"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Monday, December 30, 2013

King Richard III (William Shakespeare, 1592)

[finished in August 2013, description to come]

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare, 1599)

[read in April 2013, summary to come]

[quite wonderful; astonishing number of quotations in constant use (per list below)] [which is one of several reasons reading Shakespeare is basic for reading so much else of Western literature][and succeeding at Jeopardy]
____________________________

The live-long day. (1.1.42)

Beware the ides of March. (1.2.13)

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus . . .

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (1.2.135)

Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. (1.2.192)


But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. (1.2.283)

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.


But I am constant as the northern star,

Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! (3.1.77)

Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war. (3.1.268)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.


There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. (4.3.218)


This was the most unkindest cut of all;


Friday, December 27, 2013

The Great Influenza - The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (John M. Barry, 2004)

The editor could (and should) have done a bit of chopping here and there (starting with the title:  does he really need "great," "epic," and "deadliest"?), but overall this is very much worth reading.  The author focuses on the intersection of two story lines:  (1) the bringing of "modern" (or "German," if you will) medicine to the U.S. in the decades leading up to WWI; and (2) the incredible influenza outbreak in the dying days of WWI, along with related efforts to fight it.

I wish I had read Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith just after this book (rather than just before).  Lewis's novel would have had a lot more meaning.  This author explains how Lewis built the novel around contemporary events, including a cigarette relating to researcher Paul Lewis.  Amazing overlaps.  Including issues like anxious-to-publish institute leadership in conflict with go-slow, meticulous researchers.

Some thoughts about story line one:

1.  U.S. med schools were in the dark ages well into second half of 19th century (and, in many cases, early 20th century).  John Hopkins University as an unlikely pioneering institution in Baltimore.  Rockefeller Institute in NYC develops.  And others.

2.  Prior to the new standards - med school professors earn fees by tuition - which means pandering to (rather than challenging) students.  No or few autopsies.  No research or labs in almost all cases.  Generally no requirement for an undergraduate degree as a condition of admission.  Graduates often saw their first patients after graduation.  1910 Flexnor Report is catalyst for change.

3.  Author devotes a lot of time to mini-biographies of key players.  Not entirely sure why - no one came up with a "cure" for this influenza, it just had to play itself out - ongoing mutations regress virulence to the mean, or something.

As to the flu itself:

1.  Appeared to commence in at army setting in Kansas.  Overcrowded barracks and constant transfers enabled the spread in a way that wouldn't have happened in peacetime.

2.  Astonishing worldwide spread - especially with the far more virulent phase 2.  20 million deaths in India alone?

3.  Interesting discussions of the way these diseases mutate and flow within and among different population centers - quite reminiscent of this book.  Isolated populations get wrecked - limited antibody development.

4.  Killed young, healthy folks (flu normally attacks the young and old) - antibody system went into overdrive.

5.  Staggering death tolls, staggering effect on cities.  Oxygen deprivation created a deep blueness in corpses that caused folks to call this a recurrence of the black death.  And there were horse-drawn carts in US cities with calls to "bring out your dead" - amazing in 20th century.

6.  Disaster in Philadelphia.

7.  176 of 300 "Eskimos" dead in Nome when a relief ship arrived.  85%+ death tolls in surrounding villages.  Grisly scenes where half-wild dogs devoured corpses when the few surviving natives were too weak to fight them off.  (As I understand it, this had nothing to do with the 1925 Balto serum run - that involved a later diphtheria outbreak.)

8.  The amazing-ness of flu and why outbreaks will continue.  How it doesn't need continuous access to a large human population - can nestle in bird or pig or whatever populations and then jump to humans in new forms.

Another thing:  this story brought home the pervasiveness of the repressive environment during WWI - Wilson wanted, and got, a total war environment.  Sedition Act - amazing.  Buy war bonds - or else.  Shut up - or else.  The frightening know-it-all-ness of Wilson and the Progressive movement - hooray for experts and top-down control! (Unfortunately, that part doesn't seem to change much.)

The flu became known as the "Spanish Flu" because Spanish newspapers - printed in a neutral country - actually reported on the disease.  It had been rampant elsewhere for a long time, but censors in combatant countries suppressed the news.

Author thinks Wilson was affected by this flu during critical portions of Versailles negotiations during which Wilson seemed to fold on long-held principles;others have attributed to Wilson's weakening to some other disease.  In any event he never was very healthy thereafter.  (#1 adviser Colonel House already was out of commission prior to Versailles via the flu.)

Friday, December 20, 2013

A Season in Hell - My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda (Robert Fowler, 2011)

K picked this as selection #2 for the little book club that we (mostly NOC as driver) are initiating.  Will update this post with a few thoughts sometime after the big BC session.


Monday, December 16, 2013

The Guns at Last Light (Rick Atkinson, 2013)

Atkinson has a real gift for taking an overwhelming mass of facts - many of them already well-known to any reader who would bother to pick up a book like this - and turning them into a surprisingly fresh, coherent story line complete with compelling characters.  This is the third of his WWII trilogy.  I had confidence I'd like it based on how much I enjoyed book #2 (discussed here) - though I was a bit, and entirely unnecessarily as it turned out, concerned that my mildly greater familiarity with the Normandy-VE Day material covered in this third book might make this one less interesting.

Not so (and it turns out I wasn't familiar with much of anything anyway).

Now I need to go back and read the first volume of the trilogy.

Stuff I found interesting:

1.  Does a good job of making the reader feel like you know something about the key political leaders and the top military guys.  Without losing sight of the lower officer ranks and the regular soldiers - plenty of personal stories about them as well.  The biographical elements are useful.

2.  Eisenhower's quote about Montgomery seems spot on:  "a good man to serve under, a difficult man to serve with, and an impossible man to serve over."

3.  Never knew anything about Yalta other than a vague sense of the agreements reached, FDR looked awful, and the conference was held somewhere in the Crimea.  So the descriptions were interesting (including czarist origins of the meeting place, logistical difficulties, etc.).

4.  I didn't know much about the Western Front beyond D-Day, Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge, race through Germany.  Sure it was no eastern front in terms of carnage and scale of battle - but it seems the Germans fought much harder and longer in the west than I realized.  Lots of nasty battles.

5.  I had this vision of the U.S. as an inexhaustible well of manpower - but not so.  At least in terms of shortages of men for some of the key fighting positions.  Interesting discussion of the loosening of physical (and psychological) standards as manpower needs accelerated.

6.  The book gives a glimpse of the incredible overload that so many GIs must have experienced - no doubt worse for those who served longest, but bad for all.  I lose sight that for some of the GIs, things started in Africa, slogged through Italy, then onto Normandy and into Germany - a parade of "normal" war awfulness, made worse by atrocities against soldiers, wrecked towns, wrecked civilians (often reduced to un-civil behavior), fatigue, awful weather, food problems, etc.  Then as they move into Germany and the end nears - the unhappy reality of the swarms of DPs relentlessly on the move, often hopeless.  When it's hard to imagine what else they might run into - now they start to encounter the concentration camps - worst of the worst.  Just amazing.  How did so many of these guys come back and thrive?

