No comments about The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War, and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England.

4 comments about Baden-Powell.

1. Actually the full title of this book is Baden-Powell, The Boy-Man. This is a well researched but dry treastie of the founder of Scouting. You get the strong sense that Juel knows very little of Scouting and was writing the book more from the point of having been a fellow military officer. What is sad however is that Juel seems to be taking part in a relatively recent phenomenon in our culture to shatter our hero figures. We now know George Washington did not really cut down the Cherry tree and Abe Lincoln was manic depressive. Juel want's everyone to know that B-P had his faults as well. In much the same vein that some historian muckrakers spend their time in an effort at character assination, Juel has devoted the thrust of his effort into a character assination of B-P. Anyone who is interested in Baden-Powell could find many other books in print that are far more readable than this one (Green Bar Bill Hillcourt's Two Lives of a Hero comes to mind and it is available right here on Amazon). Despite its relatively recent release the book flopped and was quickly discontinued, Scouters would not waste time or money reading it, scout shops would not carry it, and it is, after all, a dull and uninspired effort at best. The Boy Man & the Character Factory (by Rosenthal) are two B-P Books Scouters would do well to skip.



2. Tim Jeal was given unrestricted access to the unrivalled family archive by the great-nephew Mr. Francis Baden-Powell. There are many pictures in this book that cannot be found anywhere else. Tim Jeal spent five years of research prior to writing this book. There are FIVE pages of acknowledgements which include, British Scout Association, Mr. J L Tarr (Chief Scout Executive of BSA) and numerous other sources. Mr Jeal was born in 1945. He attended Westminster School and Christ Church in Oxford. His previous biography of David Livingstone was honored by the literary editors of The New York Times and the Washington Post. He lives in north London with his wife and three daughters. Tim Jeal was cognizant of the gap that existed in Lord Baden-Powell's not having a full and objective biography. He spent five years on research. He was able to obtain unique access to people who knew Baden-Powell and to a huge amount of unstudied private papers of Lord Baden-Powell. This is an EXCELLENT book and the many references from Baden-Powell's Diaries and Letters give candid and honest information that cannot be found anywhere else. A must read for those who are interested in having access to information not normally available and making up their own minds.



3. An excellent read. I was impressed at the volume of information Jeal had at his disposal in researching the book. With all the references he had I cannot but think that this book IS the definitive history of Baden-Powell. Yes the book does raise some controversial questions about Baden-Powell but Jeal does not attempt to label Baden-Powell in any way; instead presenting to the reader facts from people close to Baden-Powell including extracts from Baden-Powells own diaries. The reader can draw their own conclusions. I found Jeals book to be an excellent read and an wonderful insight into the life and culture that existed during Baden-Powells life, and in particular, his army career. The worldwide Scouting movement owes Baden-Powell so much and I think every scout leader should read this book. I did!



4. About a quarter of the way through this book, I was ready to toss it. I am glad I didn't. It suffers at times from mind-numbing detail and Jeal occasionally assumes knowledge I doubt most readers possess (particularly 19th century British military minutia). The pace is very slow through most of the book - not surprising considering the volume of information covered. And I do NOT recommend it as a first book on Baden-Powell! Tackle Russell Freedman's much more readable "Scouting With Baden-Powell" or spend a week with William "green Bar Bill" Hillcourt's long but less-scholarly "Baden-Powell The Two Lives of a Hero" (written with Olave Baden-Powell, the General's wife). But the reader looking for the most comprehensive and balanced treatment of Lord R.S.S. Baden-Powell should read this book. I have a much better feeling for and understanding of BP as result of reading this book.
   
   The text is primarily chronological. However, when dealing with specific aspects in Baden-Powell's life, he sometimes discusses issues and recounts all the related incidents, which can be somewhat confusing because it interrupts the chronological flow. I found myself having to stop reading to put these "breakout" incidents into chronological synchronization with things already discussed.
   
