As a girl I was not able to understand the attraction of Joyce’s Ulysses. Just as Birmingham tells us, lawyers defending Joyce on charges of indecencyAs a girl I was not able to understand the attraction of Joyce’s Ulysses. Just as Birmingham tells us, lawyers defending Joyce on charges of indecency used the defense that young girls would neither understand nor be much interested in Joyce’s supposedly great work, and therefore he was not corrupting them. As far as I was concerned, that was true. I never got to the “good bits.” I just didn’t understand what the heck he was talking about. He was crude, he was blunt, and he was clear enough for me to know that if I wanted to hear jokes about farts I could listen to the adolescents on my block.
Now, however, with this enormously detailed and beautifully read book on the genesis and development of the works of Joyce, I finally have a better idea why he was considered such an important author. In the process of explicating Joyce’s work, Birmingham also touches on the life and works of Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, Bennett Cerf and any number of important writers and publishers of the time in Europe and America during the 1910s through the 1930s.
Joyce suffered from a malady of the eye, iritis, which he first experienced while he was in his twenties. It continued his entire life, with surgeries and administered drugs unable to cure it. Joyce died in 1941. Illness played a huge part in his life, according to Birmingham, though Joyce’s Wikipedia entry does not mention it. He was in the process of going blind most of his adult life, which must be one reason why in photographs Joyce’s eyes look so unfocused. (view spoiler)[Sadly, the underlying cause of the iritis may have been syphilis, which was rampant in Dublin when Joyce lived there. Joyce also called Europe a "'syphilisation'…and the disease accounted for the continent’s manias.” (hide spoiler)]
This is a big book about one book, really, so if you find yourself short on time, pull up a chair and read Chapter 26. It not only tells one the outlines of what Joyce was doing in Ulysses, but what he meant by the very style of his writing and why Ulysses was considered so groundbreaking. Chapter 26 is the one in which a 10+ year legal battle was resolved in the United States concerning the “greatness” of the work as opposed to the “filth” of the work. The judge hearing the case was particularly interesting in the text of his opinion.
Judge Woolsey had read the entire work, not just the bits conservatives were hoping would condemn the book, and concluded that the dirty words used by the author were not used merely to shock or corrupt but because lower-middle class Irish folk actually talked and thought like that. Whether or not that is true is kind of beside the point. Enough people “thought like that” and “acted like that” to show the judge that obscenity can’t be something we feel and do but hide—it has to be something completely outside the normal experience of human endeavor.
But Woolsey understood more of Joyce than the dirty bits and he helped me to get a grip on what was going on:
Joyce has attempted—it seems to me, with astonishing success—to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man’s observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious.”
John Keating narrates Penguin Random House Audio production of this book and his accents, pauses, and breaks allow us to hear the greatness of the language. Ulysses charts the course of man across centuries, collapses it into a single day, tying together the past and the present and the future. Joyce takes the heart of human life—sex—and shows us its relish and life-giving qualities. He does not allude to sex. He talks about how it is conducted frankly, openly, with exuberance and appeal. Ulysses is both funny and real, and like Birmingham and Judge Woolsey point out, in the end, it is several characters and their layers of consciousness all giving voice at one time. That may be why it makes such great theatre.
This book started out with Joyce as a young man meeting Nora Barnacle, the woman who would become his wife, confidant, and the one who, through letters and otherwise, expressed many of the exquisite sexual pleasures explored in Ulysses. Judge Woolsey also mentioned that it is the voice of the woman, Molly Bloom, who remained in his mind after the book was closed, not those of the other main characters: Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan, or Leopold Bloom.
I highly recommend the audio edition of this book, though the Random House print copy has some great photographs and is beautifully printed. If at first you wonder at Birmingham's lavish praise of Joyce you will be won over by the end.
Kai Bird believed Robert Ames exemplified the best of American values: sober, diligent, thoughtful, and fair. Ames was an enthusiastic family man, andKai Bird believed Robert Ames exemplified the best of American values: sober, diligent, thoughtful, and fair. Ames was an enthusiastic family man, and despite being occasionally short of funds, he wanted a big family. When stationed in Washington, he often kept regular work hours, leaving at the same time every morning and arriving home in time to listen to music and read a bit before dinner with the family. When someone keeps a regular schedule, it is difficult to imagine what goes on in the hours he or she is gone, and Ames’ children never knew until his death that he was not the Foreign Service officer he purported to be.
Ames’ career as a covert CIA agent spanned the decades from the nineteen fifties to the eighties, when he was killed in the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing. Outside of his personal life, Robert Ames has always been a device. During his lifetime he was a device for listening to and interpreting activities in the Middle East and a means by which to influence events. Now he is the contextual device by which Kai Bird personalizes and focuses his history of the modern Middle East featuring cameos by important players.
I’m not sure how I convinced myself I needed to read another book about spies. I must have been in the midst of Ben McIntyre’s compulsive read, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, when I agreed to take on this true tale of the American spy Robert Ames who was operating about the same time and same location as the infamous British mole Kim Philby. After finishing McIntyre’s book and PBS documentary and doing the attendant research, I admit to exhaustion with the idea of spies. I have a better idea of what they do but I can’t say I am particularly impressed with what they accomplish.
