BOOK REVIEW: Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen
To be completely honest, I purchased this book solely for its absurd title. Seriously, what in the world could a dead German philosopher and creamy frozen dairy stands have in common?
Apparently, a great deal.
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen is the memoirs of Pulitzer Prize winning author, antiquarian book guru, and native Texan Larry McMurtry, a weaver of semi-autobiographical novels of the contemporary (and not-so-contemporary) wild west. At sixty and beyond, McMurtry is a veritable wellspring of tales.
The collection of musings spans everything from an elegy to the short-lived and misinterpreted idea of the American Cowboy to McMurtry's own ordeal with heart surgery that left him listless and unable to read books with his once-youthful fervor. He misses trudging out to the one local Dairy Queen to catch up on the latest news and neighborhood gossip.
McMurtry parallels his nostalgia for such times with the longing felt by Walter Benjamin in his later writings, especially Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (1968), in which Benjamin both observes and mourns the loss of what we would think of as "the water cooler conversation". While acknowledging the benefits of advancing communication technology, he wonders plaintively if soon there will be no place for the oral tradition in modern society.
McMurtry feels strongly akin to this unlikely character, and concludes with a poignant section devoted to the great readers of books and tellers of tales through the ages.
This tome is a really sincere read that will have you questioning the anonymity and inhumanness of the internet. And that says a lot, coming from someone such as myself who spends more hours on the computer than sleeping.
Get your own copy from Amazon, or walk down the road and ask your nearest neighbors if they own it...in person!
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