Noam Chomsky's Requiem for the American Dream

Well, if you've never read any of Noam Chomsky's books, this would be a great place to start. It's very short (I read most of it in a day when I realized that it was due at the library and that I couldn't renew it), has pictures, and is written in a "conversational" tone. It's also kind of big . . . 7.40(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d), which is cozy and non-threatening. And it's Noam Chomsky, for gosh sakes. If you are new to him, this book will blow you away and horrify you and prompt you to think differently about the world and maybe even to get up and shake something around a bit.

But caveat lectorem.

If you're already familiar with Professor Chomsky's ideas from documentaries, books, articles, interviews, or intelligent friends, then this is not the book for you.

I'm sorry to say it sure wasn't for me. Not that I'm a Chomsky expert by any means. I've read a few of his books . . . Power Systems:  Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U. S. Empire, Necessary Illusions, What Uncle Same Really Wants, Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, 9-11, maybe a couple of others that aren't springing to mind  . . . and quite a few of his interviews and articles . . . and I've seen several movies that were either about him or recordings of his talks.   And I've had email exchanges with him on two occasions.

So I am a "fan." And I don't think that it's possible for me to express my love for Professor Chomsky without veering into language that would be deemed hyperbole by any sensible human being, so I'll just say that I admire him immensely and that he has had a profound effect upon the way that I see the world and all there is that's in it.

So if course I was anxious to check out this new book, Requiem for the American Dream. 

But there were several things I didn't like about this book. Some were minor. Like the font. The font used for this book featured a funky little loop on the "t"s, like so: 

And it just irritated me every time I saw it. It distracted me from the text. It made the word "fancy pants" pop into my head every line or two. And there was another letter that cropped up with the squiggle, too . . . but I've forgotten which one. Or maybe I've repressed it. 

Anyway. I know it's a small thing, but so is somebody checking their cell phone in the movie theater. It's just a distraction. And if they check it every couple of minutes, you are legally permitted to kill them.

And there were typos. I know that I fuck up on this front, too, but I'm a one man operation here. Seven Stories Press should have its shit together on this one. (BTW, I emailed them on April 28 at 8:21 am thusly: 

Dear 7Stories Press:

I recently finished reading Noam Chomsky's Requiem for the American Dream. It was a remarkable book, as are all of Professor Chomsky's works, but I found two errors in the text. 

(1) On page 4, there's a marginal note which reads, 

See Aristotle's Politics, ook III, Chapter 8, on page 11

Obviously that should be "Book III." 1

(2) On page 136 in the excerpt from Alex Lichtenstein's book, the text reads,

"self-sufficiency for ex-slaves and their dependence on wager 

labor determined the tightness of this labor control."

In Lichtenstein's book the phrase is correctly written as "dependence on wage labor." 2

I received this reply:

Hi, thanks for your interest in Seven Stories Press. Due to the volume of email we receive, certain specific kinds of requests should be forwarded to the following addresses:

SALES inquiries - sales@sevenstories.com

PUBLICITY inquiries - publicity@sevenstories.com

ACADEMIC inquiries - academic@sevenstories.com

RIGHTS inquiries - silvia@sevenstories.com

For more information, please see our website:

http://www.sevenstories.com

Thanks much!

Seven Stories Press

Which I suspect was an automated reply . . . partially because of its generic character, partially because it is time stamped April 28 at 8:21 am.

I tried. And at least they didn't get all shitty with me the way Ed Brubaker did. I guess these people don't understand that I'm just trying to help. I mean, Noam Chomsky deserves better, right?

Oh, one more thing: as implied above (but moreso below), Professor Chomsky's text is interrupted by excerpts from other works. It's kind of cool, I suppose, but most of it was just "footnote" kind of material for me, not deserving of placement equal to Professor Chomsky's words . . . and it was another interruption in the reading.

Oh . . . one more one more thing. The editors were striving for a colloquial feel, I suppose, so they replicated Chomsky's speaking voice in the text, using words like "gonna" and that kind of thing, lots of repetition of phrases, etc. It didn't make me happy. But maybe that's just me.

So I am by no means sorry that I read this tome, but if this is not your first Chomsky Rodeo, you might want to ease on down the road and find another motel for the night. There's probably not much (if anything) here for you.

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