November 2014 Books

Half in Love (surviving the legacy of suicide) by Linda Gray Sexton
Published: 2010
Rating: 4
Goodreads
Author web site

Another brutally honest memoir from the daughter of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Anne Sexton who died by suicide when Linda was 21 years old.

In her first memoir, Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to my Mother, Anne Sexton (1994), Linda examines the complicated relationship with her brilliant but mentally unstable mother. I read and reviewed this in August - see post.

Years pass and Linda is now happily married with two boys. However the idyllic life ends as she spirals into deep depression/suicidal ideation resulting in three suicide attempts which tear her own family apart.

For someone who seeks to understand the suicidal mind, I found this memoir to be very helpful - similar to William Styron's Darkness Visible - see post on Josh's blog for thoughts on his book.

Takeaways:

• Her description of depression is harrowing: a hungry monster, strong, insatiable, looking to devour.
•  Love is not enough to prevent suicide - neither the love for others to stop oneself nor the love from others to prevent. 
• To cope with her intense internal pain, she became a cutter. She describes in excruciating detail her thoughts and feelings while cutting and why it worked.
• She exonerates her mother and herself by saying that the motivation for suicide was a way, albeit extreme and final, to end pain.
• She recognizes that to live with someone who struggles with depression and suicidal ideation is tough. Her own husband, father and sister could not cope with her. 

On a lighter note, she has written a third memoir called Besotted about living with Dalmations.

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
Published: 2008
Rating: 4
Goodreads
Author web site

This historical WWII fiction is based on a diary of an East Prussian woman in which she chronicles her family's harrowing move west in 1945 - just ahead of the brutal Russian army.

Bohjalian gives a list of books that helped in his research - I've only read two and am interested in the others.

Non-fiction

• Armageddon by Max Hastings
• D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Stephen Ambrose (read)
• Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross
• Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
• On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of A Nazi Childhood by Irmgard A Hunt
• What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband
• Sins of the Innocent: A Memoir by Mirelle Marokvia
• The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn
• German Boy: A Child in War by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel
• The Holocaust: Personal Accounts edited by David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder
• All My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein

Fiction

• Wartime Lies by Loise Begley
• Crabwalk by Gunter Grass
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (read)

Euripides III:  Hecuba  translated by William Arrowsmith
Published: 425-424 B.C
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Tragedy upon tragedy and suffering upon suffering is this play's theme.

Queen Hecuba is wife of defeated King Priam of Troy. She has lost everything: her husband, her children, her city, her title and now lives as a Greek slave. As a mother, she has seen her son Paris, start the Trojan War by abducting Helen; her first born Hector, die at the hands of Achilles; her daughter Cassandra taken by Agamemnon and now faces the death of two other children.

I can relate to her willingness to die in place of her daughter, Polyxena:

Let me take her place upon the tomb;
kill me, be merciless to me, not her.

And when she sees the body of her son, Polydorus:

O Gods in heaven, let me die!

 What amazes me in reading the Greek tragedians are the timeless truths written centuries ago:

That man is happiest
who lives from day to day and asks no more,
garnering the simple goodness of  a life.

That no man on earth is truly free.
All are slaves of money or necessity,
Public opinion or fear of prosecution,
forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

The Blessing: A Memoir by  Gregory Orr
Published: 2002
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I ordered this memoir after reading his Poetry as Survival and read it in two days.

He begins with a question that can only be asked years removed from the trauma: "Do I dare to say my brother's death was a blessing?"

I cannot imagine how hard it was for him to drudge up memories and feelings of the time leading up to the moment when he accidentally shot his brother.  While reading, all I could do was write OMG in the margins over and over. He was only twelve years old - just beginning adolescence. His dysfunctional family offered no solace or comfort. Then his mother died two years later. How could this kid survive? Through the power of poetry.

My memories of the horrible day when I found Josh are millisecond snapshots that sometimes pop up in my head. When certain images threaten to linger, I shut them down.

Next up - read his poetry.

Song of Myself in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Published 1855 (1st edition) and 1892 ("death-bed" edition)
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Published: 2004 (posthumously)
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I bought this book a while ago and decided to read after seeing it in Bohjalian's list of books that inspired his Skeletons at the Feast. 

The story of how this book was published reminds me of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. It is a miracle that both manuscripts survived WWII.

A French novelist from Jewish descent had a vision of writing an epic, five-part novel in the same vein as Tolstoy's War and Peace.  She began feverishly writing the first two parts while living in occupied France in 1941-1942, instinctively knowing that time was short.

She was arrested and deported in July 1942, leaving her husband and two young daughters. She died in Auschwitz the following month. Her husband was arrested a few months later and before leaving, entrusted their oldest daughter Denise, with Irene's unfinished manuscript. He also perished in Auschwitz.

Serendipitously the girls and manuscript survived but it wasn't until decades later that Denise finally decided to read what she thought was her mother's journal. As she read, Denise realized that her mother had written a powerful novel of life in occupied France.

She painstakingly deciphered her mother's teeny handwriting and took it to a publisher who recognized the historical significance of the novel. Published over sixty years after Irene's death, Suite Francaise became an instant bestseller.    

To learn more, read these articles from the NY Times and the Telegraph.

