Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society

Although a collection of already-published essays, this book is well worth the read. Frank is at his trenchant best as a social critic, and his essays on subjects as diverse as the McMansion, "vibrancy", and DYKWIAs (Do You Know Who I Am) are classic, trenchant, well-written and witty. The essays on education and the university system are absolute must reads for anyone who wants to understand the roots of inequality and the hegemony of free market neo-liberal ideology in present day America. This is Frank's best since his "One Market Under God".

I'm a big fan of the author but when he reads his own words in the audiobook version, it's almost as if he doesn't think we'll get the joke if he doesn't signal with his voice that it's meant to be funny. In fact, it more often ruined the joke to do that so I'd like to suggest you stick with the old fashion text version of this book, at least for the first half.

I'm not sure if civilization is collapsing or if it's been crumbling for years but the current rot is merely more apparent to us. The individual situations differ, of course, but though, for example, the university has certainly devolved in the many ways outlined in the essay American Fight Song, we need to also remember some of the awful ways it used to be that are no longer the show more case. Admission of minorities, or even merely those of the wrong class, used to rarely happen at all back when America was great. And even though you were taught by actual scholars instead of adjuncts, some of those scholars didn't communicate as well as they did research. I've been an adjunct and though I'm aware that I was being underpaid, I could teach a better course than many having tenure.

Similarly, Trump being president may represent a new low or may merely be what was always present becoming less hidden because Trump is incapable or unwilling to hide who he is. Never the less, I wish I could make everyone read the final chapter America Made Great Again in which Frank spells out Trump’s potential path to reelection as president of the United States for a second term. show less

Having been mightily impressed by Listen, Liberal, I really looked forward to the next insight by Thomas Frank. Unfortunately, Rendezvous With Oblivion is simply a collection of earlier essays, and not any deep new thought to set politicos back on their heels. These reprints are mostly a dated look backward, with much less value than new insight. Once read, they can be forgotten.

Some of them are really forced. Frank has access to Lexis/Nexis, so he can research the obscure, like how many nonprofits use the word “vibrant” in their mission statements. And then he quotes many of them. This is boring. A lot of others trounce Trump, everyone’s favorite whipping boy. Too easy. And there is his tired prescription for Democrats to take show more back the country. It is a complex mélange of tactics the Democrats won’t adopt and which won’t work. What they need is a clean, honest, charismatic leader, and they don’t have one. Even on the horizon. But Frank doesn’t see that. He’s still mourning Hillary. Really.

I think the best essay concerns presidential libraries. Frank visited three – Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and was scathing in his appreciation. For lack of anything worthwhile, they all have life-sized replicas of the Oval Office and souvenirs like the president’s actual limo. Right there, live in front of you! They rationalize the subject’s term, minimizing or hiding their blunders and playing up their successes, if any. Mostly, they are an astonishing waste of money: half a billion dollars for the Bush II library, for example.

Fortunately, Frank writes engagingly. He keeps your attention with the promise of intelligent discourse. This covers a lot of sins, and makes Rendezvous With Oblivion readable, if not memorable.

David Wineberg show less

thomas seems like a smart guy. some interesting thoughts, though this probably didn't need to be a book?

A collection of articles written during the Obama era. He is always entertaining and has a pretty good perspective.

Thomas Frank is a journalist, columnist, and a founding editor of the magazineThe Baffler. He is pro-labour supporter of the policiess of the New Deal, and was a supporter of the presidential campaign Bernie Saunders in 2016. He is noted for his recognition that some supporters of the Democratic party became modern populists receptive to modern Republican policies and candidates, and for predicting that Donald Trump was going to win the 2016 US presidential election. Many of the essays in this collection were written before the 2016 election, and a few were written after. In part, Frank advances the modern progressive complaints that the Democratic party has been captured by financial and commercial elites and adopted anti-egalitarian show more beliefs in the credentials of educated bureaucrats (government and private) serving a system which has abandoned equality, and rewards "elite" persons with wealth and power. show less