In his collection of correspondence from his Notes and Asides column, William F. Buckley, Jr. reminds us that one can be sharp and relevant without being boorish. A review of Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.
Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes & Asides from National Review
by William F. Buckley, Jr.
published by Basic Books (November 2007)
ISBN-10: 0465002420
ISBN-13: 978-0465002429
Hdbk., 295 pgs.
Some weeks ago I had the honor to meet William F. Buckley, Jr. during which time we discussed an upcoming book, a collection of correspondence as it appeared in his Notes and Asides column, which ran in National Review for nearly 40 years.
As we talked, I tried to recall an exchange he had had with a reader about the neutron bomb because I thought it particularly funny. I garbled it, at which point Buckley responded with a pained expression: I hope it was funnier than that!
Few things are as embarrassing as attempts at humor that don’t work, which is why some of us steadfastly resist the temptation. All the more reason to join in genuflecting to Mr. Buckley for managing to be both erudite and humorous for so many years, only rarely mishandling a punch-line or a retort. It has been a high-wire act remarkable to behold.
However, if you are not familiar with the man or his work, Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription (I will leave it to Mr. Buckley – see pages 30/31 — to explain why the title is neither blasphemous nor profane) is a great introduction. Readers will laugh, chuckle, and marvel at his ability to handle consistently difficult, even hostile correspondence, with wit, humor, generosity and, when occasion calls for it, measured defiance.
This is Buckley light but it does lend itself to a serious purpose. Ronald Reagan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Robert Dole have been celebrated for their political quips. Art Buchwald, Russell Baker and P. J. O’Rourke have ranked high as political humorists. Such efforts notwithstanding, these days insult and hostility too often parade as wit and humor.
Buckley reminds us that one can be sharp and relevant without being boorish. It is a special gift, intellectual verve combined with humor. Throughout he proves that discourse leavened with humor helps keep our politics civil, and is often devastatingly effective in making a larger point. A few samples from the book will give a taste of what lies in store for the interested reader.
Dear Mr. Buckley:
I have invented a new verb: Buckley
Definition: To dress up as falsehood with eloquent language, with the result that it appears true . . .
Dear Mr. Green: You have it almost right. What’s missing is only that if it is Buckleyed, it not only appears correct, it becomes correct.
Or this one:
WFB,
Quick question. Why is Qaddafi, the megalomaniac Svengali, only a colonel?
Dear Mr. Wasserman: Maybe because Colonel Qaddafi shot all the generals?
Buckley’s unkempt style and demeanor on television (he hosted Firing Line for over 30 years) generated an endless stream of complaints from critics who deplored his dress, hair and posture.
Bill Buckley:
I have wanted to tell you this for years: you are the second worst-dressed s.o.b. on television.
Dear Mr. Fliner: Who’s ahead of me?
Mr. Filner responded a few weeks later: Actually, no one. You are tops. I classified you as no. 2 only because I felt it’d improve the odds of eliciting a reaction from you – and it worked.
Dear Mr. Fliner: Who’s the worst-dressed non-s.o.b.?
Charles Murphy was so repulsed by Buckley that he wrote: Unfortunately, your brilliant intellect is inside your head and does nothing for your male beauty. You are, shall we say, unhandsome. This misfortune does not confer the right to appear disheveled . . . I enclose a pocket comb. If you ply the instrument faithfully, I shall consider a contribution toward a haircut. Don’t mention it!
Buckley responded: I have combed my hair. What do I do now?
One correspondent wrote then Senator James Buckley to complain about his appearance on the lowbrow show from the 1960s and early 1970s, Laugh-In. The performance was inane, vulgar, and unworthy of a Senator from the United States, he continued. Senator Buckley responded that the letter had been forwarded to his brother, the writer, as it was he who had appeared on the show.
At which point WFB joined the fray:
Dear Mr. Hitchcock:
It is typical of my brother to attempt to deceive his constituents. It was, of course, he, not I, who appeared on Laugh-In, just as you suspected. On the other hand, you need not worry about it. His greatest deception is as yet undiscovered. It was I, not he, who was elected to the Senate.
Another exchange touches on Buckley’s adventurism, in an unusual way.
Dear Mr. Buckley: You can’t imagine my excitement upon reading, when you visited the Titanic in 1989, of your descent two and half miles into the ocean! If only you hadn’t come up.
Dear Mr. Sinksy: Did you not know that I was irrepressible?
National Review staffers get into the act as well. Richard Brookhiser, a long-time editor, once left some clothes in a hotel after an NR management retreat. The hotel mistakenly returned the clothes to the National Resources Defense Council. A scientist there then forwarded the garments to Brookhiser, which led to the following exchange:
Dear Mr. Brookhiser:
Your dirty drawers are being sent to you by the staff of the NRDC, where they were sent by mistake by the Beaverkill Inn. If you would like to protect your shorts and the environment, make a small contribution to our organization – application enclosed.
To which Brookhiser responded:
Dear Mr. Cochran:
And in return, why not subscribe to National Review, where I work? Other magazines only hang out the nation’s dirty linen. We send it to you.
Humor is not the only point of interest here. Buckley loves language and included in this collection are many exchanges about usage, grammar and vocabulary. My favorite is an exchange with Hugh Kenner over a sentence that opened a Buckley essay on Robert Kennedy. Kenner showed no mercy when he wrote to Buckley that the sentence “resembles less a tensioned intricacy in the mode of M. Eiffel than it does a toddler’s first efforts with Tinkertoys.”
