Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life is a pretty hilarious reading experience. Essentially Chernow understands the Founder Biography genre all too well. The thesis of the book has to be that the subject was a unique genius for whose every sneeze we are indebted. At the same time Chernow gives every indication of in fact being a sophisticated and intelligent man. So time after time you’ll get a clear description of Washington being inept, or grouchy, followed by a sentence about how he was actually being brilliant. The fact that Washington was a giant hypocrite about slavery, who recognized its fundamental wrongness and kept telling French and/or Yankee acquaintances that we was against it but who never lifted a finger out of political opportunism and greed is laid bear, but then excused.
Yet as I say, it’s really all right there on the page. You could have kept 95% of the sentences the same, retitled the book Right Place At The Right Time: The George Washington Story and it’d be brilliant. As written, it’s slightly silly.
What’s more, for whatever reason Chernow has written a narrative that carries a strong subtext of a torrid affair between Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. I can’t do justice to this material, but I would have loved to see a review by Eve Sedgwick. At any rate, like Chernow and Daniel Walker Howe I’m a fan of the Whig and proto-Whig political traditions in America so I give a thumbs up to the idea of this book influencing popular consciousness. Chernow’s op-ed on the tea party is recommended. My own entry into the Founder Bio genre would be titled James Madison: History’s Greatest Monster but I doubt it would achieve bestseller status.
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