tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82925625193530060082024-03-16T21:48:02.220+11:00A View Over the BellA View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.comBlogger457125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-75821725435115524992024-03-14T13:01:00.002+11:002024-03-14T13:01:21.788+11:00Book Review - Rorke's Drift by Michael Glover<p> <u>Rorke's Drift: a Victorian Epic</u> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Glover_(historian)" target="_blank">Michael Glover</a></p><p>London: Leo Cooper, 1975 ISBN 0850521823</p><p>This book has exceed expectations for me: I often find Leo Cooper/Pen&Sword books can be very militarily "geeky", diving down the rabbit-holes of equipment or drill, minute descriptions of tactical movements, which make the books of value only if the reader already has broader knowledge of the incident or battle in question. Thankfully <u>Rorke's Drift</u> does not fall into that category.</p><p>Although this is a short book (less than 150 pages) Glover has not only given us a blow-by-blow description of the action at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift" target="_blank">Rorke's Drift</a>, but also a close description of the disaster at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana" target="_blank">Isandhlwana </a>earlier in the day, and a concise exposition of the history of Southern Africa that had led to the situation where <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetshwayo" target="_blank">Cetshwayo's </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impi" target="_blank">Impis </a>attacked the British after they had crossed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_River_(KwaZulu-Natal)" target="_blank">Buffalo River</a> into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_Kingdom" target="_blank">Zululand</a>.</p><p>Glover well describes how it was as much British public opinion at home as it was activity on the ground that drove the British to expand their hold on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Natal" target="_blank">Natal</a>, which impinged on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boers" target="_blank">Boers </a>and also the Zulus, who were finding that the Boers were impinging on their land. The Zulu tribe had emerged as a successful warrior force, and their social structure almost required them to engage in battle (warriors had to have "washed their spears" in blood before they could marry).</p><p>In the clashes between Zulu and Boer, the British, given the times, naturally leaned toward supporting the white man over the black, and so gave an ultimatum to Cetshwayo to disband his army, something that he couldn't and wouldn't contemplate. That ultimately was the reason <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Thesiger,_2nd_Baron_Chelmsford" target="_blank">Chelmsford </a>crossed the Buffalo in January 1879.</p><p>Glover explains quite clearly how the Zulus defeated the British at Isandhlwana - a combination of poor leadership, and poor use of the country doomed the British column - in open ground and in loose formation, less than two thousand British troopers armed with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini%E2%80%93Henry" target="_blank">Martini-Henry</a> rifles could not but succumb to an estimated 15,000 Zulu warriors. Conversely, in a well-led defense of a well-fortified position, approximately 150 British troopers could fight off 4,000 Zulus. Glover explains that it was much safer for the garrison to stay put than try to run, as in the open all the advantages lay with the Zulu warriors, but in a fortified position, the advantage lay with the British.</p><p>I won't go into the detail of Glover's description of both battles, other than to state they are well-written, clear, and concise. Along the way he puts paid to some of the images that might be in the reader's head from the movie <u>Zulu</u> (although the battle scenes do ring true). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonville_Bromhead" target="_blank">Bromhead </a>was not young, and he and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chard" target="_blank">Chard </a>worked well together from the start. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Wales_Borderers" target="_blank">24th Foot</a> was a regiment of experienced and hardened soldiers. And <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hook_(VC)" target="_blank">Private Hook</a>, far from being a shirker, was an out-and-out hero during the battle (and he was also in real life teetotal!).</p><p>Glover's final chapter looks at the politics surrounding the battle - the heroic stand at Rorke's Drift covered up for the disaster at Isandhlwana and so was boosted by those who's careers could have been ended by the loss of the first battle. There is no doubt that incredible heroism was shown by the members of the garrison, but one wonders whether the award of eleven <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Cross" target="_blank">VCs </a>wasn't at least in part influenced by factors other than those which occurred during the Battle. Glover also makes clear the heroism of the Zulu warriors, who time after time flung themselves forward into a rain of bullets.</p><p>So, if you want a short history of the battle, and one that sets it in full context, and is good reading, I can recommend this book.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw8C0gudzpP45sRnp4WSYfhKPqag9poV6JfaOkzZEOiKpHp0eKbZhzP7PFo_Ub4Rv6pFG1XmFbGTccF3x8iI2kOYBIF_IKFs2P0MI1DjyaRJP8VRTpA4ocutcoH7QJ6k-xG4zMKgC4SB5gstuZaYS4SE1VwI4j64xc6p9jpRUNRdHQyAGhjaJoB0ho96Js/s475/4747218.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw8C0gudzpP45sRnp4WSYfhKPqag9poV6JfaOkzZEOiKpHp0eKbZhzP7PFo_Ub4Rv6pFG1XmFbGTccF3x8iI2kOYBIF_IKFs2P0MI1DjyaRJP8VRTpA4ocutcoH7QJ6k-xG4zMKgC4SB5gstuZaYS4SE1VwI4j64xc6p9jpRUNRdHQyAGhjaJoB0ho96Js/s320/4747218.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-53686877968766672092024-03-14T10:41:00.001+11:002024-03-14T10:43:12.773+11:00Book Review - The Tokyo Trial by Higurashi Yoshinobu<p> <u>The Tokyo Trial: War Criminals and Japan's Postwar International Relations</u> by <a href="https://researchmap.jp/read0043542?lang=en" target="_blank">Higurashi Yoshinobu</a></p><p>Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2022 (First Japanese edition 2008)</p><p> ISBN <a href="https://www.jpicinternational.com/books/history/98272d6bed3984f0641b4fd803195591a3089df9.html" target="_blank">9784866582306 </a></p><p>Those of us with an interest in World War Two history, it would be fair to say, have some sort of understanding of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials" target="_blank">Nuremberg Trials of Nazi Leaders</a> that took place after the War - who was tried, what the charges were, and the sentences handed out. Knowledge of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East" target="_blank">Tokyo Trial of "Class A" war criminals</a> is much less common - people might know that it happened, and that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo" target="_blank">Tojo</a> was executed, but that might be the limit of what people know.</p><p>Higurashi has written a comprehensive history of not only the Tokyo Trial, but the strategic and political factors that weighed on its staging, who was charged, and what happened to the prisoners after the Trial finished. A Professor in the Faculty of Law at Tokyo University; Higurashi cannot himself be charged with being a great stylist (the translation by the Japan Institute of International Affairs may not have helped his cause here), with the text being quite dry and legalistic, and the book sometimes back-tracking on itself. These issues can lead the reader to get lost occasionally, but are minor impediments to working through the text.</p><p>The book <i>is</i> comprehensive: in eight chapters, Higurashi covers viewpoints on the Trial, the framework of the Trial, what charges were brought, the Japanese response, how the Judgement was written, why there were no further trials, and how and why the surviving Class A prisoners were released. He describes how the Trial became problematic almost from the start. The Allies had already begun the process of developing charges in Nuremberg, and tried to translate that process to the Japanese sphere, which didn't really work. There was no all-governing party such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party" target="_blank">Nazis</a>, and no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel" target="_blank">SS</a>, so the charges for the "Class A" criminals were confined more to waging aggressive war and conspiracy (war crimes such as atrocities and murder of prisoners etc. were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#War_crimes_trials" target="_blank">"Class B" and "Class C" trials</a>, and so are not covered by Higurashi).</p><p>Conspiracy was not a concept in Japanese law, and there was much discussion about <i>ex-post-facto</i> law. However, the trial moved forward, with general approval of the Japanese populace, who were looking for someone to blame for their predicament. How the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito" target="_blank">Emperor </a>escaped getting any of the blame for the War is well-explained in this book - a combination of politics and loyalty meant that he was never brought to trial, despite many of the nations participating in the proceedings wishing to do so. In this case, as in many others, the wishes of the United States were granted, as they felt that lenient treatment of the Emperor was key to controlling Japan during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan" target="_blank">Occupation</a>.</p><p>Higurashi describes in great detail the progress of the Trial, the conflicts between the various Allied powers, how the verdicts were reached, and the dissenting judgement of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhabinod_Pal" target="_blank">Judge Pal</a> from India. He notes that by the time the Trial was nearing its end, not only the Japanese population, but also the peoples of the Allied nations were less interested in the outcome (the full transcript of the Trial has never been published, according to Higurashi). The Allied populations were more interested in the trial and conviction of the "Class B" and "Class C" criminals.</p><p>At the end of the Occupation, Japan began lobbying for the surviving "Class A" criminals to be released. The onset of the Cold War meant that Japan was a vital strategic asset to the Western Powers, and so quickly and quietly, about ten years after conviction, the surviving prisoners were paroled - many went on to careers in politics in the New Japan.</p><p>Higurashi briefly describes the development of the idea in Japan that the trial was merely "Victor's Justice", and how it came to be that war criminals were inducted at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine" target="_blank">Yakasuni Shrine</a>, but that is not the focus of this work.</p><p>This is not really a book for sitting down and reading in front of the fire: it is however a highly detailed and solid reference work on the Trials. While the translation may be workmanlike, the apparatus is very good - a good index, and useful bibliography.</p><p>If you are at all interested in the Tokyo Trial, this is worth hunting out.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJP-b82m2LBOS-XrPmQ8d14JBThZqLIHDtXm9mqekRm-6diREIGfBIfNVB9MGSI_aeiZVFk-VVCYX56owNQUWe2gkPOJsOqfDJNZyUfKcCMB63C06GsCosiksLaZaGHnXsLaBLYT79NNXvldb-yCKZFXm_O_vaQ9yCumW_cUvumhn2oZnC-p6szpr2qe8C" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2525" data-original-width="1731" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJP-b82m2LBOS-XrPmQ8d14JBThZqLIHDtXm9mqekRm-6diREIGfBIfNVB9MGSI_aeiZVFk-VVCYX56owNQUWe2gkPOJsOqfDJNZyUfKcCMB63C06GsCosiksLaZaGHnXsLaBLYT79NNXvldb-yCKZFXm_O_vaQ9yCumW_cUvumhn2oZnC-p6szpr2qe8C" width="165" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-73013891147404906122024-02-27T10:10:00.000+11:002024-02-27T10:10:27.572+11:00Book Review - The Land where Lemons grow by Helena Attlee<p> <u>The Land where Lemons grow: the story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit</u> by <a href="https://www.helena-attlee.com/" target="_blank">Helena Attlee</a></p><p>London: Penguin Books, 2015 (first published 2014) ISBN <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-land-where-lemons-grow-9780241952573" target="_blank">9780241952573</a></p><p>When my wife bought this book several years ago I was intrigued by the sub-title. I know the mafia germinated in the lemon groves of Sicily (excuse the pun), and thought that this book might give me some insight into that snippet of Italian history. It didn't really do that, but it has given me so much more, and is a fascinating insight into the story of citrus fruit and how it has intertwined with the Italian lifestyle for more than five hundred years.</p><p>Attlee's book is a combination of her experience travelling around Italy's historic citrus growing areas, sprinkled with the history of the fruit, and the social milieu of the growers over time, focusing mainly on history from the Renaissance. The book is full of interesting snippets of history, information about the fruits and how they were used, and fills the reader with the desire to go and see these scenes themselves.</p><p>There is lots of interesting information about citrus. Attlee explains that the entire citrus catalogue sprang from three original fruits - Pomelo, Mandarin and Citron, from Malaysia, China and the Himalaya. A curious feature of the citrus family is that cross-pollination is not only possible, it happens incredibly easily, so if you plant different types of citrus together they will continually hybridize.</p><p>And so we have Oranges, Lemons, Bergamot and Citron, which along with smaller references to Sour Orange (a fruit which is now pretty much a historical oddity), form the framework of this book. Attlee seeks out the places in Italy where they are still grown, explains their origins in the country, their expansion, decline and regrowth.</p><p>The fruits were originally brought in by others (the Citron to Calabria by Jews in c. AD 70 and the Lemon to Sicily by Arabs in approximately 900), and through hard work, the climate of Italy did the rest. Attlee is at pains to point out that for some reason the citrus grown in Italy is superior to those grown in other climes. The Citrons of Calabria are still valued by certain Jewish sects to use in their ceremonies. The Bergamot is valued in perfume. The Lemons of Sicily are world famous, and made many (particularly the Mafia) rich on the back of supply contracts with the Royal Navy.