No comments about Praeterita: The Autobiography of John Ruskin (Oxford Letters & Memoirs).

2 comments about John Soane: An Accidental Romantic.

1. This book is an outstanding introduction to the life & amazing works of John Soane.



2. 1st paperback edition, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999, soft cover, 358 pages, 2.73 lbs, over 7¾" - 9¾" tall, lavishly illustrated biography filled with 219 illustrations: images, photographs, paintings in color and grayscale; index; bibliography & notes. It is not an architectural monograph, though the author "concentrates on putting the background to his buildings in focus".

No comments about Finding God in the Story of Amazing Grace.

1 comments about Women All on Fire.

1. A wonderful book, brimming with the fiery personalities of women long dead. Plowden's purpose in this book is not to give an overview of the English civil war (don't buy the book if that's what you need), but to show how women participated. She does this by giving specific examples from the lives of Queen Henrietta Maria, Ann Fanshawe, Charlotte Stanley, Mary Verney, Jane Lane, Mary Banks, Brilliana Harley, Anne Fairfax, and many more. Plowden draws her information primarily from letters, many of them between husbands and wives. While her focus is on the women, she does not hesitate to bring out the strengths and weaknesses of their husbands, and she shows the warmth and devotion of these 17th century couples with an intensity that makes their relationships seem enviable.

   One caution: this is a very specific book about a specific subject. If you know nothing about the English civil war, you may be a tad confused. If you're interested enough, you'll still enjoy the book, but you'll enjoy it more if you already have at least a skeletal knowledge of the history and the major players.

   One weakness: the organization of the book was at first confusing. It is organized more by individual women than by chronology, although the whole is chronological (we stay with one person for a while, then jump to another, then to another, finally back to person number one). This is a trifle confusing, but I'm not sure how I'd do it differently.

No comments about Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth.

5 comments about Five Women of the English Reformation.

1. Biographical historians would do well to emulate this book. This is history enthusiastically--never dully--told. Paul Zahl spins his true tales with zest, wit and total commitment to the subject: five women who dared to think and tell what they knew to be the truth. It's a difficult book to put aside, simply because the author is obviously time-travelling: you feel he was actually there, witnessing the remarkable times in which his subjects lived. Zahl brings each woman to life and makes the reader wish for more. Mary Zahl adds an epilogue that injects just the right amount of support for Paul Zahl's courage to write about women who are bigger than life--from a male perspective. Well done!



2. Biographical historians would do well to emulate this book. This is history enthusiastically--never dully--told. Paul Zahl spins his true tales with zest, wit and total commitment to the subject: five women who dared to think and tell what they knew to be the truth. It's a difficult book to put aside, simply because the author is obviously time-travelling: you feel he was actually there, witnessing the remarkable times in which his subjects lived. Zahl brings each woman to life and makes the reader wish for more. Mary Zahl adds an epilogue that injects just the right amount of support for Paul Zahl's courage to write about women who are bigger than life--from a male perspective. Well done!



3. "There was a king of Yvetot, " wrote the French poet Pierre-Jean de
   Beranger, "little known to history." Pick any period of history of which
   you are especially fond, and you will feel strongly that some figure you
   deem important is too "little known."

   Consider the era of the English Reformation. It is a time of tumultous
   change. A king shifts his faith, leaders are burned at the stake, people
   flee the country, many monasteries are destroyed, and the king's successors

   shift back and forth in the middle of the sixteenth century with astonishing
   rapidity. Read any work on this time and the authors TEND to focus on the
   politics, the leaders, the church, the liturgy and the men. When a woman is
   mentioned at all, the one bright light that gets nearly all the attention is
   Elizabeth I (1533-1603).

   Nearly all the other women are less noticed, and when they are focused on
   little is said about the role THEOLOGY plays in their lives and ministries.
   In a highly provocative and little noticed book, "When Life and Beliefs
   Collide : How Knowing God Makes a Difference" (Zondervan, 2001), Carolyn
   James writes: "As I have met with hundreds of women, I have encountered a
   wide spectrum of negative attitudes towards theology, from casual
   indifference to open hostility, and all points in between. Here and there,
   a few women may find theology fascinating, may even devote a lot of time to
   study it, but they are exceptional and, in the opinion of some, a little
   peculiar. Beyond these rare exceptions, most women cannot be bothered."

   Well, in the period of the English Reformation women COULD be bothered,
   indeed fascinated, by theology, as Paul Zahl's "Five Women of the English
   Reformation" (Eerdmans, 2001) shows. Dr. Zahl picks Anne Boleyn
   (1507-1536), Anne Askew (1521-1546), Katherine Parr (1514-1548), Jane Grey
   (1537-1554), and Catherine Willoughby (1520-1580) for his examination. "All
   of these woman thought theologically," he writes. "They were lay
   theologians. They read theological books, most especially the Bible, and
   anything to which they could gain access from the continental Protestant
   Reformers. They talked theology. Their inner circles were
   twenty-four-hours-a-day Bible studies. They saw everything that happened
   through two lenses: the lens of the providence of God and the lens of the
   furtherance of the Reformed religion."

