No comments about Elizabeth Bowen (Lives of Modern Women).

No comments about The German Chancellors.

1 comments about Hannah Regina.

1. I picked this book up in London on a lark as I hadn't seen it at home and was pretty surprised that I hadn't heard anything about it before. Basically the author says that George III was married, possible with children, before he publically married his German princess, Queen Charlotte. If that were true than not only would the remainder of the House of Hanover been unfit to sit upon the throne, including Queen Victoria of course, but so would the House of Windsor. By that assertion alone one would assume it would cause a few waves, but no.
   The data is certainly interesting and thought-provoking, although it's so one-sided it's hard to take the claim completely seriously. The writer doesn't offer the other side of his claim, such as that George III, when Prince of Wales, never married Hannah, a quaker girl.
   On top of that complaint I add that the writing and sequence of the book is very all over the place and sometimes hard to follow. I wish the writer had given a history and then delved into his arguments instead of going off on larks and jumping around.
   Either way, it's an interesting read and makes one want to do a little more research on the subject.

No comments about Bernard Shaw, Vol. 1, 1856-1898: The Search for Love.

2 comments about Inventing Paradise: The Greek Journey, 1937-47.

1. An interesting book about Henry Miller/Lawrence Durrill and the "Generation of the Thirties"-Greek poets that include Seferis, and painters such as Ghikas.

   The book is exactly what the NY Times calls it--a combination of literary history/critique, and cultural history. It tries to provide a deep understanding of the poetry from the decade before World War 2. It dispells the notion that Greece only has offered the world Homer & Pericles. Seferis, for example, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.




2. A writer of outstanding repute in all his endeavors (translator, novelist, critic), Keeley has temporarily left aside all that academic stuff to write one of the five most beautiful books I have read in the past twenty years. Greek and Anglo literati like Seferis, Durrell and Miller come alive for us in these pages and special features of their work are examined with new depth. There are also some minor writers who serve as attractive backround to, and greatly enrich, the larger story. In his final paragraphs, Keeley hints that he might have a first person narrative in store for us covering a subsequent generation of philhellene writers. Let's hope he makes good on this almost-promise.

1 comments about The Marlboroughs.

1. A book that I nearly gave up on, but am glad that I finished. This is pure tabloid fodder. The beginning, chronicling John Churchill's boyhood, early sexual escapades and marriage to the sparkling Sarah Jennings, is fairly yawnworthy. He comes off as bumptious, though charming, and she as arrogant.
   
   John Churchill dumped James II when the latter was unceremoniously deposed through the machinations of his daughters Mary and Anne. During the joint reign of Mary II and and her husband William III John lived to regret his support of William, because the latter levered his Dutch compatriots into power positions. However it was in Anne's reign that this hard-grafting couple's ascent to power began. Anne was besotted with Sarah, gifting the couple with money, position, land and property.
   
   This is not to take away anything from John Churchill's achievements. During the War of the Spanish Succession he and European allies defeated the French at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. John was created Duke of Marlborough. His home, Blenheim Palace, on the Royal estate of Woodstock, was designed by the architect and playwright John Vanbrugh.
   
   Sarah elevated a cousin, Abigail Masham, to a position in Anne's court. Anne's preference of Masham, plus resentment of the over-mighty Marlboroughs (Anne had given them huge pensions and paid their daughters' dowries), led her to quarrel with and, eventually, dismiss Sarah. Marlborough, who had served his country well, was caught up in this and suffered terribly. His political enemies, fuelled by envy, had open season on him; his political allies were removed from their posts and he wandered off to the countryside, a prey to his blinding headaches.
   
   They finished their days in the reign of George I, rich and living the good life. Marlborough, however, was a broken man. The end of the book shows how Duchess Sarah, managed through her contentiousness to alienate her daughters, grandsons, architect, and new king.
   
   It's a superb saga. But it would have been very much better with the inclusion of campaign maps, a timeline, and even, possibly, a Who's Who. Without them, it is difficult to keep all the strings going, unless you're an expert. Hibbert is sufficiently well established as an author to have merited better graphics in this book, which would widen its appeal.
   
   Great stuff, then, but prepare to work hard, as there is only one large map of Europe - not enough to piece together all the little villages in Belgium, Bavaria, and everywhere else those armies trod....
   
   I still enjoyed it.

No comments about Padraic Colum: A Biographical-Critical Introduction (Crosscurrents/Modern Critiques).

2 comments about The Unarmed Prophet: Savonarola in Florence.

1. This book was a real page turner for me. Whether or not a college history professor thinks it's a good history book, it is a fascinating read. I'm grateful to the Amazon organization for the ease in which I was able to obtain a copy through their third party service.

   The author's account of tensions between the different social forces in Florence during that time cut through the centuries so it reads like it could've been happening here and now. It is the "uncritical" writing, not bogged down with the analysis of an uptight academic, that makes this book easy and fascinating to read. Leave the critical analysis to the experts...




