Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

The column on the 1972 Republican convention was eerie. It could have been written yesterday: the grandstanding, the hypocrisy, the jesus, the warmongering, the contempt for anyone with insufficient golf club memberships. Even the peaceful protesters and the police intimidation thereof. Forty years. The names have changed. Nothing else has.

On the whole, not a good book: inconsistent, often dated, occasionally incoherent. But the good stuff—his essay on Biafra, the abovementioned column, the Playboy interview—the good stuff is Very Good.