Spies often feel the same way. Bird quotes letters from Ames to his wife in the 1980’s in which he says he feels he has written the same cables over and over during his career and “nothing seems to change.” Of course, he was writing of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict which even today is no closer to resolution, despite Ames’ help in preparing the ground for the 1993 PLO-Israeli Oslo Accords.
It is tempting for us civilians to imagine the CIA as an agency of super-humans, knowledgeable and capable beyond the capabilities of ordinary folk. But however good they are, these individuals operate in a deadening bureaucracy peopled with outsized egos holding differing opinions, and they may be held hostage by swift changes in policy that come with newly elected officials and administrations. Bird explicates the environment in which Ames navigated, introducing us to Ames’ superiors (Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, among others) and presidents (including Reagan and Bush), and concludes that everyone gets cynical after years in the Agency. Bird reports that some CIA officers are amazed when academics are found to have “incredible understanding” of political scenery overseas despite having no access to confidential information or restricted cables. (!)
Robert Ames was an Arabist. Bird paints him as a serious man, not given to frivolity or drinking and carousing, in contrast to many operatives at the time (the British esprit and bonhomie appeared to revolve around alcohol). Ames had an earnestness about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue that he acted upon by forming a liaison with a close associate of Yassar Arafat, the flamboyant Ali Hassan Salameh, with whom he corresponded throughout his years studying the Middle East. Bird goes to great lengths to cast doubt on Salameh's involvement in the 1973 Munich Massacre at the Olympics. Ames was sympathetic to the Arab position and distrusted the leadership in Israel, and apparently did not believe Salameh would take such an action. Bird, the son of two Foreign Service Arabists, appears to agree with this view. Bird writes that “all the Foreign Service officers who spent any time in the Middle East felt a deep sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.”
Bird writes in detail about the changing alliance of Arab factions and how one group would morph into another with the death or sidelining of one or another key player. With this background we can chart in hindsight the growth in strength of radicalist factions in the Middle East, and locate particular times when things might have been steered differently (other than eliminating people we disagree with). What remains chilling is how little we know despite our “intelligence,” and how little we affect for good the larger picture.
Perhaps Robert Ames deserved his own book; I thought Bird’s final chapters in which he places Ames’ work in the context of larger happenings in the Middle East more instructive than focus on a bookish Arab specialist bushwhacking the CIA bureaucracy. I am suspicious of people called “fine examples of American values” simply because America has so often proven herself tone deaf and ignorant rather than a courageous and open-minded example of democracy at work. I am not sure, however, that Bird was lauding the man Ames so much as showing us that his type of covert CIA officer, the learned specialist who dignifies with his consideration positions our political leadership claims to oppose, may be a better risk for us as a country to take than to have extrovert, fast-talking non-specialist operatives offering our stated enemies monetary bribes (in English!), thinking they’d “recruited” them. Probably both are necessary, if only to keep one type from thinking they "know it all," though I often wonder about the use of the Agency for intelligence-gathering anyway. Surely a giant bureaucracy is hardly the way to obtain secrets.
In the end, I found I was more interested in the broader context of Ames’ work in the Middle East, and in the final chapters after the Beirut bombing, Bird expands from Ames to give us the larger context. It is in these chapters that all the personal attempts by various individuals acting in their own circles come together to create a drama large enough for the world stage. All the personalities begin to make sense and we see places we might have had a moment for rapproachment. One could argue that Ames died without accomplishing his dream of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict but that Kai Bird’s retrospective of his work in context shows us both the errors and the possibilities for the future.
That this book is written today may be another indication that the tide of public opinion is shifting in America regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Historians and reporters may write unpopular positions but they usually don’t get recognition unless there is a groundswell of appreciation of their arguments. My guess is that the tide is (finally) shifting to support of the Palestinian cause. With this history we can see the outlines of American policy in the Middle East in the past fifty years. Bird makes no excuses for Israeli intransigence on the issue of a Palestinian state and instead highlights Israel’s role and responsibility for current conditions in the Middle East. There are indications the American public is ready to hear this argument. Our government will come along when we do.
Random House Audio provided me with an audio of this book in exchange for an honest review. The reader for this book, René Ruiz, was particularly good with pacing and pronunciation, making the details comprehensible. ...more
Kai Bird believed Robert Ames exemplified the best of American values: sober, diligent, thoughtful, and fair. Ames was an enthusiastic family man, andKai Bird believed Robert Ames exemplified the best of American values: sober, diligent, thoughtful, and fair. Ames was an enthusiastic family man, and despite being occasionally short of funds, he wanted a big family. When stationed in Washington, he often kept regular work hours, leaving at the same time every morning and arriving home in time to listen to music and read a bit before dinner with the family. When someone keeps a regular schedule, it is difficult to imagine what goes on in the hours he or she is gone, and Ames’ children never knew until his death that he was not the Foreign Service officer he purported to be.
Ames’ career as a covert CIA agent spanned the decades from the nineteen fifties to the eighties, when he was killed in the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing. Outside of his personal life, Robert Ames has always been a device. During his lifetime he was a device for listening to and interpreting activities in the Middle East and a means by which to influence events. Now he is the contextual device by which Kai Bird personalizes and focuses his history of the modern Middle East featuring cameos by important players.
