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As you drive through this great land of ours (if you can afford the price of gas, that is), consider what kind of America we live in.
Is this a noble country of eternal optimists who maintain that anything is possible for those willing to work hard enough? Or does it consist of an environment where the rich get richer and float to the top like cream while the middle class struggles to tread water; a collection of shallow citizens obsessed with the latest gadgetry and planning their kids' educations before they're out of the delivery room?
David Brooks took this trip, and he doesn't paint a very pretty picture. ON PARADISE DRIVE offers all those qualities and characteristics that demean Americans in the eyes of the world: too materialistic, too hedonistic, too ambivalent.
Brooks divides his book into distinct sections. The first describes the "lay of the land," the persona of communities, such as "crunchy suburbs" ("stoner versions of regular suburbs") whose denizens drive cars with bumper stickers proclaiming their love for trees and random acts of kindness or metropolitan areas with their hectic pace and claustrophobia.
Another category of chapters deals with individuals. Brooks loves to label; he separates people into two basic types --- blondes and brunettes. The former group, he argues, is more concerned with maintaining appearances and acquiring possessions and possesses an air of entitlement; the latter is more "earthy." Finally, he discusses the aspects that make up our lives --- how do we grow, learn, pray and work?
Whether he realizes it or not, both demographics fit into Brooks's mindset of "milk-and-honey obliviousness" and holier-than-thou attitudes. He is especially piquant with his observations on such suburban issues as SUV superiority, grill-envy and "ubermoms" (and dads), women in their mid-upper thirties with advanced degrees who have decided to stay at home to oversee the kids (with help from their au pairs, of course; "three is the new two" when it comes to raising a 21st century family), smoothing the way as much as possible for their children's future success.
Goodness knows he has my New Jersey town down cold. It's an amalgam of zones, (with their "driveway basketball hoops, and seasonal banners over the front doors") and people, each of whom must feel superior to the other, both those who eschew materialism (to a degree) for the high ideals of their liberal upbringing and subsequent education, and those professionals who commute to their high-powered jobs in Manhattan.
Ultimately, ON PARADISE DRIVE boils down to expectations, both realistic and unrealistic. These are the dreams and desires foisted upon us by those whose opinions we care about (family and friends), as well as those we shouldn't (advertisers count on our insecurities as they try to convince us how much better life would be if we used their products). "Why do we torture ourselves with things we don't have and aren't likely to get?" asks the author.
And what about Brooks himself? Is he an intellectual or a consumer? One might easily conclude, after reading his latest offering, that the two are mutually exclusive. But it is difficult to tell. As a columnist for the New York Times and several other media entities that could be classified as intellectually elitist, he no doubt is a member of that upper echelon. But he is also a self-proclaimed "comic sociologist," so it's not easy to know where spoofing enters into the picture. He is a modern-day Jonathan Swift, lambasting (with tongue-in-cheek) many of these well-heeled Americans for their sense of entitlement and their desire for bigger, better, new and improved, echoing the sentiments of both our allies and enemies who view us as too materialistic and never satisfied.
He is an equal-opportunity curmudgeon, taking to task those complacent with what they already have, as well as those who are constantly seeking to improve their already-enviable situations.
Can consumerism co-exist with intellectualism? In discussing a certain well-known food store chain catering to socially and health-conscious consumers, Brooks notes:
"The folks behind this enterprise have managed to come up with globally concerned stomach filler that tastes virtuously of sawdust ground from unendangered wood. For kids who come home from school screaming, 'Mom, I want a snack that will prevent colo-rectal cancer,' there's Veggie Booty with kale, baked pea-pod chips, roasted plantains, wasabi peas and flavor-free rice clusters. If you smuggled a bag of Doritos into Trader Joe's, some preservative alarm would go off, and the whole place would have to be fumigated and resanctified."
Like an accident from which we can't avert our eyes, books like ON PARADISE DRIVE conspire to drive us crazy by making us think about the meaning in our lives.
--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan (ronk23@aol.com)
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