“Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty” (Simon & Schuster, $29.99) is Hillary Clinton’s 13th book (including the ones she has co-written) and fourth memoir. So it seems an odd place to admit, as she does, that “sharing my most personal reflections does not come naturally.” Clinton claims to prefer writing about politics, but says: “I hope that combining the two — the broccoli and the ice cream, if you will — makes for a rewarding meal.”
Well, no. It’s as unappetizing as that image makes it sound. This is an eat-your-broccoli sort of book. So much broccoli, so little dessert.
At age 76, Clinton remains a commanding, influential and remarkable figure. Her books, alas, are not. So much of “Something Lost, Something Gained” — its title a riff on a Joni Mitchell lyric, but also a reference to the 2016 election — reads like the State of the Union address that the former senator and secretary of state dreamed of giving.
If you read the news, you will find few surprises here. Clinton preaches to the converted, her legion of admirers who will happily pay $30 for this book because they know precisely where she stands. Those fans will be able to meet Clinton on her book tour.
As a politician, it’s admirable that she mentions the plight of Afghan women, of all women, and the perils of too much screen time for children. As a writer, it’s interminable.
Clinton remains furious about Donald Trump’s hush money deal with Stormy Daniels, and that the adult-film star staying hushed possibly tipped the outcome of the 2016 election. While Clinton regrets “basket of deplorables” as “an unfortunate choice of words and bad politics,” in the years since she believes deplorable is “too kind a word for the hate and violent extremism we’ve seen from some Trump supporters.”
She views Vladimir Putin as wounded, “motivated more by loss” and the “perceived humiliations” of Russia’s lost empire than by anything else; he didn’t invade Ukraine and punish dissenters “because he felt strong,” she writes, “he did it because he felt scared.” She’s still angry at the Russian leader for ordering the hacking of Democratic campaign officials’ computers and damaging her presidential campaign.
Clinton includes a chapter on what a second Trump presidency might look like that makes Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” seem like story time. Having taught a global politics course at Columbia University last fall, Clinton derides those among the protesters who lack an understanding of historical context: “I have zero tolerance for those who may not even be able to locate Gaza on a map and yet insist that Israel has no right to exist.”
As for Bill and their often perplexing political marriage, she writes: “Ours took work. Lots of work. … Being a political spouse is an act of sublimation. You can say ‘two for the price of one,’ but there can only be one Queen Bee at a time.” (She and Bill, she writes, love to do the New York Times’s Spelling Bee game in bed each morning; he routinely and quickly reaches the highest level, Queen Bee.) Their brains work differently. “He’s still a jazz musician at heart, leaping from idea to idea with brilliant improvisation. I am more practical and linear.” After more than half a century together, he still makes her swoon. She writes, “He’s the most handsome man in every room.”
This post was originally published on here
