the father

Sun 3.26.23

I am reading Saul Bellow’s It All Adds Up, which is a collection of essays.  Saul Bellow is a wonderful writer, erudite, wise, delightful.  What I especially like is his vast knowledge on myriad of topics.  I was introduced to him as an undergraduate at the University of Southern Maine when I came upon The Adventures of Augie March at the college library. There is this one scene in the book where Augie is sitting in bed with his pile of favored books, as contented as the babe in Mother’s arms nursing at her nipple, which is where he intends to remain for a long time.  While others scurry to and fro, he is quite satisfied in a cosy corner absorbing great literature.  

We are kin, I thought.  Yes, he, an uncommon young man, was my brother.  Augie’s values were mine.  This new book, which is not new at all, published in 1948, but is new to me.  I’ve read all of his fiction, was not aware of the essays.  In one of his pieces, he writes about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an East Coast patrician who became president at the height of the depression.  Bellow is generous overall in his assessment of the man with some reservation. He writes of how FDR was able to dispel the country’s sense of despair.  There is a scene as Bellow, an undergraduate student at the time, is walking down a boulevard in Chicago; it is summer evening, he is aware of the clover growing underfoot and, shaded by the elms from the fading sun, he walks along; to his right, cars have parked single file as far as the eye can see, with windows and doors open.  

The motorists have parked to take in a Roosevelt fireside chat being broadcast on the radio.  As he walks along he does not miss one word of the president’s chat going past car after car all tuned to it.  Roosevelt is informal and charming, bewitching his citizens out of their gloominess.  Happy days are here again!  Then you have another leader at the time addressing the citizens of his country, Adolf Hitler’s speeches are belligerant rants, responded to by his followers with forceful rejoiner.

If one looks at the last presidents we’ve had there is nary a Roosevelt among them from the icy Obama to the underhanded Bush Junior.  Leadership is not just confidence, intelligence, strength.  doing it well, creating riches.  A successful leader must also be a father who is able to bring his followers along with him/herself on this journey undertaken.  And so it is with any leadership role undertaken.