Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Audio CD) by Barack Obama

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01/19/08

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Sarah by: Liz
recommends it for: the undecided

As Super Tuesday approaches and we try to separate empty promises and strategic moves from real, actual thoughts and goals, I couldn’t have read a better book than Dreams From My Father.

Here’s why: even though I didn’t realize it when I picked it up, Obama wrote this book over ten years ago, when he was fresh out of law school and long before he was worrying about what people wanted to hear. It is, I think, a great way to “get to know” the candidate outside of the media, th...more As Super Tuesday approaches and we try to separate empty promises and strategic moves from real, actual thoughts and goals, I couldn’t have read a better book than Dreams From My Father.

Here’s why: even though I didn’t realize it when I picked it up, Obama wrote this book over ten years ago, when he was fresh out of law school and long before he was worrying about what people wanted to hear. It is, I think, a great way to “get to know” the candidate outside of the media, the hype, and the confusion that comes along with a presidential bid.

The book follows Barack through his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his community work in Chicago, and his journey to meet his father’s family in Kenya. Along the way, he has to come to terms with the death of his absent father, being raised primarily by his white grandparents (you don’t hear about this much), and learning the ropes of being a community organizer in inner city Chicago.

The thing that amazed me most about the book was watching Obama 1) work through problems and 2) analyze both sides on an issue. These two traits came through in two different ways in the book: in personal situations (how he comes to understand and accept his troubled father and his Kenyan ancestry) and in political situations (how he comes to understand the long-standing and deep problems facing the urban poor).

It would have been very, very easy to have bad guys in this book. Evil high-up government officials who prevent community centers and jobs from reaching the impoverished in Chicago. His adulterous and alcoholic father who seemed to abandon his loved ones at every turn. But Barack thinks his way through these simple binary good/bad categories and goes far beyond them. He is constantly striving to 1) understand situations from all points of view and 2) think his way through to a solution. He has an uncanny ability to step away from the emotions of a problem and then systematically chip away at it. He understands very well that you have to know why things are as they are before you develop a plan about how to fix it.

The best example of this might be his work in Chicago. Although it’s unheard of for anyone to criticize the black ministers who organize the urban black communities in Chicago, Obama quickly began to understand the huge problems that come with church-based activism in black communities. Churches would rarely work together to solve larger problems and ministers would rarely do more than preach (which, to be fair, is their job). The action that should have followed a sermon simply wasn’t organized. Because many black leaders were ministers, many black leaders were also, essentially, just talk. What followed was three years of work in which Obama not only made major, innovative steps in Chicago but in which he also learned how to inspire both individuals and small groups into action.

I was also impressed by what Barack Obama didn’t leave out of the book. He made a lot of mistakes, he deals with a lot of anger, and he doesn’t succeed at everything. Still, you can not only see him learning from his mistakes, but immediately applying those lessons to his next challenge.

The book, as a more general read, was good as well. The writing wasn’t stellar (something Obama is quick to point out in the forward to the reprint) but it was still much better than one might expect from someone who isn’t primarily a writer. Getting to see the inner struggle of a biracial person growing up in 60s and 70s America was also really fascinating.

There are a lot of great candidates in the upcoming election, and I feel positive about more than two of them. But especially after reading this book, my doubts about Obama’s lack of experience are gone. He has something that trumps years in Washington: a stellar judgment and an almost eerie ability to put himself in someone else’s shoes and understand both sides of an issue. More than that, his ability to inspire individuals to action is something that America could truly benefit from. You can even see it in his campaign: ordinary people stepping up and acting, even if they’ve never been involved in politics before.

I know that after reading his book, I donated to a political campaign for the first time in my life. He’s nothing less than inspiring.
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08/04/08

Michelle rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

With Barack Obama running for president, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at who this candidate was. I had been warned by another friend (not a Obama supporter, I should note) that it was poorly written and its message unclear. This perplexed me a bit since that had been contrary to what it seemed like everyone had been saying.

