Book Review: "My Search for Warren Harding" by Robert Plunket

I'm always happy when a Penguin Modern Classics' book comes out on Kindle for cheap and this book was no exception. My Search for Warren Harding was described as a book that would make me laugh out loud and even though it didn't do that (since I don't actually laugh very often at anything, nothing about the book), I still enjoyed it quite a lot. At the moment, the world is getting over the AI Studio Ghibli art crisis and has completely ignored the Myanmar earthquake. It's a tough world filled with entitled idiots but here we are, to get reading about one more and his name is Elliott Weiner.

Our protagonist, a morally dubious historian, becomes obsessed with uncovering intimate letters written by President Warren G. Harding to his former mistress, Rebecca Kinney. Believing these letters will catapult him to academic fame, Elliott devises a plan to obtain them. Honestly, he feels like a character straight out of a Saul Bellow novel. He's not very well-mannered and he has this personality of a man who cannot take rejection. I get it, I do. But I also found this character to be slightly insufferable at times. It's as though the author had drawn out the systems to what makes this character 'different' in many ways. It was good, it just wasn't really funny after a while - just annoying.

To be closer to Rebecca Kinney, now an elderly recluse, Elliott relocates from the East Coast to Los Angeles. He rents the pool house on her dilapidated Hollywood estate, aiming to ingratiate himself into her household and gain access to the coveted letters. This I have to admit, was a bit creepy. I mean, I get it he's obsessed but honestly I felt shivers in me and a little bit sick when I read about him only doing all of this to stalk a woman he's never met who also has absolutely no knowledge of his existence. As a woman, that is possibly the most terrifying thing to imagine because even though through the book, we know the aims of the main character - what would happen if we didn't? I understood it, but it really didn't come across very well.

Elliott begins dating Jonica, Rebecca's overweight and emotionally vulnerable granddaughter. Viewing her solely as a means to an end, he exploits her insecurities to deepen his infiltration into the Kinney family. Again, even though this is supposed to be funny, it isn't. But I can appreciate that Elliott really had this planned out. This is where Elliott's true colours of being an entitled idiot come out and I really do feel like it is appropriate for our own times of using and abusing people and things for self-service rather than working to help make the world a better place for everyone. Elliott is really everyone on Twitter who thinks AI art is cool. I can imagine him thinking it is a cool new feature rather than ripping off actual artists' work.

Elliott's attempts to access Rebecca's private papers result in a series of farcical events, including misunderstandings, accidental trespasses, and embarrassing social blunders, highlighting his ineptitude and lack of self-awareness. Isn't 'lack of self-awareness' really the phrase we need to describe him? Of course it is. If there was one thing funny about this book it was that I could witness this guy metaphorically fall over himself time and time again, eventually never actually getting anywhere. My mental state hasn't been great and seeing Elliott make a right fool out of himself really made me feel a bit better. I know that's a mean thing to say but he literally stalked an old woman and pretended to love her granddaughter just to get closer to the family. He deserves whatever is coming to him.

There's so much more that happens in this novel and if you're looking for the perfect extended metaphor for the Studio Ghibli AI art debacle, then you've come to the right place. An entitled idiot really getting what's coming to him is one for the books, but his self-serving and really horrid personality shine through as why the reader feels so happy when he ultimately falls flat on his face.