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Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes and Asides from National ReviewPM

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National Review and William F. Buckley Jr. have been a delight in my life for decades. One of the great features of magazine was called Notes and Asides. It contained a wonderfully strange mix of letters with responses from Buckley that covered language, politics, arts, challenges, witty exchanges, questions, requests, WFB's posture, and letters from Presidents. They are all wonderful in their way and many are laugh out loud funny. This book is a chronological collection of selections from this department from 1967-2005.

Not only are these exchanges wonderful insights into the times in which they were written, they bring back wonderful memories and fill in some of the things I missed. There is an ongoing joke between WFB and Art Buchwald about the perks Buchwald is getting from his Hertz Platinum card that he assumes WFB is not getting or getting more of than him. It is all good fun. We also get some warmish exchanges between WFB and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., some light tweaking between John Kenneth Galbraith and WFB, and letters WFB sent to various publications correcting statements made about him in their pages.

There is also the wonderful fun Buckley has with language and those who criticize his usage, "accent", and vocabulary. He handles it all with good humor and patiently explains that his first language was Spanish, then French, and didn't speak English until he was five. One of the fun bits recounts the famous phrase "immanentize the eschaton". Did you know it became a motto of Young Americans for Freedom? What does it mean? Simply to attempt to bring from the transcendent from the spiritual world (the eschaton) into this world (the immanent). It is a criticism of hubris in liberal attempts to try and create a literal Heaven on Earth.

Buckley also had long legal battles with certain trade unions because Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck did commercials for National Review gratis. Another union earlier had demanded that Buckley join in order to do Firing Line for free and give it away. There are also nice letters to and from friends that are touching and always interesting. However, I will state that I am not the only one that thinks Buckley wrong to use the name of God as a mere intensifier simply because it is common usage. There are lots of things in common usage that he, as a serious Christian, does not do. Misusing the Lord's name in this way is one of them. But in the balance, Buckley has given me (and others) so much, that it is something I can ignore.

This book is fun and I encourage you to get it, read it, and enjoy the fun the art of letter writing can provide. I know it is an almost extinct art form, but maybe it can be revived if enough people remember how delightful a well written letter and reply can be.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

One of the things which first hooked me on "National Review" when I was younger was the hilarious informality of Bill Buckley's "Notes and Asides" column. He set apart space in his magazine to joust with some readers and have fun with others, in a gloriously unbuttoned style that was irresistible to a budding teenage libertarian like me. He has gathered together his greatest hits in "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" (a title which perfectly sums up the wonderfully impudent tone of the book.) In some ways Buckley was the original blogger and this book provides a running history of U.S. politics and culture in recent decades from one guy's brilliantly witty perspective. If you are looking for a way to ease into Buckley's voluminous writings this is an excellent place to start.

With the publication of the wonderful Florence King's Stet, Damnit! in 2003 and WFB's "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" in 2007, National Review books are breaking new ground in the use of profanity in titles. Which is not a field in which I would have expected them to show such leadership. But since we have Buckley's own assurance in these pages (page 33, to be precise) that "goddam," as used, is profane but not blasphemous, sensitive readers should not be troubled.

William F. Buckley's books can be categorized, broadly, in two ways: books of conservative theory and practice (his collected columns, The Unmaking of a Mayor, etc.), and what could be termed personal indulgences (Overdrive: A Personal Documentary, the spy novels, and so on). This book is unquestionably an indulgence, and people who have little patience for Buckley and his well-established personality and voice will probably find this book, as they found him, infuriating. But for those of us who had great respect for the man and enjoyed watching him perform (no slight intended by use of that word), even when we may have disagreed with him, "Cancel Your Own..." is a joy to read and a foretaste of how much we will miss him in the future.

As the subtitle indicates, "Cancel Your Own..." is made up of excerpts and highlights from WFB's long-running "Notes and Asides" column in NR. The book, like N&A itself, included selected correspondence, sent and received, memoranda, and other comments and exchanges WFB considered worth sharing with a wider audience. As you'd expect from a collection he assembled himself (with the help of researchers acknowledged in the text), it shows Buckley at his best, whether smacking down a critic with airy ease, refusing to tolerate misquotation or mistranslation, or simply conducting internal or external business.

While personal favorites of mine include his ukase on the use of the serial comma, exchanges with Eric Alterman, and a magnificent letter from my hero Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn listing no fewer than 20 errors or linguistic or cultural solecisms in Buckley's Who's on First: A Blackford Oakes Mystery most any Buckley fan will be able to come up with their own list. On the other hand, Art Buchwald's strange obsession with Hertz rental cars, which he apparently thought was funny and about which he wrote WFB frequently, I found merely tiresome.