7.  Related - the book hints at a sense of the apprehension - in the background but so-real - relating to the Pacific War.  For anyone that survived the list in the previous paragraph - a very real possibility of success in Europe being followed immediately by a quick trip to hell in the Pacific.  No respite in sight.  Not discussed in this book, but I'm thinking that this factor is another piece of the puzzle in understanding why the A-bomb was dropped on Japanese cities.  Could anyone really ask America-writ-large, after all this, to take massive GI casualties in a conventional invasion?

8.  Military logistics are unfathomable to me in general, and the European invasion must have been the most unfathomable of all.  It took a while to take control of Antwerp - with it, provisioning was next to impossible.  Without it - the invasion could hardly have succeeded at scale.  Nazis were great wreckers of sites they scuttled, but failed to wreck Antwerp (though it became a V-2 target).

9.  I don't think I ever had read a word about the landing at Marseilles and the push up from the south of France.  Interesting story throughout.

Gift from PJr and Nedda, quite delightful.

Monday, December 09, 2013

Arrowsmith (Sinclair Lewis, 1925)

I don't think I much care for this kind of work.  It was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1925.  The dust jacket lauds Sinclair Lewis "at the peak of his powers as satirist and social chronicler, vigorously unmasking the pretenses and hypocrisies of American middle-class life."

But why is this such a great thing to do?  The fact that we humans are laden with absurdities can hardly be news to anyone.  The novelists I prefer do plenty of "unmasking" - but with gentleness and humor, and with a recognition that typically there is lots of good enmeshed with the absurd (examples, in my opinion = Proust, Dostoevsky).

This work reminded me of this famous, much-lauded work by Sherwood Anderson - which I also didn't much care for.

In this one, Arrowsmith is a Midwesterner who ends up in med school.  Lengthy passages about his days in school - his frat, the classes, the climbers, Dr. Gottlieb (his hero), his girlfriend (who he throws over to marry Leora).  Lengthy passages about his initial medical practice - in small-town North Dakota.  Next he works as a public health official in an Iowa town - lab work being his preferred work.  Next he works for a year in a clinic in Chicago with one of his med school compadres.  Next gets invited to work with Dr. Gottlieb in a research institute in New York City.

There is a plague in the Caribbean; his research comes into play.  Lots of angst about research and medicine as commerce.  The descriptions from each of his work settings were interesting - various aspects of medicine in early 20th-century - supposedly Lewis worked very closely with a doctor or doctors to make this reasonably realistic.

Easy reading, not sure it was worth 470 pages.  This Library of America edition also includes Elmer Gantry and Dodsworth, each of which I shall skip.

Friday, November 29, 2013

The Honorary Consul (Graham Greene, 1973)

I like Greene's books, and will continue to work through them.

Protagonist is a doctor (Plarr) who moved south from Paraguay with his mother when a child - leaving behind his politically dubious father (in a country where that always seems to be a big problem).  Now he lives in a small town near the Paraguayan border.  Half-English and half Paraguayan; identifies with the local English community (consisting of three members, including him).  The Honorary Consul (English) is an aging mediocrity with a new, young wife who Plarr finds interesting, let's say.

The Honorary Consul is mistakenly kidnapped and held for ransom with some desperate amateurs who were going after the U.S. ambassador.  The kidnappers are Paraguayans with information about Plarr's father; Plarr is mixed up in their activities.  Head of the kidnapper group is a former priest, which gives Greene some room to work in his Catholic themes.

Good, I liked it.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The Small House at Allington (Anthony Trollope, 1864)

I've been wanting to read Trollope, not quite sure why it's taken so long to pick up one of his books.

This was entertaining, but I won't prioritize reading more of his stuff.  Good, but didn't grab.  Easy reading.

The protagonist - Lily Dale - is supposed to be one of his best female characters - but I found her behavior after being jilted (pretty outrageously, by the "swell" Mr. Crosbie) to show somebody "in denial" and just plain naive - didn't strike me as "noble" at all.

Trollope can sketch characters and scenes extremely adeptly - this is enjoyable.  Though I don't think it required 650 pages to tell this particular story.

Johnny Eames grows up, with an assist via the earl and the bull.  Sub-plot involves him at the boarding house with Amelia Roper, the Lupex couple, "Cradell," etc.

De Courcy family - this was a very effective discussion of what life must have been like for nobility in decline; it was increasingly acceptable for these types to marry the right type of commoners, though not so wise if the commoner doesn't bring money into the marriage (as Crosbie didn't).

Lily's sister (Bell) and her mother; Dr. Crofts.

The squire - his nephew (Bernard).  The squire belatedly builds relationships with the Dales.

Friday, November 15, 2013

A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr., 1960) (take 3)

Book club selection (via PJr).

Re-read for "book club".  I like it better each time.

Earlier (and very brief) discussion can be found here.

Some related thoughts (from 1976) can be found here.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Silent Angel (Heinrich Boll, written 1950, published 1992)

Protagonist is a veteran German soldier - Hans Schnitzler - a hardened cynic who made going AWOL and forging papers into something of an art form in the waning days of WWII.  Setting is Cologne - in the very final days of the war, and the very first days of the postwar era.

Schnitzler searches for the widow of a comrade; has problems with her wealthy guardian.  He also runs into a widow who has just lost a baby; tries to learn how to form a relationship with her.  Schnitzler's wife also had died.  Gloomy enough - probably meaning it was realistic - such that the book supposedly was suppressed in Germany for over 40 years.

Characters struggle to cope in a new world presented to them in a thoroughly devastated city.  Where simply finding food is an adventure.  Schnitzler becomes expert at stealing coal off moving trains as a way to pay for food.  Finds a form of re-connection with the Catholic church.

Short, worthwhile.


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Coasts of Bohemia - A Czech History (Derek Sayer, 1998)

Since my wife is 3/4 Bohemian or Czech - with obvious implications for my children - it seems like a pretty good idea to learn something about this part of the world.  (For example:  where, exactly, is Bohemia?  Also:  why is a "bohemian" lifestyle associated in the first instance with artistic types residing in Paris?)

This book was interesting, and useful.  Title is a play on a line in Shakespeare - thought to be intentionally confusing about a non-existent Bohemian coastline.

Turns out that was typically is referred to as "Bohemia" roughly corresponds with the current Czech Republic; the Slovak part (to the east, and much slower to develop) was "Moravia."

Here's how I'd summarize things:

1.  This area of Europe generally slower to develop than Western Europe (let alone Mediterranean or Middle/Near East places).

2.  Sort of on the cusp of being Slavic - but fully integrated into Western Europe over time.  Until the Iron Curtain was lowered.