</p><p>But it's not only Southern Italy where citrus flourished. The Medici and other Italian nobility had great collections of citrus in the Sixteenth Century - in the colder climes of Tuscany and Lake Garda the citrus was potted and moved into glasshouses to survive the winter, or, if planted at Lake Garda, had greenhouses built around them to overwinter. </p><p>Once the Nineteenth Century moved into the Twentieth, the citrus boom died off. The Lemons of Lake Garda disappeared during World War One, when the timber of their temporary greenhouses was used for trenches - the aristocratic citrus gardens of Florence had long since withered. The Royal Navy had turned to "British" limes (from the West Indies) for its vitamin C (about half as good as Sicilian lemons as it turns out), and the world had found cheaper and closer places to source citrus.</p><p>Attlee explains all this in just enough detail to be interesting, but not so much that the reader gets lost. She also describes how some entrepreneurial Italians are trying to rebuild the great traditions of Italian citrus growing, becoming artisan producers, with a focus on quality to try and recapture the glory years.</p><p><u>The Land where Lemons grow</u> is a wonderful book in so many ways - highly recommended.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiF5RaVKDURPz-BDp5AzqJW0VH8YEAC24SGp_kR-Xwb7Zq5bbwearvETTRxxBZOxHe00dpiq9C0McgarijrxNVFx8qzKr9Gs-u6Yi2f3FEtlXdOP8SQVfFwZFy4EzvQ1Ae--8lZA1BWUMyF7MpfnUG4Wcwx1zlWn8EyHR6OkLhywD8sSUJclMvI-gvHKHXR" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiF5RaVKDURPz-BDp5AzqJW0VH8YEAC24SGp_kR-Xwb7Zq5bbwearvETTRxxBZOxHe00dpiq9C0McgarijrxNVFx8qzKr9Gs-u6Yi2f3FEtlXdOP8SQVfFwZFy4EzvQ1Ae--8lZA1BWUMyF7MpfnUG4Wcwx1zlWn8EyHR6OkLhywD8sSUJclMvI-gvHKHXR" width="157" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-81029763377098486832024-02-15T12:40:00.000+11:002024-02-15T12:40:35.246+11:00Book Review - Lasseter's Gold by Warren Brown<p> <u>Lasseter's Gold</u> by Warren Brown</p><p>Sydney, Hachette Australia, 2015 ISBN <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/warren-brown/lasseters-gold" target="_blank">9780733631603</a></p><p>The Lasseter story is never-ending: so much has been written about the man and the expedition to find his gold over the years; films have been made (<a href="https://www.lassetersbones.com.au/" style="text-decoration-line: underline;" target="_blank">Lasseter's Bones</a> is well-worth watching), all trying to unravel the mystery that surrounds Lasseter's claim of a reef of gold over ten miles long in the middle of the Australian desert.</p><p>I have reviewed <a href="https://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com/search?q=dream+millions" style="text-decoration-line: underline;" target="_blank">Dream Millions</a>, the book written by the first leader of the Central Australian Gold Exploration Syndicate (CAGE) <a href="https://lasseteria.com/30.htm" target="_blank">Fred Blakely</a>, and read bits and pieces over the years, but this book by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Brown_(cartoonist)">Warren Brown</a> is a well-written entertaining and up-to-date exposition of the entire saga, taking into account current knowledge.</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Harold_Bell_Lasseter" target="_blank">Harold Lasseter</a> (who went by several names) was an interesting man. He enlisted twice in the AIF in World War One, and was discharged as medically unfit both times - once for "mental deficiency", with the Army claiming he was delusional. This may in fact be the key to everything that comes after.</p><p>His claim, sent to the government just as the Great Depression was beginning to bit in Australia (and it bit hard) that as a young man he had discovered a gold-bearing reef in Central Australia that was unimaginably rich, hit a chord in trying times. Although the Government did not act on his claim, a report that didn't completely damn it was picked up by the head of the Australian Worker's Union <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bailey-john-jack-5096" target="_blank">John Bailey</a>, who quickly formed the CAGE and planned how to spend his millions.</p><p>Fred Blakely was chosen as the leader of the CAGE not only because he was an experienced bushman, but also because his brother was a minister in the Federal Government. Brown explains that he was not temperamentally cut out to lead a disparate group, especially when both Lasseter and <a href="https://lasseteria.com/CYCLOPEDIA/60.htm" target="_blank">Errol Coote</a>, the pilot, almost immediately set out to discredit him with the shareholders of the company.</p><p>Brown explains that the CAGE was the first such expedition into the Centre that relied exclusively on motorized transport - a <a href="https://lasseteria.com/CYCLOPEDIA/110.htm" target="_blank">Moth biplane</a>, and <a href="https://lasseteria.com/272.htm" target="_blank">Thornycroft</a> and Chevrolet trucks were made available to transport people and equipment to the site of the reef. Blakely was proven right when he suggested that a properly sorted camel train would be far more effective. The Thornycroft truck in particular proved troublesome, and the 'plane was worse than useless.</p><p>In the end, Blakely had enough evidence to convince himself that Lasseter's claims were fraudulent, and he left him to find the reef himself, in the company of <a href="https://lasseteria.com/CYCLOPEDIA/138.htm" target="_blank">Paul Johns</a>, a mysterious German-born bushman, who happened to turn up at the CAGE base camp with a camel train. Brown spends quite a bit of the latter part of the book trying to delve into the mysteries of who was doing what, and suggests quite plausibly, that Lasseter had ensured Johns would appear at the right time with camels to help him continue his quest - it seems likely at any rate that Johns knew where to find him.</p><p>What is clear to me from reading this book, and from other sources, is that Lasseter's claims were completely baseless. Brown shows through the evidence that it was simply not possible for Lasseter's story about how he originally found the reef to be true. He may have heard stories about other claims to have found a reef (the mysterious <a href="https://lasseteria.com/CYCLOPEDIA/137.htm" target="_blank">Johansen</a> enters the picture here) and decided to try it on. What is unclear, even after reading this book, is Lasseter's motivation. As a con-man, getting a regular wage from CAGE while he was out searching was something, but then why he continued on after Blakely left him is a mystery. Most people who dealt with him in the Centre realised that he was not an experienced bushman, so why he put himself in such a dangerous position is the over-riding mystery. Did he in the end finally delude himself? We'll never know.</p><p>Why have so many people spent so much treasure and time following Lasseter's trail, at the time and even into the present? Brown sums it up in one word: greed. The lure of gold has an effect on men that is hard to credit, and Lasseter's claim of a reef worth a king's ransom was something that people couldn't just leave be.</p><p>Brown's book is a comprehensive story of both Lasseter, and the story of the CAGE syndicate. It is a worthy addition to the bibliography of Lasseter (although this is the first book I've read where the bibliography is in alphabetical order by <i>title</i>....not useful!).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEOOqah-v3sPf3nUnGaj1lSY5AnsKPk6ssqW9kkfUPQeps337vvYLAj_ffVWseu_K2cZ_OHDY9rfsFPVJGUKMx1kgQeJWdFXYdNRpyam7xeSKYHcQxvG-rVckZ8T20kaTPE1OYDFnksoJiML1x4aESXM2iLa-UYkl2QjlIJtaQZKuscejyavyDyNBCcJ79" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="327" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEOOqah-v3sPf3nUnGaj1lSY5AnsKPk6ssqW9kkfUPQeps337vvYLAj_ffVWseu_K2cZ_OHDY9rfsFPVJGUKMx1kgQeJWdFXYdNRpyam7xeSKYHcQxvG-rVckZ8T20kaTPE1OYDFnksoJiML1x4aESXM2iLa-UYkl2QjlIJtaQZKuscejyavyDyNBCcJ79" width="157" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-17984836980041244842024-02-10T23:22:00.000+11:002024-02-10T23:22:03.023+11:00Book Review - Youth and Gaspar Ruiz by Joseph Conrad<p> <u>Youth and Gaspar Ruiz</u> by Joseph Conrad</p><p>London: J.M Dent & Sons, 1927 reprint (originally published 1920)</p><p>It's been a long time since I have read any Conrad. I'd forgotten how good a writer he was. Even in these short stories which were originally written for magazines, Conrad's prose is just as limpid as in his novels, his characterizations are as elusive and his narrative stays with you in ways you don't expect.</p><p>Youth is the story of a young man's first command at sea, in the ship <i>Judea</i>. The man is Marlow, who re-appears throughout Conrad's fiction, in <u>Heart of Darkness</u>, <u>Lord Jim</u>, and <u>Chance</u>. In his little afterword Conrad explains that Marlow is one of his favourite literary creations, and <u>Youth</u> is chronologically the first in this character's life. </p><p>The <i>Judea</i> is an unlucky ship, destined to sink in the Java sea, but for Marlow his first taste of command outweighs all the trials and tribulations. He tells his story years later to a table of other old salts, and while the narrative is of the ship and his adventure in it, the story is really about the attitudes of youth - "...I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more - the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort - to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires - and expires, too soon, too soon - before life itself." There is a poignancy to this statement, coming from an old man remembering his youth surrounded by others his age. </p><p>I also wondered while reading this story, whether Conrad had read <i>Moby Dick</i> - the determination of the captain of the <i>Judea</i> reminds me a little of Ahab. The story of the ship and it's prolonged demise is riveting, and apparently based on some of Conrad's real experiences. </p><p><u>Gaspar Ruiz</u>, although longer, is perhaps less of a story - an exciting tale of treachery, loyalty and heroism, again told in a flashback style. Gaspar is a man who escapes execution as a deserter, and is rescued by Erminia, whom he then rescues from an earthquake. Together they forge their own path through the South American revolutions, Gaspar giving his life for Erminia, and Erminia taking her life rather than live without Gaspar.</p><p>If you like Conrad, I think <u>Youth</u> is a must-read.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhvWPRAlUM1UBs5QJVfRv6uO3hkfODcu98r75U4BmEiFpDuHpIBGkL3IFjEnIsaF337IfOyEcMr1fDLutj2z6LhQfV0Xxx4vNNx-JzeSSwbEI-K8hRxwalf4b-UwtFY9AZY-tzzPTvvzem0aIzmljwXWYzJ97j1smK3Dcj4qwhgPQDOTruT6lKnn9XMdMXu" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3998" data-original-width="3072" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhvWPRAlUM1UBs5QJVfRv6uO3hkfODcu98r75U4BmEiFpDuHpIBGkL3IFjEnIsaF337IfOyEcMr1fDLutj2z6LhQfV0Xxx4vNNx-JzeSSwbEI-K8hRxwalf4b-UwtFY9AZY-tzzPTvvzem0aIzmljwXWYzJ97j1smK3Dcj4qwhgPQDOTruT6lKnn9XMdMXu" width="184" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-51159230781724729872024-02-02T12:56:00.000+11:002024-02-02T12:56:41.678+11:00Book Review - Adam Lindsay Gordon: the Man and the Myth by Geoffrey Hutton<p><u>Adam Lindsay Gordon: the Man and the Myth</u> by <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hutton-geoffrey-william-geoff-12677" target="_blank">Geoffrey Hutton</a></p><p>Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996 (first published 1978) ISBN 0522847080</p><p>This is a good workmanlike biography of the only Australian Poet to be commemorated in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets%27_Corner" target="_blank">Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey</a>, the man who was lauded in the early part of last century as Australia's first poet, and who today still ranks in the pantheon of Australian verse.</p><p>In this book Hutton clearly lays out the facts - Gordon's father was a retired officer of the Indian Army, while his mother was a very highly-strung heiress, who spent a lot of her life travelling to improve her health. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Lindsay_Gordon" target="_blank">Gordon's </a>main interests throughout his life, apart from verse, were horses and horse racing, in his early days pugilism, and his latter drinking. Hutton well describes Gordon's inability to find his way in life: he was indifferent at school, could not handle the lifestyle at military college (his father had ideas of Gordon following his footsteps into the Army), and drifted into the milieu that surrounded horses of jockeys, bookies and owners. He was constantly in trouble and often in debt.</p><p>He fell in love but was rejected, and so when his father suggested going to the colonies to join the Mounted Police in South Australia, he felt that there was nothing else for him but to give it a try. He wrote to his friend before departing that he only expected to be in the colony for a couple of years before returning, but he never did.</p><p>Once in South Australia, he stuck at being a trooper for a couple of years before inheriting from his father an amount that, properly managed, would have seen him comfortably well-off for the rest of his life. Unfortunately Gordon did not manage his money well. He was too generous to friends, followed a failed dream to set up a pastoral run in Western Australia, and spent too much on horseflesh. He was for a time an MP in the South Australian Parliament, but the life didn't suit him and he resigned after eighteen months.</p><p>Although one of the reasons he left England was to leave the horse racing set behind, he fell into it again in Australia. When he left the Mounted Police he started the first of a series of stables and horse-breaking and training businesses, most of which went sour. He became quite a well-known steeple-chaser, and for a time did well. Gordon's curse was that he was an upper-class Englishman in the colonies, so he fell between two worlds. He raced much of the time as a gentleman, and so didn't make as much money as he could from his exploits, and didn't have a nose for business, which meant that by the end of his life he was heavily in debt.</p><p>Gordon was a man of moods, and was quite often taciturn and morose. Hutton posits that he inherited this trait from his mother, and it could be true: he seems, in this biography as least, to have a lot of the characteristics of someone with Bipolar Disorder. His suicide was a tragic culmination of his many failures and inability to cope. It seems to me that he could not see a way out of his financial predicament (interestingly Hutton tells us that Gordon tried to take out life insurance not long before his death) and shot himself on the very day that his third and last book of poetry was published, to mainly good reviews.