It is difficult to describe in short the whole humongous war machine and the excellent men that came together in the fight for survival of humanity on one side, with glory of one nation out to conquer civilisation on the other. Cornelius Ryan has attempted that in his several excellent books on various parts including A Bridge Too Far about Operation Market Garden to control bridges across Rhine and especially the one at Arnhem.
The entire plan was ambitious and not impossible but only practical with some guaranteed miracles, and much of men were lost in the process. Was it all for the glory of one prima donna, is not clear.
This is what they did, this is how they fought and died so we can live as free men and women, and it is worth a look or more, several looks, reads.
.....................................
NIJMEGEN: U.S. 82nd Airborne Division - 1944 (Battleground Europe: Market Garden) ; by Tim Saunders.
This book by Tim Saunders is about the part of that operation that was the attempt to control the bridge across the Rhine at Nijmegen.
...................................
A magnificent disaster : the failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944
by David Bennett
This book by David Bennet is about Operation Market Garden, with more research work about various parts of the action - British, Canadian, Polish, U.S., German.
........................................
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A Drop Too Many: A Paratrooper at Arnhem: by John Frost
About Major General John Frost who was part of A Bridge Too Far, that is, Operation Market Garden, crossing the Rhine and capturing bridges at Arnhem and Nijmegen and so forth, which cost precious manpower in terms of soldiers killed or captured. The author, Frost, was part of the paratroopers captured who spent the rest of the war as pow; worth reading .
Friday, August 20, 2010
Falaise 1944, Death of an army (Campaign): by Ken Ford.
The official description of the book
"At Falaise, the armoured units of US Third Army encircled the German Seventh Army, squeezed them into an ever-smaller cauldron of chaos and crushed them against the advancing British Second Army. The results were devastating: those troops able to escape the disaster fled, those who remained were killed or captured and vast quantities of armour and equipment were lost."
makes one wonder what the Germans went through at this point, which must have been a definite moment of transformation from a nation believing in their destiny as a superior race to rule the world to a nation bewildered into waking up as one being possibly defeated, and at any rate having suffered losses of their beloved sons, brothers, husbands, fathers who were supposed to have been superior to those that had now defeated and killed a great many of them as well.
Had the nation even wondered if this would come, not as a few open eyed silent people but as a nation, even when Russian defeats were painful? No, then they blamed Russia, as if somehow that nation, that land were responsible for the killing of Germans and defeat of Germany in the east, not the aggressors. But now this was far too definite and the nation could no longer be lulled into a somnolent trust in the leaders chanting of their superiority.
What a stunning shock they must have felt, how long did it take to get over, did they get over, did they ever really know they had been wrong or at least mistaken, or did they simply think they were merely defeated by very cruel but inferior nations?
"At Falaise, the armoured units of US Third Army encircled the German Seventh Army, squeezed them into an ever-smaller cauldron of chaos and crushed them against the advancing British Second Army. The results were devastating: those troops able to escape the disaster fled, those who remained were killed or captured and vast quantities of armour and equipment were lost."
makes one wonder what the Germans went through at this point, which must have been a definite moment of transformation from a nation believing in their destiny as a superior race to rule the world to a nation bewildered into waking up as one being possibly defeated, and at any rate having suffered losses of their beloved sons, brothers, husbands, fathers who were supposed to have been superior to those that had now defeated and killed a great many of them as well.
Had the nation even wondered if this would come, not as a few open eyed silent people but as a nation, even when Russian defeats were painful? No, then they blamed Russia, as if somehow that nation, that land were responsible for the killing of Germans and defeat of Germany in the east, not the aggressors. But now this was far too definite and the nation could no longer be lulled into a somnolent trust in the leaders chanting of their superiority.
What a stunning shock they must have felt, how long did it take to get over, did they get over, did they ever really know they had been wrong or at least mistaken, or did they simply think they were merely defeated by very cruel but inferior nations?
Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market Garden, Wacht Am Rhein, .......
Some episodes of history are more than unforgettable, they are thrilling every time one thinks of them. One such is the battle of the bulge, when the allied forces were further out than could be logistically supported and German forces unexpectedly turned around to strike back, and the allies were surrounded on almost all sides with almost no option but to surrender or be massacred - and yet the commander famously replied "nuts" to the proposal of surrender from the Germans, barely taking the cigar out of his mouth for saying that much calmly, immediately, nonchalantly.
Patton was in Italy and was informed of the bulge and the urgency - and he drove his army in an impossible drive across to the battlefront in Ardennes near Belgian border in time to save the situation, the men, the battle and the war.
...................................
Some of the books about the battle of the bulge:-
.................................
Battle, The Story of the Bulge: by John Toland.
American Experience - The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge : the photographic history of an American triumph
by John R. Bruning
The Bitter Woods : The Battle Of The Bulge
by John D. Eisenhower
BATTLE OF THE BULGE, HITLER'S ARDENNES OFFENSIVE 1944-1945
by Danny Parker
The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of WWII's Most Decorated Platoon (2004)
by Alex Kershaw
The Battered Bastards of Bastogne: The 101st Airborne and the Battle of the Bulge, December 19,1944-January 17,1945
by George Koskimaki
Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne
by Donald R. Burgett
A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It (Dell World War II Library) (1992)
by Gerald Astor
Time for Trumpets, A (1985)
by Charles Brown MacDonald
Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible (edit title/settings)
by John C. McManus
Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II
by Charles B. MacDonald
Infantry Soldier: Holding the Line at the Battle of the Bulge (2000)
by George W. Neill
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest
by Charles B. MacDonald
Yanks : The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I (2001)
by John S. D. Eisenhower
Easy Company Soldier
The Endless Combat of a Sergeant from World War II's "Band of Brothers"
by Bob Welch (Author), Don Malarkey
IT NEVER SNOWS IN SEPTEMBER: The German View of Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem September 1944
by Robert J. Kershaw
Germans In Normandy (Stackpole Military History)
by Richard Hargreaves
Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Huertgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich
by Douglas E. Nash
Arnhem 1944: Operation 'Market Garden' (Campaign)
by Stephen Badsey
NIJMEGEN: U.S. 82nd Airborne Division - 1944 (Battleground Europe: Market Garden)
by Tim Saunders
A Drop Too Many: A Paratrooper at Arnhem (Stackpole Military History Series) (1980)
by John Frost
A magnificent disaster : the failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944
by David Bennett
..............................................
Patton was in Italy and was informed of the bulge and the urgency - and he drove his army in an impossible drive across to the battlefront in Ardennes near Belgian border in time to save the situation, the men, the battle and the war.
...................................
