Retirement Before Dishonor

Book Review
Matters Of Honor
Lewis Begley
320 Pages
Published by Knopf








Begley is an aging American treasure. His book “About Schmidt” was an awesome, award winning read which Hollywood went on to turn into a drab story about a sad little man in Omaha (not Warren Buffet). I try and read everything that he writes but I was very pleased to discover that he had slipped in a book last year which had flown under my radar screen. That book is “Matters of Honor”. I still have the benefit of reading a lot but as I have done so I have found that means I read about 15-20 books a year if I am lucky and follow a handful of authors who amuse, disturb or fascinate me. Begley does both but in an incredibly erudite way.

He is a totally fascinating story on his own, now as a retired Partner from the white shoe New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton but you can read more about him at his website:

http://www.louisbegley.com/matterhonor.htm

and at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Begley

This book is a lot of his personal story I think, but I do not know.

I enjoy his books so much because they never appear to try and shock and are cloaked in what we all generally see as gentler times and more generous language. The operative word in the last sentence is “try”. That having been said his books do a fantastic job showing the nobility, ugliness, kindness, pettiness and ultimately the unique combination of frailty and strength that make being a human being such a beautiful gift. The dark side of his characters always evoke Sommerset Maugham’s best drawn characters and they have a depth a texture which few authors can (or perhaps refuse to take the time to) accommodate.
As a lawyer of some 21 years in St. Louis and reaching a solid middle age his books (all of them) speak to me in a very personal way. His use of language and nuanced relationships is lost on the generation of authors who I have grown up with and it is always a nice break to read of his books.

All that having been said “Matters Of Honor” felt like a gift. Throughout the book we are left to assume things which might or might not be important and underneath it all is a tapestry of racism, class consciousness and sexuality which is enthralling and hard to put down. I assume Begley writes what he knows but for a bumpkin from the midwest and a nice upper middle class family he might as well be writing about ancient Chinese dynasties.

The books story is a simple one. Several white males show up for Harvard shortly after WWII and get thrown in together. Our narrator is sam who might or might not have been adopted and raised by well to do (profoundly shallow and unhappy) alcoholics. We have Archie, the son of a career soldier and most importantly Henry, a Polish Holocaust survivor. The travails of the three of them, through college and on into their careers is fascinating and a testimony to a lot of the things that are good, and all of the things that are frail about being a human being.

This is just plain and simple a very good read.

9 1/2 Slingers on the 10 Scale.