The Eve of War

I am a little over halfway through this biography, and am now just to the events of summer 1938 to August 1939--those leading to the very edge of what would become the most destructive war in human history. I am struck by Hitler's success in essentially blackmailing the world, in order to annex first Austria, then the German-Czechoslovakian territory of the Sudetenland, and then Czechoslovakia itself, all in the space of less than a year. The European nations were so afraid of another war, such as what they endured in 1914-18, that they sought appeasement at nearly all costs. The result, of course, was only to strengthen Germany's position and truly set the stage for the next conflict.

I think there's a lesson there.

Hitler Biography

I've begun a large and long biography of Adolf Hitler, by Pulitzer Prize winner John Toland. It's an extraordinary book. It is subtitled "The Definitive Biography," and with good reason. Nearly every year of Hitler's life is given detailed attention--in the audio version I'm listening to, each year is roughly an hour long (more or less). I think I will give periodic reflections during the course of the book, and one final review at its conclusion, in order to capture my thoughts along the way.

Hitler, I'm finding, was a truly remarkable man. Very little about him was ordinary, even from childhood. I knew previously that he was a painter, but I didn't realize that art and architecture were his passions as a boy and a teenager. He nearly went to a fine arts academy, but they rejected him. He spent his late teens in abject poverty, splitting profits as a street painter 50/50 with a Bohemian who hawked his art to rich tourists. He joined the Bavarian army and volunteered consistently for the hardest and most dangerous missions. He is described over and over in the book as "fanatical," an extreme German nationalist whose goals were always with Germany and Germanness at the head. He hated Marxism, Communism, and Jews; a trio that he frequently conflated together, and whom, along with many Germans in the aftermath of the first World War, he blamed for the humiliating defeat and post-war national turmoil that engulfed the country. You can start to see the threads coming together to form the man who, arguably, was the most influential person on the century.

#80, "The Night Circus"

"The Night Circus" Erin Morgenstern

This is Morgenstern's first (and to date, only) novel. It began way back in the ye-olden-days of 2004, as a project through NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I think it is pretty cool that an on-again, off-again writing project by some random person grew into a full length published novel, which went on to win several awards and get optioned to become a feature-length film. That is a great story of persistence, hard work, and do-it-yourselfness that, I think, exemplifies what being an artist in the 21st century is all about.

Unfortunately, the result of all that persistence, hard work and do-it-yourselfness is a middling book with a superficially interesting concept that doesn't really pay off, half-drawn characters who speak in an odd and unreal fashion, poor pacing (including a confusing and unexplained jumping back and forth between past and future), and lots and lots of nice adjectives that describe very odd things. The central tension of the book centers on a strange and mostly unexplained wager made by a pair of old wizards/magicians/enchanters/gods? who use mortals in their neverending game of whose-is-better. This wager binds two souls together, who then must work against each other in an undefined and brain-twisting competition until it runs its course (the conclusion of which I will not bother you with). Naturally this means that the two people fall in love and are then torn between their destinies, chosen for them by their teacher/mentor/evil-Yoda-figure, and their love for each other. Oh, and there's a circus. That's the setting of this duel, the main location for the novel. There are many uncertainties surrounding the circus. I'm not sure where it came from. It was created for the duel exclusively, or possibly it existed before and was twisted by the duellers--duellists?--to fit their schemes against each other. It is very strange. Overall, I think it is one of the strangest books I have ever read.

Besides the mind-bending plot, which is tough enough to swallow, I confess that at least a part of my problem with the novel was caused my own biases. For example, I do not usually enjoy books written in the present tense. The present tense is intended to make the reader a part of the action, directly involved in the moment-to-moment happenings of the book. When used from the first person, it evokes a journal entry, or admits access into the immediate thoughts of the character. It mostly works in a book like "The Hunger Games," which is written expressly from Katniss' point of view, and exists in real-time as you read. It is still jarring to me as a reader, for the simple reason that I am not Katniss. It actually takes me out of the experience. When the present tense is then coupled with a third-person style, it presents an even more uncomfortable sensation, and it is made worse by the dates given at the start of each chapter, which present an instant friction for me as a reader. It is not October 1902, it is August 2017. The assertion of the book (this is happening now) against my reality (no it's not) throws me out of the experience of reading. I admit, though, that is something that I bring to the book, so that is not exactly a fault of the author, even if I disagree with the choice.

Undeniably, Morgenstern writes in an extremely visual way, and you can often grab onto her descriptions of places and things for a while to tie you from event to event, scene to scene. Maybe it would make a better movie than a book, especially if a quality screenwriter got ahold of some of the worse dialogue. Good lord, the dialogue. It is sometimes ok, but most often has a quasi-old-fashioned feel that doesn't ring true. The best way I can describe it is that the characters talk as a writer thinks people talk, not as they actually talk.

In the end, I say good on Morgenstern for getting a novel out. I am all for people creating and sharing their work. What do I know? I don't have a published novel. But I didn't like this one. #whatIreadin2017

#79: "Band of Brothers"

"Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest"

Stephen Ambrose

For me, Ambrose is the premiere American historian of World War II. I distinctly remember borrowing a huge WWII book by Ambrose from the library when I was young, poring over the pictures, trying to make sense of the stories. The battles, the heroes and villains, the technology, the different and evocative locations, the world-changing events all tied together by a master scholar made for a defining moment in my education and life. This book follows a particular story: the path of a single paratrooper company, Easy, from its inception in 1942 to its disbanding, almost exactly 3 years later, in 1945. In that time, the men underwent training as an experimental parachute infantry company, waited for their premiere in Britain in the early part of 1944, were part of the invasion force at Normandy, participated in campaigns in the Netherlands, in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge, and at the end of the war were part of the occupying force in the German mountains. In those 3 years, and especially in the year of active duty starting in summer 1944, the men saw war and overcame challenges that few others can boast to. They were an integral and consequential part of the final push to victory. I wonder how many other companies had stories like that of E Company, 506th Regiment, that haven't been told. I also suspect that in hearing this singular story, we gain a partial, fractional glimpse into those of others.

The book is easily read. Ambrose has a conversational style, and a historian's objectivity, carefully framing each event like a filmmaker. He focuses on the people in each moment, their relationships and actions. There is less emphasis on the larger picture; that is not the point. He presents E Company as it was, in its heroic moments as well as its mistakes. We are not meant to consider this an angelic group, but as a brotherhood that fought for each other despite its weaknesses. #whatIreadin2017