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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fun-House Mirror of a Book, May 26, 2001
What Queenan does is hold up a mirror so that we Boomers can see ourselves, and yes, what he shows us is ugly, but it's hilarious to see ourselves through his distorted lens. You will recognize yourself, your friends, and your relatives. And if you appreciate mean humor, you will have a big grin on your face most of the time you read this. This is a book you will want to share. I want all of my friends and fellow Boomers to read it, because it's such fun. I want my father to read it, so that he can see his offspring put into proper perspective. And I really hope that the individuals that Queenan uses to illustrate particularly vile aspects of our smug self-importance read the book and recognize themselves. But it's about all of us Boomers, and all of us will enjoy a good squirm when we read this. The man is funny. This book will bring you pleasure. If it doesn't, you are seriously humor-impaired, and should pass it along to a less handicapped friend, who will then owe you a big favor. Buy this book.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mildly funny and very clever, September 6, 2001
There is no denying that Balsamic Dreams, by Joe Queenan, is funny, clever, and entertaining to read. But a consequence of being a prolific writer is that readers might read your other books and compare or even prefer them to you latest offering. Such is my assessment of Queenan's most recent book, "Balsamic Dreams," which is subtitled "A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation. The book is a loose collection of essays that excoriate, dissect, and firmly pin to the dart board the stereotypical "Baby Boomer" (a term which, with his usual irony, Queenan capitalizes). For Queenan's purposes, the official definition of a Baby Boomer is slightly outside the officially recognized statistical boundaries and includes those born between 1943 and 1960 or 1962. In his "Disclaimer Chapter," Queenan humbly acknowledges his own membership in this group. In short, Queenan defines the generation, which he calls "a mindset as much as a demographic group," thusly: To qualify as a Baby Boomer, a person must have been deeply affected at a relatively early age by a significant number of the following: the Soviet Union's development of the hydrogen bomb, Elvis, Sputnik, the Thunderbird, the Twist, the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy Debate, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Muhammad Ali's defeat of Sonny Liston, JFK's assassination, the Beatles, the civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King's assassination, assorted other assassinations, the Tet Offensive, the Days of Rage, the Strawberry Statement, LBJ's self-furlough, Muhammad Ali's defeat at the hands of Joe Frazier, Jimi Hendrix's death, Jim Morrison's death, Janis Joplin's death, Duane Allman's death, Woodstock, Easy Rider, The Graduate, Joe, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altamont, Charles Manson, the breakup of the Beatles, the secret invasion of Cambodia, Watergate, Richard Nixon's resignation. Having set the parameters of his targeted foes, Queenan skewers them with his laser-like, sardonic wit. Notable "high misdemeanors" of the offending generation are: the habit of middle-aged men to wear ponytails and sandals in an effort to look "cool" to the next generation; their propensity for bogus and un-enriching self-improvement courses given by charlatans such as Deepak Chopra; listening to weak, uninspiring music by Billy Joel and Rod Stewart; naming their children with odd, androgynous names and substituting irritating and ineffective "parenting" techniques for raising their children with solid, traditional, middle-class values; and, most egregious of all, selling out the revolutionary values they held as young adults in exchange for "the good life." As previously mentioned, this book was good, and it was funny, but it was not as enjoyable or as outright hilarious as a previous Queenan work, entitled "Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon," which details Queenan's effort to experience and survive all manner of pop culture phenomena, such as Kenny G. concerts, reading Shogun, and seeing the play Cats. "Red Lobster" was so funny, I could hardly breathe or see the page for my hysterical laughter, and in a first experience for me, I howled with glee even at the index. "Balsamic Dreams" has its funny parts and its clever parts, but it also has some or repetitive boring stretches. It also employs some methods of narration or parody that simply don't work or wear out quickly, as in Queenan's fantasy alternative history of America as seen through the eyes of politically and environmentally correct and pacifistic Baby Boomers. By all means read "Balsamic Dreams," but reward yourself by following up with "Red Lobster."