3.  Country peaked as an independent state in the 14th century - king named Charles (for whom the modern Charles Bridge is named).

4.  Jan Hus a big hero - anticipated the Reformation by less than 100 years.  Used in various ways over the centuries by myth-makers with varying agendas.

5.  Defenestration of Prague triggers 30 Years War (1618-1648).

6.  Prague generally getting bossed around by other countries over the centuries - primarily Austria.

7.  Czech language mostly for peasants - cultured types use German.  Limited vocabulary.

8.  Post-Napoleon - same considerations here as in so much of Europe (and elsewhere) (as discussed very effectively in this book) - nationalism and self-determinism and all sorts of other new - and generally counterproductive - ideas come to the fore.  As in so much of Europe - Czechs try to invent a long-term history to support territorial aspirations.  Folks in the villages would have been very surprised to learn how their very local customs were appropriated in support of defining (really, inventing) a national culture.

9.  Continuing Austrian/German domination.  Limited concessions to Czech-ness, whatever that meant.  Nazi abuse, quite nasty.  Richard Heydrich - we had recently seen a movie (Hangmen Also Die) in which Bertolt Brecht was involved (the only movie in which he was involved, we learned) - sadistic Nazi governor, incredible reprisals after Heydrich was assassinated.

10.  Ongoing efforts to develop Czech language, literature, etc.  Antipathy toward Germany; crescendos, not surprisingly, after WWII.

11.  The profound bizarreness of Communism.  Recent emergence.

Author discusses The Good Soldier Svejk.  And Kafka.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Before the Wall: Berlin Days (1946-1948) (George Clare, 1990)

A well-reviewed book, but I didn't find it very valuable.  At least it was a very quick read.  Author was a Viennese Jew whose parents were killed in the mayhem, thus with an interesting perspective on events in Berlin immediately following the end of WWII (he served as a translator and in various other capacities).

He addressed some of the practical problems with denazification - including the continuing need to run the country at a time when so much of the leadership could be viewed as tainted.  What a mess.

Also the shortages, and the politicking among the four occupying powers.  A pretty unique confluence of countries in a tight geography.

So the book was interesting, but not nearly as useful as this book, or this book, or especially this book.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Plagues and Peoples (William H. McNeill, 1976)

Relatively short, but quite interesting throughout.  I understand that McNeill's thinking was rather groundbreaking in the mid-70s; I've seen elements discussed in this recent (and useful) book.

His thesis:  that the role of disease has been under-appreciated when assessing historical trends.

Another main theme:  applying the notion that microscopic parasites - disease - optimize when achieving a sustainable balance with hosts.  A disease that kills off its hosts too vigorously isn't going to thrive.  When disease exposure occurs regularly among a sufficiently large population, the disease typically turns into a childhood disease - killing off some of the weak - while survivors are immune (good for microparasite and host alike).  Isolated populations are at great risk - when exposure to a new disease finally occurs, carnage among adults occurs - a much more grievous blow to the community.

It isn't so much that those themes are surprising (though that may have been the case to some extent when originally published) - the value is his application of the themes (admittedly speculative in plenty of cases) to various historical episodes.

The big example of course (also addressed at length in 1493) is the die-off in North America resulting from the Columbian Exchange.  But McNeill provides plenty of other interesting examples from around the world.

I like how he links the microparasites to what he refers to macroparasites - almost exclusively humans preying on other humans.  The same basic principle applies - if the conqueror is too savage - or demands too much in rent or taxes - the conquered population withers and isn't productive, to the conqueror's disadvantage.

Many times the macroparasites (armies) were the instrument via which microparasites were transmitted to isolated populations, to lethal effect.

More microparasites thrive in hot climates.

City-dwellers died off due to unsanitary conditions, but were less prone to die-off from diseases (large population, steady exposure to microparasites).

Shipping, caravans, armies spread diseases in olden times.  Widespread travel in 19th and 20th centuries results in fewer epidemics - most microparasites are distributed everywhere relatively quickly.

McNeill links illness-induced weakness to various conquests and power shifts.

Rise of modern medicine has put microparasites on the defensive and allowed unprecedent population surges (along with better agriculture, etc.)  McNeill expects the microparasites to keep adjusting.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Pre-Raphaelites - Victorian Art and Design (Tim Barringer, Jason Rosenfeld, Alison Smith (2012)

This book was put together for the exhibition we viewed with K on our delightful visit to DC back in May.  PJ knows I'm a sucker for art gallery books if I see an exhibition I particularly like, so she bought this for me.  Nice.

And I think it's one of the best of this genre I've seen. It's of course pretty large; lots of reproductions of works from the exhibition (as one would expect) that I look at regularly; the kicker is that the three authors do such an interesting job of putting the artists in context, explaining what they're doing, the evolution of the movement, etc.

Back to my current focus (idea cribbed from some article-writer) on the importance of the Bible and Shakespeare to so much of Western art, literature, etc.  The Pre-Raphaelites certainly loved the subject matter from those sources.

I know no way to capsulize what these artists were all about, but I do love the bright colors, the predominating subject matters, the sense that they were pushing for something "new" - not unusual for artists, but here in a manner somehow more interesting to me.

This is a great book to own, I will (continue to) page through it regularly.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

To the End of the Land (David Grossman, 2010)

I've had this book on my list since seeing several very positive reviews back when it was published in 2010.  By happenstance, my reading of it coincided closely with two closely related works (described
here and here).  Which helped make this one more meaningful.

Ora is the lead character.  Her son (Ofer) is finishing up duty in Israeli military; to celebrate, they were planning a backpacking tour up north in Galilee (estranged husband Ilan and other son Adam are out of contact somewhere in South America).  But Ofer goes back into the military in relation to an initiative underway in response to Palestinian unrest.  Ora is freaked out, let's say, and decides that she can protect Ofer by getting out of her home, avoiding news, and becoming invisible to the military's "notifiers" that come around and tell families that their sons are dead.  Ora knows this is somewhat beyond irrational but does it anyway.  And she recruits a formerly close friend of both she and Ilan - Avram - who has some issues, let's say (mostly stemming from being tortured as an Egyptian POW during the 1973 war - a situation to which Ora and Ilan are connected).  Anyway off Ora and Avram go, with backpacks.

I very much liked quite a few elements of the story.  The first part - when Ora, Ilan and Avram are quarantined in a barely functioning hospital during the 1967 war - is really nicely done, imaginative.  The parts dealing with Ora's relationship with Arab chauffeur, Sami, are most interesting.  Those folks need one another, but the circumstances are unimaginable.  

I think the book also gives a glimpse of the overriding sense of precariousness that must be quite real in Israel - especially for the generation that went through the near-existential moments in 1967 and 1973.  How must it feel to live in a tiny country pinned against the sea, surrounded by much larger countries many of which have sworn to wipe you out?  And relying on America politicians?