</p><p>So, we get in this book a good recitation of the life, but what about the poetry? Hutton was a journalist and not a poet, so in terms of criticism of Gordon in this work it is mostly at second hand. Gordon, although a member of the bohemian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorick_Club_(Melbourne)" target="_blank">Yorick Club</a> in Melbourne during his last years, was not well-known as a poet until after his death, and not well-rated as one until well after. Despite being praised by luminaries such as Wilde and Conan Doyle and other Australian authors and poets such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Clarke" target="_blank">Marcus Clarke</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kendall_(poet)" target="_blank">Henry Kendall</a>, Gordon's work was not seen as particularly Australian or even particularly good in the decades after his death. It was in the Twentieth Century, when a core of Gordon admirers worked assiduously to bring him forward as "Australia's Poet" that his star rose. It was helped by several intersecting events. Australia was moving beyond it's pioneering years, and nostalgia for an easier time was growing, especially after the horrors of war; Gordon not only fitted the mould as a poet that expressed what our pioneering years were like, but unlike Kendall and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harpur" target="_blank">Harpur </a>he actually lived the life of a bushman, with his daring riding exploits and homes in the country. He had been chosen as an archetype, and was made to fit.</p><p>He didn't fit of course - it seems clear from Hutton's life that Gordon very much saw himself as English, and indeed much of his poetry was not specifically Australian (although it is the specifically Australian that is probably the best of his work). However the truth has never got in the way of a well-constructed hero story, and so not only did Gordon get a bust in Westminster, his <a href="https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/goodliving/posts/2020/07/dingley-dell-cottage" target="_blank">various homes</a> were treated as shrines, he got a statue near Victoria's parliament house, and famously a <a href="https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/arts/display/51258-adam-lindsay-gordon" target="_blank">plinth at Mt. Gambier celebrating his famous "leap"</a>. The first time I became aware of the poet and his works was by visiting his <a href="https://www.visitballarat.com.au/explore/adam-lindsay-cottage/" target="_blank">cottage in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens</a> (although it's the Ballarat racecourse at <a href="https://country.racing.com/ballarat/about-us/history" target="_blank">Dowling Forest</a> that really has more of a connection to the man in that city).</p><p>As a poet then, what can we say of Adam Lindsay Gordon? Hutton points out that Gordon often composed while riding, several companions describing him muttering away as he rode along. It seems his drafts were often written on scraps of paper and so little survives of his method of revising, although Hutton suggests with some evidence that revising was something that was an anathema to Gordon (which I think shows in much of his work). His reading was, by his peripatetic nature if nothing else, scattered, although it's clear he committed much verse to memory, and was partial to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne" target="_blank">Swinburne </a>and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning" target="_blank">Browning </a>among his contemporaries. Gordon's vanity led him to publish much that perhaps would have been better to keep back, and so the good can sit side-by-side with the bad when reading him. Certainly <a href="https://www.best-poems.net/adam_lindsay_gordon/the_sick_stockrider.html" target="_blank">"The Sick Stockrider"</a> is a very good piece of its time and place, and probably an inspiration to those that came after him.</p><p>So in summary, Hutton's book is a good well-researched life, but as a work of criticism one would need to look elsewhere (and there is a short but useful bibliography in this book).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijOJTiNh_RutFvjZ_QBpoM_lpVJNpf_BZTCXIad0JYV_-6civp4vCimSoRBfow7fQx1dKQmUWxdVvlJfOLYoVni0QGTPUxmK4t1csdwcDWCb2qVY7j2EKKdDE2EzyNgx5n15tIjFC0xyb2Er6R9boYr01pMVafTfV-KQEC3Iqy9DU1EFIccfX_kKX6X8WE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="154" data-original-width="100" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijOJTiNh_RutFvjZ_QBpoM_lpVJNpf_BZTCXIad0JYV_-6civp4vCimSoRBfow7fQx1dKQmUWxdVvlJfOLYoVni0QGTPUxmK4t1csdwcDWCb2qVY7j2EKKdDE2EzyNgx5n15tIjFC0xyb2Er6R9boYr01pMVafTfV-KQEC3Iqy9DU1EFIccfX_kKX6X8WE" width="156" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-37838227750901319292024-01-30T12:52:00.000+11:002024-01-30T12:52:40.759+11:00Book Review - Thucydides: the Reinvention of History by Donald Kagan<p> <u>Thucydides: the Reinvention of History</u> by Donald Kagan</p><p>New York: Penguin Books, 2010 ISBN <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/thucydides-9780143118299" target="_blank">9780143118299</a></p><p>A great book. The modern doyen of the history of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War" target="_blank">Peloponnesian War</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan" target="_blank">Donald Kagan</a>, in deep reflection on the history, and the historian, of that war <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides" target="_blank">Thucydides</a>. Famously the "inventor" of the modern idea of history, Kagan shows us that Thucydides was not the dispassionate, apolitical chronicler of events that he claimed to be, but was actually engaged through his work in a revisionist interpretation of what, for him and his countrymen, was recent history.</p><p>Kagan has studied not only Thucydides' text but all the other historical artefacts that help explain what went on during the time of the Peloponnesian War, and has come to the conclusion that Thucydides' project was to change the accepted view of why the war played out as it did: to put forward his own views which, Kagan states, differed from the accepted view of the time.</p><p>By no means does Kagan suggest that Thucydides was a mere polemicist: in fact he points out that much of the evidence he uses in this book to contradict Thucydides' view actually comes from Thucydides' text. What Kagan <i>is </i>suggesting is that Thucydides wished to use his history to make certain points: that the democratic system in place in Athens during the time of the War was flawed, and that the passion of mob whipped up by demagogues is dangerous. While he recognizes the drawbacks of oligarchic rule, he longs for a wise leader such as Pericles. We probably shouldn't be too surprised about this attitude, as Thucydides was himself an aristocrat. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles" target="_blank">Pericles </a>is the hero, as is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicias" target="_blank">Nicias</a>, while <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleon" target="_blank">Cleon </a>and to a lesser extent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades" target="_blank">Alcibiades </a>are the villains in Thucydides' rendition of events.</p><p>Kagan, by focusing on some key events - the causes of the War, Pericles' strategy, whether Athens was actually a democracy, Cleon's victory at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sphacteria" target="_blank">Pylos </a>and defeat at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amphipolis" target="_blank">Amphipolis </a>and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition" target="_blank">Sicilian Expedition</a> - dissects Thucydides' account and shows us that he wasn't giving his readers the full story, but only what he wanted to emphasize.</p><p>On the causes of the War, Thucydides feels that it was inevitable, as Athens' power grew and its quest for empire became greater and greater. Kagan points out that the War was not in fact inevitable, but came through a series of misunderstandings and provocations that needn't have occurred. While Thucydides bemoans Athens ditching the strategy of Pericles to wait out <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta" target="_blank">Sparta</a>, Kagan shows fairly conclusively that this strategy was doomed to fail on all fronts, including economically. He also shows us that Thucydides must have known this, but by only recording one side of the argument he avoids the obvious conclusion. Thucydides uses this "trick" again when discussing Pylos, Amphipolis and the Sicilian Expedition: he emphasizes his version of events while downplaying or avoiding alternate narratives altogether.</p><p>It is the story of the Sicilian Expedition where Thucydides' interpretation of events is the most confusing. Kagan, using the evidence provided by Thucydides, convincingly argues that the failure of the expedition can be sheeted home almost exclusively to the actions (or lack of action) of Nicias. He repeatedly made tactical and strategic errors, and certainly seemed to value his own reputation and life over what was best for Athens and the troops under his command. Thucydides provides copious evidence for this point of view, but then comes to the conclusion that it was not Nicias at fault, but the Athenians themselves. Truly confounding.</p><p>What Kagan posits, I think acceptably, is that Athens was very democratic, and by no means monolithic in its outlook. Neither Pericles nor Cleon could get their own way by merely wishing it to be so - they had to have support from the Athenian citizens for their strategies. If Cleon was a demagogue, then so too was Pericles. That most of us don't think that is a testament to the power of Thucydides' work, which Kagan acknowledges.</p><p>What Kagan does in this work is to remind all of us that one should never necessarily take one person's view on why history happened the way it did as the only truth. We need to balance all the evidence to come to a conclusion. Thucydides claimed to give the unvarnished truth, but like all of us he had a barrow to push, and Kagan very skillfully teases that out in this book. A great read.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSFKXwZCdoB9fICJhHYswnZblODlQqau2geABTL5iUDp-zDUONXgDF7WN7m2Fog3A4woZchxD3JHX3kxdyl50jwm4BhV7RLwEYETqqWoDXYPjb54N_k7R8jXn1JA-enJHc08ZYjrhPCIiwSIWpAN9JtsHGa6bgnF7gdAj2PhhE_aFyGLrpGXTRANuukf2D" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="260" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSFKXwZCdoB9fICJhHYswnZblODlQqau2geABTL5iUDp-zDUONXgDF7WN7m2Fog3A4woZchxD3JHX3kxdyl50jwm4BhV7RLwEYETqqWoDXYPjb54N_k7R8jXn1JA-enJHc08ZYjrhPCIiwSIWpAN9JtsHGa6bgnF7gdAj2PhhE_aFyGLrpGXTRANuukf2D" width="156" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-5109534251273789752024-01-24T12:34:00.000+11:002024-01-24T12:34:56.712+11:00Book Review - The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan<p> <u>The Peloponnesian War: Athens and Sparta in Savage Conflict 431-404 BC</u> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan" target="_blank">Donald Kagan</a></p><p>London: Harper Perennial, 2005 (first published 2003) ISBN 9780007115068 </p><p>There is little doubt that Donald Kagan is one of the pre-eminent historians of Ancient Greece, and particularly the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War" target="_blank">Peloponnesian War</a>, about which he wrote a magisterial four-volume history. The book I am reviewing here is a distillation of that work and his scholarship, to provide a more easily digestible history for the non-academic reader. He has succeeded mightily in that task - this book is a wonderfully concise, yet at the same time comprehensive, narrative of the nearly thirty years of war between the two greatest Greek states, and the two ideologies that they represented.</p><p>Kagan has written a very readable history, adding his and others commentary on why events transpired as they did. There are a few things the reader can draw from this, things that reverberate throughout history. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Athens" target="_blank">Athens</a>, the democracy, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta" target="_blank">Sparta</a>, the oligarchy, both had strengths and weaknesses that came from their method of governance. Athens had the benefit of support from its population for the war, support that was demonstrated each time a vote was taken. The flip-side of that support is that the polis could be swayed by demagoguery, as it was on occasion throughout the war. Kagan explains clearly that the doomed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition" target="_blank">expedition to Sicily</a> became so when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicias#" target="_blank">Nicias</a> tried to counter the demagoguery of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades" target="_blank">Alcibiades</a> by trying the rhetorical trick of expanding the expedition beyond what he thought the polis would accept. They did accept it, and the failure of that sortie was the beginning of the end for Athens.</p><p>The key to Athens' strength was its navy, which relied on two factors. The first was tribute from the Athenian Empire - most subject states paid for protection from the Athenian navy - money which paid for ships and sailors. The second factor were the crews themselves, members of a democracy, which gave them a stake in the outcome of a battle. These factors not only meant that Athens mostly had the biggest navy, but they also were better trained and more aggressive. Given that the Peloponnesian War was mostly a maritime venture, Athens had the upper hand most of the time. Therefore when they lost men and ships it was a disaster, and the final battle of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aegospotami" target="_blank">Aegospotami</a> when the fleet was destroyed, and there was not the funds to replace it, meant the end of Athens.</p><p>Sparta's strength was that it was willing to do deals with whomever might help them, including the Persians. It was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander" target="_blank">Lysander</a> in league with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Younger" target="_blank">Cyrus</a> who finally brought about the defeat of Athens.</p><p>What else do we learn in this book? That war has not changed in thousands of years: atrocities, betrayals, both over-confidence and cautiousness bringing about defeats, and failure to think strategically bringing down a state. Kagan notes in his conclusion the irony that shortly after the end of the war and Spartan victory Athens once again became a democracy, and Ancient Greece as it had been was overtaken by Persia and Alexander the Great....the futility of war...</p><p>Kagan deals with all of this very well - obviously <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Younger" target="_blank">Thucydides</a> looms over the history of these events like a giant, but Kagan is not afraid to disagree with him when he feels the evidence shows that the great historian got it wrong.