   For Dr. Zahl, the "Reformed religion" comes to England in three successive
   parts. "The first phase of Reformation theology was justification by grace
   through faith rediscovered. The second phase was the implications of
   justification by faith for the Mass, the Mass being the central action and
   transaction of medieval Catholicism. The third phase of the English
   Reformation was the focus on election and predestination."

   Phase one concerns Anne Boleyn, "who died meekly but gave away nothing." So
   completely was she erased from the official record "it became as if she had
   never lived." For Zahl, however, she left the indelible mark of her faith.
   "As queen, Anne understood her providential mission to be.to bring the
   Reformation to England and employ every single instance of patronage and
   influence to that end." What is the human predicament? "The human person is
   caught up in himself and herself until set free to love by a prior exterior
   love." That prior love is the love above all loves, and the heart of Anne's
   faith, "the forgiving love of Christ Jesus, without which all human
   endeavors of love are doomed to be scripted and need projected."

   The second phase of the Reformation involves another Anne. "Anne Askew's
   primary target was biblical teaching concerning the eucharist, and more
   precisely the idea of transubstantiation. Anne was burned for denying
   transubstantiation. Her denial of it was aggressive. In fact she mocked
   the concept!"

   Zahl believes Anne Askew rejected transubstantiation for two reasons.
   "First, it is irrational to say that God can be contained within any object
   of any kind..`God will not be eaten with teeth': This is the Enlightenment
   or critical, deconstructing side of Protestantism in early form." Anne's
   second reason Zahl calls an "evangelical" one, namely the notion that Christ
   's atoning death occurred once for all. "To conceive of the Eucharist as a
   sacrifice of repetition, by which the benefits of Christ's death are
   presented new and actual each time on the altar, was to denigrate the `one,
   full perfect sacrifice'" of which Cranmer wrote.

   The final phase of the Reformation concerns Catherine Willoughby, the
   duchess of Suffolk in 1533, who lived the longest of the five women treated
   by Dr. Zahl. She addresses primarily the subjects of divine will,
   providence, and election. When she loses her sons Charles and Henry to
   death, she seeks to understand it as a "mercy. She means that by taking
   away from her, her very most cherished prerogative-her children and her
   attachment to them-God has intentionally forced her to rely solely on Him."
   Zahl confesses this is "counterintuitive" yet sees it as the inevitable
   outflow of Luther's theology. "If grace alone saves, then God alone is the
   willing actor in all human events.Contemporary people make heavy weather of
   this. Our ancestors generally accepted it."

   So here is vintage Zahl: compact, pithy, and theologically oh so rich.
   Appropriately, there is a chapter of reflection by Mary Zahl which concludes
   with the best call of the book: "Study the Bible.be courageous.See God as.
   [your] only authority.Be grateful that .[we are] not being asked to die for"
   our faith.

   For all the talk about theology, however, this theologian was most struck by
   all the suffering these women went through, the physical agony, the
   emotional trauma of becoming convenient victims in other's schemes, and the
   lives cut so terribly short (Willoughby excepted). "What I think we can say
   regarding the steel of our heroes' convictions is that in each case their
   new convictions were made firmer by means of affliction, loss and
   harassment." Indeed. "Shall I fall in desperation?" Katherine Parr asks.
   "Nay, I will call upon Christ, the Light of the world. The Fountain of
   life, the relief of all careful consciences, the Peacemaker between God and
   man, and the only health and comfort of all repentant sinners."

   Oh how they suffered, but they suffered for and with Christ. May God grant
   us similar rich and deep devotion to him in our generation.

   --The Rev. Dr. Kendall S. Harmon (ksharmon@mindspring.com) serves as Theologian in Residence at St.
   Paul's Episcopal Church in Summerville, South Carolina




4. I don't have the book in front of me anymore, so I can't pull quotes from it, but I remember thinking as I read this book that the author didn't really understand what the Reformation was about. At one point, he says in effect "God's love responds to man's faith". The Reformers clearly taught that man's faith responds to God's love and His calling. I know that the book wasn't about in depth theology, but statments like the above made it hard to take the rest of the book seriously.



5. Dean Zahl is an intriguing and interesting preacher and author. I read the book as I am deeply interested in the Reformation - particularly in the United Kingdom. I was most impressed with his chapter on Lady Jane Grey who certainly should be the role model and main subject of the five. I believe he should have downplayed the role of Anne Boleyn because of the great sorrow her marriage to Henry VIII caused to his wife of 20+ years. I am of course referring to Katherine of Aragon. Henry and Cranmer's treatment of the Queen was cruel and should not be defended in any modern Protestant forum. Indeed in Britain in Peterborough Cathedral her grave (desecrated by Protestants) was restored and now befittingly says "Katherine The Queen". I otherwise enjoyed the book but wish he had not remained silent on this issue when proclaiming Anne's virtues. A modern parallel might be considered in the relationship of Edward VII and Alexandra - Alexandra a devout Protestant endured Edward's numerous affairs. Katherine endured the same with Anne. I have read all of his books and consider him a scholar on Anglicanism. A little more compassion for Katherine would have made me rate the book higher.

