It has taken me longer than I would have wanted, or care to admit, but I finally completed reading The Preservationist by David Maine at a most opportune time. The book is an imaginative re-creation of the story of the Noah and the flood, coincidentally the portion of the Torah read this past Saturday in synagogues throughout the world.
The Preservationist is not a great book; it’s part of a genre, like The Red Tent, known as midrash that transforms Jewish Bible stories into extended prose, in this case beyond the 125 verses dedicated to Noah in the Old Testament. It allows the writer and reader to delve into the personalities of the family saved on the ark, of Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives. It creates back stories for all of them, humanizes them, and gives only the faintest hint of what must have gone through their minds when the waters abated and they were left devoid of any other humans. They might not have had to worry about marauders or any others bent on the injustices that caused God to wipe out the rest of humanity, but they were all alone. Not even God talked to Noah anymore after He set the rainbow as a sign there would be no more all inclusive and destructive floods.
Here’s how Noah’s wife interprets God’s silence: “The test doesn’t end when the flood does. It’s only the start. Without Yahweh whispering in your ear you’re no more nor less than anybody else. No special assurance that you’re blessed or that God gives a rat’s ass what happens to you ... Now you’re just like the rest of us.”
According to the Bible, Noah lived another 350 years as an ordinary man.
George McGovern considered himself a prototypical American. “I’m what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like,” the former South Dakota U.S. senator and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate told The NY Times in 2005, seven years before his death Sunday at age 90. “May dad was a Methodist minister, I went off to war (World War II). I have been married to the same woman forever. I’m what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.”
Which got me to thinking that we have entered an era when most of our political leaders never experienced the horrors of war. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, Paul Ryan—none of them fired a weapon at an enemy combatant or was targeted by one. Not that it takes combat experience to lead a nation into battle, but it does seem that the strongest voices for peace, from Eisenhower to JFK to McGovern to John Kerry, were tempered by their time at war.
Speaking of temper, what jumped out at me from watching the three presidential debates, and some of the Republican primary debates, is that Mitt Romney is petulant and does not have a high opinion of those who would question his judgment, whether it be Obama, Rick Perry, or the debate moderator. Time and again Romney displayed a haughtiness that transcended acceptable behavior. To be fair, I didn’t find Biden’s cheesy smiles too endearing during his debate with Ryan, either.
I thought Obama did better than Romney in the last two debates, but Romney’s rapid salesman’s litany of negative commentary on the performance of the current administration no doubt scored points with those who favored his positions and, regrettably, with those who valued image over substance. When rehearsed, Romney has the gift of gab. He’s much smoother than the plodding, thoughtful Obama.
The election will boil down to substance or sizzle.
