Reading Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father is a joy as he’s able to craft rich, intellectual prose while telling, reflectively, stories that shaped not only him and his understanding of identity, but also welcomes the reader to assess their own lived experience. On pages Obama paints literary pictures in HD — giving vivid color and the small, specific details that takes one from reading a story to being an observer in the background watching it unfold. Obama is many great things and a writer is one.
Though his grand ambitions were clear, at the time of writing the book, Obama was a relatively unknown citizen. Accordingly, he told the story honestly, carefully pealing back the layers that enlivened and clouded his life. While there were moments I wish were further elucidated, I respect they’d possibly only distract from the message or provide pointless fodder in his future career. Ultimately, I left the final page better understanding the internal struggle of belonging as well as the heart and thought of a future two-term President.
Favorite Quote: “I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.” pg 373
“The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power–and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that’s not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.”
“Where there is no experience the wise man is silent.”
“Strange how a single conversation can change you. Or maybe it only seems that way in retrospect.”
“In politics, like religion, power lay in certainty – and that one man’s certainty always threatened another’s.”
She had taught me to disdain the blend of ignorance and arrogance that too often characterized Americans abroad.”
About the Author: Barack Obama was the first black Harvard Law Review President, a Senator for Illinois, and the 44th President of the United States of America. He wrote two other books, The Audacity of Hope and A Promised Land.
Daniel Dickey