I’m not sure how I convinced myself I needed to read another book about spies. I must have been in the midst of Ben McIntyre’s compulsive read, A SPY AMONG FRIENDS, when I agreed to take on this true tale of the American spy Robert Ames who was operating about the same time and same location as the infamous British mole Kim Philby. After finishing McIntyre’s book and PBS documentary and doing the attendant research, I admit to exhaustion with the idea of spies. I have a better idea of what they do but I can’t say I am particularly impressed with what they accomplish.
Spies often feel the same way. Bird quotes letters from Ames to his wife in the 1980’s in which he says he feels he has written the same cables over and over during his career and “nothing seems to change.” Of course, he was writing of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict which even today is no closer to resolution, despite Ames’ help in preparing the ground for the 1993 PLO-Israeli Oslo Accords.
It is tempting for us civilians to imagine the CIA as an agency of super-humans, knowledgeable and capable beyond the capabilities of ordinary folk. But however good they are, these individuals operate in a deadening bureaucracy peopled with outsized egos holding differing opinions, and they may be held hostage by swift changes in policy that come with newly elected officials and administrations. Bird explicates the environment in which Ames navigated, introducing us to Ames’ superiors (Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, among others) and presidents (including Reagan and Bush), and concludes that everyone gets cynical after years in the Agency. Bird reports that some CIA officers are amazed when academics are found to have “incredible understanding” of political scenery overseas despite having no access to confidential information or restricted cables. (!)
Robert Ames was an Arabist. Bird paints him as a serious man, not given to frivolity or drinking and carousing, in contrast to many operatives at the time (the British esprit and bonhomie appeared to revolve around alcohol). Ames had an earnestness about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue that he acted upon by forming a liaison with a close associate of Yassar Arafat, the flamboyant Ali Hassan Salameh, with whom he corresponded throughout his years studying the Middle East. Bird goes to great lengths to cast doubt on Salameh's involvement in the 1973 Munich Massacre at the Olympics. Ames was sympathetic to the Arab position and distrusted the leadership in Israel, and apparently did not believe Salameh would take such an action. Bird, the son of two Foreign Service Arabists, appears to agree with this view. Bird writes that “all the Foreign Service officers who spent any time in the Middle East felt a deep sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.”
Bird writes in detail about the changing alliance of Arab factions and how one group would morph into another with the death or sidelining of one or another key player. With this background we can chart in hindsight the growth in strength of radicalist factions in the Middle East, and locate particular times when things might have been steered differently (other than eliminating people we disagree with). What remains chilling is how little we know despite our “intelligence,” and how little we affect for good the larger picture.
Perhaps Robert Ames deserved his own book; I thought Bird’s final chapters in which he places Ames’ work in the context of larger happenings in the Middle East more instructive than focus on a bookish Arab specialist bushwhacking the CIA bureaucracy. I am suspicious of people called “fine examples of American values” simply because America has so often proven herself tone deaf and ignorant rather than a courageous and open-minded example of democracy at work. I am not sure, however, that Bird was lauding the man Ames so much as showing us that his type of covert CIA officer, the learned specialist who dignifies with his consideration positions our political leadership claims to oppose, may be a better risk for us as a country to take than to have extrovert, fast-talking non-specialist operatives offering our stated enemies monetary bribes (in English!), thinking they’d “recruited” them. Probably both are necessary, if only to keep one type from thinking they "know it all," though I often wonder about the use of the Agency for intelligence-gathering anyway. Surely a giant bureaucracy is hardly the way to obtain secrets.
In the end, I found I was more interested in the broader context of Ames’ work in the Middle East, and in the final chapters after the Beirut bombing, Bird expands from Ames to give us the larger context. It is in these chapters that all the personal attempts by various individuals acting in their own circles come together to create a drama large enough for the world stage. All the personalities begin to make sense and we see places we might have had a moment for rapproachment. One could argue that Ames died without accomplishing his dream of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict but that Kai Bird’s retrospective of his work in context shows us both the errors and the possibilities for the future.
That this book is written today may be another indication that the tide of public opinion is shifting in America regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Historians and reporters may write unpopular positions but they usually don’t get recognition unless there is a groundswell of appreciation of their arguments. My guess is that the tide is (finally) shifting to support of the Palestinian cause. With this history we can see the outlines of American policy in the Middle East in the past fifty years. Bird makes no excuses for Israeli intransigence on the issue of a Palestinian state and instead highlights Israel’s role and responsibility for current conditions in the Middle East. There are indications the American public is ready to hear this argument. Our government will come along when we do.
Random House Audio provided me with an audio of this book in exchange for an honest review. The reader for this book, René Ruiz, was particularly good with pacing and pronunciation, making the details comprehensible.
Why am I reading this? I don’t know. It looked nice and slim (218 pages, excluding the bibliography, notes and index) and I hoped it might shed some lWhy am I reading this? I don’t know. It looked nice and slim (218 pages, excluding the bibliography, notes and index) and I hoped it might shed some light on what made the Communist victory in Vietnam so inevitable. Authoritarianism without the grace of a shared sense of common humanity doesn’t work well, as we have seen in many examples in the past half century. General Giáp without Hồ Chí Minh may not have been able to throw off the yolk of French colonial management, but the two together were bigger than the sum of their parts.