Ora rides the bus when bombings are taking place - good description of the way people avoid looking at each other, clearly mistrustful.

The ending caught me by surprise.

Only criticism:  I think the author overdid it in shaping characters who seem to live so intensely that it is almost "too much," for want of a better description.  The book didn't need this, it was strong enough with less intensity of that nature.

Recommended.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Pentateuch (oft ascribed to Moses)

Don't recall where I read it - someone commented that knowing the Bible and Shakespeare is essential to dealing with so much of Western art, literature, music, whatever.  This was a very useful comment, and one that I'm acting on.

We go to an art gallery - most recent would be the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in DC and the Getty - what percentage of significant works are along these themes?  Our Choral Union performances often are based on Bible elements.  (Working on Schubert's setting of "Miriam's Song" this semester - guess what, it's right in the Pentateuch (Miriam is reveling in poor Pharaoh's continuing misfortunes).)  Literary references are endless (we were just discussing East of Eden the other day - where poor Cain was sent ("the land of Nod, east of Eden")).  So doesn't it obviously make sense to refresh on these sources?

(Also, I'm entirely unapologetic about having a "Western" mindset - I believe there is a difference, and that it matters.)

My Bible knowledge is pretty decent, but it's been awhile.  Shakespeare - not so much - so I'm working with a Harold Bloom book and so far have read Julius Caesar, Richard III, and Titus Andronicus (will post on each as I get to it).

Pure coincidence - but helpful and interesting - that I was reading this book about Jerusalem somewhat concurrently with the Pentateuch.

Reading the Bible in chunks.  The Pentateuch is, of course, the first five books of the Old Testament.  Full of wondrous stories.  I think it does offer some pretty accurate insights into human nature, and serves up some stories to explain it.  Original sin, for example.

Hadn't recalled how Yahweh definitely was a "jealous" God.  All this stuff intended to mark out the Jews as not just a nation, but a "chosen" people.  Leviticus - quite a set of rules.

The story of Joseph - and the move to Egypt and subsequent departure - gets a ton of space.  Pharaoh was stubborn indeed - you'd think he'd give up after being pelted with frogs, having his rivers turned to blood, getting blasted with hail - just for starters.

Moses taps on the rock two times - no Promised Land for him.  40 years in the desert - so that all the unfaithful folks would be dead before the nation was permitted to enter Canaan.

Adam and Eve.  Cain and Abel.  Noah.  Abraham.  Ishmael.  Isaac.  Jacob (Leah and Rachel) and Esau.  The 12 sons of Jacob - which became the 12 tribes.  Moses.  Aaron.  Balaam won't curse the Israelites.

Next: Joshua, Samuel, Kings, etc.


Thursday, August 29, 2013

Jerusalem - The Biography (Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2011)

Book had received glowing reviews - and clearly deserved them.  This is one of the more helpful things I've read recently.  Bought it. Will use it for reference.

Author is a descendant of one of the leading Jewish families in Jerusalem (his great great uncle plays a prominent role).  Author - I hadn't heard of him previously - apparently he is known for writing popular histories.  But in his case this is a plus - as best I can tell, he's managed to write useful, balanced books that also are highly readable.

Jerusalem is a relatively small, remote town.  That somehow became ground zero for the three Abrahamic religions.  The history is simply unbelievable.

Hopefully any government official with any decision-making authority about sending Americans into this part of the world will have read this book carefully.  (And plenty of other materials.)  The issues run deep here in ways we cannot really fathom.

I like how he handles the Old Testament era - it's interesting how archaeology continues to confirm some of the Biblical figures (plenty others remain in myth-status).  David.  Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians.  Herod.  Paul of Tarsus - labeled "The Creator of Christianity" here - which is a pretty interesting thought.

Muhammad's seemingly tenuous connection to Jerusalem.  Turned into something big.  Crusaders.  Byzantines.  Richard the Lionhearted.  Saladin.  Ottomans, and periods of obscurity.

Napoleon's ill-fated Mideast tour spawns bestsellers and renewed Western interest.  Christian evangelicals - many in U.S. - see linkage to the last days.  Russians pour in.  Mark Twain.  WWI, Zionism.  1948.  1967.

Useful discussion how the Christians, Muslims and Jews all have so many sub-sects floating around, often at odds with each other.  The conflicts aren't just among the three major strands.

A city absolutely unlike any other.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller, 2012)

I liked this, and would recommend it.  But the reviewers were so enthusiastic that I think my expectations were set too high.

This is the story of Achilles - with the twist being
that it is told from the perspective of Patroclus (who was a significant character in the Iliad, but not that big a deal).

In this book, the boy Achilles selects Patroclus to be his special friend - an unlikely choice.  Achilles has a goddess-mother who doesn't care for Patroclus.  Achilles is fated to be the best warrior of his time, and there are some other unpromising prophecies about his future.

The two grow up together, including a couple years being trained by a centaur.  Patroclus and Achilles do turn out to be special friends.  Then comes the abduction of Helen and the Trojan War.

Quick read, creative approach, I liked the last couple chapters.

Hadn't realized that the story of Achilles' unprotected heel (targeted by archer Paris) was a later add-on (not part of the original Greek story).

Monday, July 29, 2013

Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1872)

I find that I like Dostoevsky more and more.  There is so much going on in this particular novel - I won't try to summarize the plot or characters - all that's available on wikipedia and elsewhere.  Characters are interesting, nuanced, surprising.  Might be my favorite work of his.

Mostly in this work, it seems Dostoevsky was looking around at a rapidly-changing Russia - behind the West in many ways and grappling with a raft of ideas originating from the West - and was able to see that utopia (or even simply "here's the path to fundamental change and improvement") is often promised by folks who turn out to be the most dangerous type of charlatan.  The pitch - as offered today but typically in a more disguised fashion - is that the promiser knows what is good for all, better than the "all" could ever figure out on their own.  Dostoevsky also saw that these proclaimers of extreme change, nihilism and the like can so easily end up as "demons" in the society.  All of this might sound obvious now - but certainly mustn't have seemed that way for change-promisers and their hearers in the 1860s and early 70s.

He also observed the futility of the responses of the conservative ruling classes and government authorities in dealing with the new ideas.  

I loved how he started with an epigraph (from St. Luke's Gospel) and then brought the 700-page novel back around to it via a glimmer of sad understanding by Stepan Trofimovich ("Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these.  So he gave them leave.  Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.")

Stepan's son is a key character - trying to organize a revolutionary cell.  Nikolai Stavrogin - enigmatic, cold, ultimately capable of experiencing guilt.

The discussions (most interesting) among the cell members and others go over many of the political philosophy ideas of the day.  And typically sound incredibly modern.  

With hindsight knowledge of how things turned out in Russia, it's pretty easy to call Dostoevsky more-than-prescient in this book.

A few others thoughts:

1.  Behaviors by some characters reminiscent of Turgenev's Bazarov.  I learned Dostoevsky thought very little of Turgenev, even caricatured him in this novel (via the writer Karmazinov).

