I haven’t quite caught Obama fever either, but I think that this reading of Dreams of My Father is almost completely inaccurate. To wit:
o Obama presents all his father’s failings unflinchingly. His relatives tell him in detail of his father’s vanity, failure to adapt to his setbacks, failure to take care of his children, etc.
o The portrait of Obama’s mother is rounded. She gets ample credit for getting herself and him up at 4:30 (?) a.m. every morning for home schooling in Indonesia, for her adaptability, and for her unconditional love. The reader can make what s/he will of her attaching herself at very young ages to two men from foreign cultures with very different values who were problematic for her children.
o Obama presents his own adolescent resentment toward white people with ironic detachment.
o I thought that several of the people Obama worked with and encountered during his activist years in Chicago were quite vivid.
o Of course the Obama ‘character’ in the book is somewhat self-absorbed and immature. This is a coming-of-age autobiography, and a pretty unsparing though not self-hating one.