So what was the glue that held the PAVN (Giáp’s army) together? “Political work in the ranks is of the first importance. It is the soul of the army.” It wasn’t Marxist-Leninist doctrine, however, but the political education was concerned with “instilling a commitment to one’s fellow soldiers, to the army as a whole, and the Party as a vehicle for national liberation.” (p. 54) Warren goes further:
”With the sage guidance of Hồ Chí Minh and [political leader] Trường Chinh, Giáp developed a highly nuanced and sophisticated understanding of how to use socio-political activity—organization, mobilization, and thought control or “consciousness-raising”—to focus the energies of the entire population under Vietminh control on achieving the Revolution’s objectives. Taken together, these techniques of political dau tranh allowed Giáp to mobilize an astonishing amount of on-going human activity, choreographed in minute detail, toward (1) building an alternative society and government, marked by revolutionary fervor, high morale, and unity of purpose as defined by the senior leadership; and (2) the breakdown of the legitimacy of the colonial puppet government in the eyes of the entire country. Thus, political dau tranh was at once a constructive and a corrosive activity.” (p. 57)
"[General Võ Nguyên Giáp] brilliantly applied what historian Douglas Pike calls the “two pincers” of revolutionary power, political struggle and armed struggle, placing greater emphasis on one form over the other at various stages of the Revolution. Perhaps Giáp’s most important contributions to protracted warfare were his flexible integration of three types of forces (local militia in the villages, regional forces, and full-time main force units), and his creative use of various “fighting forms”—guerilla warfare, mobile independent operations by battalions, conventional set-piece battles, and political mobilization."(from the Introduction, p. x)
Interestingly, although Giáp started with a military organization that looked like the American one with four core functional divisions (e.g., personnel, intelligence, operations and logistics), in the later stages of the war it was reorganized along the lines of the Chinese PLA with overlapping Party and military responsibilities. As Warren says, the structure was “more byzantine and redundant” and I would add, organic and impenetrable. Elsewhere Warren adds that the redundancies of authority and overlapping responsibilities…ensured smooth functioning even when association leaders were killed or captured. (p. 25)
And I thought this was interesting:
"A unique feature of PAVN’s approach to war concerned its extensive logistical preparation. Western forces on the offensive are typically supplied via motorized vehicles from the rear, or from the air. PAVN supply officers, however, developed ingenious ways of preparing a battlefield and its approaches with supplies and fortifications before the arrival of maneuver forces. This required superb planning and highly disciplined bunker and supply depot construction units, often working under sustained time pressure.”"(p.55)
Warren is a historian focused on recent military history, and in this book he talks a great deal about each of the decisive battles that studded Giáp’s campaign. He also mentions a new kind of yardstick which emerged to measure success: anything that convinced the French they had to withdraw their forces from Vietnam was a victory for the Vietminh. This may not mean battles won in the conventional sense. Dien Bien Phu was the decisive battle that brought the U.S. into Vietnam and Warren quotes historian George Herring:
"The Eisenhower Administration in 1954…used its resources unsparingly to construct in southern Vietnam a viable, non-communist nation that would stand as ‘the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia.’…Had it looked all over the world, the United Sates could not have chosen a less promising place for an experiment in nation-building."
How horrifyingly familiar.
And Warren’s conclusions:
"Giáp never doubted that the power of his soldiers’ and citizens’ commitment to the Vietnamese revolutionary vision would compensate for the inferiority of their military forces…[He presented] the Communist revolution as the only way to give the people power to shape their own history and destiny. Whether this was true or not in some objective sense…hardly mattered. What did matter was that the people and the soldiers loyal to the Revolution believed it was true. When all is said and done, Giáp’s enduring importance lies in recognizing that he was a successful general largely because he could see with extraordinary clarity all the factors and forces that shaped the trajectory of the wars in which he fought, and how each element related to all the others. He understood that the relative importance of each element was constantly in a state of flux, and one’s strategy, and one’s tactics, must be constantly recalibrated in light of those changes." (p. 217)
Anyway, this is not my field of expertise, but I would say it was a fairly concise and interesting addition to the literature for anyone thinking about future (uninitiated, please!) military engagements in Asia. ...more
It is difficult to convey the pleasure and excitement with which I read this history of Jane Franklin Mecom. Lepore carefully reconstructs the period It is difficult to convey the pleasure and excitement with which I read this history of Jane Franklin Mecom. Lepore carefully reconstructs the period in which the Franklins lived and pieces together the life of Franklin’s sister from fragments—using a few of the many letters she wrote to her famous brother, Benjamin Franklin. She forces one realize again what historical research requires, and how much we miss. But one comes away from Jane’s Book of Ages with wonder and awe at how much Lepore was able to capture through her assiduous researches.
Jane was the youngest of eight living children of Abiah and Josiah Franklin, six years younger than the youngest son, her famous and favorite brother, Benjamin. Franklin’s was a family of tradesmen, soapmakers, saddlemakers, candlemakers, and printers. Jane was born in late March 1712, married at fifteen and lived until early May 1794. She was eighty-three.
Jane Mecom née Franklin birthed some thirteen or fourteen children, most of whom preceded her in death. It is now thought that the family may have been tubercular, for they did not thrive, were languishing in health, layabout in deed, and several went mad if they survived beyond their twenties. “Very few we know is Able to beat thro all Impedements and Arive to any Grat Degre of superiority in Understanding.” Providence. So few are able to overcome the meanness of their birth and life to achieve something meaningful. Her brother did. In a different world, she might have been his equal.