Well, I, on the other hand, found it a completely absorbing read. It's well-written and an interesting story. I wish everyone could read it; th...more

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06/15/08

Siria rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: autobiography, by-poc, current-affairs, nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

In the introduction, Obama writes that looking back on this book after the passage of over a decade, he winces at inelegant phrasing, and wishes that he could excise perhaps fifty of its four hundred and fifty pages. That's the kind of self-critique with which this book abounds—honest and very deliberately even-handed. It's a critique I agree with, by the way—Obama has a tendency to go off on slight rhetorical flights which may sound good when delivered in a speech, but which need to be temp...more In the introduction, Obama writes that looking back on this book after the passage of over a decade, he winces at inelegant phrasing, and wishes that he could excise perhaps fifty of its four hundred and fifty pages. That's the kind of self-critique with which this book abounds—honest and very deliberately even-handed. It's a critique I agree with, by the way—Obama has a tendency to go off on slight rhetorical flights which may sound good when delivered in a speech, but which need to be tempered somewhat when confined to the page—but those quibbles aside, I thought this was an astoundingly well-written memoir, especially given the fact that it was written by someone then only in his thirties. So few politicians have the ability to write with such vivid clarity and such honesty.

I found his discussion of the intersections of race, politics, and culture in modern America to be very interesting, particularly since I am from a country which doesn't have a history of absorbing many people of other racial backgrounds, but which is beginning to be forced to face its own latent racism thanks to a growing tide of modern immigration. It was compelling and thought-provoking; many times I caught myself thinking "But..." and then wondering why I had that reaction, why my own defensiveness, and unpacking some of that while I read took time.

The opening half of the book, in which Obama describes his childhood and his experiences in college and working in Chicago, interested me the most; perhaps, I think, because he was very good at showing the ways in which he was situated within wider (white) American culture, and the difficulties and the confusions and the hurts that this had caused him and the black community. I thought the latter half, set in Africa, wobbled a little because it displayed a self-indulgence that Obama had not previously been prone to, and because for all that Obama examined his relationship to Africa in terms of his own blackness, he seemed curiously unwilling to do so in terms of his own Americanness.

There's one strange thing I noticed: Obama, in what I've seen of him in interviews and on television, has always seemed to be very charming and very personable, with a ready wit. Very little of that came across in this book; he didn't seem to laugh at himself very much—intelligent and personable, yes, but some of the spark of charisma was missing. I wonder how much of that is selective editing, how much the influence of the topic of his memoir, and how much because he would slowly grow into the person we see now over the course of the last decade.(less)

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04/11/07

Janine rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: ppl interested in memoirs. specifically about African Diaspora

Reading Senator Obama's book reminded me of Umberto Eco's seminal work, Role of the Reader. (Hazily reminded me, as I read it over 10 years ago.) In the first part of that book, Eco conjures the idea of archetypical readers and discusses the different ways that each reader approaches a text. As I read Dreams from My Father I read it as two different readers. First, I read it as a book lover and critic; second, as a voter. (Listed in order of priority, I must confess.)
As a memoir, I thought...more Reading Senator Obama's book reminded me of Umberto Eco's seminal work, Role of the Reader. (Hazily reminded me, as I read it over 10 years ago.) In the first part of that book, Eco conjures the idea of archetypical readers and discusses the different ways that each reader approaches a text. As I read Dreams from My Father I read it as two different readers. First, I read it as a book lover and critic; second, as a voter. (Listed in order of priority, I must confess.)
As a memoir, I thought this book was well written. It follows a coherent temporal narrative that is basically linear. But it isn't bound by chronologic time. Obama is more sophisticated than that. I felt that the beginning of the book was particularly strong because Obama doesn't try to sentimentalize his childhood memories. By treating them very matter-of-factly, he allows us much better insight into his development. We are allowed to see his ruminations about that childhood later in the narrative, in his own adulthood, when he begins to contextualize and reflect on them more deeply. He describes his years in Chicago (before Harvard Law) with an honesty that reflects his doubts, guilt and uncertainty about himself and his future.
The aspect of this book that brought it down to just a "liked it" rather than a "loved it" was Obama's description of his trip to visit his family in Kenya. I felt that much of it was precious, stereotypical and not nearly as nuanced as the rest of his story. I attribute that principally to the fact that he spent so little time there and that his view of Kenya is colored by western values and American ignorance of the nations of Africa and the people who inhabit them. He did manage to avoid the typical conceit of letting one experience in one country act as a representative for understanding the whole of the continent, but not by much. It was particularly interesting because he spends a good deal of time discussing and wondering how colonialism has influenced the self-image of those who have lived with it and through it and after it but he remains interestingly ignorant of how growing up in (what I would call) an "imperial" culture has influenced his own interpretation of his family and Kenyans. He never really questions what his Americanness brings to his understanding, only his blackness.
Which brings me to my role as a voter. I had hoped to get some idea about Obama's political and organizing experience from this book. I had also hoped it would help me identify the priciples that guide his political position so I could get an idea of what his priorities are or will be for the country. The book doesn't really address either of those things. Of course, it's not meant to. This is a "memoir" of a man who is barely middle-aged. This is just volume one of "the Obama story". As a voter, I felt that it helped me to get to know the man as a person. And as a voter, I couldn't give a rat's ass about the man as a person. For example: I was shocked that he admitted to using cocaine as a young man in such a cavalier way but I cannot honestly say it will effect my vote or my opinion of him as public servant. All in all, I would say this was a good read but ultimately, it was just another memoir and Geishas are prettier.(less)