2.  Stepan Trofimovich is perceptive:  "why is it that all these desperate socialists and communists are at the same time such incredible misers, acquirers, property-lovers, so much so that the more socialist a man is, the further he goes, the more he loves property?"

3.  His son is honest about these so-called people's revolutions:  "No, this democratic scum with its fivesomes [the cells were divided into groups of five] is a poor support; what we need is one splendid, monumental, despotic will, supported by something external and not accidental . . . then the fivesomes will also put their tails of obedience between their legs, and their obsequiousness will occasionally come in handy."  Lenin, Stalin, Castro et al would heartily concur.

4.  Very touching moment when Shatov's wife returned, and he borrows tea from Kirillov.

5.  The overriding mindset of too many of these social engineering types (who profess that goal while simply seeking power):  "We alone will remain, having destined ourselves beforehand to assume power:  we shall rally the smart ones to ourselves, and ride on the backs of the fools . . . This generation must be re-educated to make it worthy of freedom."  Exactly the discussion from this Communist-era novel.  

Birthday gift from Nedda and Paul Jr.  A good one.


Friday, July 26, 2013

Between Man and Beast - An Unlikely Explorer, The Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm (Monte Reel, 2013)


Easy read, not terribly enlightening.  Biographical regarding Paul du Chaillu - something of an outsider with West African/French roots, then spent some time in the U.S.  Got the idea of forming an expedition into west Africa - his old stomping grounds in Gabon - with primary purpose (if undisclosed) of bringing back gorilla skins.  Gorilla largely unknown at this time - 1856 - (author says du Chaillu encountered "lowland" gorillas; the "mountain" gorillas of Diane Fossey fame weren't known to whites until around 1900).

His timing overlapped precisely with the finalization and publication of  Darwin's "Origin of Species" and accompanying debates.  He was an amateur explorer - though apparently brave and effective - with a gift for recounting tales.  And tales about gorillas couldn't have fit better with the debates about evolution, man compared to apes, etc.  He was accepted and sponsored by some of the big names in the Royal Geographical Society (England) - panned by plenty of others.

The "Gorilla Quadrille" - oh wow.

One of my main reasons for reading this is a desire to get a better handle on Victorian England - it had some value in this regard.  For example, it explained Charles Mudie's lending library and its effect on novelists - even the big names modified their approach to fit his demands.

I've read plenty of other books about African exploration that were more interesting, however.  Not particularly recommended.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Winter of our Discontent (John Steinbeck, 1961)

This was a recommendation from CPG, who has been going through various Steinbeck novels.  I liked it - it's one of Steinbeck's later works, and I think it was rather complicated and interesting.  Definitely worth reading.

I had gotten a bit tired of Steinbeck - found him a bit preachy, negative - but need to re-think that.  East of Eden certainly was a good work.

This book included a taste of Steinbeck's judgmental side - looking askance at American society entering the '60s with a streak of materialism; and Steinbeck does love to find bad behavior in business persons.  I think he, like plenty of others, mistakenly believes in some mythical time when we were free of materialism (whatever that means).  The way I wrote that sentence makes it obvious how I feel - every modern society has its pressures.

And I recognize there are plenty of instances where business persons cut corners - for all sorts of reasons.  But I do not think it's rampant, certainly not in my experience.

Anyway - the protagonist resides in a New England village; has a dual heritage (Pilgrim/pirate); lost the family money and is struggling as a grocery clerk; sees opportunity to improve his financial lot.  But this involves a series of unpleasant decisions involving his employer, his childhood friend, his buddy who works at the bank, etc.  And his high school aged son turns out to be a corner-cutter.

The book is titled after the opening line in Richard III, so that's pretty neat.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler, 1940)

I liked this quite a bit.  Koestler was Hungarian but lived in various countries; this was published in English while he lived in England.  He was familiar with the Soviet system and had spent some time in a Franco prison in Spain in the 1930s.

The novel is set in an unnamed country, but it's obviously Russia - with reference to 1930s show trials.  Protagonist is Rubashov - a hero of the early Bolshevik days.  But now "No. 1" - meaning Stalin - is purging the old guard, the military, the intellectuals, etc. - welcome to 1930s USSR.

Rubashov communicates with the next-door prisoner (a Czarist officer) via a tapping system known to all the prisoners.  Brief communication with other prisoners on occasional walks in the yard.  Rubashov is interrogated by an old comrade from the early days; then later by a young, cold, Stalin-raised officer.

Very interesting discussions about power, Communism, the endless tropes about "the ends justify the means" and the fiction of the supposedly well-intentioned smart folk looking out for the masses who don't know what they really want.  Like a big progressive state in so many ways, only somewhat cruder.  Same fawning press, however.  Ugh.

Rubashov discusses Crime and Punishment with the second interrogator; needless to say, Dosteovsky fell out of favor with the Communists (Raskelnikov was on the right track, but wavered).  Part of the discussion here reminded me much of Demons, which I happened to be reading concurrently.

Much worth reading but - maybe because I read those other works earlier - it didn't seem to have quite as much punch as the Solzhenitsyn works (such as this).

    Sunday, June 30, 2013

    Johann Sebastian Bach - Life and Work (Martin Geck, 2000) (translated 2006)

    Bach seems impossible.  How could he produce so much high-quality art?

    I rather like this reviewer's take on this question:  "Consider: A professionally competent 18th-century burgher raised a very large family, came and went as a busy and productive musical technician, associated himself for nearly three decades with a church in Leipzig whose school of 55 boys he taught music while also training a choir. He provided his employers with the cantatas they required for Sundays and feast days and was active in the civic musical collegium. He traveled, though sparingly, and spent tedious hours copying out his own material. He was disputatious about a lot of things but was finally submissive to the requisite councilors, dukes and princes. When the end came, he left behind, in the city of 32,000 souls, a huge family, an indigent widow and a library of compositions which would ordain him as the greatest musical artist who ever lived."

    So what happened here?  The author provides all sorts of interesting information, but I guess there's no figuring out how Bach did it.  Bach was anything but the lonely-genius-artist - he was an engaged family man with a demanding day job.

    As I get older, I spend more and more time with Bach's music.  And I'm pretty sure the greatest concert I've ever attended was  this presentation of the B minor mass).  (Interesting to read that Beethoven bought his own copy of this work a century after it was written.)

    The last portion of the book focused on technical details - for me, sort of like reading a foreign language - I just don't anything about composition or theory.

    I'm pretty sure I need to attend a Bach concert at this church in Leipzig.

    Two and Three-Part Inventions
    Well-Tempered Clavier
    French Suites
    Goldberg Variations
    The Musical Offering
    The Art of Fugue
    Cantatas, Motets, etc. (thankful for youtube access)
    Brandenburg Concerto
    St. Matthew Passion
    St. John Passion
    B minor Mass
    Etc.
    Etc.

