kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 21, 2020 19:49:06 GMT -8
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 21, 2020 21:33:59 GMT -8
I’m about 67% through the book. When Mr. Kung gets to this he’ll likely spot some of the same problems. At least I think of them as problems. The books is kinda-sorta written by the author via skimming a few diaries. And this can produce some information that gives you a real sense of time and place. And it often works for that. But it also often seems like it’s just gossip. Listen, Randolph Churchill may have been a vile little creature. But why should I care? And why should I care about the love life of one of Churchill’s private secretaries? It feels like filler…or (as I suspect) it’s geared for the ladies. Still, there’s a lot of good stuff in it. The visit by Harry Hopkins was an interesting interlude. But his description of the ongoing Battle of Britain is choppy. You get little sense of the scale of it. It all seems written in such a drive-by fashion. He describes a lot of bombed-out cities but it doesn’t seem to be adding up into a big picture.
There's a lot of skipping around to different points of view, including the Germans. But it can make for a somewhat disjointed narrative.
And there’s a lot from Mary Churchill in this. Great, she kept a diary. But much of it comes across as filler. She has a few good observations but certainly not enough to justify her prominence. I get the overall impression that Clementine Churchill was a remarkable lady. Scrap the son and daughter and give us more Clemmie. Also, although Lord Beaverbrook is central to the story, he’s written in such a way that he seems more of a cardboard cutout than a real person. I think the reliance on quotes, and not enough on filling in the narrative with observation and analysis, weakens this book…and weakens many modern books where authors seem to be afraid to death to have an opinion. It was interesting that Harry Hopkins, although certainly intent on remaining objective, eventually threw in with Churchill 100%. Even the king in his diary got around to writing “I could not have a better Prime Minister." Lend/Lease is about to pass the final hurdle of the Senate. There were other hurdles to overcome. A careful-minded William Averell Harriman was sent to England by Roosevelt to oversee the aid. Although Churchill could be personally persuasive, back home in America, Washington was asking tough questions. Harriman resolved that “I must attempt to convince the Prime Minister that I or someone must convey to our people his war strategy or else he cannot expect to get maximum aid.” The strategy up to that point had been to build as many planes and train as many pilots as they could as fast as possible to ward off an invasion, and also to persuade Roosevelt to provide aid as soon as possible. |
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Post by timothylane on Jun 22, 2020 6:04:00 GMT -8
Books based on diaries can work. I used to have a 2-volume set of books by the British historian Sir Arthur Bryant that were based on, and heavily quoted from, the diaries of Alan Brooke, who was CIGS for most of World War II. Before that he had commanded II Corps in the BEF. So this covers a great deal of material.
In addition, one of my many books on the Nuremberg trials was Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg by Bradley Smith. It was based on the diaries of the American primary judge at the trials, Biddle, though I don't recall him directly quoting so much.
Of course, there are also many books that contain actual diaries, though even those are often edited to exclude material that doesn't really need to be published.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 22, 2020 6:29:05 GMT -8
One of the great things about the 19th century was that everyone kept a diary or journal. Some of them are terrible some are moderately ok and a very few are quite excellent. For the most part holding to the old saw, "90% of everything is crap". Over time the quality stuff floats to the top. Mary Boykin Chestnut diary of the war is one go those as is Arthur Lyon Fremantle diary of his travels in the south in 1863. If you never read anything about the war these two will give you a broad overlook of the issues outside of slavery that shaped the decisions to secede and fight.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 22, 2020 6:36:32 GMT -8
Judgment at Nuremberg is one of the movies that everyone should view every few years for it educational value. It is IMHO one of the best Stanley Kramer ever did. That these vile creatures walking in human form received any trial and not summary execution speaks to the quality of western virtues. We need to remind ourselves and ask, could any war criminal of a similar nature receive a fair trial in today's hyper climate of political correctness?
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 22, 2020 6:55:37 GMT -8
Break it to me gently. Are you trying to tell me that Facebook doesn’t count?
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Post by artraveler on Jun 22, 2020 7:16:42 GMT -8
In a word---------no
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 22, 2020 7:20:09 GMT -8
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Post by timothylane on Jun 22, 2020 8:56:19 GMT -8
I had an edition of Mary Chesnut's diaries. I also had an edited version of J. B. Jones's A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, which is a highly regarded source for what was happening in Richmond. (This includes the inflation that put so much out of reach, which Jones complained about.) Jones apparently was unhappy with Jews (as is often the case when times are hard), but the editor mostly edited that stuff. I don't really much miss it as long as one is aware (for historical knowledge) that it was in fact there.
There were also memoirs that may have been at least partly based on diaries. I read a few of those, too, many (but not all) by staff officers.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 26, 2020 9:28:26 GMT -8
I thought The Splendid and the Vile started well. But I admit to getting a bit bored with it. The last three quarters of the book felt a little de rigueur to me. It became somewhat lifeless and repetitive.
Although you can find plenty of fawning 5-stars reviews at Amazon, I thought this one-star review was apt: “I'm a big fan of Eric Larson and enjoyed most of his books. Lately, he's been slipping. And this one is simply phoned in. It reads like a cut and paste job. Larson found a bunch of letters and diaries from people around Churchill and interspersed snippets from them among bombing raids. Or so it seems. There is no real narrative.”
That’s exactly what you’d be reading if you picked up this book. If you’ve read other accounts of Churchill or the Battle of Britain, this one is entirely unnecessary.
But for a few pages there at the start, there was an immediacy and interest. It was a pleasantly immersive documentary. And then it slowly went stale.
These are the facts. You could say it’s a matter of taste. But if you have exceptional taste to begin with, you can sort through the groupthink and get at the truth of it as this reviewer did.
But I wouldn’t give the book one star. I would give it three. Some of the personal details were interesting. But at the same time, many of them were not. At the end of the day, I would defer to Mr. Kung who can no doubt tell you of some better books to read on the war and on Churchill. I wouldn’t waste my time on this one unless you can pick it up for free at the library.
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