The Glacier
Just as the book is an unusual and convention-defying exercise in the genre of biography, so it is true that imagery as a literary device is utilized in a more experimental way. The purpose of imagery is create a visualization in the mind. What is visualized may be tangible like the scent and taste of something or it may be more abstract, like the heightened feeling of fear or dread. Imagery is engaged by the author of this book primarily for the purpose of helping the reader visualize an abstract perception of Ronald Reagan. One of the central premises upon which the book is founded is that Reagan himself was a figure comparable to a glacier:
“Possessed of no inner warmth, with no apparent interest save in its own growth, it directed itself toward whatever declivities lay in its path. Inevitably, as the glacier grew, it collected rocks before it, and used them to flatten obstructions; when the rocks were worn smooth they rode up onto the glacier’s back, briefly enjoying high sunny views, then tumbled off to become part of the surrounding countryside.”
The Memoirist
The primary tool of imagery the author adopts for his narrative is the revolutionary conceit of inventing a fictional first-person narrator. Morris discovered that he was essentially writing about a subject who did not view himself as the proactive creator of his truly incredible life story, but more in terms of his old job as an actor hired to play the star of a movie about that person. Note that the paradox of the subtitle: “A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.” Well, a biography of another person cannot—by definition—be a memoir. But the book is written in the form of a memoir; a memoir by a fictional person who seems to have been given enough entry into the personal and private life of its subject that he is qualified to write that person’s memoir. In this sense, the entire narrative body of work is a form of imagery designed to visualize in the mind of the reader the abstract idea that this is a book written by an actual historical person even though it is clearly delineated upfront that such a person does not exist.
Gavin
But wait, the imagery of the fictional narrator gets even more complicated. Because the fictional narrator just so happens to have a son who just so happens to be of the perfect age, the perfect social status, the perfect politically ripe mind and in the perfect place to represent the 1960’s radical countercultural movement which became Reagan’s nemesis during his years as Governor of California. The invention of this fictional son of the fictionalized version of the author becomes a device capable of reporting “first-hand” on the events of the 1960’s. That “Gavin” is referenced by name a few times throughout the bulk of the book but is a major starting with his freshman year at college in 1959 and ending in 1969 with is “going underground” as a radical activist tells the story of his role in creating an image of the anti-Reagan ideology when the biographical treks makes it swing from Reagan the Hollywood figure to Reagan the political figure.
The Creative Stuff
The most creative utilization of imagery is more in line with traditional imagery. Well, it is to a point. Along with the standard narrative prose that would be found in any biography, the reader is introduced to some sections that are anything but conventional. “The Indifferent Figure in the Sand: A Review” is, for instance, literally a review of essays, sketches and short stories written by Reagan in his youth and supposedly packed away in a tin trunk at the Reagan Presidential Library. An even more startling experiment in imagery is Chapter 17: “Down the Divide: Four Short Scenarios.” Ten of the eleven pages comprising that chapter are literally written in the form of a screenplay for a documentary film which actually manages to become an example of imagery that is perfectly suited to the subject as well as the enhanced real life drama of the period of time the biography covers. In addition to these examples can also be found three poems in the Appendix, the transcript of a radio interview with Reagan's mother, a speech, a dialogue and other unusual literary forms engaged for the purpose of imagery.