Jane was scarcely free from child-raising her entire life. She admits that “tho they give grat Pleasure in common yet the Noise of them is some times troublesome.” And “I write among so much noise & confusion that if I had any thing of consequence I could no Recolect it.” She yearned to hear news of “Politicks” and every detail of the lives of her brother and her extended family. She loved to read and often asked that specific books be sent to her so that she could add them to her library.
This is thrilling history not only because of the momentous times in which Jane lived—through the cloth and tea boycotts in Boston, the battles at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and the longer war for independence that became the birth of the nation. She was a intimate correspondent with one of the most famous designers of the Constitution and loved and was beloved of him all her life.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this history is the fact that Lepore was able to construct it at all, given that so little remained of the woman and her chattel. Lepore has labored mightily to reconstruct this intimate portrait of a woman, her life, and locale. And this history does what all great histories do: they make us yearn to read more, discover more, learn all we can. ...more
I didn't really like this sort-of biography of Madame de Stael, but I guess du Plessix Gray did what she set out to do. The woman de Stael always seemI didn't really like this sort-of biography of Madame de Stael, but I guess du Plessix Gray did what she set out to do. The woman de Stael always seemed distant to me: intensely political, even in her sexual relations, or should I say, "especially in her sexual relations"?
She was the toast of Paris, and of all of France at one point. I admit I picked up this book simply because I was curious about what kind of person could manage that and keep herself grounded. It turns out that she didn't, really, keep herself grounded. She began to believe her own hype.
Not the way I want anyone I love to be. She was powerful, no doubt about it. I suppose, if I had a child who had a personality more like this than like myself, I would share this little monograph with him/her. It might be interesting to him/her. But de Stael seemed to me to have the kind of cold political marksmanship I dislike, in fact.
But don't listen to me. It is said she was extremely amusing, charming, and manipulative. She held salons for which 'everyone' sought invitations. One's star rose and set in her drawing room. I like clever conversation as much as the next guy. Perhaps I sense it would simply be beyond me. I have not a thread of guile in me. How did that happen?
I loved this. I read it when it came out in 2006 and thought it instructive for anyone going with their heart when starting a business. It is not justI loved this. I read it when it came out in 2006 and thought it instructive for anyone going with their heart when starting a business. It is not just a matter of money, though that must make sense also, but a matter of passion. ...more
This delightful popular history subtitled Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World is a fascinating account of the liveThis delightful popular history subtitled Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World is a fascinating account of the lives of two young female reporters in New York at the end of the nineteenth century. The story has much to recommend it: it could be read as a cautionary tale on the fleeting nature of celebrity, or a meditation on the twisting course of a life, or a history of women’s rights. It would be a great addition to the reading lists of teens since I feel sure that many students, both male and female, would be immediately captured with the concept of a race around the world.
While many of us have heard of Nellie Bly, my guess is few of us could say why. This book explains that a young Pennsylvanian took the pen name Nellie Bly from a popular song of the time, and managed to talk her way into a job as an investigative reporter in Philadelphia first and then New York. She convinced her newspaper, owned by Joseph Pulitzer, into arranging a round-the-world trip to beat the record set by the fictional character Phileas Fogg of the wildly bestselling science fiction novel, Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.
The idea of the race is galvanizing, but Goodman does a good job with the history as well, taking many opportunities to divert the story to highlight ill-remembered people, places, and practices of the time, the expansion of the railroads, the truth of ocean travel, the beauty and strangeness of Japan and China in the late nineteenth century. Nellie Bly became a sensation around the world, but certainly in the United States where news of her progress was charted by her newspaper, and estimates of her expected “time of touchdown” back in New York were gambled upon.
Elizabeth Bisland, Nellie’s competitor for the fastest time, was less promoted than Nellie certainly, but also sought the limelight less. The story of her journey, around the world and in life, is no less instructive and adds immeasurably to the work as a history of the period. The photos added a great deal to the text, and I am grateful the publisher agreed to print them.
Matthew Goodman found a good story and wrote another. Just as the story riveted readers of the newspaper The World in the 1880s, so the revived story interests us now. I would not be surprised to learn that this book leads budding historians to seek out the original documents that came of this novel adventure. Likewise I would not be surprised to find aspiring writers divining new subjects in the historical record worthy of our interest again. ...more
Rosemary Verey was a British garden designer with a distinct style based on historic gardens of old. Her inventiveness was allowed full rein within thRosemary Verey was a British garden designer with a distinct style based on historic gardens of old. Her inventiveness was allowed full rein within the constraints of geometric patterns: the outline of the gardens was defined somewhat strictly and marked with box balls and clipped hedges, but within these boundaries a brilliant collection of perennials, shrubs, bulbs and herbs complemented one another and competed for space and gave the impression of an orderly chaos.
There was a moment in our [American] recent history when new homeowners and gardeners yearned for just such a profusion of structure, color, and character, and lionized anyone who could help them achieve it. Rosemary Verey was just such a one: a woman of strong opinions, she could teach those interested how to create memorable plant pictures suitable to specific conditions. But we learned as all artists soon do that success is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. The labor-intensiveness of her most successful schemes makes one reassess the time commitment after enjoying the fruits of one’s labors for a few years.
Fortunately most of Verey’s books were available to me when I began my flirtation with gardening. She enriched my imagination and most of all encouraged boldness and a degree of daring (but no orange). Barbara Paul Robinson, the author of this Verey biography, reminds us of Verey’s oft-repeated remonstrance: “It is a sin to be dull.” Dull Verey was not, and she could evoke strong feelings in most people who touched her life or her work.