   The illustrations and photos are excellent. The photographs are grouped into three sections on higher quality paper. They will make little sense until you read the text referring to them. I really love BP's illustrations! They are sprinkled throughout the book (and in the original hardback edition called "The Boy-Man", are on the inside covers). The footnotes are copious but very difficult to use, numbered by section, not chapter, all at the end rather than at the foot of the pages and without referring page numbers, and many referring to documents by a code name which is keyed in a bibliographic section. The index was only marginally useful, rather short for such a large book, and limited in scope. I feel as though Jeal could have made this the seven-volume "Compleat Life Of Baden-Powell" had he wished. At times, while reading this book, I wished he had (and at other times this thought sent chills down my spine).
   
   The thing that put me off was Jeal's amateur psycho-analysis of the inner "Stephe". This permeates the book and distracts from the narrative. Perhaps in reaction to the slanderous assertions of other biographers, Jeal asserts that BP was a repressed homosexual. I found most of his arguments unpersuasive and reject this suggestion. He also implied that many Guide leaders were lesbians. Since his evidence of this was sketchy at best, I found it distracting. Yet he did not go into detail about the trials of Oscar Wilde and the resulting intolerance of homosexuality, which is important to the context of this issue. Another example of this unfortunate tendency of pseudo-psychology is in the epilogue ("Curbing the Beast and Reclaiming the Child"). Jeal suddenly begins discussing a darker side of Baden-Powell that was barely hinted at in the rest of the book. He attributes this darker BP to repressed childhood anger and a "lost childhood". It felt as if this was added on in the epilogue because he needed to say something about it and had neglected it through the rest of the text. These forays into psychology are the greatest weakness of this book.
   
   Jeal's discussion of the Seige of Mafeking is nuanced. His treatment of Baden-Powell is obviously sympathetic, yet he also wants to show BP "warts and all." Jeal digs into the letters and diaries of not only Baden-Powell and his family, but even BP's officers and their families. As the book goes on, he relies more and more on interviews with people who were there, which gives the text a ring of authenticity that I did not find in other BP biographies. (For instance, he lists the inhabitants of Outspan in BP's last days as a result of an interview with one of the employees.)
   
   In the later sections of the book, the detail is again dense and Jeal returns to psycho-analysis, but it does not (to me) seem as heavy-handed as in the beginning of the book (until the epilogue). I had not appreciated the conflicts and fitful starts of the early Scouting movement, and the power struggles that nearly wrecked it. I was dredfully ignorant of his home life and last years. I think Jeal was harsh with the two primary women in BP's life: his mother and wife. He paints both of them as unscrupulously domineering and cold. But his treatment of the end of BP's life is poignant and tender.
   
   He addresses issues raised by other biographers and explains how he believes they are wrong based on documents and interviews in the five years he worked on this massive tome. I found this very interesting, but would rather have these things dealt with in their own chapter near the end, rather than scattered through the text. An example of this is his treatments of militarism in the early years of the movement and BP's opinions of the Fascist leaders Mussolini and Hitler.
   
   The question of militarism could have been better addressed. The concerns and fears that the youth of the British Empire were weak and needed character building were concerns and fears felt around the world at that time. There were other similar organizations rising around the world at the same time. Jeal did not address the massive changes around the world from 1850 to 1950. The world had turned on its head economically (the rise of the middle classes and rich merchant barons, and the reaping of colonial economies), industrially (invention and commercialization of automobiles, airplanes, etc.), religiously ("Awakenings", new religious movements such as Mormonism, Christian Science, and the Salvation Army, and wide-spread atheism), politically (National Socialism and Communism) - in nearly every way. People were grasping for something larger than themselves to save them from being lost in the changing world. Jeal could have done more to place the events, particularly after the founding of the movement, into a context larger than the British Empire. He relates the world-wide travels of BP, but (with exception of the US) does not go into much detail on BP's relationships with Scouting organizations in other countries.
   
