So This Is Depravity and Other Observations

by Russell Baker

Kirkus' Review Observer"" columns from Russell Baker are the perfect light-beer chasers for the hard-stuff of daily news--but few of the short pieces in this pleasant, bland collection stand up well to the sterner tests of time and hard-cover compilation. The most obvious sufferers from the format, of course, are dated columns on the political scene--lots on Watergate--that are usually common-sensical enough (""this suggestion of men enacting boyish fantasies is worse than whatever crimes may have been committed. . .""), yet often over-simplified and a bit preachy. But other pieces that should be less frayed by time--on inflation, language (the ""Have a nice day"" craze), the sexual revolution, city living (parking, cabs, noise), marriage, parenthood, taxes--also tend to seem rather limp in Baker can get cheaply sentimental (""Old people at the supermarket are being crushed and nobody is even screaming""); he often runs the risk of registering only as a less-funny Erma Bombeck (supermarket lines, washing machines). And, when consciously emulating Mencken or Perelman or Woody Allen, he consistently lacks the edge needed for that darker brand of humor. Still, none of these never-too-long pieces is without a smile or two, especially for those partial to wistful looks back to cleaner, simpler times. And in certain areas, Baker is TV commercials bring out his cleanest swipes; historical whimsies inspire him to glorious flights of anachronism; and one column here is bona fide classic--""Cooped Up,"" in which the ghost of Gary C. accompanies Baker to movies that have junked all the old Coop-movie values. Less impressive the second time around, then--but Baker fans and others will find it literate, gently amusing bedside reading that's smoothly mainstream all the way.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays

326 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1981

About the author

On August 14, 1925, US journalist, humorist and biographer Russell Baker was born in Loudoun County, Virginia. His father died early on and his hard-working mother reared him and his sisters during the Great Depression. Baker managed to get himself into Johns Hopkins University, where he studied journalism.

Baker’s wit as a humorist has been compared with that of Mark Twain. “The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer,” wrote Baker, “and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.” In 1979, Baker received his first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in his “Observer” column for the New York Times (1962 to 1998). His 1983 autobiography, Growing Up earned him a second Pulitzer. In 1993, Baker began hosting the PBS television series Masterpiece Theatre.

Neil Postman, in the preface to Conscientious Objections, describes Baker as "like some fourth century citizen of Rome who is amused and intrigued by the Empire's collapse but who still cares enough to mock the stupidities that are hastening its end. He is, in my opinion, a precious national resource, and as long as he does not get his own television show, America will remain stronger than Russia." (1991, xii)

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

The language of wit, not of hate

It was in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election that I first, all unwitting, encountered the phenomenon of American political commentary in all its ugly reality. My image of the American political commentator was based largely on The West Wing and on Alistair Cooke, that doyen of reasoned and courteous intelligence. There was no clear presidential winner; so, fed up with the ignorance of the British media on the subject, I started to visit American websites for enlightenment. A media industry that had picked Jed Bartlet as their fictional President would be bound to have something profound and insightful to say on the situation… right?

Oh dear.

It was a rude awakening indeed. The strident bigotry… the certainty in the mind of every pundit, of every self-appointed online commentator, that they were right and the other guys were wrong and stupid… the playing to the gallery of extremists.

The great Mr Cooke made the point: ‘In my experience, a weary one that lasted through six days and evenings, there was not one man or woman of whom you could say: "I don't know which party he/she belongs to."’ He did not intend it as a compliment.

For the 2004 presidential election, my expat American wife decided for some reason that I needed to be kept away from the current generation of media mediocrats, and gave me a copy of So This is Depravity - Russell Baker’s collection of essays, most of them reprinted from his regular column in The New York Times between 1973 and 1980.

Here was a commentator, an essayist, who could write of serious subjects without taking himself too seriously; who could, amazingly, write with wisdom, empathy and compassion in the midst of that grim period of enforced national self-awareness, when America had, for perhaps the first time in its history, messed up spectacularly and publicly both at home (Watergate) and abroad (Vietnam).

And slipped in between Baker’s wry, witty comment on current affairs and politics, the reverse to its obverse, is his humour. Whether in the catalogue of DIY disaster, “They Don’t Make That Anymore” (p. 94), his foray into culinary immortality, “Francs and Beans” (p. 132), or his account of reading Proust, “Crawling Up Everest” (p. 252 – but oh, for an index or a table of contents anywhere in this book!), Baker has a knack for taking some facet of everyday life and following it to its most absurd and yet logical conclusion – and making us laugh while he does it.

