Witty and illuminating

I am not a conservative, but I love William F. Buckley. His insights - and soothing voice in the self-narrated audiobook - are worth hearing.

This semiautobiography is organized as a collection of essays and textual fragments gathered from his long and illustrious career. Some of the bits are more interesting than others, but the sheer scope of the material, combined with a firm editorial hand, makes for an epic journey without much extra fluff.

I said without much. Were I blessed with any interest in sailing, I would have given this book five stars. The passion comes through, but so does the obsession. Like the ocean itself, it's too big for its own good, skipper. I'd say skip it.

My favourite bits include the recollections of his childhood and adolescence, the intriguing saga of the divisive university politics at Yale, the passionate love letter to wine, the transcript of the famous Panama debate with Reagan, the copious pages of political and literary gossip, and the amusing asides on a dozen trivialities enlivened with wit and irony. All of it is served with honey; on nigh every page you can taste the sweet and unswerving devotion, by Mr. Buckley, to mastering the peculiar manners, the power and the vocabulary of the English tongue.

Buckley is no saint. While I loathe his Catholic mysticism and warmongering apologetics, there is no conservative I'd rather have around today. He was never anything less than idealistic. He was deadly precise in his reactionary fervour and always honest in his dealings, which gave progressives some healthy target practice - and a good model to emulate on the other side.

Being dangerous enough to be taken seriously is already an impressive, lasting legacy, but this is not the best engraving on his tombstone. No. Buckley's greatest contribution, I believe, was his cultivation, by word and deed, of the power of reasoned debate.

He showed us that there is no controversy that cannot be made more tolerable by being placed on the Firing Line. Without "frenemies" like him to keep us straight, the endangered art of civility will sink to the sea with the Titanic and Atlantis.

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