Livingstone (Tim Jeal, 1973)

Livingstone is another one of those folks whose story - if presented by a writer of fiction - would be considered too unrealistic to have much merit.

Not much point in recounting details of his life here, but I would recommend reading the basic information via this link.

I was particularly struck by the odds that the guy overcame to gain an education. His father worked in the mills, and Livingstone worked there as a child - 6a to 8p. The entire family (mom, dad, five children) lived in a 14 x 10 foot room with two bed recesses. And he taught himself enough Latin, botany, theology and math to get into medical school by the age of 23.

Livingstone eventually figured out that missionary work in China was a ticket out; he had an urge to explore early on. Ended up in South Africa (the first Opium War broke out and cut off China opportunities) under the thumb of a domineering older missionary. Eventually focused far more on exploring than on being a missionary, though his PR back home depended on emphasizing the missionary work. Later switched to anti-slavery rather than missionary as a cover for his explorations. Spent lots of time looking for the source of the Nile but ended up on the wrong track. It appears that he was willing to be less than forthright about risk of disease and local conflict, ending up bringing folks over to Africa that were not prepared for conditions and there were plenty of casualties.

The toughness that permitted him to escape the mills turned him into a pretty heartless, insensitive type; he functioned far better with native workers than with Europeans. Unbelievable ability to travel under impossible conditions, fight off malaria, etc.

I never get tired of reading materials on the 19th century explorers of Africa - the ultimate intersection of completely different cultures.

Later on of course was the famous meeting with Henry Stanley: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Followed by his death in Africa, and the unbelievable return of his body to England. Project Gutenberg has an e-book of his last journals which is located here - this is very much worth perusing if you want a sense of what he was going through.

Incredible popularity in England and beyond, well explained in the article linked above.

The map shows his wanderings; some in search of the Nile, others for waterways that would bring commerce into the interior. Amazing that they were still unable to find the Nile source well into the second half of the 19th century.

Jeal writes well and has just published a new work on Stanley, which is on the list.

Voices of Silence - The Alternative Book of First World War Poetry (compiled by Vivian Noakes, 2006)

I picked this book up for two reasons - I'm always interested in World War I material, and in general I need to get a better handle on poetry (there's so much going on there, and I just don't get it).

[By the way, I just watched a 1927 silent film, "Wings", starring Clara Bow. This showed a couple Americans who became aviators in WWI and vied for a girl. The flight sequences were amazingly good (how did they do this over 80 years ago?), and the overall picture really worked. And who knew, it was the very first film to win an Oscar for "Best Picture." And also launched Gary Cooper's career. Anyway, this WWI movie has nothing to do with this book, but is summarized nicely here, and also here. I was interested because I have to believe a WWI film-maker in 1927 would have a different take than folks coming along much later. Loved the scenes of the WWI-era tanks, etc.]

This book probably was better suited to the first aim. I guess there is a canon (with some variation of content) of WWI poetry that is recognized as the most significant; this book was an effort to pick up musings of the common soldier.

It is interesting to get the perspective of these folks; if nothing else, it is fascinating that writing poetry was a common pursuit among a wide variety of soldiers in those days. I don't think one would find much poetry coming out of today's troops stationed in Iraq, for instance.

I only made it about 2/3 through. Well worth it as an alternative view of the proceedings. You get the sense that no one knew what to make of the brave(?) new world of modern warfare, it just didn't match up to anyone's expectations of the glory of battle.

Word Freak (World of Competitive Scrabble Players) (Stefan Fatsis, 2001)

The author occasionally wrote for the the Wall Street Journal, which is where I saw a review of this book. I was interested because we play Scrabble around here occasionally - mostly Patrick, Nicole and Patricia, me occasionally. But I tend to slow down the games.

Anyway, the book was interesting, but not really worth reading all the way through. So I was skimming chunks. The world of competitive Scrabble is sort of an adults version of the spelling bee world. It seems like most of the world class players are pretty weird, or maybe the author just played up that aspect.

It was a bit depressing - almost to the point of making you want to swear off the game - to read descriptions of strategy, rack configurations, and the words these folks can find. Whatever they're doing, it bears little resemblance to the game I play.