Americans In Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation by Charles Glass
Published: 2011
Rating: 4
Goodreads

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Published: 2014
Rating: 4
Goodreads

October 2014 Books

Edge of Eternity (Century Trilogy # 3) by Ken Follett
Published: 2014
Rating: 4
Author web site
Goodreads

Two years ago, I read the first two books in Follett's Century Trilogy (see post) which began a love for historical fiction and initiated a reading spree of World War II that continues to this day; also spawning interest in the subsequent Korean and Vietnam Wars.

I pre-ordered the book and began reading upon receipt.  Follett begins the narrative in 1961 and continues to follow the same families (American, British, German and Russian) introduced in the first two books.

In this lengthy book (1,098 pages), I was disappointed that the Korean War was completely skipped, but that is just par for the course - another example of how it is truly the "Forgotten War."  That said, Follett did not focus on the Vietnam War either, rather turning his attention to the Civil Rights movement in American and the Cold War with Russia, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Very gripping reading - I did not realize how close we were to a nuclear war which could've wiped us out.

The book ends with the events that led to the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, culminating in the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall.

I found this particular quote of a semi-retired CIA officer as he watched the fall of the Berlin Wall on television - very telling of our foreign policy decisions:

Everything we did was completely ineffective. Despite all our efforts Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua became Communist countries. Look at other places where we tried to prevent Communism: Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Cambodia, Laos….None of them does us much credit. And now Eastern Europe is abandoning Communism with no help from us.

To say the twentieth century was tumultuous is an understatement,  Follett has done a great job bringing it to life and making this reader, formally uninterested in history, a convert.

Poetry as Survival by Gregory Orr
Published: 2002
Rating: 5+
Goodreads

I loved it - evidenced by the numerous dog-eared pages and marks (underline, circles, exclamation marks, asterisks and comments) within the margins.

How he found poetry and what it has meant in his life reminds me of Anne Sexton - both say that poetry had literally saved them.

When he was twelve, Orr was responsible for a hunting accident that killed his younger brother. While his parents did not blame him, they were unable to talk about it due to their profound grief. He was left unconsolable.  Then two years later, his mother died after a common medical procedure. Trauma upon trauma inflicted on this young adolescent's soul.

Lucky for him, a high school English teacher exposed him to poetry and he has not looked back.

I wrote a poem one day, and it changed my life. I had a sudden sense that the language in poetry was "magical," unlike language in fiction: that it could create or transform reality rather than simply describe it. That first poem I wrote was a simple, escapist fantasy, but it liberated the enormous energy of my despair and oppression as nothing before had ever done. I felt simultaneously revealed to myself and freed of my self by the images and actions of the poem.

and

When someone, in the throes of a powerful and disturbing experience, turns instinctively to the writing or reading of a poem, it is because they sense the personal lyric can be a powerful aid in helping them survive and make sense of their experience.

Orr is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.  Reading this book gave me a sense of being in a seminar class on how poetry, specifically the personal lyric, has saved him.  It reads like a memoir, peppered with the poems and lines of poetry that he knows and loves. I have transposed these poems into my own personal poetry journal:

• Back by Jane Kenyon
• Hallowe'en by Lisa Spar
• Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
• It struck me - every Day and I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson

There is much more to say about this life changing (strong words but true!) book which I hope to do on Josh's blog.  

Would highly recommend!!!

Other books by Orr:

• The Blessing: A Memoir (2002)
• The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems (2002)
• Concerning the Book That is the Body of the Beloved (2005)
• How Beautiful the Beloved (2009)
• River Inside the River: Poems (2013)

The Poet's Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family compiled by John Lithgow

Published: 2007

Rating: 4

Goodrreads

This famous actor's love of poetry began at a young age - at the feet of his grandmother who could recite numerous poems from memory.

So this book is like a love offering - a poetry anthology of his all-time favorite poets who "lived on different continents, in different eras, their works are old and new, romantic and savage, comic and gloomy, orderly and chaotic, long and short."

Lithgow includes a short commentary on each of the fifty poets and what the chosen poem(s) means to him.  

He also includes quotes from the poets themselves - my favorites are below.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel….the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.    E.E. Cummings 

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry.  Emily Dickinson 

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.    Robert Frost 

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.      Edgar Allen Poe

Emily Dickinson is one poet whom I find both difficult to understand and amazing when I do.  I found and bought The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson at my local library book sale a couple of years ago for the bargain price of $1.50. I have not delved into the book as yet but have rather run into Dickinson's poetry via other means - even finding an ambitious blogger who aims to read and write about all 1,789 poems. 

So when deciding which of the many poems in Lithgow's book I could transcribe here, how could I go wrong with Dickinson? 

There is no Frigate like a Book (#1263)

by Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry - 

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll - 

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul.

Audiobook: The Churchills: In Love and War by Mary S. Lovell
Published: 2011
Rating: 5
Goodreads

I borrowed this from the library - a fascinating, in-depth, frank and somewhat gossipy look at the extended family of one of the greatest statesman ever: Winston Spencer Churchill.

Lovell's premise is that family is very important to a person and so to gain better understanding of WSC, one must look at his family.  What kind of family was he born into? How did he interact with his parents, grandparents, friends, siblings, girlfriends, political allies and enemies, wife, children?

WSC was a product of his time and class: post-Victorian, British aristocracy.  He was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and cousin to the 9th Duke of Marlborough. His mother was an American beauty, Jennie Jerome.  His cousin married an American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt whose first love was Winthrop Rutherford who eventually married Lucy Mercer, FDR's mistress.  Small world!

