Customer Reviews

I Believe In Yesterday: My Living Hell in Living History

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Tim Moore is the only humorist I know who consistently makes me laugh out loud when I read him. That is a hard trick, by the way. Moore puts himself in unusual places (the Arctic, the Tour de France, etc.) and with his keen observation, discovers the humor in everything around him, especially in himself. He specializes in self-effacing humor, making fun of himself even more than he makes fun of those around him.

In I Believe in Yesterday, Moore hits the mother lode, getting involved in historical reenactments from prehistoric times to the American Civil War. There are plenty of hilarious moments to enjoy, but there is also something else, which showed me that Moore is an even better writer than I ever imagined.

While he emjoys the absurdities of historical reenactments - the Romans soldiers who always lose to the Gauls when they are performing in France, for instance - he also understands why people do these things - the cameraderie, the ability even if momentarily, to convey oneself to a different world - and to convey these sensations to the reader.

And there is something more. When Moore meets a truly superior person - a former Special Forces hero who engages in "historical experiments" such as trying to determine how long it would take for a pioneer to clear a patch of land and build a cabin - he does not hold back in his admiration of the man and his deeds. Tim Moore, then, is not just some Jon Stewart, who mocks everything because he lacks any standards or character. Moore makes fun of things BECAUSE he has character and standards and is willing to acknowledge those that meet his approval. That is a much harder line for a writer to tow.

Oh, and although Tim Moore is as merciless to himself here as he is in all of his books, it is clear that his hero thinks well of him, so I suspect that Tim Moore is actually as good a man as he is a writer.

I have a hard time getting all of Tim Moore's books in the library, so I was happy to get my hands on this one.