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

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.

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??

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas, 1844)

PJr and CPG liked, so I tried this - a true "adventure" story, I'd say - well worth reading. Easy to see why it is, and I expect will endure as, a classic.  Certainly made the time at the gym go by quickly.

Even if the book is quite long - as Umberto Eco explains in a nice "introduction," Dumas needed money and was paid by the word for this serialized work.  But the length, and repetitiveness, somehow draw or propel the story forward, I think.

The basic plot is well-known from multiple movie versions.  Edmond Dantes ends up in prison due to machinations of Danglars, Fernand, Caderrouse, Villefort - Dantes was framed as a Bonapartist when that was a dangerous thing to be.  Spends many years in prison; meets the abbe; loses Mercedes; acquires the abbe's hidden treasure following the daring escape; pursues revenge; some innocent folks suffer in addition to all the guilty parties; he has some regrets but ultimately handles it.  Became an expert in just about everything.

Italian bandits - Luigi Vampa, Pepino.  Danglars' scheming wife.  Villefort's deadly second wife.  Valentine and Maximilian Morrel.  Valentine's grandfather (old man Noirtier).  The Count's household help:  Ali, Bertuccio (with son Benedetto (also known as Prince Cavalcanti).  Mercedes's son - the duel.  Haydee.  And many more.

The plot line makes more sense if the reader has a little background with French history in first half of 19th century.  But this is definitely not needed to enjoy the tale.