</p><p>The apparatus of this book is quite good - decent maps and index, a short but interesting bibliographic essay, useful notes and an interview with Kagan.</p><p>So in short, if you want an up-to-date, well written account of the Peloponnesian War I think it would be hard to go past this volume. Great to read alongside Thucydides.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikaZtQj_0lUTaHEiPntrJ0gall0oyWYDBwcm91zVO1REGuUFeozaF3WKns-yFcDu__dTZMnxrhWkYQ7XCLJa33E_W3n0cF6nXO2tIYyjCrac0pPTu28f9128_Eq6qMop5LhDpQDErCb7SSwhqQaRoQZsBrWyYzwPyDoaf80bO8ADX1RvRJu2VGx_qLJ_k4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="292" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikaZtQj_0lUTaHEiPntrJ0gall0oyWYDBwcm91zVO1REGuUFeozaF3WKns-yFcDu__dTZMnxrhWkYQ7XCLJa33E_W3n0cF6nXO2tIYyjCrac0pPTu28f9128_Eq6qMop5LhDpQDErCb7SSwhqQaRoQZsBrWyYzwPyDoaf80bO8ADX1RvRJu2VGx_qLJ_k4" width="175" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-48832346213706043792024-01-05T14:03:00.001+11:002024-02-16T11:07:22.446+11:00Book Review - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin<p> <u>We</u> by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, introduction by Michael Glenny</p><p>Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977 (first published 1924 in English in the USA)</p><p>ISBN 0140035109</p><p>I've been aware of this novel for some time, as it's often mentioned in conjunction with George Orwell's <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u> as a work that rails against tyranny of the many over the one. Unlike Orwell, Zamyatin was actually a victim of Soviet madness, eventually driven to exile from Russia largely because of this book, which was deemed by the authorities to be dangerous. Mostly abandoned by his fellow writers, Zamyatin took the extraordinary measure of writing directly to Stalin to plead for his literature and his life (the contents of that letter are reproduced in the excellent introduction to this edition). Although <u>We</u> was written in Russia in 1920, it was first published in an English translation in New York in 1924, and wasn't published in Russia until 1988 (although some Russian editions were published in the USA before then). George Orwell did indeed read the book - the French translation, which was published in 1928.</p><p>There can be little doubt that Orwell drew some of his inspiration for <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u> from <u>We</u>, but Zamyatin is more allegorical, and more lyrical than Orwell. While Orwell was directly attacking the Soviet style of government and repression, Zamyatin, to me at least, seems to go more directly to the point of showing how enforced conformity destroys an individual. He also, I expect from his experience of the Russian Revolution, shows how a small cadre of people who don't believe in the current authority can actually trigger a convulsion by merely opening the eyes of those around them.</p><p>The book is written as a series of entries into the journal of D-503, who is the builder of "The Integral", a ship that is to travel to other worlds where they will subjugate "unknown creatures to the beneficent yoke of reason - creatures inhabiting other planets, perhaps still in the savage state of freedom. Should they fail to understand that we are bringing them a mathematically infallible happiness, it will be our duty to compel them to be happy."</p><p>Set well into the future, <u>We</u> depicts a society where all humans are known by a number rather than a name, have no parents or family ties, and whose lives are regulated by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor" target="_blank">Taylorite </a> "Table of Hours" which allocate time, food is to be chewed a certain number of times and so-on. Any deviation from the norms laid down by the Benefactor are punished, and all are regulated by the Guardians - a kind of secret police.</p><p>D-503 is a productive and obedient member of this society, doing all that is required of him, including his regular scheduled sessions of sex with his ticketed partner O-90. That is until he meets E-330, who changes his life. She does things she shouldn't, she openly scorns the One State and all that it encompasses. She takes D-503 beyond the "Green Wall" into the natural world (the One State and its environs are all made of glass), and involves him in a plot to hijack The Integral, which is part of her plan to bring down the One State.</p><p>Zamyatin describes D-503's confusion as all that he holds as true and right is demolished by E-330, even as he finds his love (obsession?) for her makes him follow along. This book is the story of the destruction of a society from within, but also a story of obsessive love, and of the breakdown of an individual. It is also a classically themed dystopian SciFi novel.</p><p>Thematically, <u>We</u> focuses on the idea of happiness. In the One State, happiness is conformity and having every moment planned for. In this way what we would see as the normal human emotions are gradually whittled away. There is a section that refers back to Genesis, and points out that Adam and Eve had a choice: "happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative..." Emotions, dreams, fantasy and even the idea of having a soul are considered sickness in Zamyatin's fictional world. These are the things that led mankind to virtual destruction before the One State regulated everything. Zamyatin also shows us how propaganda can work on human conception - D-503 believes he is happy because he is always being told that he is. How would he know any different?</p><p>E-330 shows D-503 that conformity brings a calm to proceedings, but not true happiness. In his love for her, he sees that the emotional - individual - life can give meaning, higher joy, and, yes, fear and confusion. I think this aspect of the novel is what the Bolsheviks were most afraid of - they were indeed trying to build a society where the one was sacrificed to the many. Zamyatin shows that while this may work for a time, the human impulse to be ourselves can never be quashed forever, and that a revolution may come even at a time when it seems impossible.</p><p>While I think that <u>We</u> is not as thematically well-developed as <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u>, it is more enjoyable to read. The sense of confusion felt by D-503 flows through to the reader - we are drawn on, waiting to see what's going to happen. Many of the things that do happen are confusing to us as well - it's not clear where the plot is heading at times, D-503 is inarticulate at important moments in the book (Zamyatin is often coy about whether D-503 says things to other characters, or merely thinks them), and there is often much confusion during moments of action. Which, to be fair, gives a good account of how a revolution might look and feel to one living through it, or even indeed to one taking part.</p><p>I won't reveal what happens at the end of the book in this review, but I will recommend <u>We</u> to those who not only like political commentary in their fiction, but also to anyone who enjoys a good story.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF-b2D4kHJrNHAzCxNYQ2hbdm-vIe6AQ3kWNeXC-X7EApMTnVzKMgjN7XtIbrXQXhe5TIW6YsT2-btPNOLJbrDS58mgxjmrutVtWRrKCZNnNoha3mkcXfkaYzMctyuAMzZnKZ5WY5voP-EoWMaaZGCidj3e3cJgnQWrzHoip1hjWNJ3LTN-p7bKItdYBRX" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2125" data-original-width="1265" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF-b2D4kHJrNHAzCxNYQ2hbdm-vIe6AQ3kWNeXC-X7EApMTnVzKMgjN7XtIbrXQXhe5TIW6YsT2-btPNOLJbrDS58mgxjmrutVtWRrKCZNnNoha3mkcXfkaYzMctyuAMzZnKZ5WY5voP-EoWMaaZGCidj3e3cJgnQWrzHoip1hjWNJ3LTN-p7bKItdYBRX" width="143" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-65841358889491057062023-12-21T16:30:00.001+11:002023-12-21T16:30:53.041+11:00Book Review - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell<p> <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u> by George Orwell</p><p>London: Penguin Books, 2000 (First Published 1949) ISBN 9780141187761</p><p>I'm not sure how many times I've read this book, and I'm also not sure how many copies I've owned over the years... I always seem to be giving it away to someone who has yet to read some of the most prescient writing on the nature of modern political life, in the hope that it will change the way they think about society, and learn to value individual freedom.</p><p>Orwell is rightly seen as the most clear headed writer to tackle the rise of totalitarianism, both Left and Right, in the early to mid Twentieth Century. With <u>Animal Farm</u> and the novel under review, Orwell skewered the falsity of ideological dictatorship, and the absurdity of following a cause even when it had turned on the path to evil. While <u>Animal Farm</u> is a satire of Soviet Communism, <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u> is a much deeper look at the way society - particularly politics and tyranny - can destroy the individual.</p><p>On this re-reading, I'm struck once again by how far society has headed down Orwell's dystopian tunnel seemingly without coercion from an all-controlling Party. It seems we have willingly submitted to constant surveillance, we participate in the destruction of history, and willfully deny science ("If he <i>thinks</i> he floats off the floor and if I simultaneosly <i>think</i> I see him do it, then the thing happens"), and we, as mob, make people "unpersons". The prescience of Orwell, his understanding of human nature in that sense, sends chills down one's spine.</p><p>One thing though, that I hadn't really picked up on before to such an extent, is the fact that Ingsoc, Newspeak and the Thought Police were all wiped away, as is clear in the Appendix on the Principles of Newspeak. So, Winston Smith's vision that there was "some spirit, some principle - that you will never overcome....The spirit of Man" was in fact the truth, rather than O'Brien's assertion that "The Party is immortal." The hope of Winston Smith is the hope that we all cling to during times when it seems humanity is on the path to destruction: thankfully, amidst the gloom, evidence of the "spirit of Man" keeps re-appearing, to remind us that those that would like to control us are not all-powerful.</p><p>The book asks many questions of the reader: what does it mean to be free? What does it mean to have power? and, importantly, what is power for? These questions have resonated for hundreds of years, and are still important now. Freedom, as the Party well knows in this book means many things, but most importantly the ability to think. With Newspeak the Party works to take that ability away, but until that project is completed, they have moved one step beyond the historical totalitarianisms that we have known. It is not enough to confess, it is not enough to betray: in Oceania, one must truly believe before the final bullet in the back of the neck. Power means the ability to coerce, and what is it for? "Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution to establish the dictatorship.</p><p>While we may not have dictatorships, we increasingly see in the democratic West the quest for power for its own sake. Our parties have atrophied as politics has become yet another career path. While we bemoan this fact, perhaps the rise of independent politicians will in fact improve our polity, and steer us to a brighter future. Or perhaps, like Winston, I'm dreaming.</p><p>As to the literary qualities of <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u>, there is not so much to write about. Orwell was definitely a supreme craftsman of prose, but the book rises to no great stylistic or linguistic heights. Partly I'm sure, that was Orwell's plan, given his subject matter and the message he was trying to impart. The story, as it goes, is quite a good one, and the philosophizing, when it comes, can be a little dry, although easy enough to understand.</p><p>It seems superfluous for me to add that this is one of the classics of Twentieth Century literature. If you haven't read it, why not?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEilKERYf1-_R_lKv_cbfhEEePxZAFC7qL_-W7-BzcQCan6sTy_DQ4aCSzpf56H4yLevj5nJi83wQtg2PeUD9g0nOq5Y1o1pKxYq7dxRpkcWUR4V_WzddUO3KDbe7bwcc-kqHhXcwEF_5bbib2_Q0ADV-AfrpO-GeiZwyZ1RZ3GmrjyAKTtdBKGl0-OmcsCd" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="308" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEilKERYf1-_R_lKv_cbfhEEePxZAFC7qL_-W7-BzcQCan6sTy_DQ4aCSzpf56H4yLevj5nJi83wQtg2PeUD9g0nOq5Y1o1pKxYq7dxRpkcWUR4V_WzddUO3KDbe7bwcc-kqHhXcwEF_5bbib2_Q0ADV-AfrpO-GeiZwyZ1RZ3GmrjyAKTtdBKGl0-OmcsCd" width="156" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-70871362512686756982023-12-14T12:33:00.000+11:002023-12-14T12:33:57.340+11:00Book Review - Backfire: a History of Friendly Fire from Ancient Warfare to the Present Day by Geoffrey Regan<p> <u>Backfire: a History of Friendly Fire from Ancient Warfare to the Present Day</u> by Geoffrey Regan</p><p>London: Robson Books, 2002 (First published 1995) ISBN 1861055013</p><p>This is a somewhat disappointing book about a fascinating subject. Many years ago (before the internet) I was doing some family research on my Great-Grandfather and his brothers, all of whom served in World War One. My Great-Grandfather was killed in action on 20 September 1917, during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Menin_Road_Ridge" target="_blank">Battle of Menin Road</a>. Trying to find out more, I headed naturally to <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1416531" target="_blank">C.E.W. Bean's Official History</a> where it is mentioned that during the course of forming up for the battle the Australians suffered considerable losses due to the artillery barrage falling short. I hadn't considered the concept of "friendly fire" before that time, but since then have found it peeping through the curtains of many a memoir or history of wartime events.</p><p>So, when I found this book, I took it up with some interest. Regan has skimmed the surface of the concept of friendly fire, and expanded the concept beyond what I think most people would think it to mean. He skips between generalizations and "how it must have been" to specific details of other incidents. One gets the feeling that he was trying to write this book with limited time to research and think about the project. </p><p>It seems to me from the Introduction that Regan was moved to write this book after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._friendly-fire_incidents_since_1945_with_British_victims#:~:text=air%20recognition%20panels.-,Gulf%20War,A%2D10%20ground%20attack%20aircraft." target="_blank">friendly fire incident that killed six British soldiers during the first Gulf War</a>, but he begins the book proper with a description of Ancient Greek warfare, and a discussion of how there must have been much "friendly fire" in the phalanx, purely through the way the formation was structured. He continues the theme into Medieval warfare, noting along the way that the lack of uniforms caused much confusion as well. The problem with this section of the book is that Regan provides little actual evidence for the theories that he puts forward.