Category Archives: Reading . . .

***** The Civil War of 1812

Posted on by
War of 1812

Naval Engagement off Kingston: H.M.S. “Royal George” pursued by Commodore Chauncey in U.S.S. “Oneida,” November 9, 1812.

It’s probably hard for any reasonably well-informed American to know less about the War of 1812 than I did when starting an audio-read of Alan Taylor’s 2010 The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies.(Taylor just won his second Pulitzer Prize for history for a new book.) The extent of my knowledge was irritation that the British burned the National Archives, making my genealogical researches more speculative and numerous trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, where I’d visited Fort George (British) and Fort Niagara (American), on the shore of Lake Ontario, and barely separated by the Niagara River. There, I’d heard a bit about Canadian heroes Sir Isaac Brock and Laura Secord. Despite growing up near Detroit, I escaped unscathed by information about the role of that city and the Michigan territory in the war or the legendary naval battles on the Great Lakes.

This book was remarkable in making this conflict so interesting and relevant. Taylor describes it as a “civil war” for several reasons. For one, Irish immigrants fought on both sides and the British claimed these former nationals as their own; for another, the uncertain allegiances of the northern New Englanders and Canadians alike, with allegiances to the new nation not as firmly fixed as we might think and much trade and movement across the weak border. Within the United States, Federalists (leaning toward Britain) and Republicans (anti-British) were at odds throughout, maneuvering against each other, thwarting efforts to recruit and equip an adequate army. Militarily, both sides made disastrous tactical mistakes and miscalculations. For example, the Americans thought the Canadians would welcome being “freed” from the oppressor Britain, but for the ordinary citizen of Upper Canada, the side to choose was the one most likely to end the war soonest.

Especially intriguing was Britain’s calculated use of Indians to terrify ill-trained American soldiers, who had such fear of the natives they would flee an impending battle rather than engage. And, while the conflict is often described as “a draw,” in Taylor’s analysis, the losers were the Indians, because the peace did not secure their lands, and the British no longer supported them against American expansion and territorial expropriation. A fascinating read.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

**** Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Posted on by
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt, Savannah, Georgia

Savannah (photo: wikimedia.org)

As it seems I’m one of the last people in America to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt’s 20-year-old best-seller, I’d heard enough sly references and snippets—especially when the movie (trailer) came out–to have a pretty good idea of what I’d encounter in its Historic District (free map!). I was not disappointed. While many people gravitated to the over-the-top drag queen, The Lady Chablis, my favorite character was Minerva, the purple-glasses wearing juju expert. Berendt allows that, although his book is nonfiction, he did mess with the time sequence a bit and disguise a few characters who needed a veil of privacy. Savannahians surely know when and who.

I hadn’t realized Savannah was so geographically and topographically isolated and that its residents used that isolation to their advantage, wanting “nothing so much as to be left alone,” Berendt says. “Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.” It’s sadly ironic, then, that his book has inspired so many tourists and Midnight-themed tours.

And the perfect, related cocktail?

**** The Cold, Cold Ground

Posted on by

By Adrian McKinty (narrated by Gerard Doyle) – In the bleak Belfast spring of 1981, hunger strikers in HM Prison Maze are starting to die. Paramilitaries are setting off bombs and gunfire rakes the streets at night. Police detective Sean Duffy–a rare Catholic in the Royal Ulster Constabulary–is presented with what looks like a “normal” murder case that soon blossoms into the possibility of a serial killer at work, targeting homosexuals. At that time, homosexuality was still illegal in Northern Ireland and not tolerated. In the mix is the apparent suicide of the beautiful ex-wife of one of the hunger strikers. Mysterious mail begins to arrive. The backdrop of violence is persuasively portrayed and hearkens back to real events and people. First of a trilogy (actually, now probably a quartet).

Related articles

*****The Crossing

Posted on by

Cormac McCarthy – Part II of McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy. This book is a force of nature, describing three lengthy horseback journeys from New Mexico to bleak and impoverished Old Mexico before and during World War II. The prose mostly moves forward at the pace and with the deliberation of a man on a horse, with occasional galloping, heart-stopping passages. The poor people 16-year-old Billy Parham encounters seem mostly willing to share what they have with him, including their stories and their hard-won philosophy, while the well-off, few in number though they be, seem intent on stealing or denying him what little he has. McCarthy never tells us how Billy feels about any of this, only shows us what he does about it, as he struggles to maturity and to maintain his integrity. The detailed sense of place makes the reader feel he has been on these melancholy and bitter treks, too. A thrilling read for the purity of the vision and the power of the words. Some favorite metaphors: “As if the darkness had a soul itself that was the sun’s assassin hurrying to the west as once men did believe, as they may believe again.” ” . . .the fence running out into the darkness under the mountains and the shadow of the fence crossing the land in the moonlight like a suture.”  And his matchless dialog, half of which is in Spanish but easy to follow.

