Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World

Yes, another book about the sinking of the Titanic. However, Hugh Brewster's Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage is much more than the story of the world's most famously doomed passenger line. What Brewster does so well here is recreate the world, circa 1912. In particular, Brewster illustrates for the reader time and again how small the world was one hundred years ago and how interconnected the lives, loves, and business dealings of the ship's richest passengers were.

Brewster painstakingly profiles such notable passengers as such business elite as John Jacob Astor, Isidor and Ida Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim; President Taft's closest aide, Major Archibald Butt; future Olympic gold medalist Norris Williams; tennis champion Karl Behr (Williams's future Davis Cup partner); artist Frank Millet; actress Dorothy Gibson (the "prettiest girl"); the famed dress maker Lady Duff Gordon; and, of course, the Unsinkable Molly Brown. In Brewster's richly crafted history, readers see the events of the Titanic, as well as the larger world, through the eyes and correspondence of these individuals.

Although the individual portraits are excellent, Brewster is perhaps at his finest in describing the sinking of the great ship. He makes clear from the beginning how chaos reigned; how completely and utterly unprepared the entire ship's company was for such a disaster. The first lifeboats went off with a mere handful of passengers - men and women - and those had to be begged, and some quite literally dragged, aboard. Most believed they were going for a pleasure cruise and would return to the ship in the morning. It is certainly true that there were not enough lifeboats, but there were also not enough people willing to enter them, at least until the window for doing so was past.

Overall, Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage is an excellent recounting of the Titanic, her passengers, and her era. Four stars.

Friday, September 25, 2015

Somewhere in France

Not long after The Great War begins, Lady Elizabeth Neville-Ashford defies her family, ditches her title, learns to drive, and joins the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps - where she is posted somewhere in France as an ambulance driver. Not coincidentally, she is attached the the field hospital where her older brother's dearest friend is a surgeon. Predictably, romance ensues.

I could not shake the feeling that Jennifer Robson's Somewhere in France was vaguely familiar. But not until I read my entry on The Walnut Tree, did I realize how similar the stories are. (To recap, Lady Elspeth Douglas defies her family, lays her title aside, and enlists in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in The Walnut Tree.)

Still, I rather liked Somewhere in France. Yes, there's a war on and, yes, men are dying, but Robson's writing is light and quick, and the characters are generally likeable. For these reasons, it's a quick read. The plot was obvious from the opening paragraphs, but Robson does bring a new angle to women's work in World War I. That said, the verdict is still out on whether I'll read the next book in the series.

Monday, September 21, 2015

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Upon the death of his great-uncle, Edmund de Waal inherits a collection of very old, very small Japanese netsuke (including a hare with amber eyes). de Waal knows that the collection was first purchased by a distant forebear living in Paris in the mid-nineteeth century, and made their way to his branch of the family tree as a wedding present to his great-grandparents, the staggeringly wealthy - and Jewish - Viennese couple Viktor and Emmy Ephrussi. Smuggled to safety by a former employee under the noses of the Nazis during World War II, the netsuke are practically all that remain of the Ephrussi empire, which, at its height, stretched from Odessa to Vienna and Paris.

de Waal, not incidentally, is a sculptor. As such, The Hare with the Amber Eyes is as much an art history as a family history. The art history particularly consumes the first part of the book (Paris), to the extent that I would suggest anyone interested in reading this book for the descriptions of Imperial Austria and inter-war Austria (which are, like de Waal's relatives, simply staggering), should skip the first portion. Where the book truly shines is, as I said, in the second portion (Vienna). Here, de Waal takes readers on an architectural and cultural tour of the the Austro-Hungarian empire (and later Austria) including, necessarily and tragically, the rising anti-Semitism that eventually leads to the downfall of the Ephrussi fortune.

Because of my personal interest in Japan, I found the third (Tokyo) section almost as intriguing as Vienna. Again, de Waal does a great job of combining the socio-cultural aspects of the larger society (in this case, post-war Japan) with his family's history and, of course, the netsuke.

I learned of de Waal's memoir from Glenn Kurtz's Three Minutes in Poland, who describes the Ephrussis once, in comparison to his own family who were, "unlike the Ephrussi family...not part of the cultural aristocracy of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Europe." They - and The Hare with the Amber Eyes - lived up to their billing, although I imagine that, similar to Kurtz's own work, this one also has a somewhat limited audience.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee's sequel/prequel to To Catch a Mockingbird, is probably the most anticipated release of the year, if not longer. So much has already been written about it - Say it ain't so: Atticus Finch, a racist!? - that it's difficult to know how to begin.

But first, a summary: sometime circa 1954, 26-year-old Jean Louise "Scout" Finch returns home to Maycomb, Alabama, to visit her ill and aging father, Atticus. (Jem, we learn, has died suddenly of a heart condition two years earlier.) The visit, and Jean Louise's very identity, are thrown into turmoil by the revelation that her esteemed father is a member of the citizen's council, a less-than-august body with the goal of reversing the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. Jean Louise, now a wise New Yorker, is unable to accept the explanation she is given for her father's participation, chiefly that not to belong would jeopardize his standing and work within the community.

My thoughts: People are way to overwrought about this. I didn't come away with the impression that Atticus was a raging racist, unlike many of his time and place. I did come away with the impression that he was sick and old and somewhat resistant to change, but by no means radically so.