While primarily known as prime minister during the Second World War, I came to learn of his many other skills: novice pilot,  prolific writer, historian, painter, bricklayer, consummate politician and Nobel Prize winner (for Literature).  Also, I did not know he had served as prime minister twice.

Any subsequent reading of this man's life will be enriched by the insights gained from this well researched book.  

June 2014 Books

I'm taking a break from the spiritually-focused books over the past few months and have yearned for good literary fiction.

Yin, Yang, Yogini: A Woman's Quest for Balance, Strength and Inner Peace by Kathryn E. Livingston
Published: 2014
Rating: 2.5
Goodreads

I found this book at the local library and could not resist as I have recently added daily yoga/meditation to my self-care habits - along with getting a good night's sleep, eating well and teaching spinning classes 3 times per week.

It is a memoir of a middle-aged writer who lost her mom two weeks after 9/11.  She is married to a musician and has three boys.  Her writing style is open, honest and engaging but the chronology is difficult to follow.  I think she takes two yoga classes a week and chronicles life via the classes.

I am listening to another memoir of a woman who lost her mother (Wild by Cheryl Strayed) and it is interesting to compare and contrast.  Wild is much better on so many fronts.

I am reticent to write this negative review but it does make me understand what I look for in a well-written memoir: depth, emotional connection, understanding of why someone acts the way they do, their decision-making process, etc.  Sadly, Livingston did not deliver.

• not very deep 
• I was hoping for more regarding how she handled the grief of her mother's passing
• she is an extremely anxious mother - we learn it stems from having anxious parents but why was she so anxious?
• she looked to yoga as a way to handle anxiety versus medication.  As one who sees the value of medication for mental illnesses, I found her comments to be stigmatizing. 
• why her obsession with the headstand/handstand poses?
• she is extremely anxious yet very social (seems incongruent)
• does she exaggerate her phobias in this memoir?   Seems like if she really did have these issues, she would be incapacitated and stuck. 
• for someone who has gone through a major loss, she seems very superficial.
• whininess regarding boys leaving home for college was annoying
• even when diagnosed with breast cancer, I did not feel any connection to her words.  It did not feel like she was writing from a deep, emotional place.

At the end of the day, she claims that yoga has transformed her into an awakened soul.  She is a firm believer in the healing powers of meditation regarding her breast cancer, lucky in just needing a lumpectomy and radiation, not chemo or mastectomy.  She is a more calm and centered being having found strength, balance, peace, self-awareness and self-love through yoga. 

This I can relate to. 

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Published: 2002
2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Rating: 4
Goodreads

First line is a doozy:   I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

The third paragraph of the first chapter starts with: But now, at the age of forty-one, I feel another birth coming on.

So this is a literary fictional memoir (could this be a new genre?) of a man who works for the U.S. State Department, is unmarried, changes countries of residence every three years and who finds relationships and intimacy difficult and complicated.

As the protagonist and narrator, Cal is believable.  He does not hold back.  His aim to to tell his story by tracing the gene mutation which produces hermaphrodites (herself/himself) two generations - back to his grandparent's ill-fated marriage.

It is also a story of love: falling madly in love, guilty love, what unrequited love will cause one to do, the fear of love, the evaporation of love.  There are intensely romantic, erotic and intimate scenes (think clarinet against a body).

It is a "coming of age" story - a time that is difficult for most people but even more complicated for Calliope.

It is tragedy - reminding me of the Greek tragedies from Sophocles or Euripides.

All in all, it is about the human condition, as all great literary fiction portrays:  birth, death and re-birth, love - consummated or not and the consequences of each, coming of age (innocence, ignorance, questioning, acceptance), intersex and its own complications (shame, stigma, isolation, victimization) and sexual discovery.

There are metaphysical elements that Eugenides employes which are absolutely believable.

As the narrator, Cal is very aware of the reader and at various times, speaks directly to us.

I have read his first published book, Virgin Suicides which was so-so.   I would recommend Middlesex.

Quotes:

What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death.

My mother used to say that the umbilical cord attaching her to her children had never been completely cut.  As soon as Dr. Philobosiam had severed the cord of flesh, another, spiritual connection had grown in its place….all this came in a kind of singing along the invisible cord, a singing such as whales do, crying out to one another in the deep.

Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) by Hilary Mantel
Published: 2009
2009 Man Booker Award
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I have started and stopped this book at least three times and decided one and for all that I would finish and see what all the hullaballoo was all about (winning of Man Booker award).

Somewhat familiar with Henry VIII's interesting life (from Philippa Gregory's historical fictions), I found Mantel's book slow going.  It took a while to get accustomed to her use of "he" instead of "I" as the protagonist and narrator Thomas Cromwell, a man who rose to become King Henry's behind-the-scenes, right hand man and therefore very influential in his court.

The pace and my interest picked up towards the end so despite thinking half-way through that I would NOT read the 2nd book in the trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies, I have in fact, downloaded the ibook and am fascinated to see what other royals he, Cromwell,  manages to manipulate in his ultra smooth manner.

Some favorite quotes are at the end of the book:

Thomas Cromwell's MO.  I wonder if Mantel wrote this early on as part of Cromwell's character sketch and had it posted next to her computer while writing.

It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the un-guessed at expression of his face.  It is the absence of facts that frightens people; the gap you open, into which they pout their fears, fantasies, desires.

