No comments about Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography.

1 comments about Warwick the Kingmaker.

1. A Warwick! A Warwick! Mr. Hicks work should be applauded. While the beginning of the book is very academic, in verse and research, it attempts look at Richard Neville, 16th Earl Warwick and Kingmaker, as a whole person. Hicks looks back on both primary and some secondary sources, makes some assumptions, buts overall lets the reader decide on Warwick's character. He notes the mixed temperament of 15th Century English - some hated Warwick, many more loved him. As a self proclaimed scholar of Neville, I have to highly recommend this work - along with four other titles entitled "Warwick" or "Kingmaker", all of which are out of print.

2 comments about Dawning of the Raj: The Life and Trials of Warren Hastings.

1. The life and trials of Warren Hastings are followed in this story of early British rule in India, recommended for students of India history and for those researching early legal issues. Dawning of the Raj reads like a novel at times but is packed with facts about the trials of Warren Hastings, following the man's life and achievements.



2. Most of this book is interesting, but it is very cursory either as a biography of Warren Hastings or as a history of the beginning of the Raj. It contains a lot of marginally relevant information that I enjoyed reading, but which doesn't contribute enough towards the alleged main purpose of the book to explain the number of pages devoted to it. If this were an exhaustive multi-volume work, I might understand why it includes so much information on George Bogle, Robert Oppenheimer and Fanny Burney, but as it is, the biographical information on Hastings is skimpy and some of it is repetitive. There are two somewhat contradictory stories of one duel, separated by a number of pages without any apparent recognition that they don't quite fit together.
   
   The book opens with a chapter on Bogle's trip to Tibet at the direction of Hastings. This shows something about Hastings' activities in India and his breadth of mind, but Bernstein carefully chronicles Bogle's childhood, family, etc., in a surprising amount of detail. Intriguing, but not precisely part of the main story.
   
   Hasting's early life is chronicled in appropriate detail, but once he reaches adulthood, I am baffled as to exactly what he did and why he was made Governor-General. The story moves in a series of brief hops from Hastings' first employment to India quickly to his quarrels during his administration with other members of the Company. There is very little detail in between. Bernstein chronicles the events that would figure in his trial, but I am left with no coherent picture of Hastings' tenure nor his significance in the shift from the East India Tea Company's dealings with India to the official takeover by the British government. I found most of these chapters rather dull because I could make little sense of them. Were Hastings' activities actually important in the shift, or was he, as Bernstein seems to suggest in his discussion of the trials, simply seized upon as a pawn to pursue political ends that had little to do with him as an individual?
   
   Fanny Burney seems to occupy more of the book that Mrs. Hastings or Eliza Hitchcock, Hasting's goddaughter and supposed illegitimate daughter, who had a continuing relationship with him. I have learned far more about the latter from biographies of Jane Austen, Eliza's cousin and sister-in-law. Burney's life is carefully explained in unnecessary, though enjoyable detail. It is interesting that she wrote about the trial, but why this requires more than a passing reference is beyond me.
   
   Bernstein compares the treatment of Hastings to the travails of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Why, I am not sure. I am an American, and 52; frankly, while I have heard a great deal about Oppenheimer and the atom bomb, I was totally unaware of his problems with Congress. They occurred when I was a small child. If Bernstein thinks that he is illuminating Hastings' situation by comparing it with Oppenheimer's, I believe that he is mistaken: I don't think that enough people are aware of the details of the latter case. Perhaps Bernstein thinks that we ought to be more knowledgeable, but that's another book. (And that book would be American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.)
   
   The explanation of the trial itself is interesting, especially for its essential pointlessness. Bernstein seems oddly puzzled that after four years, Hastings changed his mind about how he would like the trial conducted - I think it was obvious, Hastings wanted to get it over with! The trial was conducted in small installments over a period of seven years with the result that very few of the Lords determining Hastings' fate had heard all the evidence. I read this part and the epilogue on his latter years with great interest.
   
   I can't say reading the book was a waste of time: there was a lot of interesting material. It was a disappointment as a biography, however, which was why I wanted to read it.

No comments about Charles Dickens (Pocket Biographies).

No comments about King Edward VIII: The Official Biography.

No comments about Phoenix: Queen Victoria's Maharajah: Duleep Singh 1838-93.

3 comments about The Life of Kingsley Amis.

1. I love Amis' work and expect that he'll be read as long as literature has legs, but this bio requires a lot of stamina. It's all there: drinking, carousing, family life, contrarian politics, the wicked sense of humor. Leader did an enormous amount of research and doesn't pull punches about some serious character flaws. One thing that bugged me throughout was the implicit assumption that the books and poetry were autobiographical - besides being factually wrong, this drags things out unnecessarily.
   