As many of his recent obituaries noted, WFB seems to have recognized in his final years that the rightist movement he did so much to create was already in its own final years and was being replaced by a very different kind of "conservatism." So much of Buckley's work now is mostly of historic interest (who reads Four Reforms: A Program for the Seventies or United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey for contemporary relevance any more?). Perhaps ironically, it's now those "indulgences" that draw us most strongly. I think "Cancel Your Own..." is a book people will keep returning to, and justly so.

As a committed Liberal, I despise everything Bill Buckley espoused, but I adored the man. National Review was anathema, except for Buckley's columns which would make me seethe, or laugh, or snarl -- but there was no resisting those words. Notes and Asides consists of Buckley at his most entertaining, wielding those $20 words, creating sentences that marched right off the page into battle, and giving us an insight into one of the most complex thinkers in modern history. Love him? Hate him? Doesnt matter. This book will hold anyone who loves words and ideas spellbound for hours.

Here's the sad part. Mr. Buckley is gone and there are none to take his place. Compare this book to the ones being written by the New Conservatives, and your heart will break. When did conservative literature degenerate from God and Man At Yale to the gas expulsions of that Oxy-Contin addicted walking whoopie cushion that is Rush Limbaugh?

Who will take up Buckley's sword and be the brilliant, eruduate, eloquent voice of the Conservatives? Bill O'Reilly, the Shut Up King? Buckley wouldn't have wasted one of his elegant sneers on that lying ignoramous. Sean Hannity? Nope...he couldn't hold a candle to Buckley...too much flying spittle. Glenn Beck? The clown who dressed up as Hitler's doorman on the cover of his book>? Okay, let's give it to Beck by default. He's now the literary and intellectual pinnacle of the Conservative movement. Congratulations to all of you. And Enjoy.

Okay, back to the review: Notes and Asides is selected from Buckley's responses to letters to the editor of National Review. His correspondence with Art Buchwald is worth the price of admission. Buy the book. Read it. You'll learn something, the cobwebs will blow out of your brain, and you'll experience some of the best use of the English language in this century. Just don't necessarily agree with him.

This book is a collection of comments and letters from the Notes and Asides section of National Review, so naturally this collection will be of most interest to long time readers of NR and Buckley fans.

I have never laughed harder in my laugh. Whether he is struggling with liberals, errors in newspapers, or conservatives who are offended by his haircut, Buckley has an unmatched wit. The book is arranged chronologically moving from the 60s until the column was cancelled in 2005.

So pick up this book, pull up to a fire place with a drink at your side, and prepare for an enjoyable trip down memory lane as you relive the unique correspondence that Buckley shared with his readers, friends, and foes.

This is a collection of material from the "Notes & Asides" section of Buckley's journal, "National Review." It was a sort of grab bag section and could include office memos, speeches or whatever took Buckley's fancy. Mostly, however, it was where Buckley personally responded to some of the letters to the Review, often either unusually vitriolic ones or ones received from well-known denizens of the political world (including both actual political figures and those who wrote about them). Many of the letter writers shared Buckley's conservative views but some did not. Mostly the book is a showcase for Buckley's famous facility with words and his wit.

The material is at its best when his correspondents can match, or nearly match, Buckley's ability in both areas. Over many years this happened often enough to provide a number of interesting exchanges. Buckley tended to be formally polite to everyone most of the time, although he occasionally unloads on some hapless soul, and he is also occasionally condescending to those who fall short of his standards of intelligence, education or decorum. Once in a while Buckley really goes after someone who has tried his patience badly, the salient case being Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who comes off looking like a pompous jerk (and an overmatched pompous jerk at that) in the exchange. Buckley is all surface politeness with Schlesinger but leaves him bleeding from more puncture wounds than St. Sebastian the Martyr.

The book is entertaining light reading. If you are looking for Buckley's deeper thoughts, however, look elsewhere.

While Mr Buckley and I have never agreed politically, I must state my pleasure at his delightful use of the English language.

Bought Mr. Buckley's latest offering and read it in one sitting. Of course, I was sitting in front of the computer the whole time so that I could look up terms and latin quotes.

Love the way that most of his writings (can't stand his fiction) exercises my mind. I agree with none of his foreign policy positions but most of his economic stands. However, setting aside ideology, simply reading this collection of "Notes & Asides" from National Review made for great entertainment and an increase in my personal lexicon.

