American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent – Newnan Times-Herald

In the introduction to his 16th book, George Will quotes Peter De Vries, who proclaimed, I write when Im inspired, and I see to it that I am inspired at nine oclock every morning.

Will then adds a codicil: he goes to work before 8 a.m., as he has done for half a century.

These thousands of hours have led to the aforementioned books, a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977, and a reputation as arguably Americas foremost journalist. American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020 shows that Will remains, at 80, at the height of his powers.

In declarative but rarely simple sentences and columns roughly 750 words long, Will opines on major subjects that the book helpfully organizes by topics: Politics and Policies, Skirmishes in the Culture Wars, even Games, and so on. Over the decades, Will has felt liberal, conservative and now libertarian-conservative sensibilities and has published them in The Washington Post and in syndication. While being brief, he seeks to opine without being superficial.

A dive into this 2021 collection confirms Wills self-assessment. Without stooping to the name-calling so common in what often passes as journalistic commentary today, Will offers his curmudgeonly, contrarian take on one matter after another. He derides populism, defends monopolies and deplores political correctness. In a cautiously pessimistic way, Will offers something to offend almost anyone. His words, however, serve as catalysts rather than cudgels. He makes his readers think.

I find it impossible to read American Happiness and Discontents without pausing every few minutes to exclaim, I never knew that! and Where on earth did he find that?! For example, in his column A Year in U.S. History as Disruptive as 2020, Will flecks (a verb he enjoys using) his discourse about 1942 with such tidbits as the first successful use of penicillin, a ban on cuffs and pleats on mens trousers, and a bizarre quotation from Georgias Eugene Talmadge about putting our debutantes to hoeing potatoes. These items, it seems, came from the Tracy Campbell book (The Year of Peril: America in 1942) recommended in the column.

Will frequently calls readers attention to books that drew his. Subjects vary. One book I have already ordered based on Wills recommendation is John Tamnys Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You about Economics. This is the book that comes down in favor of monopolies as friendly to consumers. I am not persuaded, but the discussion and the title are alluring.

The books Will recommends about education alone could make for a fascinating course reading list. So do the articles referenced from the Chronicle of Higher Education and blogs. All the while, Will (a Princeton PhD himself) cautions readers against the babble coming from the professoriate. Only the highly educated, Will declaims, write so badly.

So encyclopedic is Wills knowledge that he appears to have a staff and a working knowledge of every major writer or event in history. The latter or something approximating it emerges from a lifetime of reading, studying, and thinking. Will acknowledges the former in detail, with those he singles out including five research assistants and Sarah Walton, for her many years of indispensable assistance. Will includes a poignant personal tribute to Walton, the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2008.

Shakespeare, Camus, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Philip Larkin are among the many authors Will quotes with fluency. The same goes for events and individuals ranging from (in the first column) the signing of the Magna Carta to (in the penultimate, The Last Doughboy) Frank Buckles, who served in World War I and survived and thrived into the Obama administration. Buckles extraordinary life, in more than one way, calls to mind Wills remarkable career.

I would have liked to see a more thorough index for American Happiness and Discontents. Too few of the writers and publications Will discusses appear in the index. Eugene Talmadge appears more than once in the text but not at all in the index. Talmadges comments on debutantes and, elsewhere, his heinous remarks after Americas Last Mass Lynching call out for indexing, if only as examples of a how not to govern variety.

This is a minor complaint, however. Will offers more insights and fascinating tidbits than I can hope to do justice in approximately 750 words. I highly recommend a few or all the columns in American Happiness and Discontents to anyone who cares about our past, or especially how we shape our future.

Dr. Lee Brewer Jones is a Newnan native and professor of English at Georgia State University.

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