He ponders the dead - of which he knows many and has been the cause of many:

It's the living that turn and chase the dead.  The long bones and souls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths; we edit their writings, we re-write their lives.

June 2013 Books

Ike: An American Hero by Michael Korda
Published: 2007
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Over the past 9 months I have been reading about WWII and the brave citizen soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperialist Japan.  This month, I wanted to learn more about the person who led the Allied forces to victory in Europe.  I also wanted to learn more about the post WWII era, (i.e. the Cold War).  Both goals were accomplished via two well-written biographies on the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and later, President of the United States from 1953 - 1961: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Bullet points of interest that I jotted down in the front of the book:

•  he had to deal with prima donna generals like Montgomery (huge jerk) and George Patton.
•  Love triangle?  Ike, Kay Summersby and Mamie (wife)
•  Korda makes constant comparisons to the Civil War such as Bastogne-Gettysburg and Ike-Grant.
•  During the war, he was a huge chain smoker - up to 4 packs a day!
• He is not buried in Arlington Cemetery, but rather in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas.

Jobs after the war:

• Leader of US Occupying Forces in Germany
• Army Chief of Staff (replaced Marshall)
• President of Columbia University
• 1st Commander of NATO forces
• President of the United States for 2 terms

Memoirs to add to the wish list?

By Eisenhower

• Crusade in Europe 
• At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends
• White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961

By Churchill

• 6 Volume History of World War II

Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen E. Ambrose
Published: 1983
Rating: 4
Goodreads

This is the second Ambrose book I've read - the first was Band of Brothers.  I really like his writing: clear, concise and interesting.  He gives an unbiased accounting of Eisenhower's good and bad decisions as General and President.

What I learned:

• Nixon was his VP for 8 years.  They had a formal, frosty relationship.  
• Eisenhower ended the Korean War with an armistice.  He could not see a way to win without WWIII and a battle with the Russians.
• He did not get sucked into other escalating areas such as Vietnam and Cuba.
• President over 8 years of peace and prosperity.
• He did not assert leadership during the Civil Rights Movement (I found this surprising).
• U-2 incident (spy plane over Russia) which ended in international embarrassment. 

Other Ambrose books to read:

• D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II
• Citizen Soldiers
• The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II
• Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals
• The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett
Published: 1980
Rating: 3
Goodreads

A quick read about a ruthless German spy in Egypt feeding information to Rommel, a British spy-catcher and a beautiful Jewess.

This fictitious account reminds me of his other recently read works: Hornet Flight and Eye of Needle. 

The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Published: 1972
Rating: 3
Goodreads

This book was referenced in Korda's biography on Ike, so I downloaded a sample, got hooked, bought the i-book and finished in a couple of days.

It is based on the true life account of the post-war activities of a ruthless SS officer, Otto Skorzeny, who set up "Odessa, the escape network for Nazi war criminals".

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Published: 1931
Rating: 5
Awards:  1932 Pulitzer Prize for Novel
Goodreads

I needed a break from WWII and felt hungry for good literary fiction.  I plucked this from my shelves and was hooked from the start.

The first book in her trilogy about the honest, hard-working farmer, Wang Lung and his family in pre-WWII China.  It was a best-seller in 1931 - 1932 and according to Wikipedia, the books apparently helped Americans consider the Chinese as allies in the upcoming conflict with Japan.

The second book of the trilogy, Sons was published in 1932 and the last book,  A House Divided in 1935.

Sons By Pearl S. Buck (# 2 in Good Earth trilogy)
Published: 1932
Rating: 3
Goodreads

As intimated by the title, this book focuses on the three sons of Wang Lung.  In contrast to the round characters in The Good Earth, the sons are flat and one-dimensional; therefore, not as interesting, hence the lower rating.

The social and historical context of pre-World War II China is what makes this trilogy fascinating.  The third son becomes a decorated soldier and with his inheritance, amasses an army and becomes a war lord in the north.  It is a very unstable time period as war lords constantly vie for more land, armies and power while revolution takes root and spreads in the south.

I know nothing of modern Chinese history so will probably read the third book in the trilogy to find out what happens to this family and their country.   I am already starting a list of books to read in the future:

• Thunder Out of China by Theodore White
• The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula
• China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II by E.B. Sledge

Audiobook: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Published: 2010
Rating: 5
Goodreads
Author web site

WOW - what an awesome, inspiring story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete (1936) turned US Army Air Force bombardier in WWII.

I did not know anything of this man's life before listening to the audiobook which made it that much more enjoyable.  His story needed to be told and I am glad Hillenbrand stumbled upon it while conducting research for her first book, Seabiscuit. 

What he endured during the war is truly mind-boggling, defies comprehension and elicited many verbal outbursts (OMG, no way, you've got to be kidding me, what? really?), complete with head shaking and slapping of the steering wheel while driving alone in my car.  Anyone viewing must've thought I was a bit loco.

I love Hillenbrand's writing - so clear, concise, strong and vivid.  One would never know she suffers terribly from chronic fatigue syndrome and is therefore completely housebound, living vicariously through her research and writing - read interview.

I've seen the movie Seabiscuit and loved it, but now want to read her book.  I am a big fan and can only hope that she finds another interesting subject worthy of her writing.