The Red and the Black (Stendhal, 1830)

This book was a good fit for some of the French stuff I've been reading in the last couple months (the Verdun book, Remembrance of Things Past (except Proust gave away an important plot element when he mentions this book), the Christmas truce book, etc.)

It filled in some of the gap between the Napoleonic era and the 1830 restoration. This was a time of big change in France to say the least; the Revolution and Napoleon had thrown apart most of the traditions and folks with widely varying agendas were moving to fill the gaps, find a new Napoleon, restore the monarchy and the traditional role of the church, emphasize the secular, revive the revolution, or whatever.

The book is referred to as the first psychological novel, at least in this description. Somebody at Newsweek listed it as one of the five most important novels, I guess because it was considered pretty far ahead of its time. I had never heard of the book or its author, but in poking around you do get the sense that it is widely known and admired.

Anyway, the book focuses on Julian Sorel - an uneducated but bookish boy from the provinces who, through a series of events, becomes a tutor (and falls in love with the youngish mother of his pupils), is educated in a seminary, takes a job with an aristocrat (and falls in love again, sort of).

Sorel's amazing memory (featuring passages in Latin) is a key to his access to various positions.

The book is lamenting the materialism that the author saw taking over France as the older institutions weakened; he also isn't impressed with provincialism, or Paris (and society matters) for that matter.

Very much worth reading. Even if some of the passages about his two romances get a bit repetitive here and there.

[I read this book at the gym about a month ago but didn't get around to posting, plus am still trying to catch up from the "placeholder" entries below.]

The Road to Verdun (Ian Ousby, 2002)

I found this book extremely interesting. But then again, I never get tired of reading World War I items. Thoughts:

1. It's not easy for me to keep halfway straight the changes in the French government from Napoleonic through 1848 through Sedan in 1870 and beyond. While I'm not interested in keeping the details straightened out, this book did give a useful overview. It helps the lead-in to WWI make more sense. Good description of nationalism as it was understood then; conservatives; monarchists (though no real hope of further restoration of the monarchy); Bonapartist thinking; socialist (even Communist) thinkers; Catholics; remnants of Jansenist thinking; etc. Lots of discussions of folks developing theories of the French nation, drawing distinctions from the Germans (with special dislike of the Prussians). Interesting that Alsace-Lorraine (including Verdun) was in Charlemagne's middle kingdom, which was the historical borderground between what became France and the smaller entities that Bismarck put together following 1870.

2. The Sedan disaster of 1870 was probably a bigger deal for the French than I was thinking, leading to the Alsace-Lorraine question and all sorts of consequences. Including fear of combined Germany.

3. Poor preparedness by the French; diversion of attention to the planned Somme offensive; rise of Petain; fall of Joffre; German plans to use Verdun to "bleed France white;" role of Crown Prince in directing German attack (but not quite enough resources to pull it off). Attack starts February 1916; German high-water mark in June 1916; slow pushback, with some of Germany's initial gains not retaken until three days before the armistice.

4. Discussions of the battle and the sacred or mystical aspect it took on. The "voie de sacree" - sacred road linking the Verdun salient to France and the efforts to keep it open. The death-like appearance of the soldiers who were being relieved; the nervousness of the incoming soldiers. The shocking casualties. What the soldiers put up with, partly resulting from the difficulty of properly disposing of the thousands and thousands of corpses.

5. Links to other things recently read: The author mentioned Goethe's visit to Verdun in an earlier war. In "Remembrance of Things Past," Proust speaks fairly often of people having neurasthenic symptoms; this author states that Proust's father was the author of a treatise on the topic (a precursor to analyses of combat fatigue etc. "The Red and the Black" - this picks up with a discussion of governments etc. following 1830. The book also has discussion of the Dreyfus case, which was a major topic in the salons in Proust's book.

Etc. I liked it.

We saw Wall-E

Hadn't been to the theater for awhile but we decided to go see a well-reviewed Pixar movie - Wall-E - back on June 29. It was a well-done, cutesy animated movie, and fun to go (Patricia, Chris, Paul Jr., Nedda, me). It was neat how they used music from "Hello Dolly", etc. The chase scenes were tiresome.

One of the more entertaining aspects was being at a Sunday afternoon showing with a theater full of little kids. We haven't been in that environment for years.