    Thursday, June 20, 2013

    A Time to Keep Silence (Patrick Leigh Fermor, release date 2007)

    Fermor's two unique "travel" books are quite justifiably highly-regarded (discussed here and here).  So I bought them - probably will haul them along if we ever actually visit those areas in Europe.

    This book is entirely different - I bought it because it was essentially a throw-in with the other two.

    Short, interesting, but less interesting to me than the other two works.  Not sure how it came about, but Fermor settled into the Abbey of St. Wandrille as a place to take a break, do some writing, whatever.  Good discussion of the history of the place; interesting discussion of the process of transitioning into monastic life (even if only as a guest), and then back into the "real" world.

    Later, he stays at a Trappist monastery - incredibly austere.  Finally, he visits a rock monastery in Cappadocia - no longer occupied - literally hewn from stone way back when.

    He is respectful of these versions of what just seems to be an incredibly odd life; also knows that he is an outsider not really capable of knowing "what it's really like."

    Short easy read, so worthwhile.


    Monday, June 10, 2013

    Krakatoa - the day the world exploded - August 27, 1883 (Simon Winchester, 2003)

    Light reading, very interesting discussion of a volcanic eruption that would have dwarfed the Mt. Pinatubo eruption that made such headlines in 1991 (and allowed us to see some wondrous sunsets over the Pacific while visiting Oxnard, CA that summer).

    The author gets a little carried away, trying to make a case that the eruption was a catalyst for Islamic extremists in that part of the world at that time.  Something about the traditional gods (definitely nothing to do with Islam) being displeased with the white man.  Whatever.  Otherwise, this was interesting throughout.

    Dutch were still in charge in this part of the world, though Britain taking over.  The story line reminds that the Dutch East India Company was one of the first stock corporations (1602).

    Useful explanation of the Wallace Line - not difficult to grasp, but I had never paid any attention.

    Very interesting explanations of plate tectonics and the way in which scientists developed the theory, then confirmed it.  The process was all new to me.

    Krakatoa's eruption was one of the first big events following worldwide linkage via telegraph - newspapers worldwide followed the story.  One of the first international stories in a shrinking world.

    The power of the eruption was simply unbelievable.  They figured out that sounds reported as distant gunfire on an island 2,968 miles away - were the sounds of the Krakatoa eruption.  That seems absolutely unbelievable - would you think any event in San Francisco could be heard in New York City (about 500 miles less distance)?

    "Barographs" in London recording barometric pressure changes . . . all over the city (and, upon follow-up investigation, all over the world) - massive changes linked to the eruption.

    Landscape artists are inspired - Hudson Valley school.

    Anyway - the blown-away mountain is again rising.

    Friday, May 31, 2013

    The Eve of Destruction - How 1965 Transformed America (James T. Patterson, 2012)

    Good enough - but I didn't get much new out of this.  Already pretty familiar with much of the information presented.  Very few dog-eared pages, which is not a good sign.  Very quick read.

    One basic item the author clarified was that when we think of the '60s as an era of turmoil, protest, etc. - all this really started in 1965.  Pretty tame prior.

    When I think back - it was a rather crazy time to be growing up - I turned nine in 1965.

    Euphoria over passage of civil rights legislation and the war on poverty - with prompt onset of disillusionment.  (Not that this has broken the cycle of trying to slough off our issues to over-promising popularity contest winners, a/k/a politicians.)


    Tuesday, May 21, 2013

    The Road Back (Erich Maria Remarque, 1930)

    Remarque is of course famous for this classic WWI novel; also wrote this excellent novel about life between the wars.  

    “The Road Back” has a similar feel but in a different setting - moreso focused on immediate post-war years in Germany.  The novel starts in the trenches as the war winds down in 1918, and follows the protagonists as they try to cope with postwar life.

    In some ways quite modern in terms of soldiers adjusting to being back home (many of the issues sound familiar in accounts of contemporary struggles); in other ways quite specific to post-WWI Germany – so that was a good combination.  

    The immediate disappointment that "back home" - so eagerly anticipated - was really a place where "Life has moved on . . . it is leaving us behind almost as if we were already superfluous."  

    Hard to imagine how that must have felt, especially for the few survivors that had been in the war from 1914 on.   Remarque does a good job working with the behaviors of this group - who had left civilization pretty far behind in some ways.

    Interesting discussion of the readiness of the German population - including many disaffected vets - to look for solutions in socialism etc. (this was written before the rise of the Nazis).

    Gift from PJr and Nedda for birthday #57.  Nice.


    Friday, May 03, 2013

    The Good Soldier Svejk (Jaroslav Hasek, 1923)

    I had never heard of this book until reading Patrick Leigh Fermor describe his travels through central Europe in the 1930s (wonderful book, discussed here).  Fermor said reading Svejk was very helpful for him in getting a handle on Bohemia.  Fermor's recommendation - and my interest in Bohemia (based on bloodlines for my wife and children) - motivated me to track this down.  Phoenix library didn't have it; on Amazon, all I found was a pretty beat-up version stamped "Leeds Metropolitan University - DISCARDED".

    I hope, for LMU's sake, that it has replaced the book.

    The author died without finishing the book (though this translation runs 750 pages).  Hasek apparently was quite the colorful character.  But not as colorful as Svejk - typically described as an "everyman" caught up in a vast bureaucracy (this one being military).  It's consistently funny, and consistently observant of WWI eastern front absurdities.

    Best I can tell, Svejk remains very famous in Bohemia - now 90 years later.

    Part of what the reader starts to appreciate is that Bohemia - then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - later part of Czechoslovakia - now divided among successor states such as Czech Republic and Slovak Republic - has for big chunks of its history been a lesser entity within polyglot empires.  It had its proud/independent phase earlier on.  By the time of WWI, it was dragged along into conflict by its Austro-Hungarian masters, who in turn were dragged along by their German masters (I'll call them).  Leaving the Bohemians - at least those of Svejk's ilk - generally somewhat less than highly motivated to throw away their lives on eastern front battlefields while being bossed around by incompetent Austrian officers.

    Svejk deals with the situation with a combination of cunning and humor (not to mention prodigious drinking capabilities).  Epic run-ins with Lieutenant Dub, a secret policeman, the good-natured Vanek (who he serves as "batman"); the ever-hungry Balloun; and plenty of others.

    A useful and very different take from a soldier/common man perspective looking at WWI's eastern front.

    Svejk's classic line:  "Humbly report, sir . . . "

    Tuesday, April 23, 2013

    Agent Garbo - the brilliant, eccentric secret agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day (Stephan Talty, 2012)

    Gift from PJ (as was this book on a closely-related topic).  Much enjoyed both.

    As noted in the description of Double Cross - declassified information has given authors some new - and fascinating - material to work from regarding the WWII battle of spies between England and Germany.

