Wednesday, June 29, 2005
 
Book Report: Modern Manners by P.J. O'Rourke (1989)
Man, I don't know where I got this book, but all evidence seems to indicate that I paid $2.00 for it. Of course, since it's P.J. O'Rourke, of course I would.

The book features trademark O'Rourke humor, but its from his early, Reagan and Bush era stuff, which means it's not as hard-hitting and topical as the work he's created after Clinton became president. Ergo, its subject matter and style more closely tracks the The Bachelor Home Companion (oddly enough, 1997 and not as early as I'd originally thought). The humor is more collegiate, but it has its flashes of O'Rourkean brilliance. But the nugget sized sections really don't give O'Rourke enough room to work up a full head of rhetorical steam.

So it's a good book, but not the best in the O'Rourke obra.


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."