In many ways, I was glad of the controversy, as it kept me reading, searching for the "smoking gun" when I might otherwise have given up: Go Set a Watchman is mediocre at best. The character's feel half-developed, the plot seesaws between Jean Louise's present visit and various, somewhat random, memories of her childhood, and perhaps most irritating, the first person and third person, sometimes within the same paragraph and almost always without warning. Why was her uncle sometimes "Uncle Jack" and sometimes "Dr. Finch?" Did she really call her father "Atticus?" Did an editor/publisher really reject this half a century ago and, if so, how did they have so much more sense than the current one? (I know the answer to this last question: the publisher is laughing all the way to the bank.)

On a four-star scale, this gets a two, because it wasn't actually dreck. Just really boring and somewhat sloppily written. It won't be making any appearances on my best of list later this year, that's for sure.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Carry Me Home

The world is on the cusp of war, suspended between the deprivations of the Depression and rationing of World War II, but for Earl and his older brother Jimmy, life is a series of small-town adventures - hunting, fishing, and drinking beer chief among them. Everything changes when Jimmy enlists in the National Guard on his 21st birthday, and is shipped to the Philippines.

Thus opens Carry Me Home, a nostalgic novel about how things used to be. Its narrator is 16-year-old Earl, by his own accounting an "idiot" since suffering from a serious brain fever as a baby. And while Earl struggles to understand what thoughts are appropriate to speak aloud and how to make change for customers at his family's grocery store, he has no trouble understanding the trials and tribulations of those around him.

Sandra Kring's novel moves seamlessly from laugh-out-loud funny (her funeral scene rivals that of Twenties Girl for hilarity) to heartrendingly sad, all told through the inimitable voice of Earl "Earwig" Gunderman. For all its emotion, Carry Me Home is not overwrought, and hopefulness emerges as the dominant feeling. Well written and easy-to-read, this novel offers a unique perspective on World War II - and on life.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

If a Pirate I Must Be...: The True Story of "Black Bart," King of the Caribbean Pirates

Richard Sander's history of Bartholomew Roberts, aka John Roberts, aka “Black Bart," gets off to a bit of a slow start before taking off, in much the same way as Roberts' own career.

Unlike Blackbeard, whose likeness and story is plastered over much of the Caribbean, and Captain Morgan, who warranted his own run, I didn't actually know anything about Roberts before I read this book. Pirate tales being a bit removed from my usual reading, I can't even say how I came across it. I started it much, much earlier this summer, and abandoned it for a time, feeling a bit bogged down by the details of Robert's upbringing and time as a mate on a slaver. Picking it back up on a recent flight, I discovered I'd quit at the wrong time - within a few pages, Roberts was a full-fledged pirate captain, and his story became much more interesting.

What Sanders does especially well is to tell the story of pirates - how they came into existence, their codes and rules, the necessities of punch (sugar ships were especially vulnerable to pirates, sugar being one of the key ingredients in the pirates' favorite drink), and how they operated as, essentially, a society unto themselves. In this way, Roberts is an actor in a much larger story, and one that is far more interesting than any single pirate's biography. Sanders also provides insight into the relations between the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires, as well as the early operation of the slave trade, particularly the deplorable conditions on the ships - for crew, as well as slaves. His conclusion: it's no wonder so many sailors deserted the slavers for the life of a pirate.

Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America

Rambles and scrambles in North and South America chronicles the travels of Sir Edward Robert Sullivan throughout - you guessed it - North and South America in 1850-51. How and where I first heard of it, I cannot say, but it's been on my reading list for sometime. The review, alas, will be a bit mixed.

Working in the author's favor is Sullivan's prescience.  Of the Indians he writes, "the Indians say that they themselves and the buffalo will go under together, and they are certainly running a neck and neck race for it now." Clearly this came to pass, and pretty much in these terms. Sullivan sees America and Americans with a clear-eyed practicality, particularly as it related to politics. For example, "It is a well-known political axiom in the States, that they never elect a first-rate man to the presidency; they prefer a third or fourth-rate man..." I also liked his take on the heavily armed population he encountered: "If liberty is consists in a man being allowed to shoot and stab his neighbour on the smallest provocation, and to swagger drunk about the streets, then certainly the Crescent city is the place in which to seek it." Indeed,the more things change... And though the portions of Rambles and Scrambles set in South America were a notch below those in North America, Sullivan does hit on the nail on the head a couple of times, as when he notes the "ruinous effects of yearly presidents supplanted by annual revolutions" in parts of South America.

Sullivan's language is vivid, his characterizations colorful, his anecdotes amusing. I particularly liked the story of being searched in New Orleans when he declared he had no "implements" upon his person, and also of the pigeons and peacocks at the Havana theater. Unfortunately, Sullivan is equally thorough in his descriptions of flora and fauna, sea breezes, and navigational techniques. This is understandable given that his audience of Englishmen had not - and likely would not - see this New World for themselves. For today's reader, it makes for rather uneven pacing: trudging through feet of prairie snow with moccasins and Indian guides (usually "half-breeds" who speak French, rather than English) is amazing. Learning the name of every tree and bird encountered on the banks of the Mississippi, less so.

Sullivan's undertaking - both the travels and the writing - is impressive. Ultimately, Rambles and Scrambles makes for better skimming than close reading, and is best enjoyed by American history buffs and those who enjoy travelogues, even (or maybe especially) featuring places and people long since vanished.

Three stars.