Helmet For My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie
Published: 1957
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Another WOW book about a budding, 21-year old journalist Robert Leckie, who enlisted in the US Marine Corp in January 1942 and fought at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester and Peleliu where he was wounded by a blast concussion and evacuated to a field hospital.   He is one of the main characters in the Hanks/Spielburg HBO mini series, The Pacific.

He decided to write this memoir in 1951 after seeing the Broadway musical, South Pacific, in order to "tell the story of how it really was.  I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical." (wikipedia article).  He accomplished his goal.

A beautifully written literary memoir about how one goes from being a young patriotic man-boy to a well-trained killer/soldier, ready to fight a ferocious and brutal Japanese enemy - for his country, yes, but even more so, for his fellow Marines - esprit de corps.

Some of my favorite passages:

A soldier's pack is like a woman's purse: it is filled with his personality. 

And there is terror, coming from the interaction of trial and tedium: the first, shaking a man as the wind in the treetops; the second, eroding him as the flood at the roots.  Each fresh trial leaves a man more shaken than the last, and each period of tedium - with its time for speculative dread - leaves his foundations worn lower, his roots less firm for the next trial.

Upon seeing a detached hand:

I turned to go, and as I did, nearly stepped on someone's hand.  "Excuse me," I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one.  It lay there alone - open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary.  I could not tear my eyes from it.  The hand is the artisan of the soul.  It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart.  A man has no faculty more human than his hand, none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive.  To see this hand lying alone, as though contemptuously cast aside, no longer a part of a man, no longer his help, was to see way in all it wantonness; it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending, and it was to see men at their eternal worst, turning upon one another, tearing one another, clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride-possessed. 

His descriptions of living and waging war in the jungle are unforgettable.

After publishing his memoir, he went on to be a prolific writer of military history.   The following are ones that I would like to read:

• Strong Men Armed: The U.S. Marines Against Japan (1962)
• Conflict: The History of the Korean War (1963)
• Challenge for the Pacific: 6 Month Battle of Guadalcanal (1968)
• Delivered From Evil: The Saga of WWII (1987)
• The March to Glory: Battle of Chosin Reservoir (1990)
• Okinawa: The Last Battle of WWII (1995)
• Wars of America (1998)

May 2013 Books

My foray into WWII continues.  I am also reading posts from last month's Poetry Blog Tour, hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.

Hornet Flight by Ken Follett
Published: 2002
Rating: 4
Goodreads

A quick read by the master of historical fiction.  This tale is about the Danish resistance during WWII.  It is a critical time in the war - Germany has invaded Russia and Churchill fears Russia will fall soon unless the British can divert Germany's mighty Luftwaffe's (air force) focus back to protecting the homeland.  Thus an all-out blitz of RAF's Bomber Command is scheduled but they need intelligence on Germany's radar capability and how to elude it.  The main radar station is in Denmark.

The afterward tells the important and often un-sung work done by courageous resistance fighters:

The Danish Resistance eventually became one of the most successful underground movements in Europe.  It provided a continuous flow of military intelligence to the Allies, undertook thousands of acts of sabotage against the occupying forces, and provided secret routes by which almost all Denmark's Jews escaped from the Nazis. 

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Published: 1951
Rating: 5
Prizes:  1952 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Goodreads

Excellent book - I loved it and would highly recommend.

While I decided to read The Caine Mutiny because of the WWII connection, I would actually categorize this novel as a psychological thriller with WWII as its backdrop. It is a story of how rational men, confined in a small space (minesweeper) under extreme pressure and operating under strict military rules of behavior within a set chain of command will act in the hands of a madman.   A similar story could be told about adult behavior in a strict, religious construct or within a family ruled by a tyrannical, psychotic and abusive father.

What makes this work compelling is that Herman Wouk's experience in WWII on two destroyer minesweepers is captured so succinctly that the reader knows what it was like for the sailors and officers:

Another day and another passed of rough seas and lowering skies; of rolling and pitching, cold winds, and cold damp eating into bones softened by tropic warmth; of a treadmill of watches in a wheelhouse dank and gloomy by day and danker and gloomier by night; of sullen silent sailors and pale dog-tired officers, of meals in the wardroom eaten in silence, with the captain at the head of the table ceaselessly rolling the balls in his fingers and saying nothing except an infrequent grumpy sentence about the progress of the work requests....the world became narrowed to a wobbling iron shell on a waste of foamy gray, and the business of the world was staring out at empty water or making red-ink insertions in the devil's own endless library of mildewed unintelligible volumes. 

Back on the ship after shore leave:

There would be hundreds of thousands of miles of steaming, and probably many battles, before the ship would come into these waters again with its bow pointed the other way.  The sun, dead ahead, sinking beneath ragged banks of dark clouds, shot out great spokes of red light which fanned across the western sky.  It was an uncomfortable similitude of the flag of Japan....Willie closed his eyes, listened with pleasure to the hum of the ventilators, and felt in his bones the vibration of the main engines, transmitted through the springs of his bunk.  The ship was alive again. He felt warm, and safe, and at home.  Drowsiness came over him almost at once, and he slept deliciously. 

Eccentricities, those fungi of loneliness and boredom, began to flourish on the Caine.

The awesome responsibility that a ship captain feels:

...a shrinking of his personal identity, and a stretching out of his nerve ends to all the spaces and machinery of his ship.  He was less free than before.  He developed the apprehensive listening ears of a young mother; the ears listened on in his sleep; he never quite slept, not the way he had before.  He had the sense of having been reduced from an individual to the sort of brain of a composite animal, the crew and ship combined.  The reward for these disturbing sensations came when he walked the decks.  Power seemed to flow out of the plates into his body. 

