![]() ![]() It’s a 768-page book that is somehow without boring parts. The Path to Power in particular (the first of his four-and-counting LBJ books) is one of those books you read on vacation and then end up remembering better than the vacation. ![]() However! Robert Caro’s biographies are astonishing. The obligations of biography (thoroughness, respect for chronology) seem indifferent or even hostile to the prime imperative of storytelling, as articulated by Elmore Leonard: skip the boring parts ! To which Biography, raising its bespectacled head from a pile of years-old Daily Planners, says, Boring parts? And then on the third, weirdly, I realized the filter was the wrong size…” I call this friend Biography. On March second, I went and got a new filter for my air conditioner. You settle in, order some guacamole, and say, “So - what’s been going on?” And your friend says, “Well, lemme seem, the last time we saw each other was March first. Imagine you’re going out to dinner with a friend you haven’t seen in a few months. ![]() This will, I know, make me sound like a moron, but: they seem as a form almost built to be dull. ![]()
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