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03/26/07

Khrys rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: poliphiltheohistory

Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: Americans.

Barack Obama's life not only makes for a great story, it shows a lot about the character of the man telling it--both in the way he tells it, but also in the events that happened and the way he handled them. I am impressed by his level of honesty about himself--he does not paint himself to be pristine, but makes himself very human. It is in this exposure of his vulnerabilities, his fears, his insecurities that he becomes like us--simply human. On that level, we can connect to the story of his lif...more Barack Obama's life not only makes for a great story, it shows a lot about the character of the man telling it--both in the way he tells it, but also in the events that happened and the way he handled them. I am impressed by his level of honesty about himself--he does not paint himself to be pristine, but makes himself very human. It is in this exposure of his vulnerabilities, his fears, his insecurities that he becomes like us--simply human. On that level, we can connect to the story of his life and let it enrich our own experience.

On a personal note, one of the interesting bits for me was the chapter about his community organizing efforts in Chicago because he was working with an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation which ran the leadership program I went to last summer, so the language and methods he was using was all very familiar to me.

I said months ago that if Barack Obama tossed his hat in the ring for the 2008 Presidential race that I would change my registration to Democrat for the first time in my voting life so that I could vote for him in the primary. After reading this book, I am only more convicted in that decision. Senator Obama is the kind of man I want running my country. He is a man of integrity, who cares about the working poor of our nation. He has a global vision--he inherited that in part by the simple accident of his life, but he could have turned his back on the complicated messiness of his existence and tried to erase it all. He is a very smart man, and he could have just taken advantage of his Punahou education to go off to college and head into the corporate world forever. He could have made a good living, taken care of his own. Instead, he chose to explore and find a place in which he could call his soul his own, in which he could be authentically himself.

Obama does not have all the answers to the world's ills, but I am confident that he will look at the hard questions facing this nation and our global community with compassion, intelligence, and ethical values. I don't want a "Decider"--at least not at the cost of careful deliberation that keeps peace, liberty, and justice for all as the marks of success.

It is time for this nation to again be called to return to itself. To seek the beloved community, to become a beacon on the hill--calling the world to hear the call of our founding fathers for democracy, justice, and equality. It is time again for us to suffer the audacity of hope. It is time again for us to dream...(less)

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01/23/09

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: political

This is one of those books that I want to buy for everyone I know. Apart from any of the political ideas in the book or whether or not one is excited by his presidency, Obama is a fantastic writer -- this is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. Apart from an occasional slip into melodramatic prose (very occasional, and certainly less than the average memoir), the prose balanced clarity and description, and Obama very consciously keeps from slipping into nostalgia or over-idealizing any ti...more This is one of those books that I want to buy for everyone I know. Apart from any of the political ideas in the book or whether or not one is excited by his presidency, Obama is a fantastic writer -- this is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. Apart from an occasional slip into melodramatic prose (very occasional, and certainly less than the average memoir), the prose balanced clarity and description, and Obama very consciously keeps from slipping into nostalgia or over-idealizing any time in his life or place he visits. After his terms in office (note the optimistic plural!), he could easily have a career as an author. Had he never become president, or even entered politics, this would be a book worth reading, and one of the best modern coming-of-age stories out there.