Verey’s gardens remind me a little of jazz musicians. A great and successful jazz musician (Branford Marsalis?) once said that great art is not completely improvised: it is creating something new within the constraints of an accepted form. I like the idea of constraints, because we all have them, and some do better than others when operating inside of them. And this is so for Verey. The gardens she created will always be lovely, but they won’t have her individual spark of genius without her.
Born in 1918, she lived a traditional middle class life until her children left home, and was in her forties when she began creating gardens around the house at Barnsley in the Cotswolds that her husband had inherited as the only son of a long line of clergymen. She began with garden designs unearthed in her historical researches, and began to riff on that, adding a profusion of sometimes new and complementary plants within the formal outline.
Verey had an outspoken and outgoing personality that was much prized and admired in America, though perhaps less so in Britain. She had opinions on everything, but her real focus was gardening in a particular style. And that is perhaps why her star has waned. What she brought to us was an obsession and said “you can do it, too.” We liked to think so, but alas, we could not. We hadn’t the time, the army of gardeners, the wealth, the vision, the dogged pertinacity.
Robinson the author shows us Verey the woman: whatever her flaws, they are presented within the context of very basic human needs for companionship, closeness, intimacy. This is a fascinating portrait of a woman working within the constraints of her own nature, excelling in some things while doing less well on others. The trajectory of her life gives us material for meditation on our own gardens. ...more
This is an escape memoir, written with remarkable restraint by long-time journalist Blaine Harden, and based on the adventures of Shin Dong Hyuk, the This is an escape memoir, written with remarkable restraint by long-time journalist Blaine Harden, and based on the adventures of Shin Dong Hyuk, the first known prisoner to escape a “complete control zone”, Camp 14 in North Korea. In cool tones, Harden transcribes and probes the remembrances of Shin’s childhood and youth in Camp 14, and his subsequent escape through China to South Korea and finally, to southern California.
As remarkable as it is horrifying, the memoir describes a childhood of starvation and deprivation difficult to comprehend. The inmates were starved not only for food, but also for information, social interaction, and personal relationships. The canny and cruel instruction Shin received and grew to embody allowed him to survive his escape and subsequent relocations. It is terrifying to think there are millions of people who learned similar lessons of disassociation, disaffection, and disregard.
Let us hope that Kim Jong Un is more of a man than his father was and will give more than a measure of life-saving freedom to his citizens. ...more
You’ve imagined it of course—wearing a black abāya, the robe that covers a person from head to foot with a cloth screen where one’s eyes are. And you’You’ve imagined it of course—wearing a black abāya, the robe that covers a person from head to foot with a cloth screen where one’s eyes are. And you’ve thought about black in all that Mideast heat. It almost seems, doesn't it, that the men are afraid of women, that they have to tie them up so and put every obstruction in their way? After all, [some sarcasm here] what mightn’t these pesky women get up to if they weren’t thoroughly hampered? It would be laughable if it weren't so humiliating and degrading. I can't help but get the niggling notion that those men that require such restrictive clothing for women must have so little control of themselves that they are more afraid of what they themselves would do when presented with feminine beauty than they are afraid of what women would do.
Sasson, perhaps best known for a number of books about prominent women in Muslim countries, has cleverly taken advantage of electronic formats to give us a taste of her own personal history. In this 78-page installment, she tell us of her early years in the Saudi kingdom when she recognized the constraints under which women there lived and when she developed her determination to form bonds with women of all backgrounds who wanted a free-thinking American friend.
We are invited to view the life Sasson experienced in the late 1970’s, and are treated to remembrances of events and reconstructions of conversations which bring home to us the realities of life in Saudi. Sasson bravely reveals her early naïveté, and shares with us her dawning realization of what it would take to change the attitudes which constrain women: women must have their own support groups but men must also be a part of any changes that take place. And now, thirty years later, the resistance to giving women a measure of freedom lives on, lessened only a little.
Like all good memoirs, this is open and candid, revealing as much about the author as about the country she seeks to unveil. This segment covers Sasson’s first years in Saudi. Later segments should address her extensive travel throughout Muslim countries, and the writing of many biographies. I’d known of Sasson for many years before picking up Growing Up bin Laden, a truly remarkable look inside the marriage of a man known throughout the world for his single-minded and bloody pursuit of his beliefs. What struck me then was the access Sasson enjoyed, and the detail she chose to share with us. In her memoir, we see the younger version of the woman who was later able to write that book. ...more
This is less the story of Rin Tin Tin (and his offspring) than of the man that owned him…and after that, of the men and women that sought to preserve This is less the story of Rin Tin Tin (and his offspring) than of the man that owned him…and after that, of the men and women that sought to preserve the memory of him. I am a sucker for dog books, but since dogs don’t talk, one must be satisfied with stories of their owners. Just as Marley and Me was not so much the story of the dog than of John Grogan and his family, so Rin Tin Tin must be imagined through this book and the massive archive of film footage of him and his chosen successors.
