Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 2003)
Winter Reading 2003-2004 RED BARN N AT U R A L G R O C E RY E S T. 1 9 8 2 Whole foods, for whole people . . . Fresh from the farm to you! organically grown produce • organic beer & wine organic bulk foods • vitamins & supplements • organic herbs & spices special orders / case discounts • natural body care products LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED 4 TH & BLAIR • 342-7503 • M-Sa. 8 AM -10 PM • Su. 10 AM -9 PM education class, attends every morning of fourth grade, then tries home schooling until she runs out of money. Like Blaze, she defies categorization. Ginsberg says she wrote this memoir with Blaze’s blessing and felt compelled to write it. “I had never found a book like this, although I’d been searching for many years,” she writes. This story is a gift, then, even if you don’t have an unusual child. After you read it, you’ll wonder what happened and root for Blaze too. — Holly Knight BabyCakes Café A Unique Child Friendly Experience Come in for a 12oz Egg Nog Latte and a slice of Pumpkin Ginger Bread for $3.00 Hours - 8am - 5pm Mon. - Fri. • 8am - 2pm Sat. - Sun. 760 Blair Ave., Eugene, OR • 484-CAKE Too Careful Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Simon & Schuster, 2003. Hardcover, $28. I f you are conflicted about Hillary Clinton (and who isn’t?) don’t expect to slog through her 528 pages of text and find some resolution to your conflict. I laid down the book even more unsure about this woman who would/could be the first woman president of the United States. It is dizzying to imagine the first woman president. Hillary Rodham Clinton has the right resumé: Midwestern middle- class family, strong Protestant roots, evolving social conscience, degrees from Wellesley and Yale Law school, a success- ful career, marriage to a charismatic politi- cian, and the inexorable march with him to the top. Southern Willamette Valley’s Exclusive distributor for: Green Air Products P.L. Light Systems Hydrotek Growers & Associates potting mix with worm castings (the RED Bags are back!!) Kind Prices ! For serious hobbyist gardeners - specialty fertilizers, pesticides and other materials for organic gardeners, lights, atmospheric controls and expertise. This is all carefully chronicled in Living History. That’s the fundamental flaw of the book. It’s too careful a chroni- cle of the brilliant presidency of Bill Clinton and the nearly perfect preparation of Hillary Clinton to someday succeed him. The Monica Lewinsky episode, which certainly drew the eight-million-dollar advance, comes across as a painful blem- ish: “I never believed that I had the luxury of climbing into bed and pulling the cov- ers over my head,” Clinton writes. “As his wife, I wanted to wring Bill’s neck. But he was not only my husband, he was also my president.” She wondered several times whether they should stay together. As we all knew she would, she stayed by her man at this critical juncture just as she did in his first presidential campaign when the Gennifer Flowers story hit the national press. It’s impossible to imagine how Clinton could have incurred a greater polit- ical debt to his wife. Although the topic is never fronted in Living History, this book is partly about pay-back time, first a seat in the U.S. Senate and next, the presidency. This fall Bill Clinton told a gathering of contributors at their New York home that the two best presidential possibilities at this time are Wesley Clark and Hillary Clinton. She has disclaimed ambitions for 2004, but 2008 is the magic year. So it is entirely appropriate that she put her story out there now in the fashion that male candidates nearly always do. But if you want to know more about her, don’t bother with the book. Read the reviews. The best is Gary Wills’ apt conclusion in the New York Review of Books, (08/14/03), which reflects my own conflict: Much of the earthquake response to the career of Hillary Rodham Clinton is sim- ply one sign of a far wider seismic distur- bance rumbling through the whole of our society. That is why her book is a signifi- cant event — significant more for the polar responses to it than for any fresh thinking in it. Other sources include Maureen Dowd, The New York Times Book Review (06/29/03) and Joyce Purnick in “Metro Matters,” The New York Times (06/19/03). Better than either of these is Elizabeth Kolbert’s long New Yorker (11/13/93) piece. — Anita Johnson $1.75 ALL DAY EVERY DAY! Peabody's PUB 444 E. 3RD • 484-2927 • MON-SAT 11:30AM TO CLOSE South end of Ferry St. Bridge 18 DECEMBER 4, 2003