   My conclusion from this book is that Baden-Powell was an ordinary man upon whom was thrust greatness. The picture that emerges is a complex man. BP was a social climber, not a good student, at times flighty, and a bit of a clown. He would take others' ideas to enrich his own. He was not above stretching the truth if it would make a better yarn around the campfire (or in a book). He was a man with feet of clay. He was an idealist. His concern for young people was quite genuine. He tried his best to be the role model for the movement. He created the greatest youth movement ever seen, almost without wanting to. He breathed into it the Soul of Scouting, which carried it around the world. He indeed did his best to do his duty to his country and all the Scouts of the world.

No comments about Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life (Literary Lives).

3 comments about Queen Victoria at Home.

1. This book is a reflection on the life of Queen Victoria by someone who is clearly fascinated by her and who probably knows everything there is to know about her. It is easy to read and does not require you to know a great deal about her already in order to make any sense out of the book.
   On the other hand, if you are already well-read about Victoria, this book, in my opinion, brings little that's new. But if you are willing to take the journey with this author and let him share his thoughts in the way usually reserved for a dear old friend, then you will find a pleasant un-bumpy ride along the way.



2. this good bood on basic facts about queen victoria and her era.this is a easy read.



3. An easy read on Queen Victoria. This book adds nothing new but simply rehash everything that you've read in other biographies on Queen Victoria. Its not a bad book it is very well written and I enjoyed it very much. But if your expecting any new information on her you won't find it in this book.

No comments about Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England.

2 comments about Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England.

1. First off, let me say that this book is not a biography of Margaret of Anjou (1492-1549). What this book is is a look at what it meant to be Queen of England in the Middle Ages, and how Margaret worked within and around the roles of woman and queen. The book defines the queen's prescribed roles as bringer of political advantages, impartial intercessor with the king, and bearer of an heir to the throne. The author shows that Margaret was careful to live up to these roles, to the best of her ability, and only found herself forced out of them by the power politics surrounding her husband's incapacity and the subsequent War of the Roses.

   Overall, I found this to be a good book, but not a great one. The author does not give any unnecessary background on any of the people she discusses, and indeed the academic analysis nature of the book gives it a choppy, uneven feel. The lack of background means that you *must* be familiar with the history of Margaret of Anjou, or you will quickly find yourself lost amid the analysis. Also, as this work is written as a scholarly analysis, it is very dry and makes poor bedtime reading.

   So, if you are looking for a history of Margaret of Anjou, then I recommend that you look elsewhere. But, if you know about Margaret and want to understand her better as Queen of England, then you should read this book. Overall, I give this book a rather guarded recommendation.




2. Married off at fifteen to the weak-minded and ineffectual Henry VI, Margaret -- daughter of the glittering Duke René of Anjou -- was one of the most powerful (and complex) personalities of the period called the "Wars of the Roses." Shakespeare's depiction of her as the "she-wolf of France" probably was closer to the truth than many of his characterizations. But in addition to explaining the details of her life, Maurer is interested in exploring the motivations that drive a woman placed in power by circumstances -- and she's careful to distinguish "power" from "authority," for Margaret's world depended on hierarchy and rank; public power wielded by a woman required subtlety, even in a queen. A first-rate, thoughtful analysis of the circumstances under which "queenship" becomes "kingship."

3 comments about Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England.

1. I have always been fascinated by the work of Sir Francis Walsingham so I bought this book in eager anticipation - and was terribly disappointed. It is basically a mix of generalist Elizabethan history and rather boring details of Sir Francis' expenses. The one operation about which we have lots of information is his campaign against Mary Queen of Scots and this is covered in some detail in the book but we are told no more than is revealed in a lot of other books about Mary, her imprisonment and trial. I was hoping to find out exactly how Sir Francis got started in the spying business and how he built up his spy ring. Although the author implies that, as a neighbour of Lord Burlegh's he was introduced into the world of Tudor politics and espionage, this is never explained fully.
   Perhaps the irony is that Sir Francis was so good at what he did that we will never be able to find out how he did it!



2. A little dry in style, but with good information, and a good bibliography. I enjoyed reading it.



3. I walked away with the feeling that the author intended to write a history of Queen Elizabeth's intelligence operations, but the publisher forced him to make it a biography. This book is an excellent history of internal and external politics of England during Elizabeth's reign. As a biography, it's only OK; not bad, but not great. As an adjunct to Shakespeare, it is brilliant.
   