What struck me from the century of history behind the name of Rin Tin Tin—the first dog with the name was born in 1918 in war-torn France—was how the first man to own him, Lee Duncan, never seemed to develop the same kind of love for any dog of the same name that followed. None had that unique set of qualities that so endeared Rinty to his owner in the first place. But a huge industry rose and fell on the tide of public opinion through the war years and after, carried on and on by men with more conviction than talent, more hubris than humility. When, many times, the rights to the Rin Tin Tin name could be passed on profitably to keep the flame alive, it was often sequestered and squandered, its value magnified to untenable proportions.
Susan Orlean must have wondered many times how she had gotten herself into this project. It required long, deep dives into the lives of obsessives, and it leaves one feeling slightly deranged and breathless to think that the story of that talented canine comes from the dark recesses of neglected warehouses and lives warped to fit the myth. I listened to the audio of this book, and I had to laugh at how many times I was sure the story was over—by her telling and the inflection in her voice--only to hear another section declaring itself on my mobile device. The name of Rinty was resurrected so many times under such improbable circumstances, that one simply has to credit the wild imaginations of the rights-holders, and one feels a little sorry that the original great Rinty is not alive to be celebrated. ...more
I read this a couple of years ago in one or two sittings. It is a wonderful summer read: literate and memorable. Epstein, once a titan of the publishiI read this a couple of years ago in one or two sittings. It is a wonderful summer read: literate and memorable. Epstein, once a titan of the publishing world, has such a wide range of interests, friends, capabilities, that reading this book is like sitting in his kitchen, chin in hand, the sun slanting in, while he talks and putters, making a tarte, perhaps, or a blueberry pie. That he makes it just a little differently from your mother's is just curious, not catastrophic. I don't know quite why I never wrote a review of this at the time I read it, but I wish I had. I've remembered it fondly for several years and just went to recommend it to someone and discovered I'd never said I liked it. It is charming, and since one is unlikely to have the chance to spend time with Epstein in person, one may like to see the man relaxed and chatting easily. Epstein knows a lot about books, and he knows what makes for interesting reading. I don't think I would be wrong to say he enjoyed writing this one....more
I read this years ago and realize now that I did not review it. The book is startling in its revelations. I remember thinking at the time that there iI read this years ago and realize now that I did not review it. The book is startling in its revelations. I remember thinking at the time that there is NO WAY I would reveal this much about myself to the world at large. It was as though we, girlfriends all, were standing at her closet, rifling through her clothes, discussing her figure flaws, commenting on what looks best, falling finally into intimate details of life and love, snickering over the painful bits. There was so much intimacy it took my breath away. But Gilbert's essential open-hearted enthusiasms broke through my defences and I really liked her by the end, and hoped the best for her. I loved being along for her ride of discovery, and she told me things about women and men and and Italy and meditation that I'd not really ever thought about before. I have enthusiastically recommended this book to others, none of whom ever seem as impressed as I. The sheer nakedness of this memoir left me round-eyed and exhaling long sibilant sighs, accompanied by head shaking. By India, I was laughing out loud with her--she'd won me over. ...more
I had this book in my library and, without reading it myself, lent it to a family member to help her through a difficult surgery. She never returned iI had this book in my library and, without reading it myself, lent it to a family member to help her through a difficult surgery. She never returned it, but when I read Dawn Rennert’s review of her pilgrimage to Sharon Springs on her blog She is Too Fond of Books, I went to get it back that very day. I'm so glad I did. It would have been perfect for the sick family member, had she read it, but she didn't and I did. It was perfect for me, too. What a wonderful, funny, painful, knowing memoir of a pair of busy city executives finding a “weekend retreat” in upstate New York (Sharon Springs) that turns into a full-time job and lifestyle change. Not ordinary executives, not an ordinary town…and not an ordinary house.
By now, many of you will have heard already of the Beekman Boys on Planet Green’s Reality TV show, but I hadn’t until now. The truth is that this memoir is so hilarious and yet so real, in a you-and-me-and-a-drag-queen sort of way, that I couldn’t put the darn thing down. It is a lovely fairy tale about the wonders of country living. I’ve been guilty of dreams of domestic bliss and the homemade life more than once myself, but these guys do it bigger and better than I would or could. It’s no wonder the town embraced them and their 88 goats.
Without a doubt, highlights of the story include a Martha Stewart Peony Party at her homestead near New York City, the fare reduction ad campaign that was created in less than five minutes, and the first time a crew went to the Beekman house to shoot a reality show. Now there really is a TV show, but it was not at all obvious that this would be the case when the idea was first explored:
"At some point during the morning, I realized that the most exciting moment of our potential reality show would be the copyright notice in the credits. To compensate, I came to the conclusion that if I ran everywhere—physically moved my body faster—the film might seem more engaging. I galloped out the end of the drive to get the mail. I trotted to the garage to grab a trowel…For even more” sizzle,” instead of simply leading the goats out to graze as we usually did, I raced out in front of them, hollering an improvisational goat call that made me sound like a yodeling hillbilly. I turned back toward the barn and saw that the goats had stayed back, huddled together in fear in the barn doorway. They obviously preferred to skip dinner rather than get too close to the retarded scarecrow suffering a grand mal seizure.”