Some of the books about the battle of the bulge:-
.................................
Battle, The Story of the Bulge: by John Toland.
American Experience - The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge : the photographic history of an American triumph
by John R. Bruning
The Bitter Woods : The Battle Of The Bulge
by John D. Eisenhower
BATTLE OF THE BULGE, HITLER'S ARDENNES OFFENSIVE 1944-1945
by Danny Parker
The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of WWII's Most Decorated Platoon (2004)
by Alex Kershaw
The Battered Bastards of Bastogne: The 101st Airborne and the Battle of the Bulge, December 19,1944-January 17,1945
by George Koskimaki
Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne
by Donald R. Burgett
A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It (Dell World War II Library) (1992)
by Gerald Astor
Time for Trumpets, A (1985)
by Charles Brown MacDonald
Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible (edit title/settings)
by John C. McManus
Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II
by Charles B. MacDonald
Infantry Soldier: Holding the Line at the Battle of the Bulge (2000)
by George W. Neill
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest
by Charles B. MacDonald
Yanks : The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I (2001)
by John S. D. Eisenhower
Easy Company Soldier
The Endless Combat of a Sergeant from World War II's "Band of Brothers"
by Bob Welch (Author), Don Malarkey
IT NEVER SNOWS IN SEPTEMBER: The German View of Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem September 1944
by Robert J. Kershaw
Germans In Normandy (Stackpole Military History)
by Richard Hargreaves
Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Huertgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich
by Douglas E. Nash
Arnhem 1944: Operation 'Market Garden' (Campaign)
by Stephen Badsey
NIJMEGEN: U.S. 82nd Airborne Division - 1944 (Battleground Europe: Market Garden)
by Tim Saunders
A Drop Too Many: A Paratrooper at Arnhem (Stackpole Military History Series) (1980)
by John Frost
A magnificent disaster : the failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944
by David Bennett
..............................................
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany (Cambridge Illustrated Histories) (2000): by Martin Kitchen
There was a book on history of Germany I read a decade ago, probably between a short and a long visit to the country, and I have been trying to find the book again - it would be a bit of a chore to go all the way across the town to the new location of the library - but with little success since I thought it was Oxford publication and the writer was Mark somebody, so the google searches were as little successful as shelfari ones; meanwhile trawling through a thourough list of similar books I came across this one and the cover, the names, are close to what I remember, so is the size - likely this is the book I read, and was informed of much not known till then to me.
Some of it is not known to most people even now. For instance the fact that Prussia was once quite another nation with a completely different language and race of people whom Germans wiped out on their crusades (Jerusalem was too far away, too much trouble, and this was far more profitable, go east and massacre people and take over their lands and proliferate) before acquiring the whole region about a millennium ago or so. No wonder Germany was surprised very unpleasantly when this whole process of lebensraum met with disapproval when attempted more recently applied to other parts of Europe, even though other nations had applied it to other parts of the world in making empires.
(When in Germany, one is told Germany did not have any empire; usually such a discourse is based on the assumption that the listener is unaware of world history and facts of wwii, and won't question what then was Rommel doing in Africa, or know that some regions of Africa were in fact colonies of Germany.)
Even more recently we met a woman on a train to Paris from Germany, who pointed out at lands of France and said "all this empty land, and Germany needs land, it is too crowded" while officially German government encourages huge families by every possible means - tax breaks, free schooling, free rides on trains, et al. And apart from other breaks even the last is not negligible, German trains are quite another eye opener, what with excellent timings and good schedules and luxury in lowest class and the whole country connected so one need never drive.
Yet another German woman visiting a developing nation for more than third time spoke of her disapproval of uncontrolled breeding and crowds in that country, while she lives in another vast and empty country and travels to the said crowded developing nation for tourism - so we wondered at her veracity in toto. (Why travel for tourism and pleasure to a place you find this irritating due to crowds? Especially when Germany is neat and beautiful, and you live far away in a vast empty land? Is it really tourism or something illegal that drives such a person to the said developing nation while claiming tourism?)
This lebensraum was more than convenience, and far from guilty pleasure it has developed into a creed, is what the book informed me then - there is perhaps more than one German quoted to the effect that if one merely paid money to buy land it really does not belong to one, but spilling blood to take it makes it your own. Obviously he or they meant blood of others, unlike the usual convention that has it that blood of your own spilled makes a place yours, and however mistaken that might be in the first place the German variation is astoundingly the creed of a thief and plunderer outspoken like that of marauding hordes from Mongolia - and yet Germans also speak with horror of other nations and races with memories of Mongol attacks during Attila the Hun times.
All this was very informative of the consciousness of the nation, including the mourning for the lost parts such as the Baltic nations, and holidaying there and loudly proclaiming the ownership of the lost parts.
Some mistakes of obvious and racist nature in the book can be pointed out - such as ascribing plague in Europe to the ships bringing back rodents from Asia. Yet it is Europe that had no sensible waste disposal system whatsoever until a century or two at most ago, what with slop buckets emptied out of the windows - bedroom windows were high up on the third floor onwards - into the roads below with at most a shout to the passers by to beware, while Asia and in particular India had elaborate conventions followed meticulously for hygiene that got a bad name due only to a colonial racist mindset of denouncing all that a ruler sees in a ruled nation. Rodents moreover are more than capable of travelling on foot and were unlikely to be limited to Asia, since the continent is far from unconnected to Europe. Any travel is far more likely to have been in the opposite direction along with concepts of waste disposal in homes and bedrooms.
Apart from such a mistake or blip in attitude resulting in wrong assumptions, on the whole the book was very informative, about Germany and German mindset. I am hoping this was the book, since a search so far has not brought another candidate forth. Or I might actually take the time to drive out, find the new location of the library, possibly even locate the book unless they have changed the system or the collection - and it might be an Oxford publication by a Mark somebody.
Some of it is not known to most people even now. For instance the fact that Prussia was once quite another nation with a completely different language and race of people whom Germans wiped out on their crusades (Jerusalem was too far away, too much trouble, and this was far more profitable, go east and massacre people and take over their lands and proliferate) before acquiring the whole region about a millennium ago or so. No wonder Germany was surprised very unpleasantly when this whole process of lebensraum met with disapproval when attempted more recently applied to other parts of Europe, even though other nations had applied it to other parts of the world in making empires.
(When in Germany, one is told Germany did not have any empire; usually such a discourse is based on the assumption that the listener is unaware of world history and facts of wwii, and won't question what then was Rommel doing in Africa, or know that some regions of Africa were in fact colonies of Germany.)
