Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays, and (Other) Outrages of...

I've howled over this collection (which also contains the first of PJ's brilliant travel pieces, which have come to dominate his writing for Rolling Stone) innumerable times. Pour some iced Stoli, kick back and enjoy.


A Great Set of Humorous Essays   September 1, 2002
Charles E. Joubert (Florence, AL USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

P. J. O'Rourke is an incredibly funny writer and incisive commentator on the contemporart scene. This collection of essays, while from a libertarian point of view, should be found enjoyable by all readers. In this book he skewers the Safety Nazis, pro-Soviet visitors to the USSR, the New York Review of Books, horrible Protestant hats, cocaine pirates, and other odd ducks in flight. P.J. O'Rourke is one of the funniest writers around, and I also recommend his PARLIAMENT OF WHORES and GIVE WAR A CHANCE.


Howlingly funny   January 22, 2000
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

My wife won't let me read this in bed anymore because I keep waking her up by laughing out loud. P.J.'s story of his boat trip to Russia just about puts me in the hospital. Even if you don't agree with his viewpoints (and I disagree with quite a few) you will find this is a brilliantly-written riot from a keen and intelligent observer of human foibles on all sides. Guaranteed fun.


Good essays   July 1, 2002
LanPB01 (North Carolina United States)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Most of the essays in this book are as funny and informative as most of O'Rourke's other works, and unlike "American Spectator's Enemies List", the book is well worth the cover price.


Mixed, with a few gems   January 30, 2002
Eric Gudorf (Minneapolis, MN USA)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

This book is somewhat of a mixed bag. Unlike some of his other works, this has no central theme, but is instead a motley collection of articles written over the years for various and sundry publications on subjects ranging from why he hates bicycles to chasing down a story in the Bahamas about the involvement of high government officials in the drug trade. A few are real clunkers, such as a fictionalized account of his family life back in Ohio, titled "The King of Sandusky" or an over the top piece called "Just one of those days" in which he portrays an executive whose daily routine includes gunfights with his neighbors, raping his secretary and setting off bombs on the subway in order to get to work on time (so his boss won't have him shot). Most are OK, like the aforementioned bicycle piece, which he wrote for "Car & Driver" magazine back in the mid 80's. It was funny at the time, lampooning bicycling just about the time it was becoming trendy, especially with the eco-weenie set. In fact, this article brought howls of protest in the form of letters in the following issue, thus basically making his point appear all the more valid, namely, that too many bike nuts at the time suffered from an acute overdose of self righteousness accompanied by a chronic lack of a sense of humor. Like I said, it was funny at the time, but now seems rather dated.

Still, this entire effort was greatly redeemed by a few pieces that were absolutely spot on. One was "Ship of Fools" in which our intrepid reporter signed up for a cruise ship tour on the Volga in the USSR, based on an ad he'd read in "The Nation" magazine. He joins up with myriad groups of American leftists whose desire to see Soviet life in the best possible light overwhelms any qualities of observation or common sense they might happen to possess. These unfortunates are the targets of PJ's satire at its absolute best as he rips into them repeatedly for their blatant toadying on behalf of the Soviet system. Rarely has the banality of evil been described with such zest.

But even this pales in comparison to the book's crown jewel, namely a short article entitled simply "Ferrari refutes the Decline of The West". It is, on one level, a great road trip story, in which he and his boss drive from New York to LA in a brand new Ferrari 308GTS at speeds as high as 140 mph. Anyone who's ever lusted after exotic sports cars, or fantasized about driving on public roads at double or even triple the speed limit will love it on a purely visceral level, but that's only part of the pleasure, since PJ uses this drive as a metaphor for what makes Western Civilization, and America specifically, great. PJ describes an encounter with a black salesman in a Cadillac on the top of Hoover Dam in which the latter, after hearing their account of blazing through Arizona and New Mexico, looks at the Ferrari and says, simply, "Goddam, that's BEAUTIFUL!" PJ states, after finally turning over the car to a Hollywood studio "It was a glow that wouldn't fade. And I still felt good when I flipped the keys to the receptionist ...... And in fact I still feel good today." So will you after reading it, it is, in fact, worth the price of the entire book.