Do yourselves a favor and don’t wait for major surgery to take the chance to read this book. It’s funny, heartwarming, recognizable, and real. You’ll be glad there are folks like this around, and you’ll wish they lived nearby. ...more
First off, let me say that Wafa Sultan, an American psychiatrist born in Syria, is a very brave woman. She clearly believes that the Muslim religion d First off, let me say that Wafa Sultan, an American psychiatrist born in Syria, is a very brave woman. She clearly believes that the Muslim religion damages believers, and says so openly, and loudly. Judging from her expectation of how such talk will be received among the primary audience for her essays, fellow Muslims, she qualifies as heroic. America is involved in fighting two wars in Muslim countries, and has contemplated another (Iran). What I’d most like to hear is that 9/11 was an aberration, that Muslim countries are filled with reasonable people who, being human, have the same general needs, desires, hopes as the rest of non-Muslims on the planet. Unfortunately, I did not get that reassurance in this book.
In an earlier review for Jean Sasson’s book, Growing Up bin Laden, I mentioned that Osama Bin Laden appears to hate his enemies more than he loves his family, his countrymen, or his country. Wafa Sultan says much the same thing about all Islamic-adherents in this book. She uses references from the Koran to illuminate the sources of the rhetoric coming from mullahs, clerics, and ordinary citizens of Muslim countries. I appreciate someone leading me through the maze of translations of the Koran and pulling out references, but I did have the uneasy feeling one may get when lines of any big, old, religious text (like the Bible) are quoted. She certainly knows more than I do about Islam, so I must defer to her insistence that these quotes are interpreted literally. Not being a big fan of the Bible, I am not sure how many out there take the words literally today. I would guess a small proportion of those that call themselves Christian are literal in their interpretation of the Bible. I have no idea whether or not I could assume the same level of rationality in the Middle East. Wafa Sultan says no.
The author makes many good points which resonate. First, she does not spare herself in her critique, but shows how Islam made her shallow, and narrow-minded in her dealings with Islam’s traditional enemies, Jews, for instance. She also points out that Muslim tend to view themselves as victims, and as such, may have held themselves back from achieving bigger things with their oil wealth and opportunities. Another good point is that the less compelling the idea (Islam), the more virulent the defenders must be to keep it alive (threatening their own people and infidels with destruction). However, the author is somewhat messianic in her message that Muslims cannot be taken at face value, and can never be trusted to interact truthfully with nonbelievers. It is a grim message, and a difficult one for Americans brought up on laissez faire and 'live and let live'. Perhaps hers is a lesson we disregard at our peril....more
When the publishing industry is in decline and our expectation of instant gratification make TV and the internet our primary sources for news, one wouWhen the publishing industry is in decline and our expectation of instant gratification make TV and the internet our primary sources for news, one would have to ask oneself: is this the best time to publish a new book on the philosophy of a discursive French essayist who died over 400 years ago? Of course, the answer would have to be “it depends.” Sarah Bakewell has managed to make Michel de Montaigne seem relevant, perhaps even revolutionary, but certainly eminently likeable. Montaigne would have been an exceedingly popular blogger, for he took incidents of daily life and held them up for examination as well as using them as stepping stones to rambling narrative. He inspired loyal devotees and provoked, and enjoyed, passionate rebuttal. “No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers with my own.” One could argue endlessly, happily, and undoubtedly profitably, with such a man.
For twenty years, from ages 38 to 59, he mainly stayed at his estate in the Bordeaux region along the Dordogne River, and wrote essays. He came close to death in a riding accident, weathered various occurrences of plague (though the love of a lifetime, La Boétie, was taken), and was victim of various ailments that could have been alleviated today but which eventually killed him. Importantly, he lived through the period of time known as The Saint Bartholomew Wars, which was recently cited in a book on modern counter-insurgency as an example of one of the longest and most consequential non-state religion-based internecine conflicts characterized by extreme violence, bloodshed and carnage: Catholics on Protestants. It led Montaigne to write, “There is no hostility that exceeds Christian hostility.” And yet Montaigne managed to maintain a sense of proportion and breadth of perspective that seems positively Zen in this day and age.
Montaigne had a fascination with pragmatic schools of philosophy like Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. All these schools had the same aim: to achieve a way of living known as "happiness," "joy," or "human flourishing" (from the Greek eudaimonia). The schools agreed that the best path to eudaimonia was ataraxia, which can be translated as "imperturbability" or "freedom from anxiety." (Does this not sound like Buddhism to you?) It appears a key to living well, fully, and without regret is cultivating mindfulness:
A person who does not sleepwalk through the world…is freed to respond to situations in the right way, without hesitation—as if they were questions asked all of a sudden, as Epictetus puts it. A violent attack, a quarrel, the loss of a friend: all these are demands barked at you by life, as by a schoolteacher trying to catch you not paying attention in class. Even a moment of boredom is such a question. Whatever happens, however unforeseen it is, you should be able to respond in a suitable way. This is why, for Montaigne, learning to live “appropriately” (à propos) is the “great and glorious masterpiece” of human life. (pp. 111-112)
But I haven’t yet said what it is about this book that makes me convinced there is no better time to introduce this back into the mainstream. It is Sarah Bakewell’s handling of the material, in which she proves herself a fascinating conversationalist. In lesser hands, the material could have seemed distant at best. But she allows Montaigne himself to shine: his work seems as amusing and fresh as a friend declaiming over a glass of wine—red wine, white wine—you never know with Michel. I haven’t yet read Montaigne’s Essays, but I certainly intend to now. It seems a pity to leave Montaigne to experts. More than that, who couldn’t use a clever best friend? I relished the background and erudition Bakewell brought to the picnic. Every page was a delight. ...more
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