The psychological affect on the protagonist, Willie Keith, serving under a strange, psychotic captain named Queeg:

Willie began to develop a deep, dull hate for Queeg. It was nothing like the boyish pique he had felt against Captain De Vriess.  It was like the hate of a husband for a sick wife, a mature, solid hate, caused by an unbreakable tie to a loathsome person, and existing not as a self-justification but for the rotten gleam of pleasure it gave off in the continuing gloom.

I recognize the same dual-time disconnect that Styron brings up in Sophie's Choice - see post.

Willie stared at the holocaust for a minute or so, while a warm fragrant breeze fanned his face...then Willie sat at his place again, and dug his spoon into the mound of white cream attractively laced with brown.  It occurred to him that there was an unsettling contrast between himself, eating ice cream, and marines on Namur a few thousand yards away, being blown up.  He was not sufficiently unsettled to stop eating the ice cream, but the thought worked around like grit in his mind.

And an example of a kairos moment in Willie's life:

With the smoke of the dead sailor's cigar wreathing around him, Willie passed to thinking about death and life and luck and God.  Philosophers are at home with such thoughts, perhaps, but for the other people it is actual torture when these concepts - not the words, the realities - break through the crust of daily occurrences and grip the soul.  A half hour of such racking meditation can change the ways of a lifetime.  Willie Keith crushing the stub in the ashtray was not the Willie who had lit the cigar.  That boy was gone for good.

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood With Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson
Published: 2010
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I picked this book up in March at the Shakespeare & Co bookstore on the upper East Side in NYC.

The book focuses on three Americans who made London their home during the darkest days of the war.  They were immersed in British politics and society and used their influence to shape policy and public opinion in both England and America.

What I learned from this highly recommended book:

• Life in London during the worst of the Blitz when the city was bombed for 57 straight nights.
• The resiliency of the British people and the amazing volunteerism that arose to tackle domestic problems that the government could not handle such as the crucial task of making the numerous shelters bearable.
• Changing of the US ambassador to England from isolationist Joseph Kennedy to New Hampshire governor, John Gilbert Winant, who became a well-known and beloved figure to the British monarchy, prime minister, military leaders and general public.  
• England became the base of US military operations which meant the enormous influx of American GI's in British cities and countryside.  Despite speaking the same language, the cultural and stereotypical barriers were huge.  The British described American soldiers as "over-paid, over-sexed and over here" while Americans remembered the British as the "murderous redcoats who tried to destroy the infant United States during the Revolutionary War".  There was also a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the British colonial policies; the Americans were interested in freeing Europe/Far East from Nazi/Japanese tyranny, not upholding the British Empire. 
• FDR made unilateral decisions in foreign policy, working with Churchill directly and by-passing Winant's role - much to his frustration.
• Two other Americans were W. Averell Harriman, head of the Lend-Lease program and Edward R. Murrow, head of CBS news in Europe.  He produced the famous radio broadcasts that educated America on the European War.
• Very sad and shocking end to Winant's life.  

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Published: 1978
Rating: 4
Goodreads

Another quick read where Follett surmises that one of Hitler's most trusted and ruthless spies, code name Needle, has discovered the truth regarding the Patton ruse, meant to trick the Germans into thinking the cross-channel invasion would be at Calais, rather than the beaches of Normandy.

British intelligence track The Needle to a small island where he is going to alert Germany via radio broadcast and then rendezvous with a U-boat for the trip back home.  The only person in his way is a beautiful, courageous young mother resulting in a nail biting ending.

December 2012 Books

The Final Storm: A Novel of the War in the Pacific by Jeff Shaara
Published: 2011
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book focuses on the brave marines who fought in the Pacific Theatre, specifically the Battle of Okinawa.  Lasting over two grueling months, this battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific.

WOW - is what I wrote in my book journal.  In particular, the last chapters were gripping as the reader sees, hears and smells the battle from a marine's point of view.  It was a brutal and bloody fight for a key island only 400 miles from Japan.  Shaara writes vividly of the napalm used in flamethrowers, primarily to kill the Japanese soldiers hiding in caves.

The fight against Japan was different than in Europe as all rules of modern warfare were thrown out the window.  Additionally, the Japanese soldier was unlike any seen before; fanatical where death, either of himself or his enemy was the end game.  In contrast, US Marines saw the war as a duty or job and wanted to go home when it was finished.

There was also a suicidal culture within the Japanese army that went from the highest commander to the lowliest soldier.  They felt death was preferable to being captured.  Thus Japanese snipers were around, not to kill marines, but to kill fellow soldiers who were surrendering.

One gets a real sense of not only the physical challenges of this battle but also the psychological and emotional effect on the marines.

After reading this book, I began watching the HBO series, The Pacific.   I am also reading the book written by Hugh Ambrose, son of Stephen Ambrose who wrote Band of Brothers.  Both series and book are excellent.

Audiocourse: World War II: A Military and Social History by Professor Thomas Childers from The Great Courses
Rating: 5
Great Courses link

I would highly recommend this audio course as Professor Childers delivers the material in a very organized yet interesting and engaging way.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen  (audio book)
Published: 1817 posthumously
Rating: 4
Goodreads

While not my favorite Austen novel, I did enjoy it.  I listened to the audio book while driving in the car and found myself laughing at Austen's witty, sarcastic and ironic scenes.

