan’s New Yawker, post-modern, stream-of-consciousness style, but once you do adjust, it’s a rather fun read. Don’t worry, though; the whole book isn’t that way, just yuge swathes of it (evidently, that is the style designed to capture people brought up with short attention spans).

Noonan has lived the examined life, but in writing of one of her former employers (Ronald Reagan) she observed that the unexamined life actually IS worth living, contrary to the ancient philosopher’s assertion. In this book, Noonan asks herself, as her readers peer into her private thoughts: “What do I want my life to mean? What do I want the obit to say, what do I want for the lead?” A similar observation is found in her comparison between individual gifts: of a social acquaintance she writes, “He thinks intelligence is a virtue when of course, it’s not, virtue is a virtue, intelligence is a gift”. She reminds us of the reality that Christianity is really for rebels, for when society accepts it and tries to repackage it it loses its authenticity, as Christians historically have been falsely accused, forced underground and even murdered, but regardless of what pagans do to destroy their faith, it just grows stronger all the time, so she’s not overly concerned that the current social structure seems to reject it (who was it that said “Christianity is like a nail: the harder you strike it, the deeper it goes”?). She says it helps it maintain its authenticity; after all, Jesus predicted such treatment for His followers.

You’ll like this book if you’re interested in both personal reflection and glimpses of cultural change as Noonan combines Macro and Micro analyses in a colorful flow. Like a world class communicator should, she keeps the audience engaged and, all-in-all, I can say that I think she is my favorite Baby Boomer.