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.

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.)

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.

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 . . . "

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?

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Castle (Franz Kafka) (written 1922, published 1926)

After running into so many glowing references to Kafka (including one just today in a Tony Judt book), I decided to go back to his books (at least two of the more famous ones, The Trial and this one).  

K, a land surveyor, is invited to "The Castle" to work.  He never gets there.  He spends time in a snow-laden village beneath the Castle.  It's hard to get around in the snow.  He learns that the authorities in the Castle - highly thought of in all respects - may have made an error in inviting a land surveyor.  He is not permitted to practice his trade.  He does end up for awhile as a janitor in the local school (this after forming a relationship with Frieda, the taproom girl).  He is somehow given two assistants - childlike, unhelpful, always present; one eventually takes off with Frieda.  He is supposed to receive messages from the Castle about his situation via Barnabas, but learns from Barnabas's sisters (especially via Olga) that this may not be very reliable.  (Their family had been disgraced when one of the sisters (Amalia) rejected an overture sent via message by a gentleman from the Castle.)

Klamm is an important Castle representative who spends time in the Gentlemen's Inn in the village.  K keeps trying to get in touch with Klamm.  His efforts do not succeed.


Pepi succeeded Frieda in the taproom.

The villagers have a strange life in general - generally in awe of the Castle and its inhabitants, inconsistent in their descriptions of the Castle officials, lacking understanding.  And K struggles to figure out how things work in this odd little world.

Chapter V is a masterpiece - K's conversation with the village chairman (low level official not even directly involved with the Castle) - about how K may have been summoned, and where he stands.  Kafka is rightly famous for observing and communicating the modern bureaucracy.

But there's more here - loneliness, inability to meet a goal; the setting in the village is unsettling.

Kafka didn't finish this book either; he was working on it when he died.

And no, I don't really know what to make of it.

The Long Road Home - The Aftermath of the Second World War (Ben Shephard, 2010)

I read lots of World War II stuff, and for good reason.  Most of it focuses on the political leadership, the generals and the armies, also for good reason.  This book is different - it focuses on the displaced persons (DPs, to use the then terminology) resulting from the military mayhem.

I liked it, though perhaps not as much as I was hoping.

On the Allied side, lots of planning and effort went into handling the DPs - it was recognized that this was critical to a lasting peace.  Nevertheless, the issue received a tiny fraction of resources in comparison to military needs (and for good reason).

I've read about a lot of these issues in books like this one, and even moreso in this one.  But this is one of the few to focus almost exclusively on the topic.

One obvious theme is the extreme degree of difficulty in eastern Europe - plenty of tough situations in western Europe, but nothing in comparison to areas where Hitler's armies swept through in 1939-1941; and then Stalin's armies swept back through later in the war.  Some areas saw multiple back-and-forth situations.

Life in DP camps - some of this went on for many years - no doubt substantial similarities to modern refugee camps - internal hierarchies and politics etc.

Nordic types were favored by British and US; Poles generally looked down upon; Jewish DPs as a particular challenge given their unique circumstances (even if the Holocaust per se hadn't yet entered public consciousness, certainly folks knew the Jews had been special targets).  This contributed directly to decisions about formalizing Israel as a state in 1948.

Ukrainians and others (including some Poles) absolutely desperate not to be returned to Russia - Americans and Brits became less strict about this as time went on.  These folks knew what their world would be like in Stalin-land.

The effort to trace lost children - sometimes resulting in returning long-adopted (if informally in many cases) children to parents who didn't know them and were in desperate straits of one kind or the other.

Getting places like Canada and the U.S. to take refugees.

Essentially this was a one-of-a-kind problem in terms of scope (not in terms of its nature) - no real way to anticipate or prepare for the post-war era.  The human suffering continued.