Interestingly, just before receiving this book, I had written an essay and submitted it to a friend for review. The review comments included "Well, I did find it a bit dense, discursive and anti-climactic." One of the first Notes & Asides in Mr. Buckley's book pointed out similar failings in one of WFB's articles. "One way of putting the problem is that it's not discernibly heading anywhere; it ambles along, stuffing more and more odds & ends into its elastic bag, until it simply decides to sit down." Yet another quote that WFB includes is from Lee Barnes, the, then, editor of the Fort Pierce (FL) Tribune who explained his decision not to carry Buckley's column - "We have a policy here that we will only use columnists who write in English." WFB's response? "Qualis anus equi!"

I told my still-current-friend-in-spite-of-his-review, "Although I'd love to be considered very like WFB in intellect and wit, my resemblance to him in sentence structure is less gratifying."

So many things about this book appealed to me (but I hate the title):

1) A very young man started writing to WFB but, after receiving his help to enter and graduating from College (Yale, I think) and taking a position with the State Department with a letter of recommendation, never contacted WFB again. I am so curious about this. I even tried to find this young man (no longer so young) on the web and was unsuccessful. Wonder why the correspondence stopped?

2) I don't care how many times WFB explained it, I still don't understand "Immanentize the eschaton". I don't care that I know what the words mean - the phrase makes no sense to me.

3) Similarly, WFB states that his favorite saying and motto is "Quod licet Jovi, no licet bovi." Well hell, it seems intuitively obvious to me that Jupiter (God) has more license and power than an ox but what does WFB find so meaningful in this saying?

4) LOVED the correspondence with Art Buchwald!

5) Yes, I am very strange but I lifted my fist in a "YES!!" gesture when WFB instructed the NR editorial staff with (according to him) his only mandate during his term as Editor:

"A ukase. Un-negotiable. The only one I have issued in seventeen years. It goes: "John went to the store and bought some apples, oranges, and bananas." NOT: "John went to the store and bought some apples, oranges and bananas." I am told National Review's Style Book stipulates the omission of the second comma. My comment: "National Review's Style Book, effective immediately, makes the omission of the second comma a capital offense!"

I, too, come to a full halt when that second comma doesn't appear in such sentences and was just overjoyed to find WFB of the same mind - although I would have said "non-negotiable" rather than "un-negotiable."

6) The give and take between WFB and John Kenneth Galbraith, the far ends of the ideological spectrum, demonstrates the pinnacle of Civil Discourse.

7) WFB's eulogy and last words re colleague Bill Rickenbacker made me cry. Mr. Rickenbacker had come alive in this book to me as I knew of him only by name prior to this reading. What a fascinating person he must have been.

8) Although Rickenbacker's final days brought tears to my eyes, my real sorrow was plumbed by why the Notes & Asides feature was eventually removed from regular appearances in NR:

"I regretfully conclude that `Notes & Asides' can't continue as a regular feature of National Review. The reason is: We aren't getting enough letters that qualify as N&A material - inquisitive, zany, confused, annoyed, piquant."

That is truly sad. The readership, both fans and foes, had grown stale and less erudite. I think that is true for our nation overall. That, IMO, is cause for real sorrow.

If Mr. Buckley's book sells well, perhaps that means that this state of affairs is on the mend. His recent passing further reduced the nation's collective intellect.

"National Review" magazine began publishing November, 1955. After awhile, Buckley began to set aside unorthodox letters sent for publication, and this brings together material chosen from that collection. The material is presented chronologically, divided into four sections. Section I runs up to Nixon I, II goes through Watergate and the Carter malaise, III brings in the Reagan years, and IV goes through the end of the Cold War and on to the next set of challenges.

Buckley's equanimty and good humor are astounding - funnier than any comic. Early on the fun begins when he founds the "National Committee to Horsewhip Drew Pearson" for besmirching Shirley Temple, establishing honorary members, selling buttons, etc. Some of his critics are pretty erudite and witty themselves - eg. an English professor tongue-in-cheek's critiquing Buckley's grammar and sentence structure.

It's all pretty much apolitical, and at times even a bit irreligious, but almost all (except for a bit of spite back and forth with Arthur Schlesinger) light-hearted. If only I could write half as well!

I used to consider myself reasonably well read and a fair workman of the language. Then I read William F. Buckey. Dang! Such words! And, they're all real.

I opened Buckey's book and immediately fled for a dictionary. Reading it has been an education, a very good education. No promotion for student self-esteem, you work on this one.

As always, when dealing with Buckey there are ideas and humor. You must admit, whether you agree with him or not, they are original and are presented well. When I first ran across him in one of Rich Little's routines, the family TV didn't have UHF so I had no idea of what the comedian was talking about. I went to work and bought my first TV (a black and white 18 inch Admiral) with UHF and there was "Firing line" on PBS. While I didn't always agree with him, he was entertaining. And he remained so to the last.

No matter which side of the great divide you're on (or, like me, a middle of the road extremist teetering in the center), Buckey is worth knowing.