Opus 2014-201: Wobegon Fathers

I have finally gotten around to reading Lake Wobegon Days.  It appeared at a book sale when I happened to have some change, so I bought it.  I am not sure that I would have missed that much but I am committed to finishing it.  The biggest problem is knowing where Keillor inserts his tongue in his cheek and when he is telling it was as it was.  I guess that is part of the charm but I like to know what is true because I don’t want to quote it as fact if it is just good fiction.

Garrison Keillor is a well known liberal.  He is also a talented man.  He says some things that read very well and express what I see happening.  The problem is he is mocking as he writes.  This passage stood out to me.

“Father Emil had spoken the week before Father’s Day and said that agnostic liberals had cut fatherhood off at the knees.  These liberals aimed to destroy authority and stability, and so had undermined the Father.  Look at television, Father had said - Dad is shown as a dummy who stumbles around and breaks things and gets into trouble, usually to be rescued by a small child or a pet.  Children watch hours of this junk every week.  Their fathers allow them to watch it because fathers want to be pals, not meanies.  But children find other children to be pals.  Children need fathers to be fathers.” pages 157-158

I don’t follow Keillor but my guess is that he is one of the “agnostic liberals” he is writing about.  What he said was true and accurate.  My feeling is that he and his friends really think this is foolish conservative twaddle.  The problem is, as a public school teacher, in the trenches with the products of these kinds of fathers, I must say that Keillor’s mockery was irony because it is true.

Grab your truth wherever you can find it.

Keillor, Garrison.  Lake Wobegon Days.  New York:  Viking, 1985.

homo unius libri