Review: Dutch
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | Beth Fischer |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200005500112 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
DUTCH
A
memoir
of
Ronald
Reagan
Edmund
Morris
New
York:
Random
House,
1999,
xx,
87
4
pp,
$49.95,
ISBN
0-394-
55508-2
Edmund
Morris
had
the
opportunity
that
every
presidential
scholar
longs
for:
for
approximately
four
years
he
was
granted
access
to
a
serv-
ing
president,
able to
sit
in
on
cabinet
deliberations,
summit
meetings,
state
dinners,
and
private
functions.
Morris
served
as
Reagan's
'autho-
rized
biographer,'
a
position
created after
the
author
proposed
'that
Reagan
appoint
to
his
staff
a
historian
trained
to
sense
the
long-term
significance
of
events'
(p
xvi).
Initially
reluctant
to
take
on
the
project, Morris
acknowledges
that
he
had
great
difficulty
completing the
work.
He
grew
increasingly
frustrat-
ed
over
his
inability
to
'connect'
with
his
subject.
Consequently,
he
relied
upon
an
unusual
literary
device:
creating
a
fictional
self
and
writ-
ing
himself
into
Reagan's
life
story.
The
book
that
resulted,
which
took
thirteen
years
to
write,
lies
somewhere
between
fiction
and non-fiction.
One's
assessment
of
this controversial
book
is
likely to
depend
upon
why
one
reads
it
in
the
first
place.
If
the
reader
approaches
the
book
as
simply
another
novel
-
a
work
bordering
on
fiction
-then
it
might
prove
engaging.
The
writing
is,
at
times,
mellifluous,
and the
descriptions
vivid.
From
this
perspective,
the
manner
in
which
the
narrator
slips
in
and
out
of
the
'reality'
he
is
trying
to
detail
might
be
intriguing,
as
might
those instances
in
which
he
relates
episodes
as
if they
were
movie
scenes.
If,
on
the
other
hand,
one
is
seeking
a
scholarly
biography
of
Ronald
Reagan,
the
reader
is
likely
to
be
frustrated.
For
one thing,
Morris's
deci-
sion
to
fabricate
characters,
events,
and
memories
undermines
any
scholarly
value
to
this work.
Because
he
liberally intersperses
fact
with
fiction,
it
is
difficult
to
ascertain
which
'facts'
might
be
true.
This
prob-
lem
is
exacerbated
by
fictional
footnotes.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1999-2000
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