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

**** Fighter Pilot: The Memoir of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

Posted on by

By Christina Olds, Ed Rasimus and Robin Olds. Narrated by Robertson Dean. A tale of modern derring-do, with Olds–a flying ace in both World War II and Vietnam, who led that war’s most renowned air battle–fighting both the enemy and the Pentagon. The authors credit him with impeccable judgment about strategy and tactics in both the immediate flying situation and long-term for the U.S. military. His heavy drinking, failed marriages, and lack of diplomacy are glossed over as “I am who I am.” He was a larger-than-life personality, and it’s a great story. His views about Vietnam don’t square with contemporary assessments, but reflect the frustrations of military men at the time that, if the country was going to commit young lives to the effort, they should plan to win, not pull their punches.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

** George Washington’s Secret Six

Posted on by

By Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger – The story of “the spy ring that saved the American Revolution.” This book should have been lots more exciting, but perhaps it wasn’t because there are not a lot of facts to go on about the five men, whose names are known, and one woman (“Agent 355”) who formed the Culper Spy Ring. For several years, they fed information direct to George Washington about British activities from the heart of occupied New York and had only to recall the hanging of Nathan Hale to know what would happen to them, should they be discovered. The Culper Ring was directly involved in such tide-turning events as misleading the Brits about the approach of French naval support, exposing the perfidy of Benedict Arnold, and stealing the British Navy’s code book. Knowing Kilmeade is a cohost of Fox News Channel’s morning show may have prompted me to expect a lightweight presentation, and my expectations were rewarded. (3/8)

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

**** The Flamethrowers

Posted on by

I had the chance to hear the author read an extended excerpt from near the end of this book in mid-April 2015 and appreciated anew how strong the writing is. The Flamethrowers, was Kushner’s second novel. It, as well as her first, Telex from Cuba (2008), were finalists for the National Book Award. Kushner and poet John Yau read from their works as part of the reading series sponsored by Princeton University’s program in creative writing and Lewis Center for the Arts.

By Rachel Kushner – In many publications’ 2013 Top Ten lists, The Flamethrowers: A Novel starts strong, with the heroine testing her new-model Valera motorcycle and her nerve at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Coincidentally, she’s taken up with Sandro Valera, a sculptor of aluminum boxes in Manhattan, where she hopes photographs of her bike’s tracks across the flats will make her mark in the early 1970’s art world, too. This naive gal from Reno, Nevada, is always a couple of steps off pace, trying to hold her own among the older, jaded New York artists and hangers-on, and falls hopelessly behind when Sandro takes her to his wealthy family’s villa above Lake Como. There she encounters the really sharp social knives. Her interactions with Sandro’s mother are breathtaking. I won’t say more about plot, in case you decide to read it. Nice writing. Here’s a sample: “Roy Orbison’s voice entered the room like a floating silk ribbon . . . And the hair. Black as melted-down record vinyl.” (3/3)

Enhanced by Zemanta

***** Life After Life

Posted on by

By Kate Atkinson – Narrated by Fenella Woolgar – This much-praised 2013 novel by English writer Atkinson allows her main character, Ursula Todd, to live her life again and again “until she gets it right.” It begins in 1911, with Ursula’s birth and almost immediate death and takes the character through multiple lives in which her and her family’s fates play out in different ways. Reviewers have different interpretations of Atkinson’s intent, but my interpretation is how near we skate to disaster simply living day to day. Insignificant decisions–whether to walk home with childhood friend Nancy–have significant consequences. It’s well worth a read (or a listen), as the themes of Ursula’s life and the events in it carry increasing resonance. Ursula’s World War II experiences are riveting. (2/19)

*** The City of the Sun

Posted on by

By Juliana Maio – “Cairo during the war was what Casablanca had been mythologized as in the eponymous Humphrey Bogart film–a romantic desert crossroads of the world, of spies and soldiers and cares and casbahs and women with pasts and men with futures . . .” (William Stadiem). So begins the epigram to Maio’s thriller, her first book. She picked this less well-trodden geography and a pivotal time–1941–as her setting. Rommel threatens the city from a rapidly diminishing distance and the Muslim Brotherhood and a group of dissident Egyptian Army officers threatens from within. With great potential for drama and the urgency of war, she places her two main characters, who are fairly well-rounded, and a second tier of less compelling actors. The writer relies too heavily on cliches–”happy as a clam” “looking resplendent and every inch a woman”–that made me wince, but the storytelling kept the pages turning.  (2/15)

*****The Goldfinch

Posted on by

By Donna Tartt – The 1654 painting, The Goldfinch, animates the action of Donna Tartt’s third novel, which is receiving much-deserved attention (and the Pulitzer Prize). The story begins when twelve-year-old Theo is injured in a terrorist explosion at the Metropolitan Museum, and an elderly dying man orders him to pick the painting—which happens to be one of Theo’s mother’s favorites—out of the rubble. Stunned, confused, and pretty much ignored in the aftermath of the explosion, he stumbles home to show it to her. Yes, there is an over-long interlude in Las Vegas when Theo lives a feral existence with his father and delightfully reprobate Russian friend Boris, and yes, it ends with a rambling 20-page essay. Still, it’s a wonderful adventure story that at its heart is about how we decide what’s important in life, what’s real to us and worth saving, and what is simulacrum and worth saving anyway. In that essay was one of my favorite lines of the book, about how different people are strongly, inevitably drawn to certain things—“a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag.” Don’t let the length put you off–it’s a page-turner.  (2/10)