2. part of a study to present to adult education class on missions at my church.
   I'm obligated to give a short class on Savonarola and this is part of that study
   
   
   I got the book more for it's accessibility then any other reason. It is the first full length book treatment of his life that i have read and therefore have precious little to compare it to factually. Two big problems stare out from the book. The first is that the author's bias seems to get in the way of good presentation. She appears to be interested in him primarily as a political character and has very little sympathy for the theological content of his life. The second is that the first 2/3 of the book are more detailed then they need to be and the last 1/3 (from the trial by fire) far less informative than the events warrant. It is like the 20-25 page papers i wrote in university. I'd often get to page 19 and logically be 1/2 done the paper, rather than redo the first 19 pages, i'd just move faster so i'd get just 25 pages. In the case of this book, i'd love to see the first 2/3 cut down into the first 1/2 and the last 1/3 expanded to the last half. It is really noticable and leaves an unpleasantness in my mind for the details of his last 6 months are those most appropriate to what he really believed and why. But almost none of this discussion is present: meaning, significance, etc haunt the first 2/3 and are virtually absent in the last portion.
   
   Now about content. Who was Savonarola and why do so many people seem to desire to claim him as an antecedent?
   First, he appears with Hus and Wycliffe in the Luther monument in Worms (pictures in the book). but he was not a crypto or early Protestant, he is throughly Roman.
   Second, he is certainly apocalyptic, but did the success of his early sermons on these topics create him or did he create a market for these sermons through his preaching? Simply, what was the relationship of the times to Savonarlo? Left unanswered, even mildly unasked.
   Third, just because he died a martyr's death, does these change the truthfulness of his preaching, either by adding to it or subtracting from it since it means he personally lost the battle? Lots of people die at the hands of people we believe ought to know better, but does the manner of one's death like this, have anything to do with the values of his life or is it something that really effects only how we think about that person's life? Luther didn't die on his way back from Worms, that gave him a successfulness denied to Hus, Wycliffe and Savonarola and many others of their ages, so what?
   Lastly, he was a moral reformer, not a doctrinal one, who tried to use the political apparatus with a few new pieces (boys groups to collect the vanities) that look remarkably modern. This intertwining of the religious and the political make it hard to distinguish things that i would like to know about both him and his times. But i will have to look elsewhere for all those answers.
   
   The man-the messenger, the message both content and technique of presentation(the media) and the audience. Florence looks a lot like modern western culture, it certainly was the up and coming Renaissance city. For this reason we find lots of parallels between them and us, i think this is the enduring legacy of those times. The bonfire of the vanities looks like something our materialistic, obsessed with beauty society ought to do to rid itself of superficial banalities. But it is the technique of his overall campaign that we find most interesting. The political involvement, the intertwining of religion and politics, the underlying economic causes: plague, failure of harvests, rapidly changing conditions that favor some and crush others. It is this semi-marxist (economic forces are primary and underlie everything else) that the author manages to transmit to us as a take home message. His theology and beliefs look like nothing more than a psychologized superstructure when compared to the reality of partisan power politics based on control of economic forces. This ends up telling us more about our time than Savonarola's, about our deepest ideals then about Savonarola's or his times, thus yielding a book that really doesn't illuminate him but plays at history telling.
   
   I could have spent those few hours more profitably with another book, i haven't found it yet, but for a start it is ok background. But leaves me with far more questions than content to answer them with.

4 comments about Matty, An American Hero: Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants.

1. This is the best effort by Ray Robinson to date. The book starts off slowly but eventually picks up steam. Robinson effectively captures the era but really does not give you an awful lot more. Christy Mathewson was one of the best pitchers ever in my opinion (based on my research). I just wish that Ray Robinson could have confirmed it with the decisiveness one would come to expect from a seasoned author. Instead, I was left to wonder why certain facts were omitted and why he did not do more to make Matty an American Hero. A few more efforts like this and Christy Mathewson and others of his era will emulate his trademark pitch...Fadeaway! Anthony DeMedeiros, Toronto, Ontario



2. Ray Robinson does a fine job depicting one of baseball's greatest pitchers from Christy's grand beginnings to his unfortunate plight in the end. The book gives a fair amount of detail about the game's first national idol but lacks punch because of the mostly serene nature of "BIG 6's" life. To the extent that the book is kind of fluffy for its depiction of a man who is nearly perfect-save for incidences like his punching a vendor during a melee-it is almost Rockyesque in that one cannot help but wish they were a personal friend of Christy.It is currently the best I've read on the perfector of the fadeaway.