It was interesting to hear Austen insert herself as the author in the work - giving commentary on fiction writers, on her heroine, Catherine Moreland and on the reader.

I liked seeing how much Catherine was affected by the books she read, in particular, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, a contemporary author to Austen and founder of the Gothic genre, which Austen parodies in this work.

Clever first and last sentences:

No one who had ever seen Catherine Moreland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be a heroine.

And

...I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience. 

I have now read all of Austen's six main works.  The order of preference is:

• Tied for first: Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion
• Tied of second:  Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility
• Third:  Emma
• Fourth:  Northanger Abbey

This is my least favorite Austen book as at the end of the day,  I was not invested in Catherine's fate - certainly not like other Austen heroines: Elizabeth Bennett, Anne Elliott, Elinor Dashwood or Fanny Price.  Also, I did not find Henry Tilney a likable hero; he seemed superficial, misogynistic and unattractively sarcastic, quite unlike Mr. Darcy, Captain Wentworth, Edward Ferras or Edmund Bertram. 

The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Lord of the Rings #2)
Published: 1954
Rating:5
Goodreads

My review of the trilogy is below.

The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings #3)
Published: 1955
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This epic, high-fantasy series was written over a dozen years, during the tumultuous backdrop of WWII and after.  Many have tried to read it as an allegory of the war which Tolkien vehemently denies in the forward of The Fellowship of the Ring as he very much disliked that particular literary device.  Instead, his primary motive was to try his hand "at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them."   I would say he hit a grand slam.

It is the ultimate heroes quest whose main characters exhibit such honorable traits as courage, sacrifice, perseverance, and faith, even in the darkest hour.  It is a story of an unlikely fellowship, a band, or an alliance on a quest to rescue their world from evil, tyranny and domination (does sound a lot like the fight against Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan).  True victory lay in the hands of two most unusual and improbably heroes - a hobbit by the name of Frodo Baggins and his loyal friend, Samwise Gamgee who is the definition of an unsung hero.

One of my daughter's friends, and avid LOTR fan, suggested The Silmarillion, published posthumously by Tolkien's son, Christopher.  It is an account of the world prior to the LOTR.  I may tackle this book next year.

Heracles by Euripides
Published: 420 BC
Translated by Philip Vellacott/Penguin Classics publ. 1963
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Tragedy of tragedies - another account of Hera's jealousy, her evil meddling and resulting mayham and death.  It is also a surprising story of the value of a loyal and true friend.

Medea by Euripides
Published: 431 BC
Translated by Philip Vellacott/Penguin Classics publ. 1963
Rating: 5
Goodreads

Tragic play in which events are once again, initiated by Hera.  This time, however,  it is  because of favoritism.

Extreme and brutal violence, at the hands of a woman, Medea, is peppered throughout the play.  Gifted in magic, emotions (love and hate) drive her actions and no one is spared.  She is the epitome of the "woman spurned." I cannot think of another woman in literature that is driven so mad with jealousy, hatred and grief that she becomes abhorrent, inhuman and truly evil in her revenge.  Dumb Jason.

November 2012 Books

My foray into WWII continues with Jeff Shaara's excellent historical fiction series.

The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II (#1) by Jeff Shaara
Published: 2006
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book focuses on the North African conflict of the Allied forces under General Dwight D. Eisenhower against the formidable German general Erwin Rommel, nicknamed The Desert Fox.  Other larger-than-life generals who make their mark in this conflict are General George Patton (US) and General Bernard Montgomery (British).  From North Africa, the war goes to Sicily and then into Italy.

The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II (#2) by Jeff Shaara
Published: 2008
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book covers the planning and execution of Operation Overlord or the D-Day cross-channel invasion up to the Battle of The Bulge.  While perhaps common knowledge to many, I did not know that part of the success of D-Day was the German's acceptance of an elaborately constructed ruse - Patton's command of a fake army intending to invade Calais.  I also did not know that horrific weather threatened to postpone the invasion and that it was up to Eisenhower to make the final determination whether or not to proceed.  Once the green light was given, he wrote and carried in his pocket, a very short speech taking full responsibility if the invasion had failed.  Thank God he never had to deliver it.  I couldn't read fast enough.

No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II (#3) by Jeff Shaara
Published: 2009
Rating: 5
Goodreads

The book begins with Hitler's last counter-offensive which took the Allied forces by surprise and became the infamous Battle of the Bulge. It ends with his suicide, the surrender of Germany and the disclosure of the Nazi's "final solution" to the Jewish problem.  Another riveting book.

Over Veteran's Day, a number of military movies were being shown on TV.  My husband and I watched George C. Scott in his iconic role as Patton.

Nothing was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison
Published: 2009
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I picked this up from the library and once started, I read within a couple of days.   What I found the most interesting was her clear articulation of the difference between grief and clinical depression.  I wrote down many quotes for further reflection and perhaps a post on Josh's blog.  I may need to purchase this book for my library.

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1) by J. R. R. Tolkien
Published: 1954
Rating: 5
Goodreads

I love the LOTR trilogy movies by Peter Jackson, have been to New Zealand and seen some of the landscape that was filmed in the movies but have never read the books.  I did try several years ago but got hopelessly bored and stopped.