Buckley responded: . . . you are surely wrong about that lead sentence? I re-read it, found it springy and tight.
Kenner would have none of it: “`Springy and tight’ my foot. Those aren’t springs, they’re bits of Scotch tape. Have your syntactic DNA checked for mutations . . .”
Buckley fired back: “Come on now, you are a goddam [again see pages 30/31] professor of English, so stop namecalling and get to work . . .”
At this point, Kenner attempts to deconstruct the sentence, with only marginal success, as Buckley makes a convincing case for why he wrote it as he did, the operative issue being style and feel, not technical perfection. My own view is that the sentence suffered more from extraneous words than deficient architecture. Here is the sentence followed by my own attempt, just for fun, to edit it.
Robert F. Kennedy had a way of saying things loosely, and it may be that that is among the reasons why so many people invested so much idealism in him, it being in the idealistic (as distinguished from the analytical) mode to make large and good-sounding generalities, like the generality he spoke on April 5 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, two months exactly before his own assassination.
The version below (I would argue) retains Buckley’s flow, but by tightening the wording also relieves some of the pressure on structure that Kenner observed.
Robert F. Kennedy had a way of saying things loosely, and this may be why so many people invested so much idealism in him, it being in the idealistic (as distinguished from the analytical) mode to pronounce grand generalities, like those he spoke on April 5 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, two months exactly before his own assassination.
This is the kind of fun that Buckley invites. His is a large spirit, one that rarely patronizes or condescends to his audience. That feeling pervades all of his best work and this makes reading his correspondence instructive, entertaining and even occasionally ennobling.
Buckley not only celebrates politics, humor and language here, he cherishes friendship. Among his regular correspondents was the liberal icon John Kenneth Galbraith. Neither man pulled his political punches, but both were able to transcend political differences for friendship’s sake, a feat reminiscent of another literary odd couple, G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw.
In 1997, Galbraith wrote a blurb for a biography on Whittaker Chambers written by Sam Tanenhaus. Galbraith added that he wished he could have done the same for Buckley’s latest publication at the time, The Right Word. Galbraith even submitted a recommendation: “Everybody knows that William Buckley is a master of words. It is only the use to which he puts them that restrains one’s enthusiasm.”
Buckley responded: “Dear Ken, no riposte. On this one, you win. A deep bow.”
The affection that writers develop for one another through correspondence is difficult to explain to those not similarly inclined. They develop their own language, codes and history rooted in a near sacramental affection for the written word. The bond that emerges is deep and Buckley is acknowledging this to Galbraith with his deep bow.
He was not as easy on the renowned historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who was clearly overmatched when it came to matching witticisms. Buckley does not let him forget it, and one almost pities Schlesinger as he struggles to fend off Buckley’s ferocious assaults. (Despite their harsh exchanges, the two reconciled somewhat years later.)
Other heavyweights are represented here: politicians (Reagan, Nixon, and Ted Kennedy); journalists (Dan Rather, Abe Rosenthal, Art Buchwald, James Kilpatrick, and Max Frankel); and literary and Hollywood icons (Waugh, Heston, and Selleck).
As for the book's title, it refers to an exchange between Buckley and yet another reader who was not impressed by National Review or Mr. Buckley: “Three cheers to Dr. Ross Terrill. He slashed you to bits as you have been doing to yourself for the past year. Cancel my subscription.”
On a given day, Buckley might have tried to use his legendary humor to cajole or at least soften the exchange. But this time, Buckley had had enough: “Cancel your own Goddam subscription,” he replied, reminding all of us how refreshing a direct response can be when others think we are their punching bag.
By the way, the exchange I had tried vainly to remember for Mr. Buckley’s benefit turned up, much to my delight, on page 157. A gentleman named Hollenberg referred to NR as a rag he would not waste his time reading, called the state of South Carolina an incipient fascist dictatorship because he failed to receive a Firing Line transcript ordered from there, and attacked Buckley for his support of the neutron bomb. “Over your house they should detonate it!”
Buckley responded: 1) We do not publish a monthly rag, we publish a fortnightly rag, 2) Wasting your time is obviously an imperative social obligation. 3) If a neutron bomb were detonated over my house, my house would survive; which is the point, ass. 4) How else would you expect the incipient fascist dictatorship in South Carolina to act?
The repartee gives way, here and there, to bittersweet moments, at least for those of us who have closely followed the Buckley/NR story. There is an obituary written by Buckley for his dear friend William Rickenbacker, and a farewell address of sorts delivered by Buckley at his 80th birthday celebration. Tough stuff as we all bend to the wheel of time.
But I will end happily with an aside of my own, a couple of favorite Buckley lines from that “vulgar” appearance on Laugh-In, which, it happens, Buckley had refused several times before giving in to an insistent TV executive (that exchange is also found in this collection.)
When asked by the Laugh-In hosts why he had consented to do an interview with Playboy, Buckley responded that he felt this was the best way to communicate his views to his teen-aged son. When asked why he talked so much sitting down, Buckley quipped: “It is difficult to stand bearing the weight of what I know.”
Buckley, for all his talents as a serious political commentator, prized fun and humor above all. This book is fun stuff and a fine gift for anyone who values a little style and levity in their politics.
shadroui@yahoo.com
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