    Agent Gargo was the Spanish chicken farmer discussed in Double Cross - which focused on five different agents.  This book goes into quite a bit more detail about him.  So this was an excellent pair of books - one provided more of an overview, one went into depth on the key actor.

    Hadn't realized Graham Greene worked in Lisbon for M16 (gathering material for books like this).

    It seems pretty clear that the British double agents - the most important of which had been code-named "Agent Garbo" - succeeded in their primary goal - heading off the positioning of Nazi forces on Normandy and, more importantly, delaying the sending of Nazi reinforcements to the area in the critical days right after D-Day.  The Calais ruse was believed.

    Readable, interesting throughout.

    Doesn't look very dangerous, does he?

    Wednesday, April 10, 2013

    The First Four Notes - Beethoven's fifth and the the human imagination (Matthew Guerrieri, 2012)

    The author came up with the idea of building an entire book around the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  277 pages, plus extensive notes and a detailed index.  Some reviewer made it sound interesting to me.

    I'll agree that pretty much everyone recognizes the four-note sequence, that Beethoven was of course a very important figure, etc.  But the author was really straining to connect all sorts of events in political, cultural and musical history to this sequence - which quickly became tiresome to me.

    So I blew through this one rather rapidly, and didn't learn much.

    Postscript:  watching Diamondbacks play Dodgers for parts of a series on May 6 through May 8 - not sure if this happens regularly at Dodger Stadium - but quite often during these games the stadium sound system was booming out "The First Four Notes."

    Tuesday, April 02, 2013

    Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann, 1901)

    After years of reading focused moreso on England and France (not to mention the USA), I'm trying to get a better handle on Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe).  I continue to find Thomas Mann very compelling.

    This is a very different book than the two of his later works that I've had a chance to read (here, and here).  Mann was only 26 when this was published in 1901.  The story "chronicles the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family [the Buddenbrooks] over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877.  Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family ob Lubeck, and their milieu."

    Interesting to me for a number of reasons:

    1.  Mann's world when this was published (1901) was unimaginably different from his world when writing The Magic Mountain (post WWI) or Doctor Faustus (depths of WWII).  Germany was confident, rising.

    2.  Interestingly different perspective than all of the French or British novels.  Even if the same 19th century background events - Napoleonic era (here, via memories of the older generation), 1848 revolutions, Franco-Prussian War of 1870, etc.

    3.  The earliest generations portrayed - close contact with France, including Napoleonic domination - often spoke French.  Later generations only spoke German - reflecting Germany's ascendance (including unification).

    4.  Old Johann - successful, builds large new house.  Next generation Johann - does well, more religious, less inclined to merchant values, doesn't reach old age.  His three children are major characters in the book.  Daughter Tony (Antonie) has some bad luck in well-intentioned marriages (accepting marriage proposals that would assist the family business rather than for romance).  Thomas carries on the family business well (but not as well as prior generations) - perhaps it was not to his natural inclinations - I felt I could identify with Thomas in many respects.  He had a ne'er-do-well brother (Christian).  Faced down some near-riot conditions in '48.  Also died relatively young.  Final generation - Hanno - musically inclined, helpless to conduct the family business, dies as a child.  So that's it for the four generations.

    5.  Thomas's wife is an excellent musician, while he has little appreciation . . . she is speaking to him about pop (for want of a better term) music " . . . which, if you met with it in literature, would make you throw down the book with an angry or sarcastic comment.  Easy gratification of each unformed wish, prompt satisfaction before the will is even roused - that is what pretty music is like - and it is like nothing else in the world.  It is mere flabby idealism."  Mann is good at describing music (particularly in Doctor Faustus).

    6.  Tony's second husband lives in Munich, where she resides following the marriage (but only for a year or so).  Interesting discussion about how Munich was in many respects a foreign country to folks in northern Germany - different speech patterns, different food, different religion (more Catholic down there).

    Long-ish book (600 pages), interesting and worthwhile throughout, I much like Mann's novels.

    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    A Time of Gifts (Patrick Leigh Fermor, 1977)

    Fermor intended to write a three-part story of his walking tour from Holland to Constantinople in the 1930s. As it turns out, part three was never written. I so much liked part two - summarized here, with lots of explanation about what Fermor was up to.

    So now we come to part one - which lived up to very high
    expectations.  I don't think I missed much by reading the two books out of order - though it was useful to have a better understanding of why the youthful Fermor decided to go walking across Europe.  Starting in December 1932.  (Book written 45 years later!)

    This is the kind of well-read, highly inquisitive person with whom I would love to travel - seems impossible for him to view a landscape (or cityscape) without it conjuring up visions of related historical occurrences, depictions by artists, local music and customs, etc.  Nonstop provocation of one's imagination - which is the best thing, after all.

    As with the other book of his - once you read it, you simply have to visit the area.  (Kind of the way this book required me to make this trip.)

    Thoughts:

    1.  Compact writing style - makes me jealous, I would love to write in that manner.

    2.  On a barge he was given a meal of baked beans garnished with speck - basically just fat - he found it frightful.  Now I know what Grandpa Bormann was referring to when he used the word - 50 years ago.

    3.  Interesting theory of how the "Landsknechts" (a term I hadn't heard before) set the tone for architecture in the area.  Who knows?

    4.  I never really had bothered to figure out how the Danube flows, or why it was the ultimate runway for Asian invaders over the centuries.  Fascinating to trace its west-east run from Germany (eventually heading south into the Black Sea).  I  can see that leisurely travel in this area would be a delight.

    5.  Melk.  Regensburg.  He loves Prague (though, it not being on his route, required a side trip).

    6.  German towns.  Nazi activities - early phases of its hold on power.

    7.  He knew the Dutch landscape painters very well - and passing through on foot gave him constant reminders of their work.  A wonderful Christmas story with a kind family.

    8.  Long-term occupation by Roman empire - near-mythical the frontier with the deep woods.

    9.  I'm interested in learning more about Bohemia - the under-appreciated but majority bloodline for my little wife.  This book is a good assist in this regard.

    10.  Was reading this in the latter stages of Lent . . . the author arrives in a small Hungarian town just as evening services begin on Holy Thursday . . . just a great, evocative recounting of the ceremony, the evening of the Betrayal, etc.  Wonderful scene.

    11.  He reaches Budapest, which is where the next book starts.

    I need this as a reference, so just bought it.  It is a delight.


    Monday, March 11, 2013

    The Catastrophist (Ronan Bennett, 1998)


    [Re-read for book club (per CPG) in 2014; below discussion is from original read in 2013.]

    Something very different for me:  a modern novel.  Nothing really wrong with this book, though it reinforces my decision to focus on catching up with works that have stood the test of time.

    Writer from Northern Ireland (Seamus n/k/a James) is in love with Italian communist (Ines) resident in the Congo at the time of independence from Belgium; he joins her there.  She sort of loves him but ultimately is more interested in causes than anything else - supporting Patrice Lumamba.  There is a CIA-type character working connections - opposed to Lumamba due to his leanings toward Communism.  Also various Belgian folks.