Even more recently we met a woman on a train to Paris from Germany, who pointed out at lands of France and said "all this empty land, and Germany needs land, it is too crowded" while officially German government encourages huge families by every possible means - tax breaks, free schooling, free rides on trains, et al. And apart from other breaks even the last is not negligible, German trains are quite another eye opener, what with excellent timings and good schedules and luxury in lowest class and the whole country connected so one need never drive.
Yet another German woman visiting a developing nation for more than third time spoke of her disapproval of uncontrolled breeding and crowds in that country, while she lives in another vast and empty country and travels to the said crowded developing nation for tourism - so we wondered at her veracity in toto. (Why travel for tourism and pleasure to a place you find this irritating due to crowds? Especially when Germany is neat and beautiful, and you live far away in a vast empty land? Is it really tourism or something illegal that drives such a person to the said developing nation while claiming tourism?)
This lebensraum was more than convenience, and far from guilty pleasure it has developed into a creed, is what the book informed me then - there is perhaps more than one German quoted to the effect that if one merely paid money to buy land it really does not belong to one, but spilling blood to take it makes it your own. Obviously he or they meant blood of others, unlike the usual convention that has it that blood of your own spilled makes a place yours, and however mistaken that might be in the first place the German variation is astoundingly the creed of a thief and plunderer outspoken like that of marauding hordes from Mongolia - and yet Germans also speak with horror of other nations and races with memories of Mongol attacks during Attila the Hun times.
All this was very informative of the consciousness of the nation, including the mourning for the lost parts such as the Baltic nations, and holidaying there and loudly proclaiming the ownership of the lost parts.
Some mistakes of obvious and racist nature in the book can be pointed out - such as ascribing plague in Europe to the ships bringing back rodents from Asia. Yet it is Europe that had no sensible waste disposal system whatsoever until a century or two at most ago, what with slop buckets emptied out of the windows - bedroom windows were high up on the third floor onwards - into the roads below with at most a shout to the passers by to beware, while Asia and in particular India had elaborate conventions followed meticulously for hygiene that got a bad name due only to a colonial racist mindset of denouncing all that a ruler sees in a ruled nation. Rodents moreover are more than capable of travelling on foot and were unlikely to be limited to Asia, since the continent is far from unconnected to Europe. Any travel is far more likely to have been in the opposite direction along with concepts of waste disposal in homes and bedrooms.
Apart from such a mistake or blip in attitude resulting in wrong assumptions, on the whole the book was very informative, about Germany and German mindset. I am hoping this was the book, since a search so far has not brought another candidate forth. Or I might actually take the time to drive out, find the new location of the library, possibly even locate the book unless they have changed the system or the collection - and it might be an Oxford publication by a Mark somebody.
Connections: by James Burke.
Perhaps even before it was a television series this was a series of columns in a scientific journal with great popular appeal, and we were fans who later stuck on when the television series was available to us (being in some professions not only does not allow one time to watch television but also makes one being looked at askance if one so much as admitted to looking in the direction of a television, or thinking of buying one). Now it is a book, and I am sure there are dvds of the television series out for sale, it ought to be fun to read and to watch.
Whoever thought of it has a genius of some sort, connecting seemingly far out incidents, people, inventions, practices, events, as they were in life - it is only in today's increasingly narrower definitions of disciplines of study that things seem not connected as they in reality are.
Whoever thought of it has a genius of some sort, connecting seemingly far out incidents, people, inventions, practices, events, as they were in life - it is only in today's increasingly narrower definitions of disciplines of study that things seem not connected as they in reality are.
All Quiet On The Western Front: by Erich Maria Remarque.
Most accounts of war are bugle led parades, with heros marching to supposed victory, This is the first time a book, a film dared to be different, telling the story of little boys marching to war with all its ignominies and death being merely one of the many horrible facts they endured that no one ought to have to go through. Revolutionary for its time and all the more so because it was about the first world war, assumed to be the lesser horror of the two whether wrongly or not.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A Bridge Too Far: by Cornelius Ryan.
It is difficult to describe in short the whole humongous war machine and the excellent men that came together in the fight for survival of humanity on one side, with glory of one nation out to conquer civilisation on the other. Cornelius Ryan has attempted that in his several excellent books on various parts, this one being about the attempt to control the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem.
The plan was ambitious and not impossible but only practical with some guaranteed miracles, and much of men were lost in the process. Was it all for the glory of one prima donna, is not clear.
This is what they did, this is how they fought and died so we can live as free men and women, and it is worth a look or more, several looks, reads. And the film is excellent too.
The film version of the book by Cornelius Ryan is an excellent job with many, many superlative actors in comparatively small roles all worthy of notice, telling the story of battle to capture the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Liv Ulmann, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery, and many more actors make it even more worth watching especially with their stardom bowing to the need of the characters being played well and stardom being forgotten. Robert Redford is very new, and yet memorable with just one silent expression when asked to do an impossible job. The end where the bitter officer questions the need of loss of quite so many men by a premature action is very memorable.
The plan was ambitious and not impossible but only practical with some guaranteed miracles, and much of men were lost in the process. Was it all for the glory of one prima donna, is not clear.
This is what they did, this is how they fought and died so we can live as free men and women, and it is worth a look or more, several looks, reads. And the film is excellent too.
The film version of the book by Cornelius Ryan is an excellent job with many, many superlative actors in comparatively small roles all worthy of notice, telling the story of battle to capture the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Liv Ulmann, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery, and many more actors make it even more worth watching especially with their stardom bowing to the need of the characters being played well and stardom being forgotten. Robert Redford is very new, and yet memorable with just one silent expression when asked to do an impossible job. The end where the bitter officer questions the need of loss of quite so many men by a premature action is very memorable.
Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult : - by Richard B. Spence
Why this one is worth looking at - according to official description
"Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence. Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. "
All of which sounds like something or someone one ought to know about. ”
"Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence. Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. "
All of which sounds like something or someone one ought to know about. ”
Our Man In Havana: by Graham Greene.
If someone is willing to pay for a commodity and desperate to believe it exists, and the pay depends on the excess of its existence, it will be manufactured by fraud if necessary.
This book does not predate the happenings in post war Germany when US occupational authorities and their masters back home were willing to pay and forgive - even reinstate - nazi men in authority of yore, for sake of co-operation in cold war against Soviets, all of which resulted in Germans putting back all the nazis in place and inflating information against Soviets by hundredfold routinely, often manufacturing the figures, which in turn resulted in an escalation of arms race that cost poor people of both nation in terms of education and health, not to mention world's poor in terms of food, since exorbitant quantities were spent on arms never to be used but only to posture and to threaten.