</p><p>Moving to the early modern period, Regan begins to draw more on written accounts of friendly fire incidents during the Napoleonic Wars, and start to elaborate on the main cause of friendly fire - confusion. The development of tightly drilled infantry (squares etc.) was an effort to try and reduce confusion, but of course war <i>is </i>confusion, so much of the drill went out the window after a couple of volleys, or if officers were early casualties of the action. Confusion was often the cause of incidents in the armies opposing the French - allies often engaged other allies owing to lack of knowledge of their whereabouts, or even what their uniforms looked like.</p><p>These observations set the scene for the major part of Regan's book, concerning World War One and Two, and later conflicts. It's these sections of the book that I found most disappointing. In all probability, and as Regan suggests, mis-directed artillery fire was the cause of most friendly-fire casualties during World War One. Regan in my opinion skates over the reasons why such fire might be mis-directed, and focuses instead on the outcomes of the few incidents which he writes about.</p><p>There are two reasons for this, in my opinion. Firstly, Regan has chosen to write a journalistic style of book rather than a more academically focused one. And the second, which comes from the first, Regan has used mostly secondary sources for his information (and to be fair he admits this).</p><p>In World War Two it was aircraft that were at the centre of the main friendly fire incidents that he discusses. Aircraft dealt out a lot of friendly fire (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cobra" target="_blank">Operation Cobra</a>), and also received a lot (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily#" target="_blank">Invasion of Sicily</a>). Regan, in describing both World Wars, uses mostly material about the Entente and Allied forces - I assume because he was tied to English language material. The result is that we know a lot about the inadequacies of the USAF in particular, but not so much about the Axis forces (although he does mention <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodenplatte" target="_blank">Operation Bodenplatte</a>).</p><p>I remember reading or hearing the following phrase, about bombing in World War Two "When the Luftwaffe flies over the battlefield, the Allies take cover, when the RAF flies over, the Germans take cover, when the USAF flies over <i>everybody</i> takes cover!" Regan doesn't use that quote, but he does imply in his book that is was the US that seemed to be the worst offender...even bombing Switzerland several times.</p><p>Again, sometimes, confusion and lack of information led to tragedy. Often vehicles on the ground were showing appropriate identification symbols, but the fliers were not told about them. Often, aircraft were flying fixed routes at fixed heights at fixed times, but the Flak gunners were not notified. As Regan points out, often these problems could have been and should have been fixed.</p><p>My main problem with this work is the patchy nature of it - the lack of detail on the why, the intense focus on a few events, the lack of an overview. However, there are another few annoyances.....the chapter on execution of troops for various offences gets quite a few pages in this book, but I really don't think this issue comes under most commonly thought of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire" target="_blank">definitions of friendly fire</a>: there are other books that cover this much better. There is an interesting chapter on "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging" target="_blank">fragging</a>", but again, not enough detail, evidence or statistical information to be more than frustrating for the reader.</p><p>The final bone I have to pick is with language, specifically Regan's use of the term "amicide" as a synonym for friendly fire. While friendly fire is in itself an ungainly term for what is being described, amicide, to me, is completely misleading. Genocide, suicide all imply the <i>deliberate</i> taking of life, whereas ("fragging" aside), friendly fire incidents are not deliberate - they are tragic errors. This book is the first time I have come across the term - I hope it is the last, although with the way the English language is increasingly mauled as the years go on, I fear it won't be.</p><p>So, for me, not a lot to recommend here.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIIMMiYrRd0OTmOcAChxrgot7-Gji2W2Ro1zHqZMJ567Mz9QD5P2HaIcewuclpgnDk5II73gnNjvF7fwnfdcfYtH0-2Mz9nNxC7hr7NzOWjwgTG842-IV37pG_k9q_XYtZH_Uz-cnHMdhZ1C25EMKtC7R84sMEPJZaWeDlomjRvUKlt5s6OUdJRx48KcpV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIIMMiYrRd0OTmOcAChxrgot7-Gji2W2Ro1zHqZMJ567Mz9QD5P2HaIcewuclpgnDk5II73gnNjvF7fwnfdcfYtH0-2Mz9nNxC7hr7NzOWjwgTG842-IV37pG_k9q_XYtZH_Uz-cnHMdhZ1C25EMKtC7R84sMEPJZaWeDlomjRvUKlt5s6OUdJRx48KcpV" width="154" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-86562603076987893672023-11-29T11:54:00.002+11:002023-11-29T11:54:23.322+11:00Book Review - White Meat by Peter Corris<p> <u>White Meat</u> by Peter Corris</p><p>New York: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1986 (first published 1981) ISBN 0449130274</p><p>Well, I'm officially hooked on Cliff Hardy - after reading the first, third and fourth books in the series, I just had to find the second book to fill in the gaps in Hardy's developing milieu... I couldn't get my hands on a copy anywhere, but the good old <a href="https://archive.org/" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a> helped out where no-one else could - they are worth your support. Ironic that I had to read an American edition on an American site, but that's the way of the world in 2023.</p><p><u>White Meat</u> is another tangled affair that sees Hardy enmeshed in the worlds of boxing, drugs, and Aboriginal Sydney. After being hired to find his local bookie's daughter, who has gone missing, Hardy finds himself deep in Redfern trying to track her down. The trail leads to rural New South Wales, where he realises that the girl in question (Noni) is in on her own kidnapping. There is also the question of the missing bank heist money, just who is the kidnapper's real father, and why so many people want to use Noni for their own ends.</p><p>Of the four Hardy novels I've read so far, this is the weakest in terms of style. There are too many clunky bits of writing that are trying too hard for the grunge/noir style that Corris is aiming at. Perhaps he tried to cram too much into this particular narrative container. The twists in the plot sometimes led me to backtrack just to make sure I knew what was going on, and the ending was a bit of a let-down.</p><p>That stated, <u>White Meat</u> was a page-turner, and hasn't put me off continuing what is rapidly turning out to be a summer of Hardy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAVam23tXoT0qoJOIeqQkny-idyiCvSFXp9f_l8YGQO4ReC_LeTmhgwaGkid0dWcwTmCdIuz9sAXMjuKKA0Lq-lHkaMe4ZKYtTA_LlY0R4VI45w5TA0RAPjVpTkOCxIFA_BZLnrOFNcDVzT_hUBxTAOZ9ek6H_fN22MS4Jpc51ya_nExao_kGxDEHeq74w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="120" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAVam23tXoT0qoJOIeqQkny-idyiCvSFXp9f_l8YGQO4ReC_LeTmhgwaGkid0dWcwTmCdIuz9sAXMjuKKA0Lq-lHkaMe4ZKYtTA_LlY0R4VI45w5TA0RAPjVpTkOCxIFA_BZLnrOFNcDVzT_hUBxTAOZ9ek6H_fN22MS4Jpc51ya_nExao_kGxDEHeq74w" width="144" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Cheers for now, from</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">A View Over the Bell</span></span></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-48473086855307048112023-11-24T09:21:00.002+11:002023-11-24T09:21:21.287+11:00Book Review - The Empty Beach by Peter Corris<p> <u>The Empty Beach</u> by Peter Corris</p><p>Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1983 ISBN 0868612294</p><p>Crime fiction can be like junk food - probably not something you'll remember as you do a fine dining experience, but a quick delicious hit that leaves you wanting more. So it is with Cliff Hardy, the shambling Sydney PI created by Peter Corris. The Cliff Hardy novels have everything required for the quick fix of the crime genre - a noir hero who just manages to keep things legal, a helpful cop, always a woman who the hero may (or in this case may not) bed, and the usual assortment of criminals and down-and-outers who help the plot along.</p><p>In <u>The Empty Beach</u> the plot revolves around the death of John Singer. The police thought suicide, but his wife thinks differently - she thinks he may still be alive. That's when Cliff comes in. In his search for the truth he allies himself with some social campaigners and drunks, and faces up to the sleaze of gambling and drugs. As is usual in a Cliff Hardy book, a couple of people get killed. Cliff is beaten up, kidnapped and pistol-whipped, and it all turns out well in the end, as Cliff returns to his shabby house in Glebe.</p><p>This, the fourth book in the series, introduces some new characters - Hilde, Cliff's boarder, and Frank Parker, Hardy's new contact with the police. There is another twist in the plot that involves Hardy's client and why she wanted him to investigate her husband's death.</p><p>Corris has set <u>The Empty Beach</u> in Bondi and the suburbs surrounding, and as seems usual in the Hardy books, the Sydney suburbs are their own character in these books.</p><p>And now, like junk food, I need more.... I can see a summer of Hardy coming up.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTXo8KIii3jG_zK42USvsBkM5V1ESmP1rBylC6-m6wsiiWuSiTcrPVgE2AnJDB4Cvtov2oCcMRYnbIP2i8_DG-3cBl6ob-h08xxt3K_5UbXEHHBLgsSsEgb8FJ7F9tejjyK2Sc-lOJ9Jkm1If0ifDXLKPX5Zw_YG9Y0_d4GS884vj26aEhHQb_1rVd9xq/s500/9780449130292-us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTXo8KIii3jG_zK42USvsBkM5V1ESmP1rBylC6-m6wsiiWuSiTcrPVgE2AnJDB4Cvtov2oCcMRYnbIP2i8_DG-3cBl6ob-h08xxt3K_5UbXEHHBLgsSsEgb8FJ7F9tejjyK2Sc-lOJ9Jkm1If0ifDXLKPX5Zw_YG9Y0_d4GS884vj26aEhHQb_1rVd9xq/s320/9780449130292-us.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-40593363875146660962023-11-23T09:18:00.000+11:002023-11-23T09:18:20.222+11:00Book Review - The Marvellous Boy by Peter Corris<p> <u>The Marvellous Boy</u> by Peter Corris</p><p>Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014 (First published 1982) ISBN 9781743439883</p><p>I was keen to get my teeth into another Cliff Hardy book after reading the first in the series (<u>The Dying Trade</u>) recently. I couldn't get my hands on the second book, and so it's number three, <u>The Marvellous Boy</u> that has kept me occupied for a few hours this week.</p><p>Hardy is back again, this time trying to track down the long-lost grandson of Lady Chatterton. Corris has obviously become more comfortable with his creation, as he in turns follows and is followed, roughs people up and is roughed up himself, and gets entangled with a female reporter while fending off a suspect's wife.</p><p>For me, there was a bit of a sense of Corris going through the motions here - ensuring that Hardy is knocked out a couple of times, that he has the appropriate number of run-ins with less salubrious members of society, and that he has the right number of knotty problems to unravel before he gets his man.</p><p>That stated, <u>The Marvellous Boy</u> is a page-turner, and the grittiness of Sydney in the 1980s comes through the writing. It's not great literature, but it's a good read - I imagine I'll work my way through the series.</p><p>One strange thing I noticed - one of the protagonist's cars changed from a Datsun to a Toyota mid-chase...hmm...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjy-8bGwPPD_4-YIueSol7vBPggs6zLeoejj83zOguBS8RCktEBV8Snw6v7JzDVQIuavGEBKZZyiGnWdFNwKYv8aG0BYGE21jAGdpA8vokwvQiYTkhzMhfX0cCZcsmT9wTGhgYuhhEKYIyg3ksCfCVH6Tkf3d029oXoy49EwgaFI3iDn0dG6YAG8CqGAJem" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="150" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjy-8bGwPPD_4-YIueSol7vBPggs6zLeoejj83zOguBS8RCktEBV8Snw6v7JzDVQIuavGEBKZZyiGnWdFNwKYv8aG0BYGE21jAGdpA8vokwvQiYTkhzMhfX0cCZcsmT9wTGhgYuhhEKYIyg3ksCfCVH6Tkf3d029oXoy49EwgaFI3iDn0dG6YAG8CqGAJem" width="155" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-5895947617335430442023-11-13T16:21:00.000+11:002023-11-13T16:21:42.320+11:00Book Review - The Dying Trade by Peter Corris<p> <u>The Dying Trade</u> by Peter Corris</p><p>Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2012 (first published 1980) ISBN 9781921922176</p><p>I'm not a huge consumer of crime fiction, but every now and then I have an itch I need to scratch. I have never read any Peter Corris before this book (the first of his Cliff Hardy series) but I will certainly be reading more in the future. I can see why Corris has been crowned the unofficial King of Australian crime literature, and why he went on to write another 41 books featuring the rumpled, hard-drinking army veteran Cliff Hardy.</p><p><u>The Dying Trade</u> is a suitably convoluted story about illegitimate children, blackmail, and money. While the plot is a page-turner and keeps the reader on their toes, in many ways it's not the most important part of the book. Corris has written a piece of "Sydney noir", where we have all the ingredients of the style, except set in a sunny harbourside city. The juxtaposition of the hard-bitten detective genre with wonderful harbour views and expensive restaurants makes this book a little different from other books of this type.</p><p>Hardy is smart and world-weary, but no so much that he doesn't make mistakes, get beaten up, or expose his vulnerabilities to women. He's a man who has seen some active service, has lost a wife, regrets not having children and drinks white wine with soda at breakfast time. He is also a man who knows how to use a library to get ahead, which I found particularly endearing.</p><p>I can't vouch for the rest of the series, but <u>The Dying Trade</u> contained no gangsters, no criminal masterminds and no massive plots to destabilize the World: just a nice refreshing PI investigation that led to unexpected places.</p><p>Those few people who read my reviews would remember that during COVID I read Peter Temple's <i>Jack Irish</i> series. I now see where he got his inspiration. I think I prefer the source to the simmer.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGIhzw8FOr_shJ46IvnsbMQHBJFOUJyjvwI7HtYa7e1G-RBWJpEjChhrqiH3z1lXi9b8cI2BIrf2DuE7mU6fAlMDwPbmuCv-Ncq-i8MhBSnnqaPMo1E4azKwtSaitp9lvZnh4pjSQgosU22CVRYxNVxFLITr-VdoCBrH--KA7gbsVX-5I1l6FffYY6E9H0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="306" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGIhzw8FOr_shJ46IvnsbMQHBJFOUJyjvwI7HtYa7e1G-RBWJpEjChhrqiH3z1lXi9b8cI2BIrf2DuE7mU6fAlMDwPbmuCv-Ncq-i8MhBSnnqaPMo1E4azKwtSaitp9lvZnh4pjSQgosU22CVRYxNVxFLITr-VdoCBrH--KA7gbsVX-5I1l6FffYY6E9H0" width="155" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-52058213486786578342023-11-11T21:14:00.000+11:002023-11-11T21:14:20.487+11:00Book Review - Stalin: a Biography by Robert Service<p> <u>Stalin: a Biography</u> by Robert Service</p><p>London: Pan, 2005 (first published 2004) ISBN 9780330419130</p><p>For various reasons, I feel like I've been reading this book forever. Which is probably how people who lived under Stalin's rule felt for much of the time: a long-running nightmare without an end.