0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
O'Rourke from Leftist Grub to Conservative Blowfly, 2009-12-18
This is an excellent anthology of O'Rourke's writings from his commie journalist days in Baltimore in the early 1970s, through his years at NATIONAL LAMPOON, up to the mid-90s when he was writing articles about politics, current events and foreign affairs for ROLLING STONE and the conservative AMERICAN SPECTATOR. Included are articles about cars the he wrote for CAR & DRIVER, articles about fishing and hunting originally published in MEN'S JOURNAL, and a speech he gave at a CATO Institute function.
The essays vary greatly not just with regards to topics, but also with respect to the degree of humour, and some border on the serious. But all are interesting, as any P.J. O'Rourke fan would expect.
As O'Rourke states in the Introduction: "It is, I guess, interesting to watch the leftist grub weaving itself into the pupa of satire and then emerging a resplendent conservative blowfly."
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
The evolution of a writer, 2003-06-07
I first got into PJ O'Rourke when I started reading his book "Republican Party Reptile" and realized that I could laugh heartily at his wit, as opposed to the often divisive rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel. O'Rourke is equally scathing in his approach to "born-again" nutjobs as he is to "pinko" enviromentalists, and his is a style of writing I wouldn't mind trying to emulate in my own belated (and as yet unpublished) career as a writer."Age and Guile" caught my fancy because I had heard it was a collection of his pieces from over the years, and I tried to find it at the local library and various bookstores, but was unlucky in my pursuit. I ended up checking out a Books-on-Tape version of the book, read by Norman Deitz, and I was quite pleased.
The early material is amatuerish, to be fair, but there are nuggets of wit to be found amongst the "juvinelia". The Truth About The Sixties was actually one of my favorite parts of the book, I found it very involving and fascinating to hear. The rest of the book tickled my funny bone. I just don't have enough good things to say about this book.
So, I ordered it on Amazon, and I've recieved it, and it's joined my collection of P.J. O'Rourke books. A liberal at heart myself, I agree with a previous reviewer that O'Rourke celebrates individual freedom and doesn't care for those who try and take it away. I only hope I can be as good at conveying that in my own writing, he's certainly one hell of a teacher.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Politics, stories, and concrete poetry -- best of everything, 2001-11-16
PJ O'Rourke has always been one of my favorite cultural and political commentators. An unrepentant Libertarian Republican who used to be an unrepentant Marxist radical, O'Rourke is a conservative who writes with all the wit and verve that, supposedly, only liberals are capable of. P.J. O'Rourke is the Al Franken of the American Right, if Al Franken were actually funny. Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut is made up of O'Rourke's previously uncollected writings over the past three decades. As such, the book begins with a few choice pieces from his angry days as a Marxist journalist in the early '70s (where, it must be said, O'Rourke still writes with a wit that proves that funny is funny not matter what the ideology) moves on to cover his brief period as an adherent to Concrete Poetry (an art form that he admits still having no idea what to make of) and finally closes with a few of his recent essays as Rolling Stone's Foreign Affairs Editor. Best of all, O'Rourke includes a few short stories that he wrote and published while editor of National Lampoon. The stories, all dealing with his past as a '60s radical, are a perfect mixture of radical nostalgia and modern day clear headedness and, along with an unexpected pathos for his lost characters wandering through the political wilderness of protest, they also rank amongst the most hilarious of O'Rourke's writings, perfectly displaying his trademark style of detached irony and self-depreciating wit (one can always sense O'Rourke saying, "Can you believe they actually pay me to write this stuff?"). Perhaps most nicely, the pieces in this collection are arranged by chronological order so that the reader literally goes through O'Rourke's political and literary evolution with him over the course of the book. As such, we're provided with a nice view of the political odyssey of both O'Rourke and America over the past 30-odd years. If one thing remains the same it is that O'Rourke, whether conservative or liberal, consistently refuses to accept anything at face value. He remains, always, the eternal skeptic. And we, as readers, are all the better off for it.
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Face it, the guy's funny, 2000-06-12
First and foremost: it is worth noting (and it pains an saddens me that this is the case) that the phrase "Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut" is the first time I have seen a three-item list with correct grammar in a book printed in America after World War II.
Second, and not quite so foremost: P. J. O'Rourke is a very, very funny guy. He is completely politically incorrect, in most cases, and is therefore more than happy to pull out the jokes, puns, and other humorous concepts his more liberal colleagues have left to the dust.
Third, and not really far up there on the scale, but still worth mentioning: in most ways, P. J. O'Rourke is a tremendous boon to the right-wing American. He's not afraid to take pot-shots at just about anything, including fellow members of the right (Pat Buchanan is roasted almost as often as Bill Clinton), and he's not afraid to admit his mistakes, such as endorsing Clinton in 1992.
Combine those, and for most of this book you have a tremendously funny read, an almost literary roasting of such things as book tours, drinking, stupid sports, Whitewater, various makes and models of automobile, and the like. Unfortunately, it's the part that falls outside the realm of "most" that keeps this from being one of the finest political collections of the past decade. There are times when O'Rourke, who seems to be sitting right on the Libertarian partyline, veers far off to the left, and if he is to be trusted he was stuck out there in at least one case by the head of the Cato Institute (making me wonder how Libertarian they truly are), and he also has many of the strange and illogical hang-ups that keep me from ever wanting to vote Republican. He also, and he is well aware of it, asks a lot of our indulgence in the book's second section, a collection of short stories published (well, most of them) in the National Lampoon during his tenure as editor in chief there. Anyone who still wonders why I abhor the very idea of self-publishing need only read the section "The Truth About the Sixties and Other Fictions" in this book. It's shameless, awful, contorted, constipated prose, and O'Rourke is fully aware of this, and even says so in a few places.
But if you skip that section, and immediately stop reading any time you find one of those places where conservatives suddenly dismiss anything relating to logic (I have often theorized it's remnants of too many drugs during the sixties), this is most definitely a worthwhile book. Both the automobile and sports sections brought forth guffaws. And if you've ever heard me guffaw, you'll know that's soemthing to stay away from.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Hillarious!, 1999-12-28
If you or someone you know and love is looking for great material for a speach competition, try the stories "Dynamite" and "Another Tale of Uncle Mike." I used them to get to the state competition. The book is all-around hillarious with great little tips such as how to out-drink an Irish wedding party when they have a few hours head-start. It also has some great lines such as "none of us were seriously hurt, except for Terry, who had part of a hash pipe blown up his nose, something they had a hard time understanding at the emergency room." Buy it and laugh.