I am not sure what is different now - maybe my reading of classics over the past couple of years has heightened the appreciation of good prose.  After reading and thoroughly enjoying The Hobbit, it was time to try The Fellowship of the Ring again.  I loved it!

October 2012 Books

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy #1)
Published: 2010
Rating: 5
Goodreads

LOVED IT!  This well researched historical novel focuses on the events leading up to WWI or the Great War, the war itself, the Bolshevik revolution and the woman's suffrage movement. These monumental and world-changing events are told through the interrelated lives of five families from the US, Wales, Russia, Germany and England.

I had my ipad nearby to check facts and read more about certain events.  Having never been interested in history, I find myself  wanting to learn more. 

Winter of the World by Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy #2)
Published: 2012
Rating: 5
Goodreads

LOVED IT as much as the first.  This book covers the brief interlude between the two World Wars and WWII.  Once again, I could not put it down.  After finishing, I watched the HBO series Band of Brothers (loved it!) and read the book.

Historical fiction is my new favorite genre.  I am currently reading Jeff Shaara's The Rising Tide which covers the North African conflict in WWII.  I know absolutely nothing about this and again, finding it fascinating.  My husband says I need to watch the movie Patton with George C Scott which is set in this time period.

Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
Published: 1992
Rating: 5
Goodreads

This book chronicles the amazing and heroic journey of the men from Easy Company, the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne from enlistment to the grueling training which few survived; to the drop on D-Day into enemy territory, to the gallant fighting in key battles such as the Battle of the Bulge to the taking of Hitler's Eagle' Nest towards the end of the war.

I loved the HBO series and plan to watch HBO's The Pacific to learn about the fight against the Japanese. 

Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing by Virginia Woolf  edited by Jeanne Schulkind
Published: 1976
Rating: 4
Goodreads

I have started a collection of Virginia Woolf's writings and am thinking of doing a study of her life and works using Hermione Lee's critically acclaimed biography as the guide to reading her diary, essays, short stories and novels in chronological order.  I think it would be a fascinating study of a most unique and brilliant literary mind. 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Published: 1937
Rating: 5
Goodreads

I read this in anticipation of the movie from Peter Jackson that is coming out in December.  A quick read which felt like a reunion with old friends from the Lord of the Rings trilogy (meaning movies as I have yet to read the books): Bilbo and The Ring, Gollum, Gandalf and Elrond of Rivendell.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

Published: 1960
Read: 2011
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5
Review: Goodreads
Lists: Pultizer Prize (1961); 1,001 books







Harper Lee’s first and only novel published in 1960 was an immediate success, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and made into a movie with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in 1962 (in my Netflix queue). 

The story is told in the first person by an older Scout, looking back on her life growing up in Maycomb, Alabama with her father whom she calls Atticus, her older brother, Jem and their cook, Calpurnia.  Her mother died when she was young.  She is a likable protagonist, a tomboy with spirit, gumption and a lively imagination.  The most excitement in their idyllic, sheltered life comes from trying to draw out the reclusive and mysterious Boo Radley until Atticus takes on a case which polarizes the community and brings racial tension straight into Jem and Scout’s world.  In short. Atticus is asked to defend Tom Robinson, an innocent black man accused of raping a “white trash” young woman.  There are no witnesses, it is her word against his.

While I have wanted to read this book after finishing other books about adolescents such as Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, it went to the top of my TBR list after seeing her name in the dedication page of another recently read book, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.  In fact, To Kill a Mockingbird is somewhat autobiographical as Lee grew up in the Deep South, loved to read (like Scout), her father was a lawyer (like Atticus) and one character, Dill was modeled after Capote.

Moral lessons abound within this quick read:

Atticus to Scout – on trying to teach her how to get along with people she may not agree with or understand:  

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Miss Maudie (neighbor) to Scout about Atticus: 

"Atticus Finch is the same person in his house as he is in public" and "People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."

Atticus to Scout on why he took the Robinson case: 

"This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscious.  I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man" and "before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscious."

Jem and Scout had watched the trial and with the black/white and right/wrong idealism of youth, he was angry at the verdict. Atticus' explanation to Jem:

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.  As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it.  Whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

When Jem and Scout are talking about classes in Southern society: 

J – I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I’ve got it figured out.  There’s four kinds of folks in the world.  There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump and the Negroes. 

S - Naw, Jem, I think ther's just one kind of folks.  Folks.

J - That's what I thought too when I was your age.  If there's one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other?  If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?

Notable passages

For some reason, I love this sentence (about Aunt Alexandra's husband):

She married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock by the river wondering if his trout lines were full.

About Dill:

Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.

Great description of Maycomb (long but I couldn't pare down - all good):

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.  In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.  Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square.  Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning.  Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

People moved slowly then.  They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything.  A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer.  There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaires of Maycomb County.

On Scout's second cousin:

Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean.  He was the most boring child I ever met.

When Jem and Scout visited Calpurnia's church:

The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we entered the church yard - Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac talcum.

On why Aunt Alexandra was so irritable on the Lord's Day:

I guess it was her Sunday corset.  She was not fat, but solid, and she chose protective garments that drew up her bosom to giddy heights, pinched in her waist, flared out her rear, and managed to suggest that Aunt Alexandra's was once an hour-glass figure.  From any angle, it was formidable.

On being a Southern woman:

Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights never became clear to me.

I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently and drank cool water.