</p><p>Robert Service has in this book given us a sweeping overview of the life and politics of one of the most influential and bloody leaders of the Twentieth Century, shooting down some myths while confirming others. It is a monumental book that covers so many great events, over an era where developments in politics and science were huge - at Stalin's birth the car and 'plane had yet to be invented, and much of Eastern Europe lived under the rule of one or other emperor. By the time of his death world influence was shared between the USSR and the USA, there were no empires left, and jet 'planes could fly halfway around the world to deliver nuclear weapons.</p><p>The most interesting part of the book for me was the description of Stalin's early years. Growing up in Georgia with a brutal father had a huge effect on the character of Stalin. He inherited the cultural tradition to hold a grudge, and to see conspiracy in everything - his reaction was in most cases to destroy those who (in reality or only in his mind) were against him. These tendencies were reinforced during his early activities as a revolutionary. While some of these characteristics were kept in check during his earlier years in Communism, as his power grew so did his paranoia, and his ability to act on it.</p><p>Service shows us that the myth that Stalin was not a major player in the Revolution or the years immediately following is incorrect. Stalin was a doer that did a lot, and was actually indispensable to Lenin as he tried to implement Bolshevik power. He was a forceful organizer, but uncaring of the casualties that he left in the wake of his activities. While the Civil War years were brutal, once Stalin took over the reigns of leadership the brutality increased. Stalin's paranoia led him to try to wipe out people, classes and nationalities that he perceived to be against his plan to bring about communism in one country.</p><p>While the Soviet Union was a country of bureaucracy, Stalin was the undisputed ruler, and whatever he thought <i>was</i> law. He would let his underlings debate policy, to draw out their thoughts, and then pronounce his view: this led quite often to policy paralysis, as people were afraid to state opinions when the consequences of being on the wrong side of the argument was the Gulag or a bullet in the back of the neck. The result of this sort of rule were never more evident than at the time of his death, when his underlings were too scared to check on him when he didn't appear for his usual morning cup of tea.</p><p>Stalin's cruelty and ruthlessness was appalling - he ruled more like a medieval Russian Czar than a modern socialist. As he aged, he became less and less in contact with the real world, and only understood what was happening through his bureaucrats and their reports. Knowing the consequences of displeasing the great leader, Stalin only got to hear good news. The one major exception to this was the Russian general Zhukov, who on more than one occasion clashed with Stalin. Zhukov survived, but after the War he was very much pushed into the background.</p><p> It was the War that was the making of the USSR: their victory legitimized Stalin and his government, and made the country a huge industrial power, but ossified the structure of rule as Stalin aged and became if possible even more paranoid, led to Eastern Europe becoming vassals of the USSR, and the final purges and pogroms before Stalin's death.</p><p>Service has written a good workmanlike biography. If you don't know much Russian history you are well serviced (forgive the pun), and he has covered Stalin the man, Stalin the politician, Stalin the tyrant, and Stalin the legend. Well worth reading.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMLPdtxn194v0Lp7PyAZsvpXeYxEAzKmrf4COmZg3LVLYtxFaYjZ-t_n3hgmzoLonG7gygCpJGq1SAEInv8-CpaoqwgRVCh0TZY8ZIUCbVXXn7aCBTfpFXzKSCRixARhxhpZ_VY3wKe8he871w8z9HLXmkQ0GYKGppdAgs8VF6_chWIRLiw6793ovBIPiv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="262" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMLPdtxn194v0Lp7PyAZsvpXeYxEAzKmrf4COmZg3LVLYtxFaYjZ-t_n3hgmzoLonG7gygCpJGq1SAEInv8-CpaoqwgRVCh0TZY8ZIUCbVXXn7aCBTfpFXzKSCRixARhxhpZ_VY3wKe8he871w8z9HLXmkQ0GYKGppdAgs8VF6_chWIRLiw6793ovBIPiv" width="157" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-10816133789637329552023-11-06T14:46:00.000+11:002023-11-06T14:46:46.682+11:00Book Review - Time to Declare by Mark Taylor<p> <u>Time to Declare</u> by Mark Taylor with Ian Heads</p><p>Sydney: Ironbark, 1999 ISBN 0330361848</p><p><br /></p><p>Cricket it seems, more than most other sports, lends itself to the written word. In my opinion there are many reasons for this - the time it takes, the breaks in play that lead to deeper thought on what has occurred and what may be about to occur, the way cricket today can reflect back to past cricketing events, and not forgetting the endless statistical delight that the game gives us.</p><p>So we come to the autobiography of the man who I feel has been the best Australian captain of the last fifty years. As a leader he was always optimistic and supportive of his team-mates, but it was as a tactician that he shone. Taylor rarely miss-stepped as captain, and he quite often made changes in the field that turned out to be inspired. This, added to his steady batting and brilliant slips fielding make him one of Australia's best cricketers of his generation. </p><p>Unfortunately, in <u>Time to Declare</u>, Taylor has not chosen to discuss in any great depth his tactical decisions, or how he managed the team. This is more of a "traditional" cricketer's book, listing anecdotes, family life, and personal milestones. Taylor does weigh in on some controversies, particularly throwing and whether Australia should have separate captains for different forms of cricket: hot-button issues when he wrote this book, but somewhat old-hat now (although his opinions are interesting nonetheless).</p><p>For those of us who have seen and heard Taylor commentate, <u>Time to Declare</u> will hold no surprises. He is a straightforward type of man who says what he thinks. He was an aggressive captain, in the sense that he was always striving for the win, but never seemed an aggressive player. Some of the episodes he relates from his early cricketing life are about his aggressiveness, and learning how to temper that so that it became a productive force for him. There are several occasions in the book where he shows some understanding and forgiveness for the excesses of some of his younger team-mates (Ponting and Warne in particular), and explains clearly how difficult it can be to live the life of a professional sportsman.</p><p>What we don't get is very much explanation of his thinking as captain, or even as a batsman. We get the stories, but not the thinking behind them. That's a shame. I do wonder if that might be a product of Taylor writing this book in the six months immediately after his retirement: perhaps a longer period of reflection may have given us a book with more heft.</p><p>As it is, <u>Time to Declare</u> is pretty much another run-of-the-mill cricket book, which is not without its interest and nostalgia.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjg6KT-hkDfTwhGDS-UOOCei6azDscjsfo6G1zSshRGLsxk07XjNha4-hkeZeXWOZkd8ix2YcQMe7EGuQrJBKB4KH1lLK19dlqerGvOztt84FGLLKSLykTQGb2lqnSgYTntNB2SSPu0kU7GeqD_lBLrAvdSaZGphE4-HfG7C-rRd2OVvXFamVoS38HpXioC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjg6KT-hkDfTwhGDS-UOOCei6azDscjsfo6G1zSshRGLsxk07XjNha4-hkeZeXWOZkd8ix2YcQMe7EGuQrJBKB4KH1lLK19dlqerGvOztt84FGLLKSLykTQGb2lqnSgYTntNB2SSPu0kU7GeqD_lBLrAvdSaZGphE4-HfG7C-rRd2OVvXFamVoS38HpXioC" width="158" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-30829747219374236772023-09-05T10:36:00.000+10:002023-09-05T10:36:53.585+10:00Book Review - Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital<p> <u>Orpheus Lost</u> by Janette Turner Hospital</p><p>London: Fourth Estate, 2007 ISBN 0732284414</p><p>Those few of you who regularly read my reviews know that I've set myself a task to read more Australian female authors, and looking back I've covered a bit of ground - Thea Astley, Kate Grenville, Delia Falconer, Elizabeth Jolley, and Shirley Hazzard have all been read so far, with greater or lesser enjoyment. One writer who has eluded me until now is <a href="https://janetteturnerhospital.com/" target="_blank">Janette Turner Hospital</a>. She has been on my reading radar for a long time, since the late '80s in fact, but it is only now that I have got around to one of her books. So many books, so little time...</p><p><u>Orpheus Lost</u> is, at base, a story of love, loss, and obsession. We follow the story of Leela, a mathematics academic from the Deep South, who when in Boston meets and falls for Mishka Bartok, a musical genius and ingenue from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_Rainforest" target="_blank">Daintree </a>in Queensland. Mishka can only really express himself through music, specifically violin, which comes from his mother's family (Jews who fled Europe after World War Two), and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud" target="_blank">oud </a> which comes from his father's Middle Eastern roots. Mishka has never met his father, whom he believes is dead, and takes up the oud in homage to his memory.</p><p>Mishka's world is turned upside-down when a fellow student, an Islamic radical, not only announces that he knows who Mishka's father is, but that he is still alive and living in Beirut. Mishka leaves Leela to find out if this is in fact the case.</p><p>Meanwhile Cobb Slaughter, Leela's "blood brother" from her hometown Promised Land, has come back from Afghanistan (where he won a Bronze Star, but also engaged in unauthorised activities) and is working for the Government as a private intelligence operative. Mishka's entanglement with the Islamists has led Cobb to him, and to Leela, who he has loved his whole life, and to whom he wants to cause as much pain as he can.</p><p>These plot-lines become more entangled as the story progresses. Leela, who escaped her father's religious insanity, comes to realise through her own loss how the loss of her mother unhinged her father. Cobb comes to realise that seeking revenge is not worth it, and that causing pain just increases the amount of pain in the world. His guilt costs his own life, but saves Mishka's.</p><p>Whilst the premise of this book is perhaps hard to believe, Hospital's writing is so effective the reader suspends disbelief almost immediately. Her evocation of the Daintree in particular is lush and rich with visual imagery. In a book where it can be hard to decipher truth from fiction and dreams from reality, Hospital carefully weaves the storyline through multiple lenses, such that the reader is never sure what might be coming next.</p><p>The title of the book, and the fact that Mishka plays music of almost unbearable sadness, refers the reader to the myth of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_and_Eurydice" target="_blank">Opheus and Eurydice</a>. I'm not sure that Hospital has drawn that link in a way that is too meaningful, and her intent is unclear to me. What she has done is evoke in a powerful way how what happens to us can stay with us, sometimes not for the reasons we might think, and that the human heart makes us work in strange, dangerous and self-harming ways. She reminds us that even in happiness the seed of sadness lurks, and that sorrow can be a very powerful emotion.</p><p><u>Orpheus Lost</u> is a powerful and well-written novel. I can highly recommend it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBTcr0-d5yptCbZuG3872-WR4s7miBAEcvDTX4Ps8Xai9A8reFr2L7A5HwkqJSnSBJMH4g_DeZGu_Pc3fxEBnbJjmnngL4z4fg9aPShqeqqtEJ_jbOBHRV_drH_TYSzHR3l0N4mh6P7FZvGlzM7VzGR7dS-rfr1LNL5uIfTpRlLC5yxcVM2ObNaP_YVP4F" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBTcr0-d5yptCbZuG3872-WR4s7miBAEcvDTX4Ps8Xai9A8reFr2L7A5HwkqJSnSBJMH4g_DeZGu_Pc3fxEBnbJjmnngL4z4fg9aPShqeqqtEJ_jbOBHRV_drH_TYSzHR3l0N4mh6P7FZvGlzM7VzGR7dS-rfr1LNL5uIfTpRlLC5yxcVM2ObNaP_YVP4F" width="156" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-51048946635486676832023-08-30T21:48:00.000+10:002023-08-30T21:48:27.356+10:00Book Review - War at the end of the World by James P. Duffy<p> <u>War at the end of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea, 1942-1945</u></p><p>by James P. Duffy</p><p>New York: NAL Caliber, 2016 ISBN 9780451418302</p><p>This is a well-written and well-balanced account of the New Guinea campaign of World War II. James Duffy has not broken any new ground with this book, but what he has done is tell - side-by-side - the American, Australian and Japanese stories of this arduous campaign, in a simple narrative of the battles and decision making involved in winning (and losing) them.</p><p>The New Guinea campaign lasted from almost the beginning of the Pacific War to almost the end, and traversed the entire island from East to West. From early 1942 to late 1944 the Allied forces, through a strategy of targeted battles and bypassing large enemy bases, comprehensively defeated the Japanese forces. One stark statistic - in New Guinea the American forces lost 7,000 men, and the Australians a similar number. The Japanese lost over 200,000 men killed in the campaign.</p><p>The stark difference in deaths can be sheeted home to a few reasons: the overwhelming technological and materiel advantage of the Allies, the flawed battle tactics of the Japanese, and the inability of Japan to supply its troops with enough materiel (particularly food and medicine). As Duffy points out, MacArthur was also frugal with his troops, reluctant to attack large Japanese bases if he could avoid it. </p><p>Rabaul was the first instance of where this tactic was used. Initially, from necessity owing to lack of troops, MacArthur constantly tried to avoid set-piece battles with large Japanese forces. What MacArthur wanted was hard ground for airfields. Although he was an Army man, MacArthur fully understood the crucial nature of air power, especially in a war that was fought over water and islands.</p><p>So, MacArthur's first thought when looking at the next Japanese conglomeration was "does it have an airfield suitable for my bombers, and is that airfield in the right strategic spot?" If the answer was no, the Allies moved on to the next area. Sometimes, if the Japanese force around a suitable airfield was too large, MacArthur sometimes found a suitable place where the Japanese weren't, and built his own airfields. In some cases an airfield could be up and running a couple of days after construction started. The construction companies, both the Australian and the American Seabees, were the unsung heroes in this forgotten war.