|
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (平装)
by Barack Obama
| Category:
African American, Personal achievement, Memoir, Autobiography |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A powerful account of Senator Obama's search for his roots and identity as a black American. Highest recommendation! |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
|
|
Washington Post Book World (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race. |
|
|
Scott Turow (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Beautifully crafted... moving and candid... this book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride’s The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams’s Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America’s racial categories. |
|
|
Alex Kotlowitz (Author of There Are No Children Here) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Obama's writing is incisive yet forgiving. This is a book worth savoring. |
|
|
J. Krueger (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
I read this for one of my reading groups. Being the non-political person that I am, I was completely unaware of who this person is, but my very political girlfriend filled me in. Obama is currently a US Senator from Illinois and a hot guy in the Democratic party these days. After reading his memoir, I am a supporter. He has a fine sense of integrity and understanding about people though I fear that the political process in this country would kill that off in even the strongest individual.
In the early 90s, Obama was studying law at Harvard and became the first black man to be elected as President of the Harvard Law Review. The publicity engendered by this event brought him a publishing offer, so he wrote this story of his life up to that point. After winning the seat in the US Senate, the book was republished.
Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas, whose family moved to Hawaii when she was a teenager. There at the University of Hawaii, she met an African student from Kenya. They married and had Barack in the early 60s. But the father left when Barack was only 2 years old, to get his PhD at Harvard because his scholarship money was not enough to support a wife and child. Before he could complete his degree, he was summoned back to Kenya by his government and the marriage dissolved due to time and distance.
So Barack was raised by his white mother and grandparents while his father took on the quality of a myth. When Barack was ten years old, his father came for a two week visit which only served to confuse Barack further. But he managed to complete high school and college, by which time he had decided to live as a black man.
After college, he went to Chicago to work as a community organizer in the ghettos of South Chicago and came face to face with the results of racism in a northern industrial city. Just before entering Harvard Law School, he finally traveled to Kenya and met his father's side of the family, finding at last the other half of his heritage.
It was a fascinating book, written in a novelist's style and hard to put down. It added much to my growing fund of knowledge about Blacks in this country, their African forebears, racism and the long slow climb of the Black race in America from slaves to full citizens of this country; a climb which is far from over.
I doubt that this country is ready to elect a Black President, but I am sure it will happen in my lifetime. If Obama can stay in politics and maintain the integrity he displays in his book, I would be glad to have him as President of the United States.
|
|
|
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
In Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father I discovered a fascinating brain and an accepting mind that came to terms with his dual inheritance.
He provided us with an insight of the African-American experience, of the hopes and dreams of the people, of the realities they confronted and of their failures. In his inspiring appearance at the Democratic convention, Obama emerged as a rising star in the American political scene, a relatable figure with a strong personality. His speech was very moving. The fact that this book was written before Obama gained so much political popularity, seems to be the reason it is so authentic, unlike many of the autobiographies we read.
This book, is the lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, of the son of a black African father and a white American mother. Obama searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. The sudden death of his father inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, and confronts the bitter truth of his father's life. There he reconciles his divided racial inheritance.
This is one of the most well written memoirs I have ever read. At some points it reads so much like a novel that I stopped to check the cover and make sure there was no "as told to" or other writing credit. The prose is lean and lyrical - while occasionally the themes are repetitive, overall I loved the circular nature of his exploration of life, race and class. I appreciated the honesty and integrity of his thoughts on black culture and the struggle to define blackness and appreciate life in the US. I think he exposes a lot of the most painful truths about race in this country, while offering hope and reason - rather than condemnation - to both black and white.
I agree with other reviewers who have indicated that the book does feel unfinished. He did not spend much time discussing the people in his life that are and were very supportive (mother and grandparents) but I saw two reasons for this: First, the book is unfinished in the sense that he is also "unfinished" and what it does cover is a sense of opening, discovery and closure around a complicated relationship with a parent that existed primarily in his own impressions.
Which brings me to reason #2: the unresolved relationship with his father fueled much of his early life choices. It feels only natural that these two stories be told in tandem. Now that he is a senator and much older through experience I would be curious to know how the telling of his life might change. As he indicates in the forward of the new edition - with so much distance between that experience and the life he's lived between Kenya and "now" there is much in his life that has to do with the impressions others like his mother and grandparents made. I suspect that it was rewritten to encompass more of his life, those other areas might balance the struggle to "find" his father and himself in those early years.
