What It Felt Like: Living in the American Century
by Henry Allen.
Pantheon Books
pg. 176, Copyright 2000.
Henry Allen's book, "What It Felt Like: Living in the American Century" is a fabulous book. Starting with 1900, each chapter is dedicated to a decade's worth of memories, product name-dropping, and random dialogue. Allen picks an underlying theme with ties each of these elements together.
In books like these, it's usually the earlier part of the decade that gets short shrift. The writing sparkles in the chapters which the author remembers. In this case, Allen's best work is done in the first few chapters. His voice is dispassionate, allowing readers to feel the full effect of the words. "You stand at attention in restaurants whenever the band plays, 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' which it does a lot, and there's a punch in the nose waiting for any man who doesn't. Sauerkraut becomes 'liberty cabbage.' German measles are 'liberty measles.'"
Renaming words was a 1910-1920 phenomena, which as you remember, played out again nearly 90 years later. Such patterns are subtly underscored throughout the book. Greed and rampant materialism appear and then disappear; waiting for each generation to discover it anew. And they always do.
From the 60s onward, the book takes a more dour tone; paranoia and narcissism laced with disappointment. Greed makes life simple in the 80s, but scheduling life becomes complicated. And the 90s, the "Whatever" decade in which technology imposed itself on relationships. In this book, he sees America as a lonely place - by choice. "Memoirs replaced novels as the fashionable sport. Internet games and chat rooms replaced social life, even offering the change to change your identity and sign on as someone else."
Allen allows readers to reach their own conclusions about the American Century. But with this evidence, it's hard not to be worried about the future.
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