The book does not predate any of this, but the happenings in Europe which went on for a few decades, but is written towards the beginning of it all when the pattern was established, and has the story set in Havana where similar events are set, a poor businessman this time single-handedly causing much trouble out of nothing due to paymasters from across the sea who are all too willing to believe any atrocious lies that go according to their imagination and not the facts.
This book does not predate the happenings in post war Germany when US occupational authorities and their masters back home were willing to pay and forgive - even reinstate - nazi men in authority of yore, for sake of co-operation in cold war against Soviets, all of which resulted in Germans putting back all the nazis in place and inflating information against Soviets by hundredfold routinely, often manufacturing the figures, which in turn resulted in an escalation of arms race that cost poor people of both nation in terms of education and health, not to mention world's poor in terms of food, since exorbitant quantities were spent on arms never to be used but only to posture and to threaten.
The book does not predate any of this, but the happenings in Europe which went on for a few decades, but is written towards the beginning of it all when the pattern was established, and has the story set in Havana where similar events are set, a poor businessman this time single-handedly causing much trouble out of nothing due to paymasters from across the sea who are all too willing to believe any atrocious lies that go according to their imagination and not the facts.
The Pianist : by Wladyslaw Szpilman.
I stumbled on the par excellence film by accident at well past midnight one time a few years ago when working and absentmindedly letting the television run on, and sleep went flying out the window as the tale mesmerised one, work forgotten, gripped by the poor man hiding in various holes in the town and country torn by war after it was ravaged by occupation. Then on I kept vigil and watched it several times, and really it is one of the few one ought to keep a dvd of. The book I am waiting to get hold of to read, for it must be as good at least, except Polanski does wonders with visuals and every other aspect just right so if one is unfamiliar with any part of the subject a good film is a great help. It is a biography on the other hand, autobiography at that, so it has to be at least as good.
Almost every part of the story is unforgettable, the initial days when the family thinks of hiding wealth in parts of house they are afraid will be raided, the camps and the train, the escape and the hiding in various places, the man who is supposed to feed and instead gives rotten food for precious watch and other things taken from the pianist and all the while stealing the money the music community is providing to feed him, the German officer who helps, the war and the sheer danger to life for anyone in the neighbourhood, the miraculous survival, and the return to playing the piano.
Almost every part of the story is unforgettable, the initial days when the family thinks of hiding wealth in parts of house they are afraid will be raided, the camps and the train, the escape and the hiding in various places, the man who is supposed to feed and instead gives rotten food for precious watch and other things taken from the pianist and all the while stealing the money the music community is providing to feed him, the German officer who helps, the war and the sheer danger to life for anyone in the neighbourhood, the miraculous survival, and the return to playing the piano.
Sidney Reilley: Ace of Spies.
With a life and a character as fascinating, colourful, eventful as this, it is no surprise there are not only a plethora of books about Sidney Reilly but at least one television series - and what is more, films of a whole genre inspired by this character, and his style.
That the James Bond character was created based on this legendary man is the least of the enigma, so fascinating is the figure of this man veiled in mystery.
Born in Russia before revolution, his birth was another mystery, with an established well known wealthy family but a natural father so high up in hierarchy that when at one point he - the son - was assigned the job of toppling the Soviet government he was plausibly the intended figure to lead the revolt and take over in the name of a regime closer to the old monarchy.
He lived during a most turbulent time of history of Europe and the world, and while spying for more than one nation was also a businessman with flair, wealth he created and style he lived in attracting attention and more. He worked for various nations including Britain and Germany, with intrigues that had repercussions on Russia, Japan, Britain, Germany, and more.
Whatever one can find about such a figure of mystery is worth a look.
.....................
Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (Revealing History)
by Andrew Cook
Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly
by Richard B. Spence
Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy
by Michael Kettle
Britain's master spy;: The adventures of Sidney Reilly;
by Sidney Reilly
Reilly: The First Man
by Robin Bruce Lockhart
Ace of Spies
by Robin Bruce Lockhart
German Spies: Carl Von Ossietzky, Juan Pujol, Mutt and Jeff, Sidney Reilly, Fritz Joubert Duquesne, Alexander Parvus, Kurt Frederick Ludwig
Inter-War Spies: Sidney Reilly, Gertrude Bell, St. John Philby, Boris Bazhanov, Erich Mielke, Yakov Blumkin, Ernst Wollweber
Agent Double: Henri Déricourt, Aldrich Ames, Mata Hari, Anthony Blunt, Kim Philby, Sidney Reilly, Mathilde Carré, Ion Mihai Pacepa
Japanese Spies: Sidney Reilly, List of Japanese Spies, 1930-45, Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan, John Semer Farnsworth, Akashi Motojiro
Pre-World War I Spies: Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Sidney Reilly, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, William Melville, Claude Dansey
1870s Births: Sidney Reilly, Father Divine, Ma Barker, Albert Sharpe, Clayton Teetzel, Greenbrier Ghost, Auda Ibu Tayi, Charles de Saulles
Espion de La Première Guerre Mondiale: William Somerset Maugham, St. John Philby, Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly, Louise de Bettignies
James Bond: Sidney Reilly, James Bond Music, Bond Girl, Outline of James Bond, Gun Barrel Sequence, Inspirations for James Bond, James Bond Jr.
Double Agents: Mata Hari, Juan Pujol, Eddie Chapman, Mutt and Jeff, Donald Maclean, Sidney Reilly, Robert Hanssen, Radu Lecca, Aldrich Ames
Espion Allemand: Wilhelm Canaris, Heinrich Von Kleist, Mata Hari, Reinhard Gehlen, Sidney Reilly, Violette Morris, Fritz Joubert Duquesne
Reilly: Ace of Spies (TV Times special)
.....................
That the James Bond character was created based on this legendary man is the least of the enigma, so fascinating is the figure of this man veiled in mystery.
Born in Russia before revolution, his birth was another mystery, with an established well known wealthy family but a natural father so high up in hierarchy that when at one point he - the son - was assigned the job of toppling the Soviet government he was plausibly the intended figure to lead the revolt and take over in the name of a regime closer to the old monarchy.
He lived during a most turbulent time of history of Europe and the world, and while spying for more than one nation was also a businessman with flair, wealth he created and style he lived in attracting attention and more. He worked for various nations including Britain and Germany, with intrigues that had repercussions on Russia, Japan, Britain, Germany, and more.
Whatever one can find about such a figure of mystery is worth a look.
.....................
Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (Revealing History)
by Andrew Cook
Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly
by Richard B. Spence
Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy
by Michael Kettle
Britain's master spy;: The adventures of Sidney Reilly;
by Sidney Reilly
Reilly: The First Man
by Robin Bruce Lockhart
Ace of Spies
by Robin Bruce Lockhart
German Spies: Carl Von Ossietzky, Juan Pujol, Mutt and Jeff, Sidney Reilly, Fritz Joubert Duquesne, Alexander Parvus, Kurt Frederick Ludwig
Inter-War Spies: Sidney Reilly, Gertrude Bell, St. John Philby, Boris Bazhanov, Erich Mielke, Yakov Blumkin, Ernst Wollweber
Agent Double: Henri Déricourt, Aldrich Ames, Mata Hari, Anthony Blunt, Kim Philby, Sidney Reilly, Mathilde Carré, Ion Mihai Pacepa
Japanese Spies: Sidney Reilly, List of Japanese Spies, 1930-45, Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan, John Semer Farnsworth, Akashi Motojiro
Pre-World War I Spies: Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Sidney Reilly, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, William Melville, Claude Dansey
1870s Births: Sidney Reilly, Father Divine, Ma Barker, Albert Sharpe, Clayton Teetzel, Greenbrier Ghost, Auda Ibu Tayi, Charles de Saulles
Espion de La Première Guerre Mondiale: William Somerset Maugham, St. John Philby, Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly, Louise de Bettignies
James Bond: Sidney Reilly, James Bond Music, Bond Girl, Outline of James Bond, Gun Barrel Sequence, Inspirations for James Bond, James Bond Jr.
Double Agents: Mata Hari, Juan Pujol, Eddie Chapman, Mutt and Jeff, Donald Maclean, Sidney Reilly, Robert Hanssen, Radu Lecca, Aldrich Ames
Espion Allemand: Wilhelm Canaris, Heinrich Von Kleist, Mata Hari, Reinhard Gehlen, Sidney Reilly, Violette Morris, Fritz Joubert Duquesne
Reilly: Ace of Spies (TV Times special)
.....................
Three Musketeers: by Alexandre Dumas, père.
Not only this tells one something about history, it also gives the window on the morals of the day - a male subordinate could plot and kill and rob in the name of politics until caught with his hands red or in pockets of another, but a woman unable to show all the pearls she had was more than a suspect, she was already condemned with loss of a pearl or two as undeniable proof of her adultery, giving no quarter to the whole possible spectrum of human relationships that span the gap between gift of pearls as a memento and an actual adultery, not merely a love of heart but an act physically committed.
And so with all the adventures of the musketeers and their success in reaching their destination and return, the most satisfying is the moment when the queen is able to show a full set of pearls, and the villain is accused of intending to present her majesty with extra pearls under an elaborate charade of making the king demand the queen show her pearls and insinuating the minister had two of them.
Second only to the superb, incomparable Count of Monte Cristo, and perhaps more fun in all its innocence compared to the tragic reality of the other, this classic.
And so with all the adventures of the musketeers and their success in reaching their destination and return, the most satisfying is the moment when the queen is able to show a full set of pearls, and the villain is accused of intending to present her majesty with extra pearls under an elaborate charade of making the king demand the queen show her pearls and insinuating the minister had two of them.
Second only to the superb, incomparable Count of Monte Cristo, and perhaps more fun in all its innocence compared to the tragic reality of the other, this classic.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Gone With The Wind: by Margaret Mitchell
Often people mistake characters for the actors that play them in a film, and just as often people judge them in light of their prejudices never apparent in spite of all progress of society and attempted enlightenment. It is amusing to notice the reactions of a hoard to a successful woman who was unfortunate in love, while they might claim to worship virtues that are held up nominally but practiced rarely. Hypocrisy and manipulation however do not come naturally to everyone, and one that is clear of those is seen with hatred by most who use the normal social tools.
Gone With The Wind is a part of US history, of the years around the civil war of US, and it gives a great deal of information about the era in an intimate way to those that are not from that part of the world.
Again, on an intimate level it is also about a woman who was very capable and independant in her mind before such ideas existed in that society - it does not mean not marrying or not loving, but knowing your own mind and will and being capable of supporting a family and a clan when necessary, in the direst of circumstances, through one's honest work.
For all the heroic qualities the heroine gets only brickbats, except from the other heroine - whose genre is quiet loving and a "thin blade of steel flashing" within, and supporting those people and those causes she believes in; - even the man who supported the strong, stubborn but a bit blind when it came to perception of people heroine, is not wise enough or strong enough to understand her or to be patient enough.
He is of course much supported and forgiven his flaws and misdeeds by all - while she receives almost universally bad sentiments from the people then and readers or viewers now. Little has changed in perception and gap of treatment in the century and half past.
It was only the writer who immortalised her heroine, who was based on someone real. The story was written as a way to relate to her husband the story of an era and a persona she had always heard spoken of as she grew up.
Strangely this is one of the convincing arguments against arranged or well thought out matchmaking for marriages when up against a love especially when both persons involved feel it. Thinking over the whole course of events it becomes somehow clear that if only Ashley had the wisdom, the courage to admit his love for Scarlett, if only they had married, Scarlett would be an adoring wife never stepping below the normally universally demanded standard of behaviour from "ladies" (which in fact she did not in action ever but was indicted just as universally for loving someone with a steadfast heart and going on with her life with marriages and children anyway, rather than living as an unwanted unmarried heartbroken woman pining for her lover who in fact loved her and desired her!), - much less looking elsewhere or a life that scandalised society in any way. A respectably married woman who does not care two hoots for company of another man is forgiven every other scandalous behaviour including the wet petticoats a la Grandma Robillard and Scarlett was not feminine enough to indulge in any of it, deep within she was more of man with a mind, a strong mind.
One wonders sometimes if then Rhett might have married Melanie, since he did always have respect and concern for her, and in this the two men are very alike, except that Rhett understood Scarlett - as a child who is willful and stubborn and crying for the moon - pretty much as her own father Gerald O'Hara did, and loved her for everything including her indomitable courage in face of every impossible adversity. Rhett was more Gerald's age or at any rate that of Ellen Robillard O'Hara, perhaps even older to her, anyway. And there have been some suspicions about Melanie's visit consoling him after the death of his daughter, which one suspects the writer had a toungue in cheek about, leaving the scenario the way she did.
All such speculations would hold water if the writer had not been so emphatic about her characrters, and explicit about every little detail. Thus one is told firmly that Melanie in fact was too timid and scared to death of anything male, especially virile robust males such as Gerald, and Rhett until he befriends her with respect and concern inspiring confidence in her, and that she sees him as a brother and says so. And if Melanie said so that is what she thought - neither of the two women are hypocritical when it comes to it, except in silence for sake of courtesy socially unless it is made desirable to break it or impossible to keep it.
Life would be very convenient if everyone loved those that make a good match, and understood that anything else was folly - but hearts don't do acccount books of life and have an instinct superior to mind often. Following heart takes more courage than some people have. Men ought to have courage in theory, but in this realm it is women who are wiser, with more courage to boot.
Why did Scarlett make marriages in cold blood is easily explained by the various discourses in the book if indeed it is a mystery in a system where a male might court anyone he wishes and a woman must hold her tongue and her whole self in check and respond only when asked, and accept one when suitable. Love as experienced by Scarlett's warm heart is a torture, and weary load to carry on her frail shoulders, and moreover an excuse for the hypocrites and the fortunate and the cold hearted to stone a loving hearted woman with impunity.
But there is more. Her mother, the aristocratic very proper Ellen O'Hara, loved just as impetuously and stormily and unfortunately at the same age, and married the first man she found suitable when she lost her love due to her family's interference. She was perhaps more fortunate in that her loved one died - which is when she married Gerald O'Hara, who had selected her after careful scrutiny of all possible eligible candidates. Gerald was in awe of his wife, and loved her, but while she was entirely proper and honourable in her life she also was a woman with her heart in the grave with her dead loved one, and cold.
With that perspective it is easy to see that what Scarlett knew about love was a little from her father and the rest from her own heart, with no example set for her. And in that perspective her entire conduct is more than noble, more than honourable. She is willing to give the promises her love asks - which is to take care of his wife, and the baby - and more. She is willing to labour and toil like a field hand when necessary to feed her own, never asking for help from others such as the O'Hara uncles or the Robillard aunts. In fact she sends them money knowing they have little to live on, money she earns with her own toil and risks she takes in the process in Atlanta.
As for her husbands, two out of three die before they know her heart was elsewhere and she married them for reasons other than falling in love. Which is fortunate for the first one, who never loved his fixed cousin and married Scarlett because he was in love with her and dazzlingly happy to think she loved him too. He died with this love, instead of a drab existence he had until then, and hence a fortunate man. As for the second husband, he was courting a younger woman and she was not in love with him either, except there seems to have been no one else from a neighbourhood full of young males courting Suellen O'Hara, who couldn't possibly have been so unattractive as all that - she was the younger sister of the same parents who gave birth to Scarlett and Carreen the fragile blossom beauty.
Frank married Scarlett the moment he thought she loved him, indeed he forgot about Suellen even in the first Twelve Oaks scene when Scarlett smiled at him and spent the barbecue vying with half a dozen other - much younger, strapping full blooded southern - males, bringing food for Scarlett. And he was happy enough - there are much worse mariages than his with Scarlett, with women who never have never experienced love and are far less attractive at that, and expect their husbands to provide for all their needs and luxuries too, unlike a Scarlett who worked hard to make her people secure so they never go hungry again.
As for Rhett, the never marrying man who fell in love and met his Waterloo in her and married her because he finally couldn't get her in any other way - he was about twice the age of the young woman (at her age most women of her class today are still dealing with various pleasures of life and not committed much less required to toil and fear starvation or being without a roof) and should have had the patience and understanding not to speak honesty. Having been the catalyst for her exclusion from society, the least he could have done is to reestablish her when he did so himself for his daughter. That he could not see her heart, concealed by her pride and her fear of his sarcasm, was his deficiency.
The film suffered not only from necessity of being shorter than required to show so huge a canvas of a story, dealing with generations and families from Ireland and France to beginning of Georgia and Atlanta and civil war, but also from biased direction and screenplay, and poor casting except for that of Scarlett O'Hara. Beautiful Olivia de Havilland was far from the timid and plain Melanie afraid of males (- Audrey Hepburn could have done far superior a job of portraying Melanie, if the film had not come at a time when she and Anne Frank alike were part of the victims of the war going on in Europe and the occupation of their country by the brutal), Rhett really ought to have been someone far more like Cary Grant - and as for Ashley the dreamy love, he is a blond noble beautiful dreamy thinker, and only Gregory Peck would do except for the blond bit which is a must. Mitchell's descriptions leave no room for a doubt or a different interpretation, and I don't know if there is any performer that would suit to play Ashley.
Gone With The Wind is a part of US history, of the years around the civil war of US, and it gives a great deal of information about the era in an intimate way to those that are not from that part of the world.
Again, on an intimate level it is also about a woman who was very capable and independant in her mind before such ideas existed in that society - it does not mean not marrying or not loving, but knowing your own mind and will and being capable of supporting a family and a clan when necessary, in the direst of circumstances, through one's honest work.
For all the heroic qualities the heroine gets only brickbats, except from the other heroine - whose genre is quiet loving and a "thin blade of steel flashing" within, and supporting those people and those causes she believes in; - even the man who supported the strong, stubborn but a bit blind when it came to perception of people heroine, is not wise enough or strong enough to understand her or to be patient enough.
He is of course much supported and forgiven his flaws and misdeeds by all - while she receives almost universally bad sentiments from the people then and readers or viewers now. Little has changed in perception and gap of treatment in the century and half past.
It was only the writer who immortalised her heroine, who was based on someone real. The story was written as a way to relate to her husband the story of an era and a persona she had always heard spoken of as she grew up.
Strangely this is one of the convincing arguments against arranged or well thought out matchmaking for marriages when up against a love especially when both persons involved feel it. Thinking over the whole course of events it becomes somehow clear that if only Ashley had the wisdom, the courage to admit his love for Scarlett, if only they had married, Scarlett would be an adoring wife never stepping below the normally universally demanded standard of behaviour from "ladies" (which in fact she did not in action ever but was indicted just as universally for loving someone with a steadfast heart and going on with her life with marriages and children anyway, rather than living as an unwanted unmarried heartbroken woman pining for her lover who in fact loved her and desired her!), - much less looking elsewhere or a life that scandalised society in any way. A respectably married woman who does not care two hoots for company of another man is forgiven every other scandalous behaviour including the wet petticoats a la Grandma Robillard and Scarlett was not feminine enough to indulge in any of it, deep within she was more of man with a mind, a strong mind.
One wonders sometimes if then Rhett might have married Melanie, since he did always have respect and concern for her, and in this the two men are very alike, except that Rhett understood Scarlett - as a child who is willful and stubborn and crying for the moon - pretty much as her own father Gerald O'Hara did, and loved her for everything including her indomitable courage in face of every impossible adversity. Rhett was more Gerald's age or at any rate that of Ellen Robillard O'Hara, perhaps even older to her, anyway. And there have been some suspicions about Melanie's visit consoling him after the death of his daughter, which one suspects the writer had a toungue in cheek about, leaving the scenario the way she did.
All such speculations would hold water if the writer had not been so emphatic about her characrters, and explicit about every little detail. Thus one is told firmly that Melanie in fact was too timid and scared to death of anything male, especially virile robust males such as Gerald, and Rhett until he befriends her with respect and concern inspiring confidence in her, and that she sees him as a brother and says so. And if Melanie said so that is what she thought - neither of the two women are hypocritical when it comes to it, except in silence for sake of courtesy socially unless it is made desirable to break it or impossible to keep it.
Life would be very convenient if everyone loved those that make a good match, and understood that anything else was folly - but hearts don't do acccount books of life and have an instinct superior to mind often. Following heart takes more courage than some people have. Men ought to have courage in theory, but in this realm it is women who are wiser, with more courage to boot.
Why did Scarlett make marriages in cold blood is easily explained by the various discourses in the book if indeed it is a mystery in a system where a male might court anyone he wishes and a woman must hold her tongue and her whole self in check and respond only when asked, and accept one when suitable. Love as experienced by Scarlett's warm heart is a torture, and weary load to carry on her frail shoulders, and moreover an excuse for the hypocrites and the fortunate and the cold hearted to stone a loving hearted woman with impunity.
But there is more. Her mother, the aristocratic very proper Ellen O'Hara, loved just as impetuously and stormily and unfortunately at the same age, and married the first man she found suitable when she lost her love due to her family's interference. She was perhaps more fortunate in that her loved one died - which is when she married Gerald O'Hara, who had selected her after careful scrutiny of all possible eligible candidates. Gerald was in awe of his wife, and loved her, but while she was entirely proper and honourable in her life she also was a woman with her heart in the grave with her dead loved one, and cold.
With that perspective it is easy to see that what Scarlett knew about love was a little from her father and the rest from her own heart, with no example set for her. And in that perspective her entire conduct is more than noble, more than honourable. She is willing to give the promises her love asks - which is to take care of his wife, and the baby - and more. She is willing to labour and toil like a field hand when necessary to feed her own, never asking for help from others such as the O'Hara uncles or the Robillard aunts. In fact she sends them money knowing they have little to live on, money she earns with her own toil and risks she takes in the process in Atlanta.
As for her husbands, two out of three die before they know her heart was elsewhere and she married them for reasons other than falling in love. Which is fortunate for the first one, who never loved his fixed cousin and married Scarlett because he was in love with her and dazzlingly happy to think she loved him too. He died with this love, instead of a drab existence he had until then, and hence a fortunate man. As for the second husband, he was courting a younger woman and she was not in love with him either, except there seems to have been no one else from a neighbourhood full of young males courting Suellen O'Hara, who couldn't possibly have been so unattractive as all that - she was the younger sister of the same parents who gave birth to Scarlett and Carreen the fragile blossom beauty.
Frank married Scarlett the moment he thought she loved him, indeed he forgot about Suellen even in the first Twelve Oaks scene when Scarlett smiled at him and spent the barbecue vying with half a dozen other - much younger, strapping full blooded southern - males, bringing food for Scarlett. And he was happy enough - there are much worse mariages than his with Scarlett, with women who never have never experienced love and are far less attractive at that, and expect their husbands to provide for all their needs and luxuries too, unlike a Scarlett who worked hard to make her people secure so they never go hungry again.
As for Rhett, the never marrying man who fell in love and met his Waterloo in her and married her because he finally couldn't get her in any other way - he was about twice the age of the young woman (at her age most women of her class today are still dealing with various pleasures of life and not committed much less required to toil and fear starvation or being without a roof) and should have had the patience and understanding not to speak honesty. Having been the catalyst for her exclusion from society, the least he could have done is to reestablish her when he did so himself for his daughter. That he could not see her heart, concealed by her pride and her fear of his sarcasm, was his deficiency.
The film suffered not only from necessity of being shorter than required to show so huge a canvas of a story, dealing with generations and families from Ireland and France to beginning of Georgia and Atlanta and civil war, but also from biased direction and screenplay, and poor casting except for that of Scarlett O'Hara. Beautiful Olivia de Havilland was far from the timid and plain Melanie afraid of males (- Audrey Hepburn could have done far superior a job of portraying Melanie, if the film had not come at a time when she and Anne Frank alike were part of the victims of the war going on in Europe and the occupation of their country by the brutal), Rhett really ought to have been someone far more like Cary Grant - and as for Ashley the dreamy love, he is a blond noble beautiful dreamy thinker, and only Gregory Peck would do except for the blond bit which is a must. Mitchell's descriptions leave no room for a doubt or a different interpretation, and I don't know if there is any performer that would suit to play Ashley.
Trapp Family Singers: by Baroness Maria Augusta Von Trapp.
This is the true story behind the beautiful film shot a good deal on location, blue skies and hills and golden sunshine matched only by the beautiful children and Maria herself. If anything the real story is more fun. More lovable, more adorable.
I remember reading this long ago, and several years later when driving about in Vermont I managed to find the place where the Trapp family has managed to make a second home after leaving Austria. They told us Maria Von Trapp usually came down early to dinner, but we could not wait too long, driving in dark in rather unfamiliar hills would be risky. We waited as long as we could and then went away.
Another decade and more, and now we were in Salzburg, the hometown of Maria and her family where in fact they have special Sound Of Music tours. We took the comprehensive which included a couple of the important sights anyway. It was funny to discover that the house shown in the film, the Von Trapp home, is in fact two different houses, one with a lake front and another where there is the driveway. The chapel is very popular for weddings.
None of that compares with the delightful writing of Maria Von Trapp - the anecdotes, the simplicity, the spirited young woman who grew into a loving and still spirited mother of ten - she lost two of her own and had seven from her husband's previous marriage.
Some that stick in memory are the episode about the sandwiches, the camera, the baby that did not stop crying and embarrassed the mother (and runs the place now), the horse and the house and the singing camps, the woman who told the greengrocer indignantly "ten cents? I can become a cabbage myself around the corner for five cents" - perhaps my memory is incorrect about the cents number, but other than that it is as fresh as the film based on the story.
I remember reading this long ago, and several years later when driving about in Vermont I managed to find the place where the Trapp family has managed to make a second home after leaving Austria. They told us Maria Von Trapp usually came down early to dinner, but we could not wait too long, driving in dark in rather unfamiliar hills would be risky. We waited as long as we could and then went away.
Another decade and more, and now we were in Salzburg, the hometown of Maria and her family where in fact they have special Sound Of Music tours. We took the comprehensive which included a couple of the important sights anyway. It was funny to discover that the house shown in the film, the Von Trapp home, is in fact two different houses, one with a lake front and another where there is the driveway. The chapel is very popular for weddings.
None of that compares with the delightful writing of Maria Von Trapp - the anecdotes, the simplicity, the spirited young woman who grew into a loving and still spirited mother of ten - she lost two of her own and had seven from her husband's previous marriage.
Some that stick in memory are the episode about the sandwiches, the camera, the baby that did not stop crying and embarrassed the mother (and runs the place now), the horse and the house and the singing camps, the woman who told the greengrocer indignantly "ten cents? I can become a cabbage myself around the corner for five cents" - perhaps my memory is incorrect about the cents number, but other than that it is as fresh as the film based on the story.
Naked Came I: A Novel Of Rodin: by David Weiss.
It is strange that a much beloved relative prove so right in so major a fashion, when he cautioned me against idolising artists or poets or writers, with a discreet but definite distinguishing border drawn between their work and their persona.
While one cannot help admiring or at the very least noticing works of Rodin, this biography makes it clear how separate the two, the man and the artist, were. On one hand he creates a thinker, on the other he is so lacking in honour as to not only use two women majorly - exploiting them for their hearts, their talents, their appreciation of his work, and robbing them of all honour, even cheating one of her own work comparable or possibly superior to his - but denies legitimacy to his own son by one he married only at the end of his life, for no discernible reason.
The book gives a good account of the artist and his life.
While one cannot help admiring or at the very least noticing works of Rodin, this biography makes it clear how separate the two, the man and the artist, were. On one hand he creates a thinker, on the other he is so lacking in honour as to not only use two women majorly - exploiting them for their hearts, their talents, their appreciation of his work, and robbing them of all honour, even cheating one of her own work comparable or possibly superior to his - but denies legitimacy to his own son by one he married only at the end of his life, for no discernible reason.
The book gives a good account of the artist and his life.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas: by John Boyne.
One knows about the topic before one begins the story, but this is a discovery of the history by an innocent boy he is living through, and one rediscovers the horrors of the fence and the inmates through the eyes, the mind of the boy on the other side of the fence. One experiences his thwarted need to explore, his wonder at the adults who cannot make up their minds about what work they wish to do for life, his trauma at his new friends being ill treated by the fearsome soldier, his shame at having been a coward, his penitence and his goodness of heart. But more than anything else one is petrified with a growing horror while the story proceeds inexorably towards the unthinkable, not believing someone would not stop it all and save the little eight year old and his friend in time, and then the total disbelief as the end arrives without any saviour at all, it is too late, both the boys and the men around them are shut in to perish. One keeps thinking, no, no, not the innocent boy, he did not deserve it too - all the while questioning and answering oneself, of course none of them deserved it, those that were there by design and not by a boyish mistake of ignorance, the boy in the striped pyjamas or his relatives or his ilk, either. And of course one has been horrified by all that for decades. But this one more, a little boy of eight, innocent of guilt and horror his people perpetrated on others, innocent of knowledge of any of it until it was too late, he did not deserve it, either. If only -
The picture is well rounded, too - the innocent mother with her good instincts who thanks the camp inmate for treating her son with his medical knowledge, the grandmother who would not visit, the soldier who is unwilling to lose his own life or report on his father, the girl who is young enough to be enamoured of the creed for all the wrong reasons, the father whose career might be affected by any discovery of his family not falling in line but who has to nevertheless give in on thought of his children and the effect of this atmosphere on them, and the end that perhaps only one of the family deserved being the perpetrator himself but certainly neither the mother nor the boy did.
The picture is well rounded, too - the innocent mother with her good instincts who thanks the camp inmate for treating her son with his medical knowledge, the grandmother who would not visit, the soldier who is unwilling to lose his own life or report on his father, the girl who is young enough to be enamoured of the creed for all the wrong reasons, the father whose career might be affected by any discovery of his family not falling in line but who has to nevertheless give in on thought of his children and the effect of this atmosphere on them, and the end that perhaps only one of the family deserved being the perpetrator himself but certainly neither the mother nor the boy did.
Mary, Mary: by St. John G Ervine
Mary, Mary, quite contrary goes a rhyme, and that is what the title is taken from. Delightful play about a witty young woman with a fragile beauty that she is unaware of, and a wit she uses to protect herself consequently, resulting in situations where a man might find it hard being in love with her - she is treating every overture as a table tennis ball to be hit back. She is divorced when the play opens, and visiting her ex husband to go over some accounting problems for him for taxes. He still loves her and has given it up as hopeless. And then there is the friend of the husband, a successful and handsome actor, who happens to be around and finds her attractive. Will the couple in love find their way back to their marriage? Will she realise she is beautiful as a woman, and learn to bask in the love that comes her way?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Gracie: by George Burns.
I remember living alone, far away from anyone I knew, and being relatively free after a few years of stress, buying a television - my first, and a very good one for that time, with facilites that the company normally offered only in larger models - and discovering the Burns and Allen show one late night when looking for something to relieve stress.
Thereafter it was a routine, being awake every night until late to watch the reruns of the show, and what a blessing it was watching it, laughing, forgetting all stress and worry and so forth for just that short while.
When I discovered the book, it was a sort of combination of a memory of the show relived and a whole new delight as well, with the book adding a few details to the life of the couple one had come to love.
"My uncle bent steel rods with his teeth until they bent"
"He must have been very strong"
"Yes, but he looked funny with bent teeth"
- And unless one sees the incomparable, unique Gracie one would think this is not very funny. At least not as much as when she says it.
Thereafter it was a routine, being awake every night until late to watch the reruns of the show, and what a blessing it was watching it, laughing, forgetting all stress and worry and so forth for just that short while.
When I discovered the book, it was a sort of combination of a memory of the show relived and a whole new delight as well, with the book adding a few details to the life of the couple one had come to love.
"My uncle bent steel rods with his teeth until they bent"
"He must have been very strong"
"Yes, but he looked funny with bent teeth"
- And unless one sees the incomparable, unique Gracie one would think this is not very funny. At least not as much as when she says it.
Doctors: by Erich Segal.
About medical professionals, in their many specialisations and roles, including mishaps and - or - less than expected professional standards, with long lasting effects on human lives they affected.
Especially horrifying is the part where a doctor couple cannot guarantee a safe birth of their own first child, due to various mistakes on part of the professional colleagues they trusted.
Especially horrifying is the part where a doctor couple cannot guarantee a safe birth of their own first child, due to various mistakes on part of the professional colleagues they trusted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