All that is to say: don't let his "preoccupation" with an absent father steer you away from this book. It in no way feels self indulgent or as an "open wound." Instead, I found an inspirational journey and a thoughtful exploration that made for a quick read!
|
|
|
Joseph Palen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
I loved this book. I would have liked it just for the subject matter. As a white man from the Midwest married to an Indonesian woman, with many races and religions in my family, I could identify with much of the subject matter as Barack takes us from Hawaii to Indonesia to Chicago to Kenya to Harvard. But what surprised me was the beauty and eloquence of his writing. Whether picturing the varied scenes of travels or the people and emotions in his memory, he crafts in our minds vivid mental pictures and brings forth gripping emotions in a way worthy of the best professional authors. Obama's description of his very complicated family history in Kenya, the memories and emotions, was especially touching. So much living, so much understanding, and he is only 50.
I found myself thinking that maybe Senator Obama was wasting his talents in the sterile, unlovely Senate. I know though that government is where we must bring about changes to move into a less compartmentalized world, and Senator Obama is well positioned to help with this difficult transition. A great, must-read book for all faiths, races, and political affiliations.
|
|
|
Robert Weir (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Extremely well written, plenty of visual descriptions and phenomenal metaphors. While a biography, the parts I found most meaningful to me were his visions of what his life in foreign lands meant, how his experiences in New York and Chicago influenced his thinking and how he treats all people with equal reverence. How unusual it is to have a man, who delivered such an inspiring address at the Democratic convention, whose actions mirror his words. I sincerely hope that he is given the opportunity to run for President some day. |
|
|
Kimberly Wagner (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Back when Barack Obama was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, he was offered a book contract to write about racial issues in the US. What he wrote was this memoir, which resurfaced after his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Obama, a Senator from Illinois, writes about his growing up years in Hawaii, his distant relationship with his father, his search for a cause after moving to Chicago, and finally, his embracing of his father's African roots.
This book is moving and eloquent, and even though Obama is not a writer, the narrative moves along at a decent pace. I particularly resonated with his experiences in Hawaii - having lived there several years myself, I found it to be a difficult place to live, and inhospitable to those who "don't belong" on the islands. I was also fascinated by the section dealing with his transition to Chicago. It was a difficult time for him, and a really fine example of how people in their 20s struggle to create an identity for themselves. Overall, an excellent read, and an unflinching portrayal of one African-American man's experiences with racism and identity.
|
|
|
Mark Munger (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
As an author and lifelong participant in and follower of liberal politics, I found Senator Obama's story a fascinating critique of race in America. Well written, terse, with the feel and breadth of a novel, the book is compelling and essential to anyone trying to comprehend what it means to be a minority in this great nation of ours. I can find nothing to criticize in the telling of this engaging tale except the publisher's insistence of including the text of Senator Obama's 2004 speech in support of John Kerry and John Edwards. Frankly, even though I am a liberal and didn't support the current guy in the oval office, I think including the speech demeans the spirit and integrity of one of the best memoirs I've read. Next time 'round, I'd urge the publisher to delete it and let Barack's story, as unfinished as it is, stand on its own merit. |
|
|
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Obama's memoir traces his search for his roots and identity. He divides the narrative into three parts, the first third dealing with his childhood and nuclear family; the second, with his political work; the third, with his extended family in Kenya. I thought these divisions worked well to thoroughly cover each topic, giving the reader a clear sense of his origins and quest for a home. He gradually weaves his father into the memoir, never over-emphasizing this emerging theme. Obama also tells his story chronologically, tracking his growth. However, I felt like he could have done more to connect each part and illustrate how his past contributed to the growth. Each division was very distinct - new setting, new age, new purpose.
Obama constantly amends his perspective, representing how his ideas have developed over time. Upon leaving Chicago for law school, for example, he ponders what brought him there in the first place. He considers his motivations and goes from "the father of [his] dreams" to "simple acceptance" to "faith" within one page (278). He gains the reader's confidence by depicting all his struggles and thought processes, including phases or decisions that were faulty or foolish. Especially because he is a politician, I admired how he even included embarrassing stories, such as an argument from college concerning maids and alcohol-related mess (109). The description is also a fault: I found the second third exhausting, due to the amount of political detail in the same setting. I also struggled keeping track of his extended family in the final third. In the new preface, Obama himself admits he'd like to cut this older memoir by about fifty pages. At times, the detail is too technical and overwhelming. It detracts from the overall story.
Although he narrates his story beautifully, the prose is also long-winded. It seemed like important realizations were buried within lengthy sentences. Many times I'd find myself rereading sentences over and over. If the reader is truly interested in politics and racial struggles, he might have the patience for the prose. But if the interest isn't there, it's a long read.
|
|
|
|
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