   I never really understood the events surrounding the detention of Mary Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada until reading this. Now it all makes perfect sense. Vignettes about the implications of over-aggressive operations against religiously based insurgents are rife. Read with a broad veiw of current events, this book is very relevant.
   
   As a bio, it's kind of flat. Walsingham was a character, and very good at what he did even if not appreciated by Elizabeth. He was a passionate intelligence professional, and ran some brilliant, if ethically dubious, operations. I think the material about Walsingham really got lost in the history.
   
   As an adjunct to Shakespeare, this is excellent. This book reviews what would have been recent history and current events at the time Shakespeare began writing. The tone and references from Shakespeare make a lot more sense after wrapping myself around the life and times of Walsingham. The treachery and conspiracy culture that permeated Elizabeth's court is described in detail, and especially in "Measure For Measure" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona", the reader can better appreciate the complexity and risks of court life.
   
   I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this book, and recommend it to any student of that period's history, intelligence history, or Shakespeare.
   
   E.M. Van Court

2 comments about A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Bronte.

1. Although it seems unrealistic to expect complete objectivity from any biographer, Katherine Frank shows a level of bias toward her subject somewhat striking in the genre. Her descriptions of Emily Bronte are enthusiastic and warm, even when Emily's behavior (by her own description) warrants at least some kind of approbation, or at least evenhandedness. This unmitigated warmth is reserved for Emily alone, however; Charlotte, for example, is portrayed as living a constant struggle with conventionality which Emily gloriously escapes. Of particular interest is the expression of Emily and Charlotte's intense relationship. Charlotte consistently suffers in the comparisons with her sister -- at least by Frank's view. She doesn't seem interested in exploring Charlotte's suffering under Emily's emotional tyranny, even though she does describe it in detail. One gets the impression that Charlotte would do better in this biography if only she would care a little less about what others think. Their brother, Branwell, fares badly as well, and Frank's conclusion regarding one of Branwell's many pathetic attempts to be employed that he had been terminated due to a homosexual advance on his pupil seems strikingly unsubstantiated. Frank seems to come to this conclusion only because she can't think of any other. In the end, it's not that the reader can't see what Frank shows as part of Emily's character, it's that it's not the only thing to be seen.



2. Many of Frank's arguments were convincing to me--especially those regarding Emily's peculiar eating habits. All of her conclusions were backed up with sources, etc. Although I didn't believe this spin on the life of the Brontes word for word, I do think it was worthly of more than 1 star, hence my review. Check it out--you may disagree, but isn't that part of the fun?

5 comments about Orwell: The Life.

1. I have read many biographies of Orwell before encountering this one, but have learned more about Orwell the person in this book than in all of the others combined. Taylor's insight into the man and sparkling prose style make this a must read.



2. This is a difficult book to categorize. It is well written, contains many interesting anecdotes, but it misses the essential Orwell.
   
   Taylor's gloomy, otherwordly, ex-Etonian, ex-imperial policeman simply does not add up to Orwell. The sum of the parts is much less than the man. Taylor's book is a bit like an autopsy, the pathologist clearly never being able to comprehend the stiff, dead flesh and bottled samples before him as the full human being they were. Nevertheless, autopsies do tell interesting tales.
   
   Orwell's gloomy temperament puts him not outside the mainstream of writers but exactly in the company of so many important writers. The list of writers with some form of depression, whether alcoholism or gloominess, is so huge - Greene, Swift, Hemingway, Le Carré, Dickens, Gissing, O'Neill, Twain, Faulkner, etc, etc. - one comes to think of the quality almost as a job requirement. It provides one of the special lens through which critical writers see the world. One has to believe Taylor understands this, but his book conveys only clinical observations of gloominess snipped from letters, diaries, and conversations.
   
   As far as Orwell's otherworldliness, Orwell was clearly in the great tradition of English eccentrics, and that is an important component of his appeal. There is a long and glorious line of them from Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen down to Alec Guinness, Margaret Rutherford, and Vanessa Redgrave. Yet Taylor only offers clinical observations and never puts them in their proper context.
   