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57 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
funny, but disappointing, May 13, 2001
By A Customer
Considering how minuscule were the circulations of both Spy and Movieline, the magazines for which he wrote, I would imagine that most folks were first exposed to Joe Queenan, as I was, on Imus in the Morning. He's absolutely hilarious there : his sarcastic style is ideally suited to the format and he's got Imus continually directing him to new topics at which to spew venom. But after reading several of his books--all of which I've liked, but not loved--I'm beginning to wonder if he doesn't need a better editor to bring some form to his very funny observations. Queenan's latest book, Balsamic Dreams, is intended to be an indictment of the Baby Boomer Generation, of which he is an embarrassed member. He's operating in what Norman Schwarzkopf might call a target rich environment here, and almost inevitably much of what he has to say is very amusing, even laugh-out-loud funny in places. But somehow, it's not as good a book as it should be. There are a couple of problems. For one thing, he's really written a series of interconnected essays rather than one sustained indictment. This makes for some rather distracting disorganization and some truly annoying repetition. Worse, he periodically himself gets distracted from the task at hand. I thoroughly enjoyed his attacks on the so-called Greatest Generation and on Gen-X, but in these sections of the book he's essentially defending the Boomers, rather than garroting them, which is what we'd prefer. The other problem isn't so much structural, it's ideological. Queenan's thesis is that the Boomers started out well, but then sold out. He repeatedly gives them credit for "the Freedom Riders. Woodstock, Four Dead in Ohio, driving Nixon from office, Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy", but then says that after that they became selfish, self-absorbed, and obsessed with their material well being. Which is all well and good, except that : Midnight Cowboy sucked; as he himself says, the Boomers as they exist in our minds are the sons and daughters of the Post-WWII white middle class, and as such weren't a significant part of the Civil Rights movement; Woodstock was the epitome of the generation's irresponsible self-indulgence which was then conflated into some kind of meaningful statement of peace, love, and brotherhood; and both driving Nixon from office and getting gunned down at Kent State were fundamentally related to their desire to avoid service in Vietnam, which, though Queenan largely avoids the topic, is the primary crime they have to answer for. Basically, he's completely wrong about whether his generation was ever worthwhile, and this too seems a function of his natural inclination to defend his own : the Boomers didn't decline over time, they began badly. Oddly enough, the best moments in the book come when Queenan is making serious points, rather than comic ones. At one point, when discussing the total farce that Boomers have turned funerals into, with songs, multiple insipid eulogies, and readings from inane fare like the Tibetan Book of the Dead, he says that : Because we Baby Boomers believe in nothing, we end up acting like we believe in everything. Elsewhere, while visiting a dying friend, Queenan is approached by a woman he doesn't know who clearly wants to hug him, but avoids her : After an awkward silence, she spoke : 'It's a shame that men have so much trouble showing their emotions,' she whispered. It was classic Baby Boomer feminism. What she meant was : 'You probably have the same feelings that I do, but you can't possibly show them, because that would necessitate revealing your feminine side, which this hideously repressive society prohibits you from doing.' It was also classic Baby Boomer behavior in that it capitalized on an inappropriate, emotionally devastating moment to launch a skirmish in the ongoing gender wars. 'Actually, I have no trouble showing my emotions,' I told her. 'These are my emotions. I'm sad that my friend is dying, and that's why I look so sad. If my friend wasn't dying, I would probably be smiling and look a lot happier. I think a lot of men work this way.' 'Have a nice life,' she replied. Ditto. Even here though, when he's truly nailed what's most wrong with the Baby Boomers, he fails to develop these observations into a unified and coherent brief against them, because his objections seem to be mostly stylistic, rather than moral. He seems more concerned with how cheesy the funerals are and how silly the hugging is, than with the underlying causes of these behaviors. But the Baby Boomers aren't evil because they are gauche or tacky or melodramatic; they're evil because they don't believe in anything but themselves and as Queenan says when discussing Bill Clinton's capacity to show empathy without ever actually sharing a feeling, "...they don't actually care what other people do as long as they say the right things...." There is an essential hollowness at the core of this generation. The fact that they have no beliefs, the way they display emotion without feeling it, the way they tried to turn simple draft avoidance into a great crusade, the way they have warped social standards to indulge their behaviors, ...all of these these things should be piled one on top of another by the prosecution as it makes its case that they are the most destructive generation in history. But Queenan, notorious for his scorched earth style and willingness to take no prisoners, backs off, and the book suffers because of it. It's too bad, because there's much here that's funny and wickedly observant, and with a stronger editor to keep him on track, the book might have been great. As is, it's fun, but somewhat disappointing. GRADE : B-
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