Slipping from review into personal politics, reading this book was exhilarating. Like much of his base, I've been a fan of Obama's ever since the '04 Convention. I was actually voting for Richardson (yes, I was part of that 2% of the electorate) up until Obama gave his speech on race last March, when I decided not only would he make a good president, but that America NEEDED Obama. Still, I never read any of his writing -- didn't want to be too rabid, and even know I know that, over the next eight years he will disappoint me, make compromises, and have to be part of the political machine.

I was excited enough to travel do get out the vote on election day and to brave D.C. for the inauguration, and yet reading this book made me even MORE excited that this man is our president. Because he gets it: us, America, blacks, whites, working-class people, intellectuals, immigrants. The fact that a man who has had the thoughts he puts in this book, who has struggled with coming of age as a young black man, who has loved his white mother, organized in the projects of Chicago, struggled in school, and travelled to Africa is running our country is amazing. His insights on race, history, identity, and class are some of the most nuanced and astute I've read -- he understands how his white grandfather could be both a well-intentioned progressive and yet involuntarily racist at the same time; how young black men can be both victims of and perpetuators of the myths of masculinity and race that ensnare them; how most people are actually good but that being good isn't necessarily enough to escape the weight of history and mutual misunderstanding.

Whether you have a huge crush on Obama (like myself!), are more restrained, or even didn't vote for him, you owe it to yourself to read this book, to better understand where the man who is now our President is coming from.(less)

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01/21/09

Trena rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in January, 2009

I resisted reading this book for a long time based solely on the title. I hated to think that our President(!!!!-happy day today) would have fantasies about his absent father and imagine him to be all that is good and just in the world while ignoring or perhaps even resenting his mother, the one who actually raised him and was there through all the dirty diapers, report cards, and snotty noses. However, I did intend to read it eventually so when one of my book clubs chose it I checked it out. ...more I resisted reading this book for a long time based solely on the title. I hated to think that our President(!!!!-happy day today) would have fantasies about his absent father and imagine him to be all that is good and just in the world while ignoring or perhaps even resenting his mother, the one who actually raised him and was there through all the dirty diapers, report cards, and snotty noses. However, I did intend to read it eventually so when one of my book clubs chose it I checked it out.

In the preface, Obama says that his mother died a few months before the book was published, and had she been gone while he was writing the book would have been very different. Unfortunately for the literary world, he won't have time to write about his mother anytime soon; I would really like to read that book someday. But this statement helped explain the title and softened me a bit.

When I finally got into the book I totally got into it. It's incredibly well-written, readable, and interesting. It gives a window into the state of American race relations from the perspective of someone who both belongs and doesn't belong to several different worlds. The journey of self-discovery is poignant but not self-indulgent. I would have enjoyed the book as much (though probably not felt as emotional about it) had he just been a random writer, and not the President-Elect.

I was so happy while reading the book that we are getting a President who *understands* sh!t. He lived in an Islamic 3rd world country as a boy; we have NEVER had a President who has that real-life experience, and plus the intelligence and insight to integrate that experience into his policy views.

I was eating this book up while reading but too embarrassed to be seen reading it in public because I felt like I was late to the party, LOL. I'm so glad I finally did. I pushed through to finish it before the Inauguration and it made the moment that much more special to feel like I "knew" the man standing up there being sworn in by word-fumbling John Roberts. If you haven't read it, read it. In addition to just being a good book, it's a really unique opportunity to get a view of the real person behind the Presidential image.(less)

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07/26/08

Shannon rated it:

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Read in August, 2008

What a thought-provoking book! The book is split into three sections (Origins, Chicago and Kenya). I tried splitting up my reading of it in roughly the same manner since it's easier for me to get through a non-fiction book if I intersperse it with fiction.