   Orwell was not an important novelist, so it seems a bit gratuitous to say so as Taylor does. In fact, he wasn't even a very good novelist. Yet books like Keep the Aspadistra Flying do provide a keen sense of his Englishness. Missing entirely from Taylor's autopsy is a sense of Orwell's quintessential Englishness. When Orwell writes of getting back to the feel of heavy English coins and having mahogany tea, readers get a sense of pure distilled Englishness. This comes through also in quasi-journalistic books like The Road to Wigan Pier or Down and Out in Paris and London - important early efforts at what today might be called investigative journalism - books which Taylor rather disparages both in terms of Orwell's re-arranging actual events and being an observer mentally wearing an Eton tie.
   
   What Orwell was is a critic, and a rather magnificent one. I am reminded of Degas' description of Monet as "Only an eye, but what an eye!"
   
   Orwell had an exquisite sense of justice and a very sensitive barometer for tyranny plus he had the words to convey vividly his sensibilities. Taylor virtually misses this in his examination of bile and stool samples. Taylor too often puts Orwell's political criticism down to miss-directed, soft-Left thinking of an ex-Etonian. Orwell himself recognized the simpering nature of much of the Left's views, yet he struggled bravely with finding a vocabulary to accommodate his sympathies. He possibly did not come to recognize himself for what he was, a scorching critic of both Left and Right. After all, his time was short. That is how it is when you die in your forties.
   
   He was also an important literary critic, and while Taylor recognizes this, I don't believe he gives it a full enough examination.
   
   Taylor sadly drags out the subject of anti-Semitism, perhaps the most overly-used epithet of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. If Orwell was anti-Semitic - and I do not believe this for a second - it was in the same vague sense of virtually all Englishmen of his time. The English have always had a degree of xenophobia, a quality whose obverse side is the very set of qualities defining Englishness. I am tired of discussions of whether Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice makes the greatest playwright in human history anti-Semitic, discussions which always ignore the human qualities and sense of justice Shakespeare gives his character, and just so, Orwell, overall a truly decent man.
   
   There has been a good deal of writing in recent years about Orwell, much of it wrong-headed, from claims being made that he would have supported Bush's invasion of Iraq (!) to sentimentality. Little of it captures Orwell the independent and remarkably clear-thinking critic. Taylor gives us no sense of what it was that animated Orwell, other than some almost silly stuff about getting back at people like the headmistress of his school. There is almost a sense in this book of a high-class hatchet job done on Orwell, but I don't want to push that point. What makes Orwell truly important is minimized, and what wasn't important is given a good deal of weight. Perhaps that is the fate of great critics who support no one's ideologies and preconceptions.
   
   This book should be read only with an awareness of its limited approach to the subject. This is not Orwell, but a somewhat interesting display of bits and memorabilia in museum cabinets.
   
   Please see my review of Gordon Bowker's Orwell biography, a superior work (published in the same year) in most respects to Taylor's.



3. Well, I guess idols routinely crumble under scrutiny, so I shouldn't really be surprised that I came away from D.J. Taylor's biography of George Orwell viewing the famous author more as a man than as a hero. That is how it must be, however. When we study our fellow humans their flaws become discernible regardless of their greatness. As a man, Eric Blair was far from grand. He appeared to have the same faults present in many writers (all-be-they to a lesser extent). I now have a better appreciation of the author, and for the suffering he went through along with the challenges of his life. My one complaint is that Taylor did not treat his subject with the respect to which he was entitled. More empathy and less Thackeray would have been immensely appreciated. As for me, I'll always treasure 1984, Down and Out in Paris and London, Homage to Catalonia, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Hitchens was right; Orwell remains relevant. This biography heightens our awareness of the man even though it comes at the cost of his no longer seeming transcendent. Orwell's creative genius is not something undermined by these pages, but I do think that it's hard to appreciate his political outlook after closely examining it. His animosity towards Marxism is rather comical when one considers his continuing, quasi-religious belief in socialism. His time at the BBC taught him a little bit about the way in which bureaucracies function and we can only hopefully speculate that, if he had lived longer, he would have eventually renounced his love for statism and seen the light.