Nowadays Baker’s editor would tell him to be ashamed of his classical education, to hide it away in a filing cabinet, lest it embarrass or confuse some less erudite reader. Fortunately for literary posterity, neither that editor nor that reader had been born when Baker was coaxing “Caesar’s Puerile Wars” (p. 27) out of his Remington.

It is all a far cry from the world of blogs and Facebook, where any fool with an internet connection can spew forth his or her opinion without restraint, moderation or decorum. One longs for the wisdom of a Cooke or the wit of a Baker to make sense of the events of 2011, rather than a sub-culture of pundits and bloggers who rely so heavily on the language of hatred.

I do not 'do' the language of hatred. We each have enough to contend with in life without filling ourselves with hatred - particularly other people's hatred.

Freedom of speech is all very well. The trouble is that it’s too often used as an excuse – an excuse for hatred, for bigotry, for the sheer lazy stupidity of playing to one’s own extremist gallery. The enraged self-righteousness of the strident blogger doesn’t change anyone’s mind; it merely entrenches existing opinions pro or con.

The good news is that these characteristics, the bigotry and the smallness of mind, expose themselves. The other good news is that we can choose not to take part in this dreary, destructive trench warfare.

Russell Baker sets a benchmark for intelligent commentary on the awkward and the unpalatable. Those who wish to express their opinions on the circumstances of 2011 would be well advised to read him, to learn from his wise and good-humoured example, before they commit their views to the ether.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

To start with its flaws, this book is a collection of reprinted newspaper columns, mostly without any clues given as to the date and context of original publication (almost all from the New York Times, and all from between 1973 and 1980). This was probably less of a flaw when it was published in 1980 and its subjects, where topical, were all more or less fresh. Reading it in 2020, as someone with only a 2020 view of what was going on the 1970s, I sometimes wished I knew what ephemeral current event RB was taking as his starting point. But that's inevitable with partly topical writing by someone who, so far, doesn't appear in annotated scholarly editions.

Its particular age lends some fascination in itself: so near, yet so far, yet not so far; almost of our time. Baker writes very perceptively about, for example, certain challenges of the women's movement: but he doesn't fill his columns with disclaimers and declarations to remove all doubt about his being on the right side; which, given that his columns are all humorous in tone (and in fact are often funny) is a blessing. Also, he probably isn't entirely on the right side, though he clearly isn't on the wrong side either (like most people, probably).

By no means all of these essayettes are on labelled political / social themes - I suppose (I know practically nothing about Baker except the writing here) he had a columnist's freedom to write about more or less anything he liked, and there is a fair bit of pure-ish whimsy (though even much of that transcends its revolting genre), a few squibs on language and literature, much on mores and attitudes, some stuff on the human condition.

Not all of it is brilliant, but some is, and a lot is very good. By its nature (mutually unconnected pieces, each taking say 5 to 20 minutes to read) it's a modest bathroom book, not a magnum opus. But I loved the droll, low-key style, mildly self-deprecatory, but acute and, it seems to me, offering - obliquely and unobtrusively - some gems of real, unrecycled wisdom about this and that.

[Eve Schaub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russell Baker's humor writing is at its best when he is at his weirdest. Essays about waking up with someone else's feet, or describing an effort to read Proust as if it an expedition to Everest are both hilarious and brilliant.

Unfortunately much of the political commentary is dated and stale, and feels a bit too much like homework to read. Every now and then, though, I was struck by the "the more things change the more they stay the same" nature of the never-ending political narrative.

[Anne O'Donoghue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes weird, very clever, very funny!

[David Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is inevitable to assume that the time in which you exist is different that the time of your parents, grandparents, or children. It is insofar as the people in it are different and as we continue to realign our technical focus. But... we are no different in the larger sense of human experience.
This is made plain reading Russell Baker's fine collection of essays from the 1970's. If one didn't know better, it would easy to assume he is writing of this very moment. Poorly thought out policy, politicians going with the proverbial breeze, the influence of media-in his case TV, fads involving food, exercise, and religion. Presidents behaving badly; it's all here, and written with a wit that is both knowing and understanding.
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to human behavior. The gadgets are new, but the hubris, pomposity, idiocy, as well as beauty, understanding, and kindness of people behaving never changes. Baker will make you laugh, smile, shake your head, and wonder at it all.
An excellent collection.

[Martin Bihl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful, if dated, essays