I think each section left me with a different series of questions. Origins left me thinking about community: its value, how we choose it, are chosen by it, and what it means to be within and without community. Origins also made...more

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05/15/08

fbuser583053683 rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in May, 2008

At first I had trouble believing this book was written by a politician--reading it felt like being Alice walking around in Wonderland seeing things through a funhouse mirror. Politicians are supposed to write safe, sanitized books with boring but reassuring cadences. Maybe we expect them to be like airplane pilots--it only feels right when they stay within the lines and pretend like they're completely in charge of themselves and everything else. But this one veered off into directions only a tru...more

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04/17/08

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in May, 2008

Barack Obama
Dreams From My Father
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004
453 pp. $13.95
1-4000-8277-3

The United States is recognized as a nation of immigrants with the ability to re-invent themselves and adapt to the culture of their adopted home. However, it is the children of these immigrants who seek authenticity in forgotten and disregarded ethnic traditions, in search of their roots, of an identity. “Dreams From My Father,” Barack Obama’s autob...more Barack Obama
Dreams From My Father
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004
453 pp. $13.95
1-4000-8277-3

The United States is recognized as a nation of immigrants with the ability to re-invent themselves and adapt to the culture of their adopted home. However, it is the children of these immigrants who seek authenticity in forgotten and disregarded ethnic traditions, in search of their roots, of an identity. “Dreams From My Father,” Barack Obama’s autobiography recounts the odyssey Obama embarks upon, in hopes of discovering community and family, and ultimately himself.
Obama immediately whisks the reader into his atypical childhood, allowing one to experience firsthand, the trials and tribulations facing a cultural outsider, the offspring of a white mother and an African father, trapped between two dissimilar cultures. The readers travels alongside Obama and his peripatetic family, from the grasslands of Kansas to the white beaches of Hawaii, from Indonesia to Obama’s days as a campus activist in Los Angles, to his years serving as a community organizer in Chicago, and on to his arrival in his father’s birthplace of Kenya. Through his travels, Barack critically evaluates the battles confronting black Americans and intimately articulates his personal struggles to find his place in a world of black and white. He eloquently channels his anger and alienation into a fierce determination that later changed neighborhoods, and may well change the nation.
Feeling out of place in high school, Obama gravitates toward the black kids and works to embrace an African-American culture that matches others' expectations of his appearance, but is different from his upbringing and background. After graduating college, Obama sets off in search of community and purpose, with the great role models of the civil rights movement. However, the glory days of the civil rights movement were long gone when Obama gets an organizing job in a poor neighborhood on Chicago's South Side plagued by crumbling public housing, disappearing manufacturing jobs, and rising crime. During this time spent in Chicago, Obama develops a mix of idealism, political perceptiveness, and personal connection, later serving as the origins of his political career. Obama catalogs the ambiguities and subtleties of African-American identity, while relentlessly searching for his own. He constantly ponders his origin, “I was hoping you could tell. The name's Obama. Where do I belong?” (115). Barack insightfully illustrates the dilemmas challenging the livelihoods of African Americans.
This memoir follows Barack as he defines himself and his perspective on the world and finally finds himself welcomed into the community of humanity. One remains fully engaged as he/she embarks on Baracks’s journey into adulthood, addressing the concerns surrounding increasingly multicultural societies and individual attempts to navigate a constantly changing world. Obama struggles to be true to himself, but in order to do so, he must first figure out what that truly means.
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03/31/08

Lula rated it:

(review of isbn 081292343X)

bookshelves: autobiography, memoir, oxy

Read in January, 1995

The reviews I have perused are about people's feelings about their projections of what Obama means to them. Reviewers are sharing their feelings about the symbolism of Obama, and not reviewing the book. And as a symbol - wow - what a wide variety of feelings from far extremes he represents.

Thirteen years ago I read this out of curiosity. We just weren't sure what he would have to say. At the time it wasn't exactly a bestseller. But it was worth checking out to see if I recognize...more

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12/20/07

Tien rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

bookshelves: activism, memoir, politics, race-ethnicity

Read in December, 2008

When Barack Obama’s father was a young man, he went with his father-in-law and friends to a bar in Hawaii where a man loudly complained about having to sit “next to a nigger.”

“The room fell quiet and people turned to my father, expecting a fight. Instead, my father stood up, walked over to the man, smiled, and proceeded to lecture him about the folly of bigotry, the promise of the American dream, and the universal rights of man.”

The man apologized, and he tried...more When Barack Obama’s father was a young man, he went with his father-in-law and friends to a bar in Hawaii where a man loudly complained about having to sit “next to a nigger.”

“The room fell quiet and people turned to my father, expecting a fight. Instead, my father stood up, walked over to the man, smiled, and proceeded to lecture him about the folly of bigotry, the promise of the American dream, and the universal rights of man.”

The man apologized, and he tried to show how sorry he was by giving Obama’s father a hundred dollars.

This story expanded my idea of what is possible. I was inspired by Obama's father strength of spirit and by the bar patron who listened to him, let go of his prejudices, and was able to see their common humanity. The story healed a part of me that was broken, a part of me that had grown afraid over the last seven years to hope that people could change.

Obama's campaign fills me with such hope for the future -- hope that the federal government will establish universal health care, repair our relations with other countries, and finally begin to seriously address climate change. It has given me hope that we could have a president who listens to us.

These challenges we face are great, and we need everyone to get involved to create stronger, greener, healthier communities.

What impresses me the most about Obama is his ability to empower others with the belief that their actions do make a difference. The record turnouts at primaries is a testament to his power to inspire action. His message has motivated one of my friends in Massachusetts to organize her college campus and another friend in California to serve as precinct captain. When I read Obama's Myspace page, I am moved by the young people of color who write that he has inspired them to pursue careers in public service.

Obama and his millions of enthusiastic supporters have inspired me to make a donation, phone bank, and, on Tuesday, I will vote in my first primary. Like Obama's story of his father, they have inspired me to re-envision what I think is possible.

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12/28/08

Rose rated it:

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Wow. The man can write. This was an excellent book about figuring out who you are and what your place in the universe might be. On the surface it was about how to be a black (or biracial) American, but it was also about being a third-culture kid, and deeper still, it addressed the question we all have to face sometime, even if we're tenth-generation New Englanders: who are you? how do you fit in with what has gone before? what will you preserve and pass down? and what will you change?

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01/22/09

Dollie rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in April, 2009

This was our book club book and, as luck would have it, one my friend Paul had lent me. Timing? Destiny? I don't know but I did enjoy the book very much. Our president may count writing as one of his many talents for this book stands on it's own no matter what else the author may have achieved. Our book club discussion (that have a way of touching so little on the book and more on our children and ourselves) took what I thought was a strange turn focusing more on race, entitlement. I figur...more

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09/18/08

Bettynz rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in September, 2008

Goodness! Well, having never previously read the autobiography of a politician, this book was a pleasant surprise in lots of ways. Who'd have thought his family was more complicated than mine (as one of my friends commented last night!). I was seriously losing track of brothers, (sisters were easy - just the 2) and to still be meeting new ones right up till the end was amazing. Let alone uncles, step-uncles and aunts, grandmothers and step-grandmothers and so on and on!

There were so...more Goodness! Well, having never previously read the autobiography of a politician, this book was a pleasant surprise in lots of ways. Who'd have thought his family was more complicated than mine (as one of my friends commented last night!). I was seriously losing track of brothers, (sisters were easy - just the 2) and to still be meeting new ones right up till the end was amazing. Let alone uncles, step-uncles and aunts, grandmothers and step-grandmothers and so on and on!

There were so many poignant bits - like, having been abandoned by his father, his mother remarrying and then moving to Indonesia for several years. It wasn't till he came back to Hawaii to go to school that he noticed that people minded what colour his skin was. And sometimes even his own grandparents. The return of his father when he was about 10, briefly, and that that was the last time he ever saw him. There's a great photo of that here.

The subsequent striving to meet expectations - those he'd imposed on himself, and those he took on board from his father. And all the time to not know/understand what a disaster his father had made of his own life. He may have had an "easy charm with the women", and certainly managed to procreate abundantly hither and yon, but in spite of all that he was lousy at communicating with any of them - wives, children, siblings, parents. Serious intimacy issues. Probably no more than a man of his time, but to hear the story from his family, quite an extreme case. The work as a community organiser, in Chicago - not a concept I'd come across before, but total grass-roots, justice-seeking stuff.

