Garry Wills
What the Gospels Meant.
Penguin, 224 pages, $24.95
Garry Wills, translator
Martial’s Epigrams: A Selection.
Viking, 207 pages, $23.95
Back in 1961, Garry Wills wrote a pretty good book called Chesterton: Man and Mask. In 1970, he published a pretty bad book called Nixon Agonistes. His 1978 Inventing America was lively, and his 1983 Lead Time was dull. His 1984 Cincinnatus was smart, and his 1987 Reagan’s America was stupid. His 1992 Lincoln at Gettysburg deserved the Pulitzer Prize it won, and his 1997 John Wayne’s America stank on ice. Saint Augustine in 1999: cooking with Crisco. Papal Sin in 2000: burnt to a crisp.
Anyway, you get the picture. Remember the Two Moods of Voltaire? None of the man’s acquaintances could tell beforehand whether it would be the savage Voltaire or the courtly Voltaire they would greet in the morning, and no one, picking up a new essay from him, could guess in advance which mood he had employed in writing it.
Well, that’s sort of the way it is with Wills. If we can’t quite call it the two moods, then maybe we could name it the two modes of Garry Wills. The division isn’t perfect. The 1972 Bare Ruined Choirs was good work from the bad Wills, for instance, and the 1968 Jack Ruby was bad work from the good Wills. But, with his two new volumes in 2008, he has now published thirty-seven books—thirty-seven books,