4 comments about The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 (W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1).

1. R.F. Foster's two-volume biography (second volume to come in 2000) is a model of articulate and knowledgable scholarship, arguably comparable to the great biographies of Joyce and Wilde written by Richard Ellman. Foster's work leaves nothing to be desired. It easily excels previous Yeats biographies written by Cootes, Jeffares, etc.



2. This is loaded with surprise after surprise. Foster's insights into the poetry, through historical and social readings, are often revelatory. My only complaint is that many of the tales he tells tend to have the same emotional architecture due to a descirptive repetition: this makes it a little monotonous at times. But this is a quibble. This book is great. When is Vol. 2 going to be published?



3. For the first 100 pages or so, this book had me completely. Roy Foster writes with elegant brio and has a historian's eye for the wider events and contexts that shaped Yeats's early years. Where previous biographers like Ellman take a sort of lighthouse approach to their subject, treating the passions and conflicts of Yeats's day as fuel for the poetry that was destined to outshine them, Foster is more like an anteater, eagerly snuffling up the everyday bits of information that give the flavor of Yeats's multifaceted life as he actually lived it, before his later fame and incessant revisions smoothed it into a pattern.

   After a while though, the book tends to bury Yeats in a mass of trivia that include everything from the menu at one of his literary dinners to the prices he charged for his lectures. This level of detail could be enlightening if Foster stopped for breath more often to tell us why these things are important. Too often though he keeps his head firmly down with the ants, cataloging the day-to-day intrigues of a very complicated life without linking them to any kind of larger interpretation of Yeats's personality or development. Instead, Foster spends his 500+ pages introducing new names at the rate of one or so per page, most of them disappearing by the end of the chapter never to be heard from again. We get the intrigues of various Irish nationalist factions, potted bios of minor figures on the Dublin and London art scenes, humorous sketches of Yeats's fellow-travellers in his sundry mystical societies. It was hard to see Yeats after a while with all these minor figures crowding the stage.

   If Foster does have an interpretation of his own, as far as I can tell it's a revisionist one. Where Ellman or Jeffaries saw Yeats's life as a drama of painful self-creation, Foster sends to see an ambitious man on the make, an aggressive networker who wasn't beyond bending the truth if it helped his own advancement. Even his life-long passion for Maud Gonne, one of the key sources of his poetry, was, according to Foster, in part a self-conscious realization that a great poet needed a great passion to write about. In trying to bring Yeats back down to earth, I think Foster overcompensates by making him more canny and worldly than the sexual naivete, table rapping, faery talk and aesthetic posturing of these years suggest. Worst of all, Foster shows almost no interest in Yeats's poetry, the reason we're reading the biography in the first place. I put down the book admiring Foster's energy and mastery of such a huge anthill of facts, but I couldn't shake the feeling that a lot less would have told us a lot more.




4. William Butler Yeats offers a life of contradictions. Born in Dublin to a middle-class Protestant family, Yeats went on to become one of the premier poets of the twentieth century. As a writer and member of the Irish literary community, he also helped to forge Irish national identity through his words and his deeds. In this biography, the first of two volumes, Roy Foster offers an account of Yeats' development into one of the leading figures of the Irish literary scene.
   
   This is not an easy book. Foster recounts Yeats' life in what is sometimes excruciating detail, covering every movement and literary battle the poet undertakes. Moreover, as he does so he assumes the reader's familiarity with both the background of late nineteenth century Ireland and the members of the Irish literary community. People appear in his narrative with little introduction, creating a confusing jumble of names that limits the appreciation of their role in Yeats' life.
   
   Such problems aside, this is a first-rate biography. Foster does a great job examining Yeats' life, in a text that while long is never dense. His coverage of Yeats' occult interests is particularly good, as is that of the poet's involvement in nationalist causes - both integral aspects of his poetry. Foster's argument that Yeats' involvement in the mystical was a reaction to the declining position of Protestants in Ireland, an effort to cope with the sense of dislocation by asserting psychic control, is a compelling one that helps to fit more of his poetry into its contemporary context. Foster helps this process; while he asserts that his biography is about what Yeats did rather than what the poet wrote he does offer a perceptive commentary on aspects of Yeats' work, which helps us better appreciate the connection between the man and his writings. Thanks to this, we have a book that is essential for understanding such a complicated literary figure and the role he played in his times.

No comments about The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 15, 1867 (The Correspondence of Charles Darwin).

No comments about Winston Churchill : The Greatest Briton.

No comments about The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams.