”By the end of the 16th century, philosophy had stopped. It was Descartes who started it up again.”
“Cogito ergo sum,” (I think, therefore I am) is the”By the end of the 16th century, philosophy had stopped. It was Descartes who started it up again.”
“Cogito ergo sum,” (I think, therefore I am) is the most famous, the most quoted line of philosophy in history. I’m certain that I had heard it by middle school, making Descartes the first philosopher to crack my awareness.
Strathern emphasizes in this introduction just how thoroughly Descartes revolutionized philosophy. Of philosophy practiced before Descartes Strathern writes:
”Scholasticism was the philosophy of the Church and prided itself on its lack of originality. New philosophical ideas resulted only in heresy.”
But the primacy of that long stasis had been shattered by both Renaissance and Reformation, and Descartes became the thinker to first apply new ideas to philosophy. He started by introducing a new method in his treatise Rules for the Direction of the Mind:
”In order to discover the universal science, he argued, we first had to adopt a method of thinking properly. This method consisted of following two rules of mental operation; intuition and deduction. Intuition Descarte defined as the conception without doubt of an unclouded, and attentive mind which is formed by the light of reason alone. Deduction was defined as necessary inference from other facts which are know for certain. And Descartes celebrated method, which came to be known as the Cartesian Method lay in the correct application of these two rules of thought.”
Though Descartes set about writing A Treatise on the Universe, he circumspectly put it aside after observing what the Inquisition had done to Galileo who had covered much of the same material with many of the same conclusions. He would eventually include some of the less controversial parts of this treatise in later work. He was a careful man with no drive to be a martyr.
His most original work, Discourse on Method, cover a lot of ground. It changed the face of mathematics, made revolutionary advances in science, laid the foundations of modern, analytic geometry, and introduce Cartesian Coordinates. In optics, it proposed the Law of Refraction, and suggested an explanation of rainbow. But most important of all was its brief introduction, which would change the course of philosophy. Strathern writes of it:
”In clear, autobiographical prose he describes how he goes about his thinking, and the thoughts that occur to him in the process. When you read Descarte, you experience what it is like to be a great mind thinking original philosophy.”
Strathern, the irreverent, cynical philosopher seems almost romantically smitten by Descartes and his times. Of them he writes:
”Descartes was alive during a brief and possibly unique era of human thought. The new explanations put forward by the finest scientific and philosophical minds of his time were in many cases both plausible and comprehensible. They also tended to be rational, and in their overall conception simple, with the aim of leaving space for the contemplation of ultimate mysteries. Humanity is unlikely to experience such an era again.”
Indeed, Strathern almost entirely abandons the snarky wit that has made this series pop. He does manage a couple small hits, as in the way he introduces the fact that Descartes financed his philosophical work entirely through his significant personal fortune:
”Descartes never did a stroke of useful work in his life.”
And again he takes a little shot when discussing how Descartes published Discourse on Method:
”Having had the courage to doubt the entire universe, Descartes typically chose to publish his work anonymously.”
But apart from these minor snarks, Strathern seemed too impressed with Descartes to attempt his usual, witty demystifications. Fortunately, the philosopher and his work were interesting enough to get on without it.
”His literature grew less and less, and his life more and more.” William Dean Howells
In the twilight of his career, Twain was making visual what his f”His literature grew less and less, and his life more and more.” William Dean Howells
In the twilight of his career, Twain was making visual what his friends had long accepted as factual — that he was one of a kind, an American original who would be talked about long after he was gone.
Millions of words have been written about Mark Twain’s life. He penned many of them himself. There is his posthumously published Autobiography, as well as all the memoir he scattered throughout various essays and books (Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, etc.) To write a Mark Twain book that actually adds something to this remarkably well covered life is a major challenge. Michael Shelden was up to that challenge.
Mark Twain: Man In White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years achieves its relevance by tightly focusing on Mark Twain’s last years — his final forty months to be exact. It opens with his dramatic appearance in the Senate Reading Room of the Library of Congress in December 1906 where he addressed a hearing about proposed new copyright legislation. This occasion marked the first appearance of his strikingly outrageous white suit, a sartorial choice carefully calculated for dramatic effect. Sheldon highlights that while this is the look that survives as the visual component of our Mark Twain legend, that it wasn’t until this late stage of his life that he debuted it.
Part of his satisfaction in wearing the white suit was knowing that it was a joke against himself — a whited sepulcher that concealed a heart with darker moods and a character that was far from spotless.
And that leads into one of Shelden’s main theses — that during the last years of Mark Twain’s life, with most of his major and memorable work already behind him, he was consciously creating his legacy. Taking to constantly wearing dramatically fashion-defying white suits is the visual proof. Working to secure changes in the copyright laws to preserve his literary legacy is another aspect. This was also the time when he was simultaneously dictating his Autobiography and working with Albert Bigelow Paine, his hand-picked biographer, to shape the way posterity would remember him. (Twain gave Paine extraordinary access to his papers, correspondence, and friends. He allowed him to sit in while he dictated his Autobiography, and gave permission to use anything he heard there. Paine wrote of the experience:
”We were watching one of the great, literary creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. We constituted about the most select audience in the world, enjoying what was, likely enough, its most remarkable entertainment.”)
Shelden had another important point to make with this biography — a sort of rebalancing of the historical scales. The common wisdom on Mark Twain’s final years after the death of his wife is that they were sad, lonely, and embittering. Shelden wrote to show a more complex story. He tells a tale of triumphs and frolic beside the litany of loss and heartbreak that marked Twain’s last days. His trip to Oxford to receive an honorary degree from that august institution was a dream fulfilled — a triumphant acknowledgment of his merit as a great writer, not just a mere humorist. Time spent in the company of his best friend, H.H. Rogers, Standard Oil tycoon, Robber Baron, and in Twain’s words, Pirate, allowed him escape almost back into the joyful days of boyhood. Even planning for his new home, Stormfield, a place where he could bring his surviving family back together to try to recreate a past happiness, was at least a temporary triumph, before ultimately falling apart. He was resilient, joking his way through solemn memorials for a friend (and making it work), and turning a serious armed burglary of his home that ended in a shootout into more humorous copy for the papers. Sure, it all went wrong in the end, everything slipped away from him, his losses were great, and then he died, but all of us have losses at the end of a long life, and none of us get out alive.
He was a cigar store angel come to life with a mischievous eye on this world and a curious one on the next. Such a figure furnished a spectacle that was both comic and tragic, a spirited celebration of life’s rewards, and a clown’s lament of his own mortality....more
My sleep is haunted by chains and catalogs, and I don’t give one damn
if you grow tired of hearing about slavery.
Don’t you know that drowned folks will My sleep is haunted by chains and catalogs, and I don’t give one damn
if you grow tired of hearing about slavery.
Don’t you know that drowned folks will rise to croon signs to me? And anyway, I didn’t tell
this story to please you. I built this alter for them.
In 1773, an enslaved woman published a book of poems (Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral) and thus became a cultural flashpoint in 18th century America. We don’t know the name her parents gave her. Her slave name, Phillis Wheatley, was assigned to her by her owners. They obscenely named her after the slave ship that kidnapped her from family and freedom, and assigned her their own family name. This “Phillis Wheatley” became a cultural sensation in late colonial America. George Washington admired her work. Thomas Jefferson scoffed at it. The very idea of a slave writing poetry challenged the basic assumptions of a slave holding society, and to the present day her poems still stir up controversy over whether they should be read as an example of Uncle Tom Syndrome, or seen as subtly attacking and undermining American slavery.
Poet and author Honorée Fanonne Jeffers spent fifteen years researching Phillis Wheatley and her times. The Age of Phillis, a book length collection of poems, is the fruit of that dedication. It serves not just as a poetic memoir of Phillis, but as a powerful critique of the world of chattel slavery in which she lived. Jeffers also includes poems of contemporary events which she compares to the atrocities of Wheatley’s age. This would be an ambitious project for a book of prose, but is an even greater challenge when communicated through poetry.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The idea of it is brilliant. Some of the poetry, particularly those poems that illuminate the atrocities of the infamous middle passage, are powerful and moving. Her exceptional research is obvious in her work. Unfortunately, much of her poetry just didn’t reach me, failed to capture my imagination the way her information captured my intellect. As a rule, I found the poems about Phillis’ times more moving than those specifically about her. Perhaps this was because the actual information on Wheatley’s life is scant, while her times are well documented. I love Jeffers’ idea. I loved her passion. I admire her viewpoint. I just didn’t love most of her poems. ...more
With Nietzsche philosophy becomes dangerous again, this time with a difference. In previous centuries philosophy had been dangerous for philosophers. With Nietzsche philosophy becomes dangerous again, this time with a difference. In previous centuries philosophy had been dangerous for philosophers. With Nietzsche it becomes dangerous for everyone.
In Nietzsche In 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern takes an ironical, almost playful tone that effectively conveys Nietzsche’s contradictions. He gives a sense of the power and usefulness of Nietzsche’s work, even when he clearly regards much of it to be little better than nonsensical:
”The Superman made his appearance in Thus Spake Zarathustra, a long poem of almost unbearable bombast and earnestness whose utter humorlessness was unrelieved by its author’s attempt at irony. Like Dostoevsky and Hesse, it’s unreadable, unless you’re a teenager. But the experience of this work at such an age can often “change your life,” and not always for the worse.”
”The stupid ideas are easily spottable, and the rest make a challenging antidote to many accepted notions requiring one to think deeply for one’s self. The philosophy as such is almost negligible, but the exhortations to philosophy, to think for one’s self are powerful, as are the characterizations of our condition.”
Strathern explains that Nietzsche’s philosophy was unsystematic, and written mainly in aphorisms. He notes that this both made it widely accessible, but also uniquely susceptible to misunderstanding and abuse, as short aphorism could be read out of context of Nietzsche’s greater philosophical position. He also largely clears the philosopher from culpability with how the Nazis abused his philosophy, attributing that mainly to how his sister abused his work after he went mad. Strathern writes:
”He had nothing but contempt for the proto-fascist of his era, antisemitism disgusted him, and the idea of a nation of racially pure Germans becoming a master race would certainly have exercised his sense of humor to the full.”
Finally, a note about this “In 90 Minutes” series. I’ve now read a dozen of them, and find that they effectively do exactly what a series of short introductions should do. They introduce their subject, usually in a pithy, witty fashion, give a ballpark idea of what they and their work were about, and give you some sense of whether or not you want to go on and learn more about them. (In the case of this volume, it has inspired me to seek out a good Nietzsche biography.) Many of the reviews of these books are written by humorless people who seem to be utterly clueless as to the purpose of a series of 90 minute introductions — please keep that in mind....more
Art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist’s passionate personal Art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist’s passionate personal vision against the received ideas of its time. Art knows that received ideas are the enemies of art. Clichés are received ideas and so are ideologies, both those that depend on the sanction of invisible sky gods and those which do not.
I remember the horror I felt on that August day when I heard the news of the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie. Not only was he a favorite author, but he was a living symbol of defiance against the tyranny of controlling orthodoxy. And now, decades after religious fanatics put a price on his head, some wild eyed man-child not yet born when the fatwa was issued against the author had viciously attacked him and left him fighting for life.
As days went by and Rushdie did not die, it occurred to me that if he pulled through, he would almost certainly write a book about his experience. The prospect excited me. Rushdie had already proven his talent at memoir with his book Joseph Anton — should he survive to write a memoir of the attack it would be another triumph over humorless orthodoxy. Knife is that book. It’s a bit raw, it falls short of his best work (which, after all, is a damned high bar) but it still counts as a triumph.
There’s a thing I used to say back in the day when catastrophe rained down upon The Satanic Verses and its author, that one way of understanding the argument over that book was that it was a quarrel between those with a sense of humor and those without one. I see you now, my failed murderer. You could try to kill because you didn’t know how to laugh.
Knife is a first person account of the brutal attack that almost killed the author. Rushdie includes his painful and traumatic recovery, and the way the attack shattered and reshaped his life and the lives of his family. It’s a most human accounting. He includes thoughts and experiences that are in no way shaped for a hero’s narrative, but rather paint an accurate picture of how one might expect a 75 year old man suddenly attacked and stabbed 15 times to react — not pretty, but believably human.
The subtitle of this book tells it all, or most of it. The Pirates dominated baseball in the 1970s, and Willie Stargell was their biggest star. They wThe subtitle of this book tells it all, or most of it. The Pirates dominated baseball in the 1970s, and Willie Stargell was their biggest star. They won six division titles, two National League Penates, and two World Series that decade. Willie Stargell hit more home runs in the '70s then any other man.
What the subtitle doesn't say is that Out of Left Field chronicles the 1973 season, the year the Pirates fell apart. This down season came after winning three straight division titles and a World Series in the previous three years. 1973 was their first season without long time star and team leader Roberto Clemente, who died the previous winter in a tragic plane crash. It was also the year that staff ace Steve Blass, hero of the '71 World Series and coming off the best year of his career in '72, crashed epically, posting a 9.85 ERA on his way out of baseball. Though remaining in the division race up to the season's final weekend, the Pirates finished 1973 with a record of 80 and 82, their only losing season of the decade. Willie Stargell was a rock amid the chaos of this disappointing year, leading the NL in six categories, including home runs (44) and RBIs (119) while batting .299.
Out of Left Field tells the story of the season with many photos and the players own words. The photos record Stargell and his teammates in and out of uniform, on the job, and relaxing. The text is almost all direct transcript of remarkably candid taped interviews recorded throughout the season. Stargell dominates, but many of his teammates (including the ever colorful Dock Ellis) add their perspective as well. There are interviews with player's wives, team general manager, and even a baseball Annie, all adding layers to the story. Topics as broad as contract negotiations, race relations, team politics, player drug use, and the sexual dynamics of wives vs girlfriends are all covered. It’s a great snapshot of baseball before the dawn of free agency, and of American culture itself in transition....more
David A. Leeming was one of James Baldwin’s closest friends. He was among the select group who cared for him in his final illness and was there at theDavid A. Leeming was one of James Baldwin’s closest friends. He was among the select group who cared for him in his final illness and was there at the end. The intimacy of his close friendship with Baldwin informs this biography. Baldwin gave him full access to his papers, and conducted several interviews in anticipation of this book. This, together with Leeming’s engaging prose style makes this book the definitive biography of James Baldwin.
Many conventional, birth to death biographies start slowly, as the aspects of the life in question that interest us come significantly later in the lifetime. Not so here. Baldwin’s creative work was all essentially autobiographical — he mined his life and experiences, sometimes only thinly veiling them, for his fiction. So, Baldwin’s parents, his siblings, his younger self are all important to the story that captures our interest, which means that this biography hits the ground running rather than dragging for several chapters.
A prior knowledge of Baldwin’s writing will enhance your experience reading this book. As mentioned, Baldwin’s writing — both his fiction and non fiction — was largely autobiographical — there isn’t a clear demarcation between the two. Leeming has drawn deeply on Baldwin’s work, related it to his life as lived, and explains one through the other. He goes into great detail on all of Baldwin’s writing, something that can increase your insight into works that you have already read. It is not absolutely necessary to have read him to appreciate this bio (I suppose that it could serve as an introduction to Baldwin’s work) but I feel that a close familiarity with the writings will deepen the experience of reading this book....more
August Wilson: A Life is a comprehensive biography of America’s greatest playwright. From his childhood in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood (thAugust Wilson: A Life is a comprehensive biography of America’s greatest playwright. From his childhood in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood (that he later would make famous in his Century Cycle) his struggling young manhood, washing dishes and doing odd jobs as he struggled to write poetry and be taken seriously, through his early breakthroughs in theater, and subsequent meteoric rise as a theater icon, Harigan’s biography hits all the important notes. Wilson’s self education at the Carnegie Library after dropping out of high school when outraged by its racism, his self creation as a tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking poet affecting a Welsh accented, and his ongoing self-mythologizing all are noted. His breakthrough at the O’Neill Center, his critical collaborations, and the method he developed to write and shepherd his plays, and his emergence as an important public voice, all make fascinating reading.
This is an important biography of a critically important voice in American letters. Wilson’s Century Cycle of plays — one for each decade of the 20th century, tracking the Black American experience — stands unparalleled in American theatrical history. This book reveals the enigmatic man who created these plays, and the process of their creation. ...more
Upbeat baseball manager Chuck Tanner was a good manager and a great guy. Though he managed the colorful Pittsburgh Pirates to a memorable World SeriesUpbeat baseball manager Chuck Tanner was a good manager and a great guy. Though he managed the colorful Pittsburgh Pirates to a memorable World Series in 1979, he wasn’t in the class of legendary managers — the kind that get books written about them. That’s why I was so excited to find this book about the guy who took my childhood heroes, the “We Are Family” crew to a thrilling World Series victory.
Unfortunately, the author lacks the writing chops to bring any kind of verve or excitement to Chuck’s story. Tanner was a gregarious guy, an innovative manager ahead of his time, but here both he and his famous team are consigned to plodding prose that yields very little pleasure even to one absolutely predisposed to wanting to enjoy the book. The writing is flat and listless. I found myself skimming much of it.
If a lifelong Pirates fan like me, who passionately followed Tanner and his Pirates in the ‘70 was so disappointed by this book, I’m not sure that it has an audience. Perhaps natives of New Castle, Pennsylvania, the shared home town of both Tanner and the author will enjoy it. The author mentions the town, it’s landmarks, and it’s people in just about every chapter. His book could have been titled Chuck Tanner of New Castle....more
Paul Strathern’s “In 90 Minute” series on history’s great thinkers has strengths beyond being succinct. In writing these pithy introductions, StratherPaul Strathern’s “In 90 Minute” series on history’s great thinkers has strengths beyond being succinct. In writing these pithy introductions, Strathern usually comes armed with an irreverent wit that sometimes boarders on snark. This approach, writing of figures often made remote by how revered they have become, is what makes this series pop. It is also wholly absent from this introduction to James Joyce.
The MIA irreverence is not the only way that Joyce In 90 Minutes differs from other entries in this series. Strathern generally concentrates on biographical details, tying them in to the significance of the work without delving deeply into the work itself. Here, Joyce’s body of work is explored in more depth and detail, and, damn it, reverence. My only conclusion is that the author must be a Joyce fan-boy....more
”Brown was the first martyr in the war that freed the slaves, Lincoln one of the last.”
”More slowly than Brown, and more tentatively, Lincoln had summ”Brown was the first martyr in the war that freed the slaves, Lincoln one of the last.”
”More slowly than Brown, and more tentatively, Lincoln had summoned Heaven to justify his actions. Brown professed to know that God was on his side, Lincoln only hoped he was.”
”The question had been, what does a good man do when his country commits a great evil? John Brown chose the path of violence, Lincoln of politics, yet the two paths wound up leading to the same place, the most terrible war in American history. Brown aimed at slavery and shattered the Union, Lincoln defended the Union and destroyed slavery.”
H.W. Brands’ The Zealot and the Emancipator is not so much a dual biography of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln as it is a history of the final, bloody years, and ultimate demise of American slavery. And that is precisely what makes it an excellent book. Brands keeps a close focus on the events of his subjects lives that are most closely tied to that theme that binds them together, and by doing so avoids much of the material that often bogs down and slows biographies.
Brands concentrates his considerable storytelling ability on those incidents of Brown and Lincoln’s lives that most closely bear on the slavery issue. For Brown that would be his martial activities in Bleeding Kansas, his preparations for and raid on Harpers Ferry, his trial and execution. For Lincoln, Brands starts in earnest with his debates with Senator Douglas and attempts to become Senator from Illinois, his using the slavery issue to position himself for nomination for the presidency, and of course, his execution of the war effort as president, concentrating on those aspects that most closely impacted slavery. Brown’s story ends well before the book does, as he was hanged in 1859, while Brands history continues until Lincoln’s 1865 assassination.
As a history of the end of slavery, Brands gives considerable ink to some other figures significant to that issue. Stephen Douglas, the politician responsible for the popular sovereignty doctrine that set Kansas to bleeding, against whom Lincoln rose to national prominence through their debates is prominent. So is Chief Justice Roger Taney, thanks to his role in issuing the Dred Scott decision. Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave, orator, and abolitionist has almost as prominent a role in this history as does Lincoln and Brown.
It is fitting that Brown and Lincoln are profiled together in this book. Without Brown’s actions there would have been no Civil War, at least not at that time. Arguably, without his raid at Harpers Ferry, there would have been no Lincoln presidency, and you likely would never have heard of this insignificant, one term congressman. Without the slavery question, neither man would have impacted our history at all. Because of it, both became martyrs. Though Brown’s story ended first, his actions forced the issue. In the words of Frederick Douglass:
”If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. John Brown began the war that ended slavery and made this a free republic. Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain. the irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes, and compromises. When John Brown stretched fourth his arm the sky was cleared, the time for compromises was gone.”
”His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine. It was as the burning sun to my taper light. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.” ...more
Shirley Jackson is one of the giants of 20th century literature. This wasn’t a fact that was widely acknowledged during her lifetime, despite her fameShirley Jackson is one of the giants of 20th century literature. This wasn’t a fact that was widely acknowledged during her lifetime, despite her fame and success as a writer. She never won any major writing awards or honors. The fact that she wrote bright domestic stories for women’s magazines as well as serious, Kafkaesque fiction constantly confounded the (mostly male) critics, who failed to see the dark shadows in her domestic tales, or the themes that tied all her work together.
Ruth Franklin has written a biography worthy of such an important voice. She highlights Jackson’s importance as a writer emphasizing women’s issues and voices. She delves into her deeply conflicted relationship with domesticity. Her problematic family relationships — a difficult mother she could never please, an unfaithful husband who often ignored her — are linked to the anxiety that haunts all her best work. Perhaps more than most writers, and certainly more obvious than most, Jackson’s life and writing were inseparably linked, and Franklin’s bio captures that brilliantly. ...more
The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was to be my third time through Franklin’s notable book. Famously, Franklin’s autobiography ended in The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was to be my third time through Franklin’s notable book. Famously, Franklin’s autobiography ended in 1757, thus ignoring his most significant achievements. His work as an agent for the colonies in London, his part in The Continental Congress, his hand in creating the Declaration, his critical ambassadorship to France during the Revolution, his participation in The Constitutional Convention — all of this was missing from The Autobiography. This most famous of American autobiographies was missing its author’s most famous moments.
This deficiency was corrected byProfessor Mark Skousen, a direct descendant of Franklin’s. Convinced that Franklin had every intention of completing his biography, he reached across time to lend a hand to his illustrious ancestor. Skousen delved deeply into Franklin’s papers — diaries, letters, etc. — and found that the Autobiography was practically already completed. It just needed carful compiling. Skousen compiled entries from Franklin’s extensive papers to create a seamless extension of the original Autobiography, all in Franklin’s own words. Starting from his work as agent for Pennsylvania in London, these new editions cover Franklin’s work in London leading up to the Revolution, all the way through to his participation in The Constitutional Convention. Franklin’s completed life is all here, down to his Last Will and Testament. It is just what so many had always wished for. Skousen includes a forward explaining his process, and an afterward with final notes about Franklin.
Unfortunately, I must note one important issue. This edition of The Completed Autobiography contains not a single word of the original. Herein are the additions to the original, rather than the combined original text and new material. This is problematic on Goodreads, because this volume is included as just one more of the many editions of The Autobiography. Reviews of this volume and reviews of the original Autobiography appear together, despite that fact. I am unable to post separate reviews for this volume and the original book. While this is irritating, and something that those reading this review need to know, it is not a reflection on Skousen’s work in compiling this volume, but rather a technical issue with this site. ...more
An ancient riddle. Characters larger than life. Adventure full of hardship and danger. Epic personal conflict. Sweeping drama between triumph and despAn ancient riddle. Characters larger than life. Adventure full of hardship and danger. Epic personal conflict. Sweeping drama between triumph and despair, fame and oblivion. The search for the source of the Nile and the complex and tortured relationship between Burton and Speke who pursued it is the stuff of fiction, yet is every word true. Candice Millard is a superb storyteller, and in her hands this extraordinary history becomes edge of your seat reading.
If you happen to be an aficionado of the great Sir Richard Francis Burton, you won’t find much new here. I’ve read four Burton biographies, and already knew most every detail this book covered. Even knowing every twist and turn of the tale I still found it riveting.
Millard did add one dimension that, while not completely original, is often neglected in the telling. She gave as much space as the limited biographical material allowed to the importance and contributions of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, the indispensable African guide who was on both the Burton/Speke and the Speke/Grant expeditions. Burton called him, “the gem of the party.” Bombay later was chief of Henry Stanley’s caravan on his search for Livingston. Millard focused on his achievements (along with others) to make the often neglected point that exploration of the world’s hidden places was much more than the achievement of a few European men. Their native guides were essential participants in the process, and should be viewed as partners in discovery.
River of the Gods is an incredible, true story. If you already are familiar with it, I promise that you will enjoy it again in Millard’s skilled prose. If you’ve never before encountered it, what are you waiting for? Read the book already!...more
Odds are that you know the name Custer because of how he died. He was a hero of the Civil War, a minor author of some contemporary note, and a player Odds are that you know the name Custer because of how he died. He was a hero of the Civil War, a minor author of some contemporary note, and a player in Democratic politics. But the reason his name lives on in the American imagination is because of his last, disastrously fatal battle at The Little Bighorn — Custer’s Last Stand. It was the greatest U.S. Military defeat in the Indian Wars of the 19th century. Many, many books have been written about it. And you won’t find it in this book.
Instead, Stiles’s book concentrated on putting Custer the man in context. It first does this by examining Custer’s career, focusing attention on his rise to national prominence as a dashing young hero of the Civil War. It examines his complexity as a man — his often conflicting ideas and ideals, his relationships with his wife, patrons, and enemies, and his own insecurities, that seemed only ever fully overcome when he preformed in battle. And finally, it fleshes out the important context of Custer both as a man of his times and out of step with those times. This portrait of a changing America as it was in the second half of the 19th century is perhaps the best aspect of this study.
For all that has been written about him, George Armstrong Custer largely remains a moveable myth. He has been portrayed as a hero, a martyr, a villain, a racist, and a fool. His legend has changed to suit the times and political climate in which it is told. Stiles’s book is not an attempt to rehabilitate Custer’s reputation — it’s an intense warts and all examination. But it definitely aims to remove his story from the realm of legend and easy propaganda, and instead reveal the history of the man behind the American myth. ...more
The Catcher was a Spy isn’t really about baseball or espionage. Instead, it is an in depth examination of Moe Berg, an American eccentric whose odd, sThe Catcher was a Spy isn’t really about baseball or espionage. Instead, it is an in depth examination of Moe Berg, an American eccentric whose odd, secretive life was as fascinating as it was unusual.
The first half of that life was devoted to baseball. Moe, a good field, no hit bench warmer, “made a life for himself as that consummate baseball mediocrity, the third-string catcher.” Yet he managed to be something of a baseball celebrity because of his value to sportswriters. Berg was an alumnus of Princeton, had earned a Law degree from Columbia, and had studied at The Sorbonne. To sportswriters, he was Professor Berg, wiz kid of the diamond, and was always good for a story to fill a column. They were particularly entranced by his alleged linguistic skill, a typical story reading: “the most famous linguist in baseball with his command of languages variously put at from 7 to 27...he laughs off the idea that he gives signs in Hindu, and declares that Yiddish will usually suffice.” His teammates quips at his expense made good copy as well: “He speaks seven languages And can’t hit in any of them.”
After his 19 season baseball career came to a close, Berg launched into a great second act. World War II has begun. The United States had established its first espionage organization, The OSS. Berg’s skill set was a good match for the new, free-wheeling spy agency. Now, instead of catching Lefty Grove, he was attempting to ferret out the secrets of the supposed Nazis atomic bomb program. At one point, he was sent to Switzerland where German scientists and suspected head of the Nazi atomic program, Werner Heisenberg was speaking. He was armed with a pistol, authorized to assassinate Heisenberg if it appeared to be necessary.
Nicholas Dawidoff’s book can be roughly divided into thirds. The first third (the most interesting) concentrates on Berg’s early years and life in baseball. It paints a charming picture of a one of a kind baseball eccentric, surrounded by the players and the ambiance of 1920s and 1930s baseball. The second third, being about espionage, obviously is less detailed, but still interesting. Berg moves through Europe, deep in the secrets of the emerging atomic program, and a favorite of OSS founder Wild Bill Donovan. It is the last third where Dawidoff stumbles. The final 25 years of Berg’s life were spent as a kind of glorified bum. He didn’t work, but traveled from city to city, living off the charity of acquaintances, paying his way with embellished stories of his life. This period is sadly pathetic, yet the author gives it as much ink as the baseball and espionage years.
The author’s failing was being too fascinated by his subject. It’s not that there was no interest in Berg’s later years of eccentric, secretive roaming, implying that he was still a spy in deep cover while his existence spiraled downward. It’s just that it could have been handled with far less detail.Dawidoff writes well, and his book was well researched, but it seems that every scrap of that research found its way into his book. Unless it happens that your level of obsession with Berg’s story is equal to the author’s, it’s likely that your interest will run out before this book does....more
At just 240 pages, this is not an exhaustive, literary biography, but more of an introduction to the poet. It’s has an almost breezy informality, and At just 240 pages, this is not an exhaustive, literary biography, but more of an introduction to the poet. It’s has an almost breezy informality, and is easily accessible. I was able to read through it in a day.
Of course, the book’s short length presents limitations. I would have enjoyed more details about his time in Paris as part of the Lost Generation crew. That is barely touched on in this book, and there is no detail at all about Cummings involvement with Dadaism.
Cheever’s one major focus seems to be the relationship between Cummings and his only daughter, Nancy. Taken away from him at seven, Cummings did not see his daughter for twenty years. Cheever’s spends more pages on this situation and the relationship they formed as adults then any other event in the poet’s life.
”I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would ra”I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
Jack London was the most popular American author of his day, supplanting even the iconic Mark Twain in the first decade of the 20th century. He was prolific, writing more than 1000 words a day. He was eclectic, writing social commentary, action stories, science fiction, dystopian fiction, political commentary, war correspondence, travel literature and more. He was a bona fide national celebrity, by turns fascinating, scandalizing, and angering the American public.
James Haley opens with how Jack London’s passionately held and loudly proclaimed socialism and social conscience has relegated him to a second tier in American literature. His work was too popular for him to be forgotten, so instead his memory was truncated and he was sanitized into a writer of boy’s action adventures, his books of scathing social commentary largely forgotten. Haley writes:
”After his death, memory of his politics was conveniently erased, and he was refashioned as the quintessential author of boy’s adventure stories. He thus became, and remains, perhaps the most misunderstood figure in the American literary canon.”
”During the Red Scares of the 1920s and 1950s his attacks on capitalism called his American loyalties so much into question that, though he was long dead, the FBI opened a dossier on him. Too popular to suppress, he was retained as a literary icon of juvenile adventure, and his keen sense of social justice was quietly forgotten, except by college professors and dedicated socialists.”
Haley captures London’s extraordinary life and remarkable path to fame. Oyster pirate, able seaman on a sealing schooner, tramp marching and riding rails in Coxey’s Army, and gold prospector in the Yukon — London had been all these things by 18. With little formal schooling, London was a brilliant autodidact, nursing a passion for books despite the rough company he kept as a youth. All these experiences provided the raw material for his writing, and the motivation to demand a better world that inspired his socialism.
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London examines this brilliant, remarkable, flawed, and contradictory man and his too brief lifetime. It restores the full picture of the man, the writer, and the activist in all its complexity