Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut: Twenty-Five Years of P.J. O'Rourke

This is an excellent anthology of O'Rourke's writings from his commie journalist days in Baltimore in the early 1970s, through his years at NATIONAL LAMPOON, up to the mid-90s when he was writing articles about politics, current events and foreign affairs for ROLLING STONE and the conservative AMERICAN SPECTATOR. Included are articles about cars the he wrote for CAR & DRIVER, articles about fishing and hunting originally published in MEN'S JOURNAL, and a speech he gave at a CATO Institute function. The essays vary greatly not just with regards to topics, but also with respect to the degree of humour, and some border on the serious. But all are interesting, as any P.J. O'Rourke fan would expect. As O'Rourke states in the Introduction: "It is, I guess, interesting to watch the leftist grub weaving itself into the pupa of satire and then emerging a resplendent conservative blowfly."

PJ O'Rourke has always been one of my favorite cultural and political commentators. An unrepentant Libertarian Republican who used to be an unrepentant Marxist radical, O'Rourke is a conservative who writes with all the wit and verve that, supposedly, only liberals are capable of. P.J. O'Rourke is the Al Franken of the American Right, if Al Franken were actually funny. Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut is made up of O'Rourke's previously uncollected writings over the past three decades. As such, the book begins with a few choice pieces from his angry days as a Marxist journalist in the early '70s (where, it must be said, O'Rourke still writes with a wit that proves that funny is funny not matter what the ideology) moves on to cover his brief period as an adherent to Concrete Poetry (an art form that he admits still having no idea what to make of) and finally closes with a few of his recent essays as Rolling Stone's Foreign Affairs Editor. Best of all, O'Rourke includes a few short stories that he wrote and published while editor of National Lampoon. The stories, all dealing with his past as a '60s radical, are a perfect mixture of radical nostalgia and modern day clear headedness and, along with an unexpected pathos for his lost characters wandering through the political wilderness of protest, they also rank amongst the most hilarious of O'Rourke's writings, perfectly displaying his trademark style of detached irony and self-depreciating wit (one can always sense O'Rourke saying, "Can you believe they actually pay me to write this stuff?"). Perhaps most nicely, the pieces in this collection are arranged by chronological order so that the reader literally goes through O'Rourke's political and literary evolution with him over the course of the book. As such, we're provided with a nice view of the political odyssey of both O'Rourke and America over the past 30-odd years. If one thing remains the same it is that O'Rourke, whether conservative or liberal, consistently refuses to accept anything at face value. He remains, always, the eternal skeptic. And we, as readers, are all the better off for it.

If you or someone you know and love is looking for great material for a speach competition, try the stories "Dynamite" and "Another Tale of Uncle Mike." I used them to get to the state competition. The book is all-around hillarious with great little tips such as how to out-drink an Irish wedding party when they have a few hours head-start. It also has some great lines such as "none of us were seriously hurt, except for Terry, who had part of a hash pipe blown up his nose, something they had a hard time understanding at the emergency room." Buy it and laugh.

I have read all of PJ's books now, far from a simple fetish for his eye openning descriptions of society and its events, I have more of an addtiction. This PJ masterpeice epitomises what he has been trying to tell us all throughout his previous writings. I would never be bold enough to even attempt to paraphrase the man himself and therefore tell you, a PJ virgin, what is in store. Read this book, revel in its free will and you will undoubtedly believe in this one statement: The sanctitiy of the Individual.

The epitome of Republican, yes I said republican humor. Liberals don't have the handle on humor, obviously, and P.J. has done it again with his O'Rourke finesse! Many kudos to a laff- a- line guy. Get it and laugh your left(ist) sock off! Infact, get every one of his hilarious books and laugh both socks off. You'll be glad you did. When will he give us the President this country needs and sit on the White House lawn with a fine cigar and a tall one? We can only hope.