4. Well, I guess idols routinely crumble under scrutiny, so I shouldn't really be surprised that I came away from D.J. Taylor's biography of George Orwell viewing the famous author more as a man than as a hero. That is how it must be, however. When we study our fellow humans their flaws become discernible regardless of their greatness. As a man, Eric Blair was far from grand. He appeared to have the same faults present in many writers (all-be-they to a lesser extent). I now have a better appreciation of the author, and for the suffering he went through along with the challenges of his life. My one complaint is that Taylor did not treat his subject with the respect to which he was entitled. More empathy and less Thackeray would have been immensely appreciated. As for me, I'll always treasure 1984, Down and Out in Paris and London, Homage to Catalonia, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Hitchens was right; Orwell remains relevant. This biography heightens our awareness of the man even though it comes at the cost of his no longer seeming transcendent. Orwell's creative genius is not something undermined by these pages, but I do think that it's hard to appreciate his political outlook after closely examining it. His animosity towards Marxism is rather comical when one considers his continuing, quasi-religious belief in socialism. His time at the BBC taught him a little bit about the way in which bureaucracies function and we can only hopefully speculate that, if he had lived longer, he would have eventually renounced his love for statism and seen the light.



5. To be quite frank, I did not enjoy this book.
   
   Not only did I not like the way it's written, but I didn't like what I was reading either.
   
   Firstly, his research is impeccable, but it was so hard to know who anybody was in this book, he just pops up random characters left and right, and he'll just casually mention cousins and neighbours and you are expected to remember them all.
   
   I think it's because he spent so long researching the stuff that he just has everybody memorized, but for a reader remembering casual friends and stuff like that by last name when they haven't been mentioned for 150 pages is hard.
   
   He also mentions Orwell's father's death as an afterthought.
   He has chapters about the most mundane stuff, and he mentions Orwell's father being sick many times.
   But then he changes the subject and you are wondering whatever happened to his father.
   Then you read another 20 pages and he mentions it while talking about something else.
   
   Furthermore, after reading nearly 500 pages on this man's life, you begin to view the book as written for the purpose of revealing his dark nature.
   Orwell's eccentricity and lack of social tact are basically what the book is about.
   
   The back of the book jacket reads, "Taylor's magisterial assessment cuts through Orwell's iconic status to reveal a bitter critic who concealed a profound totalitarian streak and whose progress through the literary world of the 30s and 40s was characterized by the myths he built around himself."
   
   Taylor writes the book to convince us that Orwell was a creepy poor man with an unhappy marriage, a womanizer and pitifully helpless father.
   Then you remember the magisterial books that the man produced, and you realize that nothing in this portrayal of the man gives any indication of greatness or of the material he ended up producing.
   The sole convincing argument was that 1984 was so gloomy because of the tortuous state the author himself was in when he wrote it.
   I would give it 2 stars if I felt that the research was poor, but the author does display his knowledge of Orwell's works several times.
   Towards the end he even mentions a few specific scenes and passages from the 1984 that appeared in Orwell's earlier writing. He has clearly pored over the hordes of work Orwell produced.
   
   Pros:
   
   Very well researched.
   The photographs included are a great help in visualizing the people in his life.
   
   Cons:
   
   Disjointed, disorganized, haphazard writing. More than once he is making an argument, only to digress and be sidetracked for several pages. Then he continues his argument out of the blue and you are reminded, "Ah, that's what he was talking about."
   
   Seems to write for the purpose of debunking Orwell's mythological status, which would be fine, but it makes for a very poor first read into the man's life.
   
   So, if you are not an Orwell fan, and would like to read a dissertation on the man's darker side, then this book is for you.
   However, if you are looking for your first biography on the man who produced utter genius like 1984 and Animal Farm, then I would suggest you start with something else.
   
   B-

No comments about The Hidden Wordsworth.