And so the book comes to a conclusion, with "Barry" sitting between the graves of his father and grandfather, weeping. "When my tears were finally spent, I felt a calmness wash over me," he writes. "I felt the circle finally close. I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words. I saw that my life in America -- the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I'd felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago -- all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away, connected by more than the accident of a name or the color of my skin. The pain I felt was my father's pain."

A Washington post article has this great quote: "The abandoned son is still working to carve out something positive from the legacy of the goat herder, who also dreamed of changing a nation."

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05/27/08

bill rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

okay. first of all, i found it impossible while reading this book to forget, even for a moment, that its author might be our next president. this means it is very difficult to appraise the book on its own merits. but i will try. i should mention at the outset, in a spirit of full disclosure, that i am cautiously a supporter of obama, although i do not drink the kool-aid. i think he is a natural leader, well-organized & given to introspection, and i think this might be a nice change of pace for t...more okay. first of all, i found it impossible while reading this book to forget, even for a moment, that its author might be our next president. this means it is very difficult to appraise the book on its own merits. but i will try. i should mention at the outset, in a spirit of full disclosure, that i am cautiously a supporter of obama, although i do not drink the kool-aid. i think he is a natural leader, well-organized & given to introspection, and i think this might be a nice change of pace for the US.
i just hope he knows what he's planning to do in office, because i sure don't. now on with it.

it's a good book. it's a thoughtful book exploring issues of race & family & community. mostly well-written with ocassional lapses into unnecessary dramatic-ness.
obama's background is an interesting one from which to reflect on race. most of his early comments, as he relates the story of his school years, read like recycled Baldwin & Wright. which he pretty much cops to when he gives us his reading list in college: Baldwin, Wright, DuBois, Ellison & Hughes.
his story acquires greater complexity when he writes about community organizing on the South Side of Chicago, and even more so when he finally goes to Kenya to meet his father's family.
this is not a great book, but it is a thoughtful & interesting book. and it is intelligent throughout.

as far as the possible president thing goes, this book confirms my feeling that his pride & arrogance are his weak spots, but also that those traits are balanced by a sort of humility, albeit an egotistical one. i suspect no one was ultimately more upset by his "clinging to their guns & religion" comment than he was, if only because i suspect he expects better from himself. if that's what keeps him centered, then fine.
the other thing that caught my attention was his repeated references to the world of "men". there's definitely a streak of male-centeredness in his worldview, although he treats his female characters sympathetically.

on the other hand, he wrote this book when he was 33, which was 13 years ago. hopefully his wife has educated him somewhat in the meantime.(less)

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12/27/07

Leonora of rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in December, 2007

I enjoyed this autobiography very much. I read it in 24 hours, interspersed with work and sleep, and I was really carried along by Obama's story and ideas. It was deeper than I thought it would be. It's about a search for himself (and his father) and his transformation from innocent Hawaiin boy to angry college student to idealist Chicago organizer was painful and endearing and familiar. His ideas about race were uniquely expressed (to my ears anyway) and thought-provoking. More than ever, I bel...more I enjoyed this autobiography very much. I read it in 24 hours, interspersed with work and sleep, and I was really carried along by Obama's story and ideas. It was deeper than I thought it would be. It's about a search for himself (and his father) and his transformation from innocent Hawaiin boy to angry college student to idealist Chicago organizer was painful and endearing and familiar. His ideas about race were uniquely expressed (to my ears anyway) and thought-provoking. More than ever, I believe he's genuine.

His time in Chicago was most interesting. He wasn't put off by setbacks while helping to organize in South Side. To me, the reason he accomplished the things he did was because he became a member of the community. The church he currently attends is in the neighborhood. Obama's perceptions of people are at once incisive and forgiving. So, instead of being put off by the self-aggrandizing preacher or lying public official, he understands where they're coming from. This is an incredible quality. It's why, I think, he's a successful deal-maker with other Senators and I think this would serve him well as President.

Speaking of the race, it's amazing that he wrote this in 1995, after just graduating from Harvard Law School. Toward the end of the book, as he puts forth his ideas (whereas most of the book is experiences, thoughts, and conversations), he sounds like himself today. Perhaps he thought all along of becoming President and didn't write that in the book; in any case, it seems clear that he has a Presidential quality, and it comes from idealism rather than a gluttony for power. Although, after making a speech in college, he mentions how much he liked speaking in public.