   If I was going to pick out a novel of Amis for the uninitiated, I'd have to make it 3 of them to show his versatility: "Lucky Jim", "The Alteration", and "Ending Up". But you wouldn't go wrong with "Take A Girl Like You", "Girl, 20", "The Anti-Death League", his collected short stories or any of his criticism.



2. This a hefty read -- there are relatively few biographies of literary figures that are as long. But, the length is worth it. Leader writes gracefully and interestingly about a man who often is hard to like but difficult not to admire. Most of us know Amis either as the author of "Lucky Jim" (book and movie) or as the father of the Booker Prize winner Martin Amis. Kingsley's career, however, is more important than those two claims to fame. He was one of the initiators of the Angry Young Men who had a major impact on English writing from the 1950s on. And, he brought back to English, and American poetry, an emphasis on accessibility to the average reader, although his effort is not always visible today. Further, he was the model of the hard-drinking, womanizing author that populates so much of popular fiction and film. In that story, we find a lot of what makes his life so sad as well as so interesting. And, this is an interesting book that takes you inside the creative process of writing and the destructive process of hard living.



3. I found it a struggle to stick with this biography, though I am a big fan of Kingsley Amis and was eager to learn more about his life. I wasn't impressed with author's writing style, found it a bit labored and muddy, and the way he keeps looking for confirmation of Amis's persona in his fictional characters got extremely tiresome and distracting. I think the biggest prblem for me here is that the narrative just isn't smooth enough or captivating enough. I got the feeling that Leader was afraid to say anything truly critical.

5 comments about Mother Ireland: A Memoir.

1. Ireland is a woman-- womb, cave, bride, harlot, hag-- so, paraphrased, does Edna O'Brien begin her memoir. It is hard to believe this vibrant, lyrical reminiscence of growing up Irish has been out of print for years. O'Brien has created a personal odyssey in seven episodes out of the mystery and mists of Irish life, weaving it into its history and its mythology. Mother Ireland is comparable to Joyce's little books, Dubliners and Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man, in its command and integration of language and spirit. It dances with words, sensuality and the wondrous imagery, juxtaposed against the ever prevalent and monolithic Church and violence in this society. This is a treasure that imbues a unique touch and colouration -- feminine and mystical, earthy and spectral-- into the literary tradition of Ireland's small books.



2. very flowery, slow moving not up to the level of many other Irish writers, not suited to my taste such as history or amusing recollections



3. This is my second book by Edna O'Brien, and it only confirmed my high opinion of this talented writer. Snip: (...).



4. Excellent book. A warm intellectual stream, poetry really. O'Brien writes impressionistically of the history, and her memories of Ireland. Have a glass of wine, and read it through once: a very pleasurable task.



5. I wonder how many readers picked up this innocuous-looking little book thinking it to be another shamrock-bedecked little souvenir from the dear old island. It's coruscating and ambitious. Edna O'Brien eviscerates the sacred cows and spatters the pages with their carcasses. This is from a now-obliterated Ireland of only three decades ago, but much of it reads as if a hundred years ago at least. The opening chapter, in which she narrates the mythic and the historical origins of Ireland, dazzled me with its accomplished polyphony. The photos are typical, I suppose, of the sort that any reader will have before seen, but the captions and the comments that O'Brien appends deserve attention, as do the unfortunately uncredited excerpts from readings that she scatters throughout, especially that of the visit to the Garda (police) house full of drunken men in uniform that is cooly set down in prose out of another O'Brien, pen name Flann.
   
   The only let-down from this was its unevenness. As the book progresses, it reveals more an uncertain tone. Later chapters feel to me unsure of what O'Brien or the editors meant them to convey: autobiography? travelogue? social analysis? memoirs? They gradually coalesce loosely into an account of her own maturity and flight to London from Dublin from the Co Limerick village where she was raised, and are worthwhile, but they do make for quite a change from the opening chapters.
   
   A good follow-up from two decades later would be, if read with a considerable amount of grains of salt, Rosemary Mahoney's "Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish Women Come of Age." The jump from these scenes in 1976 to those in 1994 is amazing, and these have only accelerated since Mahoney's stops. Today's unrecognizably permissive Irish cultural shifts would not have been possible without such as Edna O'Brien, who like Flann O'B, mixed satire and bitterness with affection and pride in the people of their stubborn island.

No comments about Good-bye to All That and Other Great War Writings.

2 comments about Roald Dahl: A Biography.

1. this biograhpy helped me learn more about this wonderful author, and see into the depths of Dahl's works.



2. Decently good biography of Dahl, an often unlikable author of famous children's books, and a few less famous adult ones.
   
   Most famously, of course, are James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Puffin Novels), both made into major Hollywood movies with loving attention to detail and no expenses spared.
   
   Dahl would have approved.