    Generated some interesting thoughts about the transition to independence and the dire situation in these countries.  Somewhat useful followup to discussions in book like this about the way King Leopold abused the Congo.

    Thursday, February 28, 2013

    All Our Worldly Goods - a Novel of Love Between the Wars (Irene Nemirovsky, 1947 (translated 2008))

    This is my favorite of Nemirovsky's works so far (see here and here for comparison; the first link also discusses a bit of Nemirovsky's extremely interesting back story).

    The translator explains that the title carries a different meaning in French - less materialistic in weight than the English words.

    The story line follows generations of a family resident in northern France - a town where the German army swept through in both WWI and WWII.  One son (later a soldier in WWI) breaks off the engagement to the wealthy fiancee preferred by his industrialist grandfather and instead marries for love; he is cut out of the family business (though things come full circle).  His son is drawn into WWII fighting.

    It's just a very nice story in many ways.  And brings alive, a bit differently than other discussions, some of the reasons why the French just couldn't have been all that excited about ramping up to fight the Germans in 1940.  WWI fought mostly on French soil, with horrific casualties; partial mobilizations less than 20 years later; here come the Germans again - unimaginable.  French citizens who were say 25 when WWI ended were just 46 or 47 when the WWII invasion occurred - how must that have felt?

    As in Suite Francaise, interesting scenes when French towns evacuated ahead of the advancing German army.

    Quick read, worthwhile, the author is a good observer

    Monday, February 25, 2013

    Double Cross - The True Story of the D-Day Spies (Ben Macintyre, 2012)

    The Wall Street Journal has three sections spread across the Friday and Saturday editions that generally have some interesting reviews, articles, etc. - I save these for PJ, who often catches up on the stack when we are car-tripping on one of our little vacations.  On last year's trip to Laguna Beach and Santa Monica, she noticed reviews on two books about WWII spying.  Since we both are fans of pretty much any movie involving Nazis and spies (particularly 1940s vintage), she ended up getting both books for me as Christmas gifts.

    So this was the first one I had a chance to read - had pretty high expectations, and they were exceeded.

    I really think, or at least hope, that they do a new movie version based on the "real" story - so many more facts have been declassified in comparison to information available when those charming movies were made - and the "real" story is just phenomenal.

    This author focuses on five double agents and their British handlers.  These five were about as unlikely as possible - described on the dust jacket as "a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter pilot, a bi-sexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming, and a volatile Frenchwoman [with an] obsessive love for her pet dog . . ."  Yeah, that was the core team.

    I wasn't aware that every single spy based in England and working for Germany had, by some point in the middle of the war years, either been killed, imprisoned, or turned toward working for England as a double agent.  German spy-handlers being duped sometimes had their own reasons for not pushing too hard to find out what was going on - money, prestige, anti-Hitler animus, etc.  But all in all, it just seemed that the Brits were better at this game (assisted in part by code-breaking skill).

    Among the challenges in running all of these double agents:  providing information to Germany from each that was good enough to give them credibility with their German handlers, yet not so good that it constituted actionable intelligence.  Amazing how often the mails or other communications channels were just a bit too slow - such that the double agent could send true, actionable intelligence that arrived just a tad late - but the Germans didn't seem to note this pattern or find it suspicious.  All this activity built up to a grand deception for D-Day, when it was critical that German forces be concentrated near Calais (rather than Normandy).  A flood of misinformation was provided, and the German forces in fact were deployed just about exactly as would be expected if the double-cross agents reports were believed.  The British were able to intercept messages indicating that pretty much direct quotes from double-cross agents were getting all the way to Hitler himself.

    How much did it help?  I have to believe it was quite significant.  Even if plenty of other factors were involved, and even if the author might be prone to overstate their role.

    At any rate, it makes a sensational story.

    Monday, February 18, 2013

    Thinking the Twentieth Century (Tony Judt (with Timothy Snyder), 2010)

    I've found Tony Judt immensely helpful in thinking about the 20th century - especially this book, but also this one though to a lesser extent.  I was interested in this - his final book - for two additional reasons.  First - he was collaborating with Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands (in queue but not read).  Second - this was written as Judt died of ALS - a pretty compelling circumstance in which to leave behind some thoughts; there was a very interesting NYT story about this, and I was particularly interested due to the Claude Lanners situation.

    And I would recommend reading this book - I'd just stop before getting to the final chapter.

    Judt is always a bit challenging for me - and useful - because he comes from Marxist, leftist, big government, faith in postwar social democracy background - different than my usual sources and inclinations.  But he's smart, not so dogmatic, always interesting (until that last chapter - but maybe that was Snyder's fault?)

    This book goes through interesting discussion of his Jewish background - days in London - then active with Zionists until disillusioned.  Stefan Zweig as not representative of Jews outside big city Vienna - vast swathes of lesser educated countryside Jews in eastern European - very different in the pecking order depending on point of origin.  The Habsburg empire - not a bad thing for Jews.

    He discusses his Marxist phase - why it was seductive, how hard it was for folks to let go.  That it had a significant religious component - end time, eschatology.

    Sees Israel like the small nationalist states formed after WWI - vulnerable, insecure, identity wrapped up in some notion of ethnicity and self-determination.  A tough way to operate.

    Fascism - interesting idea, probably not novel at all but it was to me - that this thrived in large part because of the fear of communism.  Which was a legitimate fear after WWI.  Fascism as lacking pretty much any intellectual framework (coherent or otherwise) - it did present itself as the chance to preserve order in the face of disorder.

    At the end of the book - it's what it might be like sitting in the faculty lounge at Yale (where Snyder probably hangs around) - an echo chamber where insignificant little George W. Bush is responsible for all evils, corporate profits are bad, blah, blah, blah.

    Judt does have a wonderful discussion about the difficulties of writing something useful - challenging writings will necessarily have a limited audience - says if he writes for New York Times Magazine, it "would be edited and distilled and reduced into acceptable midstream generalities."  A separate aspect I can relate to even in my little world:  "Obviously this is the condition of most people who write:  throwing a letter into the ocean in the forlorn hope that it will be picked up."  We write for ourselves in so many instances.

    But how about this howler (from Snyder):  "The state that is responsible for health care is better (as we know) than the private sector at keeping costs down.  And because the state is thinking about long-term budgets rather than quarterly profits, the best way to keep costs down is to keep people healthy.  So where there is public health care there is intense attention to prevention."  Does Snyder really believe this?  If he's so careless to accept this, should I bother reading Bloodlands?  He sounds frighteningly like our president, especially with that dismissive "as we know" line.

    Another one from Snyder:  "Amtrak is another example:  a kind of zombie train system which is kept lurching along [by Republicans] to demonstrate that public transportation is and must always be dysfunctional."  What??