He comes across as quite a man: thoughtful, intelligent, wise. He reminds me of other incredible men I have known like my grandfather and father. He himself tries to live up to the example of his father. Maybe this story is universal in that sense.

There were only two things I found off-putting. One was that while he talks about the complex thoughts he's had about race, his father, his mother, etc., he never says "I felt" this or "I really didn't want to do" that. He puts his experiences into words beautifully, but not so much his feelings.

The other thing was that I felt the book ended abruptly. I wanted to read about his conversion to Christianity and he leaves us hanging in the church. I wanted to hear more about Harvard Law and how he reconciled what he learned there with what he learned in South Side.

But all in all, this is a really good book. He mentions being drawn to Malcom X's autobiography and like that book, I'll probably read this one again. His experiences are electrifying, certain passages beautiful, and his thoughts are unsentimental, yet idealistic. The perfect combination.
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06/12/07

Ben rated it:

Generally inspired, but I could have done without the inconsistent pace and tone of the narration. Listening to Obama impersonate his African family members and their accents, rendered with varying levels of commitment, gets old after a while. He also changes his speech dramatically when discussing different aspects of his past (i.e., early '90s Afrocentric consciousness and those he learned it from at Occidental College vs. plain ol', regular, humble, Mid-Western churchgoing family guy.) I'm su...more

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04/08/07

Michelle rated it:

(review of isbn 0307383415)

Read in July, 2005

[written July 2005]

This week at the library, it was a pair of politicians' autobiographies: Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, and It's My Party Too by Christine Whitman.

Reading politicians' books immediately puts me on edge. perhaps it's because I know I'm already starting out on uneven footing, that their world is inconceivably more complex, more filled with intricate negotiation and navigation, and that by reducing it to concrete paragraphs there's an instantaneous...more [written July 2005]

This week at the library, it was a pair of politicians' autobiographies: Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, and It's My Party Too by Christine Whitman.

Reading politicians' books immediately puts me on edge. perhaps it's because I know I'm already starting out on uneven footing, that their world is inconceivably more complex, more filled with intricate negotiation and navigation, and that by reducing it to concrete paragraphs there's an instantaneous and inevitable dumbing down of that complexity.

Strangely enough, I'm still skeptical and sullen as I read Dreams From My Father. Perhaps it's because I've taken a similar sort of pilgrimage, a return to a native yet unknown land, and found not the clarity or resolutation that Obama did. Strands of bougainvillea dress the walls of a hut in a rural compound, he tells us, but I'd bet a dollar that he couldn't recognize bougainvillea, that in fact he couldn't name any of the plants in Kenya by sights. That later, when he was reviewing notes or editing gallery proofs he had to phone Auma and ask for the name of those flowers in the family photograph, and anyway, Wikipedia says they are native to South America.

This skepticism comes, I know, from jealousy. Barack Obama has set out his ghosts on paper, whereas mine come in the scattered form of almost-irreverent thoughts when particularly provoked. Furthermore, his approach and his style broadcast elegance and integrity: in what I suppose is a good mark of a legal scholar, he argues with himself at every turn, failure, or quandary. In the foreword, a short comment on the national stardom that began to bloom years after the first run of his book, Obama notes that some details and proper nouns have been conflated for simplcity's sake.

Fine, then. Have your bougainvillea, because it makes for a simpler way to evoke what you saw. Have your bougainvillea, for extra lyricism in that scene. Have your extra lyricism, because it makes your writing seem like a song from the heart.(less)

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10/31/07

Karen rated it:

(review of isbn 1921351438)

Read in January, 2009

There are very few books on my list that warrant five stars, but this is one of them. I read Barack Obama's books out of order, and while I enjoyed and appreciated The Audacity of Hope, it is certainly the book that one writes right before one runs for president.

Written while Mr. Obama was in his 30s, Dreams From My Father is without guile, without agenda, and is truly one of the most beautifully written, moving books I have ever read. The book traces Obama's quest for self and p...more

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