Writers praise Barack Obama's inaugural address

Most say that restraint and plain speaking distinguished the speech. One calls it a 'sophisticated view of the world and our role in it.'

By Susan Salter Reynolds
LA Times
2:35 PM PST, January 20, 2009

More novel than short story; more ballad than poem -- most writers agree that restraint and plain speaking were the qualities that distinguished President Obama's inaugural address. Long on plot (and it will thicken), it did what literature does best: the backward glance, the standing on shoulders, the salute to ancestors and other sources of wisdom.

"He is our first (in the best sense of the word) aristocratic president," said author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell. "Bush was a buddy. Clinton was the kindly uncle. Obama is a prince."

And yet, Obama is also a writer, and writers were not at a loss for words. Author Ron Carlson was watching the president's syntax. "What courage," he said, "to use a complex sentence talking to a million people! By expecting the best of us, he just might get it."

Nonfiction writer Mark Kurlansky said the speech "was the most sophisticated view of the world and our role in it of any inaugural address in history."

(More here.)