</p><p>I imagine some Australian readers might quibble about the phrase "forgotten war" being applied to the New Guinea campaign, but I think that Duffy's term is apt. Certainly Australians generally know about the Kokoda campaign, and maybe Buna and Gona, but how many of us know much about the early campaigns in New Britain and New Ireland, the Markham Valley, Kalopit, Finschhafen, Manus Island and Los Negros, Hollandia and Aitape, Biak and Morotai? </p><p><u>War at the end of the World</u> is a great resource to understand these lesser-known battles, and at the same time to understand the Japanese viewpoint, which quite often gets lost in histories such as these. That the Japanese high command let so many troops wither on the vine is hard to understand, even with the difficulties that they had in moving troops as the war tipped in favour of the Allies. So many times Duffy writes of Japanese formations that were frittered away in piecemeal attacks, or suicidal defences of areas of little strategic value.</p><p>What I liked about this book was Duffy's even-handedness in describing the Australian and American contributions to victory. While we Australians might think we did it all, the reality is that the Americans did most of the heavy lifting. Duffy gets the balance right in my opinion - clearly pointing out the holding operations of the Australians at Kokoda, and how their preponderance of skill and battle experience led the way through the early battles at Buna and Gona, and then giving way to the greater numbers of Americans as they arrived in the theatre. </p><p>As the subtitle of this book suggests, Duffy also has a focus on MacArthur throughout this book. He makes us aware that his one aim was to get back to the Philippines, and writes well on his constant battle with the Navy and Chiefs of Staff to get the men and material he required to prosecute the war. Duffy alludes to the politics surrounding his command, and how astute MacArthur was in managing the men around him, above him and below him as well.</p><p>With one caveat, I can recommend this book as a very good and detailed overview of what in many ways has become a forgotten part of the Pacific War.</p><p>The caveat is that the maps are appalling - too few, too lacking in detail, and too poorly printed to be of any use. This is inexcusable in a book describing a campaign that covers one of the World's largest islands. The blame for this can't be laid at the feet of the author, but it really lets the book down. The bibliography and index are serviceable.</p><p>I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this book up, but found it a readable and relatively comprehensive narrative of this long and complex campaign.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-6a12j5-UqXFabv24Gbp-itXBGzkVgYdsATkZ91ORLsqAVxxluEds6guW_ueRLv4eDwZgaDHRC3QPvwkbGvfVw8c11fJ5gLwHgWLkVj1d9rGizXsjot_ZU7kkcIbhqZ50DUOo2I-QiwOj-Jcs8Vq6ER6n7MaSDRNWAOeZ-5O-xX-ElTU1iYE4Dbctc6J3" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="231" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-6a12j5-UqXFabv24Gbp-itXBGzkVgYdsATkZ91ORLsqAVxxluEds6guW_ueRLv4eDwZgaDHRC3QPvwkbGvfVw8c11fJ5gLwHgWLkVj1d9rGizXsjot_ZU7kkcIbhqZ50DUOo2I-QiwOj-Jcs8Vq6ER6n7MaSDRNWAOeZ-5O-xX-ElTU1iYE4Dbctc6J3" width="160" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-592432490695433412023-08-22T16:10:00.001+10:002023-08-22T16:11:25.746+10:00Book Review - The Outsider by Albert Camus<p> <u>The Outsider</u> by Albert Camus, translated from the French by Joseph Laredo</p><p>London: Penguin Books, 2000 (first published as <i>L'Etranger</i> in 1942, this translation first published 1982)</p><p>ISBN: 0141182504</p><p>Do we value Camus enough? I know that his books are very popular, and there is a lot written about him, but have we fully realised how accurately he predicted the society of today? Re-reading <u>The Outsider</u> is a reminder that modern life is alienating to individuals and fosters alienation of individuals one from another.</p><p>Meursault is a modern man - unattached, lacking passion, an outsider in his own life, observing and going along, but with no sense that he is able to take charge or direct his own life. When his girl Marie asks if he loves her, he states "it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." When she asked if he wanted to get married, "I explained to her that it really didn't matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. Anyway, she was the one who was asking me and I was simply saying yes."</p><p>Camus sets up this book as portraying Meursault as someone who is completely truthful, and a person whose truthfulness leads to his downfall (Camus states as much in an afterword that is included in this edition). It is true that Meursault refuses to commit the daily niceties that most of us expect - he doesn't conform to the norms of crying at his mother's funeral, or saying what might be expected when his elderly neighbour loses his dog. This is all well and good, but the cold-hearted (a better term would be heartless) murder that is the centre-piece of this story is impossible to gloss as part of a wider story of truthfulness in the face of a conformist society. Meursault can't understand why people seem so agitated about his lack of remorse or feeling for what he has done, but Meursault seems oblivious to the scale and finality of the crime he has committed. </p><p>This tension, deliberate or not, infects the mind of anyone who reads this book. Meursault's depiction of the banality and conformity of society is valid, but his inability to understand that what he has done draws the calumny of that same society is almost impossible for the reader to accept. The constant fug that Mersault describes living through (he is always too hot and stuffy, the sun addles his brain, he feels slightly sick) adds another layer of wooliness to the story - the reader feels that at any moment they might be suffocated by this novel, that the helplessness and hopelessness of Meursault will overwhelm even the society that sits in judgement of him.</p><p>In 2023, one also wonders about the racial aspect to this book. Meursault's "mate" Raymond beats his Arab girlfriend, the sister of the Arab that Meursault kills. Raymond gets off the charge of violence, with the implication that because he beat up an Arab woman it doesn't matter so much. The reader gets the sense that Meursault wonders why he has been given the death penalty, given that the person he shot was merely an Arab. In 1942 this aspect of <u>The Outsider</u> may have not been as noteworthy as it is today, but it adds another layer to what is already a dense story.</p><p>The style of this book (in this translation) is worth mentioning as well. The first two chapters, which set up what kind of man we are dealing with, his attendance at his mother's funeral and describing his daily life, are masterpieces of descriptive writing. The horror that develops in the second half of the book - horror at Meursault's crime, horror of his helplessness, horror of what is going to happen to him - is well-handled also. </p><p>There is no doubt that Camus is worth reading - I do wonder if <u>The Plague</u> might be a better starting point for the first-time Camus reader, but <u>The Outsider</u>, although a short book, definitely lingers in the mind.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhd66oVVRC4k-As8Zd666vgVUQpm7EFeZVtZlEh4FMX5V9xeyMYpzDuze-iSDzoQzreXR1a2S6476EpR2i6pdaLae74fnz9cT_fO4S5o-KTjfrlx4fzz1pbYk3Zv7xj_oZa6AypFs024XtiQo15y94tWl1C9a5O0yAOdILuRFBpnf6u0PqdPJNwQd749jDN" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="140" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhd66oVVRC4k-As8Zd666vgVUQpm7EFeZVtZlEh4FMX5V9xeyMYpzDuze-iSDzoQzreXR1a2S6476EpR2i6pdaLae74fnz9cT_fO4S5o-KTjfrlx4fzz1pbYk3Zv7xj_oZa6AypFs024XtiQo15y94tWl1C9a5O0yAOdILuRFBpnf6u0PqdPJNwQd749jDN" width="156" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-33530592199310996612023-08-19T22:09:00.002+10:002023-08-19T22:10:32.077+10:00Book Review - The Dead Man in the Bunker by Martin Pollack<p> <u>The Dead Man in the Bunker: Discovering my Father</u> by Martin Pollack, translated by William Hobson</p><p>London: Faber and Faber, 2007 ISBN 9780571228010</p><p>What a fascinating book, on so many levels. Martin Pollack has written an account of trying to track down the story of his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Bast" target="_blank">father</a>, an Austrian SS man who was murdered trying to cross the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Pass" target="_blank">Brenner Pass </a>in 1947. He takes us on a journey into the borderlands of the German people, the beginnings of the German nationalism that fed the growth of Nazism, and the forgetting that occurred after the War.</p><p>Pollack begins the story by finding the spot in a bunker on the Pass where his father's body was found. He then winds back through history, to the late Nineteenth Century when his family lived in Styria, on the "border" between Slovene and German people. Pollacks father's family, the Bast family were upstanding Germans, members of German nationalist groups, anti-Semitic, and early converts to Nazism. Pollack well describes the increasing tension on the "German language border" which only increased after World War I, when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_border_changes_(1914%E2%80%93present)#Europe" target="_blank">new borders</a> exacerbated the tension. The Basts soon joined the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party" target="_blank">Nazi party</a>, which was a provocative and illegal act in Austria at that time. Gerhard, Pollack's father, risked prison as he rose further in the Party, and joined the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel" target="_blank">SS</a>. After the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss" target="_blank">Anschluss</a>, Gerhard's father rose in the Nazi bureaucracy as his son rose higher in the SS. </p><p> Pollack takes us further into the history of his family - he explains that Bast was not married to his mother, and in fact his mother was married to another man and had two children already. His mother divorced and married Bast in April 1945. When the war ended Bast was on the run, and so Pollack's mother re-married her first husband...and yet his mother sent him on holidays to the Bast grandparents. A very tangled story, but one he could never really talk about at the time to any of his family.</p><p>Getting information about what his father did in the War is also tangled. As Pollack explains, records for German forces, the SS in particular, are patchy owing to how many were destroyed at the end of the War, and the difficulty in tracking one person through a multitude of files in a multitude of cities and countries.</p><p>And so this book is just as much about what is not known, as it is about the facts. Pollack, naturally wants to believe that his father was - as his grandmother tells him - a good man, but he knows that would be too good to be true. He was right. </p><p>Gerhard Bast had many phases to his SS career... one of which was commanding <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando" target="_blank">Sonderkommando</a> 7a toward the end of the war, where he was definitely involved in the execution of innocents. There is no doubt that Bast was a committed Nazi. There is no doubt in Pollack's mind that his grandparents, Bast's parents remained Nazis even after the War, as did his mother and step-father...their views of the world, of Jews in particular, did not change. Pollack is unflinching in the way he describes how his views clashed with those of his family, and it is painful to read how the trauma of the experience of war, what his family suffered and the suffering it caused, throws ripples through history forever.</p><p><u>The Dead Man in the Bunker</u> is one man's attempt to understand those ripples and what his family history means for him. A forceful, moving and painful book.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4oqfepzPqASjP3ovdPvpLgj7czovbizEbK7HNksV-Ok318mcmf7vTYuVGiRv8vIbv8h_IrJKDEB0GJ5Pix4HvolXxTOlkA1GOBxDboOUtEq_Mx3ycB7j4SIxabp3OEpDYqaLN9dwpVyBAR_6lu8Ta2kMr5vOLwQ1eHrbHFNDL4eMaMFsM4C0d9bdjhVnW/s400/13561971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4oqfepzPqASjP3ovdPvpLgj7czovbizEbK7HNksV-Ok318mcmf7vTYuVGiRv8vIbv8h_IrJKDEB0GJ5Pix4HvolXxTOlkA1GOBxDboOUtEq_Mx3ycB7j4SIxabp3OEpDYqaLN9dwpVyBAR_6lu8Ta2kMr5vOLwQ1eHrbHFNDL4eMaMFsM4C0d9bdjhVnW/s320/13561971.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-51129003717304819682023-08-16T15:11:00.000+10:002023-08-16T15:11:15.206+10:00Book Review - The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore<p> <u>The Romanovs 1613-1918</u> by <a href="http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/" target="_blank">Simon Sebag Montefiore</a></p><p>London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016 ISBN 9781474600286</p><p>This is an epic book on an epic theme - the story of the rise and fall of one of the great dynasties of human history. From the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Romanov" target="_blank">Romanov</a>, Michael I, who reluctantly took the throne of what wasn't even really a country, to the last, Nicholas II who during his reign ruled from Vladivostok to west of Warsaw, the reader gets a potted history of the country, and an intimate look at the Romanov family and the wider royal families of Europe. The book covers 300 years, and by the time I got to the end, I'd almost forgotten the beginning, so great was the span of time and changes to Russia that this book covers.</p><p>There are a few themes that Montefiore brings out in his text. The first is the power of women during the rule of the Romanovs. Obviously Catherine the Great, but there were other female Tsars and Tsarinas who wielded great power. Women as mistresses also played an important part in the history of the dynasty, either being stalwart supporters of their lovers, or through inadvertantly bringing their paramour down. The inevitability of mistresses, and of Tsarinas managing them, flows through the book - there were very few happily married Tsars (Nicholas II being one of them).</p><p>The battle between Western influences and traditional Russian culture ebbed and flowed throughout the family over time. The early Tsars were truly Slavic, with their boyar clothes and brideshows, but they soon felt that, to truly become a world power, they had to modernise and take on Western forms of dress and behaviour. The constant friction between the two cultures had its apotheosis in 1917, when revolution broke out, partly fueled by the notion that the royal family were more German than Russian - an idea that would have horrified Nicholas, even as he wrote letters in English to his German wife. The cosmopolitanism of the royal family was at odds with the deep Russian-ness of the populace.