Dreams from My Father

I am a bit of a late-comer to the book, but I just finished it and am very glad I took the time to read it. It is very well written in my opinion, in terms of both its prose and its construction. Barack Obama writes about the various figures in his life with great empathy and does a good job preserving narrative momentum throughout.

In hero-journey fashion, the book begins with news of the loss of a father and concludes with a reconciliation of sorts. At once familiar and novel, the book achieves its resonance primarily through the strength of its archetype. And as an archetype in its broadest terms, Obama's story is truly one in which we can all inscribe our own anxieties, fears and dreams.

I run in circles that typically gush with Obama love, so I am sure that my praise will sound trite. Nonetheless, here I go. What really impresses me is Obama's strength, his willingness to probe at difficult questions that are sure not to yield easy or particularly palatable answers. In an exchange between Obama and his half-brother, Mark, who is also of mixed race, I am struck by the possibility of an alternative path, of it all being otherwise:

"Understand, I'm not ashamed of being half Kenyan. I just don't ask myself a lot of questions about what it all means. About who I really am." [Mark] shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I should. I can acknowledge the possibility that if I looked more carefully at myself, I would..."
For the briefest moment I sensed Mark hesitate, like a rock climber losing his footing. Then, almost immediately, he regained his composure and waved for the check.
"Who knows? he said. "What's certain is that I don't need the stress. life's hard enough without all that excess baggage." (344)

What Mark regards as superfluous stress, "excess baggage," Obama considers the core of his existence. It is so easy to leave difficult questions for another day, to sweep inconvenient histories aside. Plenty of people choose to put on willful blinders and maybe it is easier that way to get by. But Obama refuses such easy answers, looks incessantly at the facts of his life that are most difficult to digest, and for this, I admire him greatly.