The Broken Road (Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper) (2013 (from 1930s travels))

(349 pages)

This is the third of Fermor's now-famous trilogy in which he writes - much after the fact - about his 1930s walk from Holland to Constantinople (or thereabouts).  I really liked all three; perhaps this best of all notwithstanding its unusual provenance.  In this book Fermor is traveling from the "Iron Gates" (on the Danube along the Serbian-Romanian border) to Constantinople; then onto Mt. Athos (Greece).

Here's an overview of book one; here's an overview of book two.  They're quite wonderful.

For book three, Fermor had more source material available (most of his 1930s notebooks were lost - pretty much everything relating to books one and two).  Fermor started this book, then set it aside . . . returned much later . . . but never finished.  The last portion (on Mt. Athos) is more directly taken from a diary - different style.  The two editors did their best, and it's quite good.

I keep feeling that Fermor was unusually gifted in seeing it, taking it in, and then succeeding in describing it; upper-class Brit perspective but not failing to see by feeling superior or judgmental.  Unusual in that he experienced all this as very young and inexperienced; then he wrote it up decades later - trying to filter out later experiences and knowledge, but I think possession of just that (ultimately unfilter-able) made the writing more interesting.  Not provable one way or the other.

Also the 1930s are inherently interesting - this a last glimpse of a pre-industrial world in many of these areas; preceded the vast WWII changes; areas absorbing, more or less, WWI changes - again, described with post-WWII knowledge - this approach works.

This part of the world is totally interesting to me - largely unknown; reading a lot but barely scratching surface.  I get the impression that things somehow run deeper for the local populace - not sure how to express this idea - their history goes way back, they have been overrun by conquerors so often (with attendant suffering) - Fermor's descriptions of the the sounds of the music, the instruments, the voices; hmmm.

And then the variations of Christianity introduced here, often competing, the depth of the icons and the ceremonies, again perhaps spurred by the regular, and awful, invasions.

Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Macedonia.

Moldovia Wallachia became Romania mid 19th century, acquire Transylvania from Hungary after WWI; Hungarians with long memories about this.

Many dog-eared pages.  The episode where he is lost and spends the night in a cave with shepherd-outlaws - seems to take place in a different world, one thinks of Odysseus and the Cyclops.

Etc.  Highly recommended.

Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens, 2018)

(368 pages)

Book club selection (via Emily; session held 23 June 2019).

Marsh Girl survives, thrives in a marshy setting along the Carolina coast.

Highly readable.  Author is interesting - extensive scientific background, a couple nonfiction works to her credit - this is her first novel.

My favorite part of the book - the descriptions of nature as it occurs in these coastal marshlands - this sets the stage right at the beginning of the book.  A bit reminiscent of the Kolyma Stories descriptions.  I don't know much about this part of the world, and apparently the weather is harsher than I realized (one consequence being lots of shipwrecks in the early days).  I also liked the short recitation of the history of the types of folks who settle here - mostly losers, convicts, antisocial folk, escaped slaves.  This element alone made the book worth reading.

The plot line was engaging enough, moved along well, if a bit simplistic.  Protagonist (Kya) was too precious - no school, mom leaves at 6, dad a drunk - yet somehow a poet, artist, naturalist, author, hot chick, able to hide in the marsh - even in the land of novels (where somewhat-too-amazing characters should be, and are, accepted), that was a bit much.  Chase and his girl posse right out of central casting, as were Tate and Scupper and the sheriff's department.  Murder mystery, courtroom drama, of course.

This will be a movie for sure.

Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs (King and Wilson, 2017)

(352 pages)

Book club selection (via POC; session held 2 June 2019 (though I was in Virginia so missed it)).

I love reading about this period of history and this part of the world.  But I didn't altogether love this book - the author just was way too focused on the scandal-details surrounding the Mayerling hunting lodge incident - sure it was important in the arc of the monarchy, but it was just one fairly minor episode in the overall story (if titillating). 

I would have liked much more Austria-context, and a lot less Mayerling-minutiae.

Still, the book did provide some insights about the Austrian royalty in its final period.  And in working through various conspiracy theories surrounding the Mayerling incident, the author did get into some of the challenges faced by the empire as the 19th century drew to a close, including divisions among Czechs, Hungarians, and other groups.  It's impressive that the conglomeration hung together as long as it did - I often think it receives more ridicule than it deserves.