</p><p>Montefiore also shows the reader how the Romanovs slowly cut themselves off from their natural supporters, the nobility. One can't be an autocrat and be alone, but by continually depriving the nobility of ancient rights - especially freeing the serfs, the family turned the nobles into a disgruntled part of society that felt that they had been cheated. Ironically, freeing the serfs also turned the peasants against the Tsar, as they started to agitate for rights and land, which the Tsars were reluctant to give.</p><p>The over-arching sweep of the family is a growth into power, with a some extraordinary individuals (Peter and Catherine, Alexander II) who made the most of their abilities to create the Russian empire as it became, and then of decline, with weakness, vacillation and debauchery claiming quite a few members over the 300 years of Romanov rule, epitomized by Nicholas II, who was emotionally and intellectually ill-equipped to rule in an increasingly complex world.</p><p>Montefiore has tackled this huge task with brio, wit and erudition. While keeping the focus on the family, its intrigues, squabbles and triumphs, he also, through judicious asides and footnotes, lets the reader enjoy other tidbits of history. One example I loved is that Vladimir Putin's grandfather was Rasputin's chef....</p><p>This is not a history of Russia; it is a history of the Romanovs: where both of those histories intersect, we learn Russian history, where they don't, we learn about the family. I think, if you wish to try to understand Russian history, this book plays an important part, but it is not the whole. Fortunately, while we learn, we are entertained, as sometimes this reads better than any fiction. </p><p>The apparatus of the book is useful, with a decent bibliography and index. Montefiore has chosen to split the book into various "Acts" with a list of "Players" at the beginning (somewhat like a Shakespearian play). This quirk has its uses, with a useful family tree at the beginning of each of these "Acts". Even with this assistance, it can be difficult to keep track of who is who and how they fit in to the milieu of the Romanov court and government.</p><p>Overall, this is a great book, and one I would recommend. I enjoyed it a lot.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivwJVMQ-d45Yonkop04DW6H4SwGFp2oSIXQeMtW-hrM0e1esT3c59ITvccbd8W_Uy2I-O90kwzfI3ObWe-8fyus0tM9nTCiTuGqHWNR8Pc6AiVWLSVmo_NZ4U7AqoYatVaT_zcvuVQYr7GbBCSKFd-KU2AWjlKlQt2XFgZU_W4z9oWBrF__uXQzDyPdd7U" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivwJVMQ-d45Yonkop04DW6H4SwGFp2oSIXQeMtW-hrM0e1esT3c59ITvccbd8W_Uy2I-O90kwzfI3ObWe-8fyus0tM9nTCiTuGqHWNR8Pc6AiVWLSVmo_NZ4U7AqoYatVaT_zcvuVQYr7GbBCSKFd-KU2AWjlKlQt2XFgZU_W4z9oWBrF__uXQzDyPdd7U" width="156" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-20355100127362009172023-07-16T19:57:00.000+10:002023-07-16T19:57:01.828+10:00Book Review - The Anglican Way by Verney Johnstone<p> <u>The Anglican Way: a Plain Guide for the Intelligent Layman</u> by Verney Johnstone</p><p>London: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Limited, 1948 (ninth impression 1961)</p><p>I love these kinds of books. Invariably published in England, they are a wonderful evocation of the English social order of pre- and post-war - working men who are keen to "improve" themselves, and being told how to do so by those in the upper middle class. That these sort of books were very popular is in no doubt - first published in 1948, this particular title had reached a ninth impression by the time my copy was printed in 1961.</p><p><u>The Anglican Way</u> is written by a former Canon of the Church, and is a wonderfully crisp evocation of what it means to be an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanism#" target="_blank">Anglican</a> as opposed to a Roman Catholic or a Non-Conformist Protestant. As Johnstone points out, the Anglican Church is actually a Catholic Church more than it is a Protestant Church, although it does have space for those who find the trappings of Roman Catholicism too much. While Johnstone doesn't delve too deeply into Church history, as this book is meant as a guide for the current practicing Anglican of his time, he does have succinct explanations of why and how the Anglican faith has developed in the way it has.</p><p>The heart of this book is a guide to how to be a good practicing Anglican. Johnstone explains that it is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Common_Prayer" target="_blank">Book of Common Prayer</a> that guides the worship of Anglicans. Much of <u>The Anglican Way</u> is concerned with the text of the book (both the 1662 and 1928 versions), and how the worshiper should interact with it. Johnstone certainly has his own view on the best form of Anglicanism - certainly more to the Anglo-Catholic than the "Low" Church, and a great lover of the austerity of much of the texts. He would certainly be horrified with a lot of current Anglican practice, even in the "High" Church.</p><p>This book, written about 70 years ago, prefers an Anglican that attends Morning and Evening prayer perhaps more than the Sunday Communion, one who prepares for services by meditating on the scriptures before attending, one who doesn't substitute "personal fancy for corporate duty in the national attitude to religion" and any other things that "militate against Sunday church-going." He certainly doesn't like a priest who gives the Church notices before the Homily!</p><p>While this book is obviously out-of-date as a guide to worship, and almost laughingly pompous and out-of-tune with the current day, I found it a useful guide to the structure of the Book of Common Prayer - why it is set out the way it is, and why there is so little about remembering the dead, among other things. I picked up this book for fifty cents in an op-shop, and realistically that is all it is worth. However it did give me a few hours of enjoyment and education.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-tNomJhU6iSzoQNHb865iKp9FT2CSt9BAJ7IP_fEjBEIuG_lOuXfAE0FdqpGsrCbhxpor6Svz31v-6zQ9EBqDWXV5PI6dt6sK5EKa16imODY90DefRZRetmvep1Biv9IK9jHcnNHb-Nvz81jU5rIBwNNOuPjqibENac2Fank9EeLMsodaGNZ3xjrT-Wqw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-tNomJhU6iSzoQNHb865iKp9FT2CSt9BAJ7IP_fEjBEIuG_lOuXfAE0FdqpGsrCbhxpor6Svz31v-6zQ9EBqDWXV5PI6dt6sK5EKa16imODY90DefRZRetmvep1Biv9IK9jHcnNHb-Nvz81jU5rIBwNNOuPjqibENac2Fank9EeLMsodaGNZ3xjrT-Wqw" width="180" /></a></div><br />Cheers for now, from<p></p><p>A View Over the Bell</p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-50376189736148699202023-07-11T18:27:00.000+10:002023-07-11T18:27:24.702+10:00Book Review - Hitting Across the Line by Viv Richards<p> <u>Hitting Across the Line: an Autobiography</u> by Viv Richards</p><p>Sydney: Sun, 1992 ISBN 0725107073</p><p>As I write this review, we are witnessing an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ashes_series">Ashes series</a> for the ages - two teams going hell-for-leather with nothing between them. Even though it's the middle of winter here in Oz, one's thoughts turn to the greatest of games every night as each test match so far has ebbed and flowed. Bazball meets the World Test Champions makes for a fascinating tussle, and too much cricket is never enough, so my daytime revolves around the current cricket news, and this "autobiography", which I picked up for a song at an op-shop and will pass on to others through my local neighborhood free library.</p><p>I write autobiography in quotation marks as this book is quite clearly ghost-written (by Mick Middles), and in some ways is a let-down for me. Apart from the clunky openings to each chapter, where we get a page or two written by Middles to try and give us the essence of <a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/cricketers/viv-richards-52812">Viv</a>, but which are actually cringeworthy, this book is a fairly standard cricketer's story - some chapters on youth, his breaking into the West Indian team, various chapters about the County Game, and some reflections on his life and some of the issues that Richards sees as important within cricket.</p><p>For such a dominant figure when out in the middle, this book seems, if anything, subdued. Richards gets stuck into the press, particularly the British Tabloids, but - to me at least - treats the cricket establishment, both in the West Indies and England more kindly than it perhaps deserves. He skirts around the scandal of his sacking at Somerset, and only spends a few pages discussing the internecine politics of West Indian cricket.</p><p>In fact, and I hate to state this, <u>Hitting Across the Line</u> feels very much like something dashed off in between other activities, with a nod to what people expect to hear, but not with too much thought. Middles' little prologues to the chapters seem to suggest that is very much what happened - if, as is indeed suggested, these prologues show how the book was written, it seems that Middles drove around Antigua with Richards and recorded his answers to questions as Richards was on the way to the local bar, or to the sporting ground.</p><p>This book doesn't do justice to such a giant of the game. Unless you are a complete Richards tragic, I'd give this one a miss.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXKCdlbGVMZjqWZgfK2kwR3ju39nsRF3uHUsfRGunsSnk5d0F1iyEdKQRLEou-VeQBRHAzixR0ZA1XJFwrZx-7rqrSdfCU1kSxiqRfUOf2rWUY_nEfHl0rJbNwAc-CX1irCXdvHjQtoJib5qpZ14rd48Pt5dG9hDEJ0VmXxRlHHeXYcIK2Hlc4z599NU_Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="268" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXKCdlbGVMZjqWZgfK2kwR3ju39nsRF3uHUsfRGunsSnk5d0F1iyEdKQRLEou-VeQBRHAzixR0ZA1XJFwrZx-7rqrSdfCU1kSxiqRfUOf2rWUY_nEfHl0rJbNwAc-CX1irCXdvHjQtoJib5qpZ14rd48Pt5dG9hDEJ0VmXxRlHHeXYcIK2Hlc4z599NU_Q" width="161" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><br /><p></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8292562519353006008.post-45961312110195732682023-06-27T22:28:00.000+10:002023-06-27T22:28:07.452+10:00Book Review - Reilly - Ace of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart<p> <u>Reilly - Ace of Spies</u> by Robin Bruce Lockhart</p><p>London: Futura, 1983 (first published 1967) ISBN 0708820034</p><p>I remember as a teenager being enthralled by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reilly,_Ace_of_Spies" target="_blank">television series</a> which was based on this book. In my mind it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Neill" target="_blank">Sam Neill</a>'s first big break, and it was a gripping series. My edition of this book is a tie-in with the series, with a picture of Neill on the cover. There is also a preface in this edition which Lockhart uses to talk a little about how the series came about.</p><p>Much has been written about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Reilly" target="_blank">Sidney Reilly</a> both before and after this book was written, but so much of his story is still mysterious. Lockhart (whose <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._Bruce_Lockhart" target="_blank">father</a> was a colleague of Reilly's in Moscow) is sure that he was born in Odessa, but current research is not so clear cut. The Russians thought he was Irish, which was one of the stories that he put about to create confusion. As with his birth, his death is also shrouded in mystery. That he was captured by the Russians in 1925 cannot be doubted, but what happened to him after that is unknown, as Russian sources don't agree on how and when he was killed.</p><p>So what can be gleaned about his life from this book? Lockhart, thanks to his father and his father's friends and colleagues, has much first-hand information about Reilly from people who knew him. He was a man who liked the good life, who liked women, and who was not above using people for his own devices, including the women who loved him. He was also a first-class spy, for the British cause, and then as an anti-Bolshevik operative. He spent his life, and a considerable fortune, in pursuit of a counter-revolution in Russia. He came closest in 1918 during the so-called "Lockhart Plot", but was stymied by the Russian intelligence services who had infiltrated the conspiracy. What he gained from his part in this plot was a death sentence (he was tried <i>in absentia</i> by the Russians), and a notoriety both within the Soviet Government and throughout Europe.</p><p>Lockhart takes us in to the world of the anti-Bolsheviks, which is so little-remembered today. He reminds us that the Russian Revolution did not finish in 1918: there was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War" target="_blank">long-running civil war</a> and throughout Europe both sides waged a clandestine war of information and money-raising. Reilly was intimately involved in money raising and plotting. He despaired of the conflicts between the anti-Bolshevik forces: while he supported <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Savinkov" target="_blank">Boris Savinkoff</a>, he knew that he wasn't the answer. </p><p>While he plotted and schemed, Reilly was also engaged in making money. He made and lost a few fortunes during his life, through marriage (he was a bigamist), and through arms sales. Most of his money was funneled back to counter-revolutionary activities, and to his high living. His fortunes rose and fell in the business world, and at the time of his disappearance he was deeply in debt after losing a court case in the USA over a debt of $500,000.</p><p>Lockhart has written an informative and exciting life - including as much of the Russian version of Reilly's end as he could find from public sources. For many years after his disappearance he was feted as the greatest spy to have existed: Ian Fleming based James Bond on the stories he'd heard about Reilly. The mystery of Reilly, and of many things that happened to him and around him, are yet to be solved, but <u>Reilly - Ace of Spies</u> is a great place to start.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHJKog805ApX3TbTvgaKKT-jgVVnfxqLjxSISkiuWcrHzsxZYpk-D0lcuQFDc3vcJ73o0zM7y6s5QVjCCEpoXXE7X1mS9UmfVQJ7V645ktVAGVa7kmwEqE5LTGhGTpO-vWe7CGfZooNFuyKuZQj9caXkl6yG0SFJ9i8GFaAVTm3Ot8lFsePwHwN4YQbJl/s926/91-PUyvMssL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="926" data-original-width="568" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHJKog805ApX3TbTvgaKKT-jgVVnfxqLjxSISkiuWcrHzsxZYpk-D0lcuQFDc3vcJ73o0zM7y6s5QVjCCEpoXXE7X1mS9UmfVQJ7V645ktVAGVa7kmwEqE5LTGhGTpO-vWe7CGfZooNFuyKuZQj9caXkl6yG0SFJ9i8GFaAVTm3Ot8lFsePwHwN4YQbJl/s320/91-PUyvMssL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cheers for now, from</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A View Over the Bell</div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>A View over the Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430830474699143861noreply@blogger.com0