3. Ray Robinson is a sports journalist and editor, and this book is very much in the genre of many other conventional sports biographies. It is a good, serviceable biography; but it is far from great. In it, we learn about one of the earliest stars of major league baseball. Christy Mathewson had been born in 1880, attended Bucknell University and gained fame there as both a football and baseball player. He signed with the New York Giants and played sixteen seasons with them; arguably the most dominant pitcher in major league baseball during his time in the Majors. While with the Giants, Mathewson won 20 games thirteen times and 30 games four times. During that same period, he won at least 20 games twelve consecutive years (1903-1914). A power pitcher, Mathewson had the most wins in Giant franchise history (372), and had more than 2,500 strikeouts. Perhaps his most dominant performance came in the 1905 World Series when he pitched a record three shutouts in six days against the Philadelphia Athletics, leading the Giants to the championship.
   
   Robinson does a credible job telling the story of Mathewson's remarkable career. He expends considerable effort narrating the dramatic events of his various pitching performances. He also delves into the story of Mathewson's close relationship with his Giants manager, the legendary John McGraw, who is credited with working effectively with a sensitive and talented player to make him more dominant than he might have been otherwise. Robinson also explores the role Mathewson plays in helping to remake the image of major league baseball from one of rowdy hooliganism into one of the "national pastime." Mathewson served as a model of clean living when the sport was known for its hard-living, hard-drinking players. He became a role model for young boys, and MLB exploited his lifestyle to remake its image. He enthusiastically aided this process, and even wrote a series of boy's books advocating a moral, strenuous lifestyle.
   
   Of course, Mathewson served as the perfect example of "clean living" for MLB because of his dominance on the mound. Accordingly, in 1936 he joined four other MLB legends--Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson, none of whom exemplified "clean living"--as the first class of baseball players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It was a posthumous induction because Mathewson had died in 1925, at age 45, of tuberculosis.
   
   Ray Robinson has written a solid, readable biography of Matty. I give it three stars because it fails to go beyond the basics of what we already know about him, and has no references or even a bibliography with other works to read on the subject.



4. It is a historical anomaly that at the end of the nineteenth century the violent game of football was a sport for the privileged gentleman yet baseball was the game of the uneducated, profane and in essence the masses. Football was confined to the college campuses, which at that time, meant it was restricted to the wealthy. Baseball was a popular sport, yet the players were often little more than thugs. Nearly all of the players were from the lower classes, which meant they came from working class backgrounds such as the steel mills or coal mines. Professional baseball players were generally denigrated in society, at that time it was not an occupation that was looked upon as a stellar career.
   Christy Mathewson entered the major leagues from college, one of the first players who attended college before playing. He was one of the most intelligent men ever to play the game; he was capable of playing championship caliber checkers against several players simultaneously. Mathewson was also an excellent card player; he regularly accepted challenges from others as he moved from place to place. In his role as a gentleman baseball player, he did a great deal to transform the image of the baseball player from that of an uneducated brute to someone to be emulated. He served as a positive role model for children interested in pursuing a sports career and was idolized by the sports media of the time. Mathewson was also a very good and durable pitcher, his 373 career wins ranks him second all time behind Cy Young and Walter Johnson.
   In this book, Robinson captures Mathewson as he was, considered standoffish by some, yet a consummate professional on the mound. His relationship with his manager, the volatile John McGraw, was an unusual one as Mathewson, McGraw and their wives once shared an apartment. Given McGraw's temperament, this would truly be another example of "The Odd Couple." Robinson never apologizes for some of the negative comments made about Mathewson, merely pointing out that many of those instances can be explained by the context of the times. In general the country was uneducated with racial and personal slurs being part of daily speech. Babe and Rube were common nicknames of professional baseball players, being synonyms for naïve and ignorant. A deaf man was given the nickname "Dummy" and a Native American was usually called "Chief."
   Mathewson's time was also one of great transition in major league baseball, the American league was formed and considered inferior by the older National league. Players were very poorly paid, a consequence of the reserve clause which bound a player to a team and which allowed him to be traded against his will. Robinson points out that one of the reasons why the World Series was continued is because it was a significant financial windfall for the players. Groups of players also regularly barnstormed around the country and even overseas, in many cases to earn enough money to live.
   Mathewson was a charter member of baseball's hall of fame and it is unfortunate that he did not live long enough to be there in person. His health failed him very quickly after he retired from baseball, there is some evidence that the tuberculosis that took his life was brought on by his being gassed during World War I. While he had his faults, compared to those around him, they were few and far between. It has been said that Base Ruth did the most to help make modern baseball what it is today. I agree with that, but also firmly believe that Christy Mathewson occupies second place on that list. His approach to the game and the example he set in life did a great deal to elevate professional baseball players in the mind of the public. His life was an interesting and productive one, you can honor his memory be reading this book and learning all about him.

1 comments about Patrick: In His Own Words.

1. This book contains the two surviving writings of Patricius, the missionary bishop of late antiquity known as Saint Patrick, and constitute the best remedy to his being turned into a mere icon. Both Patricius's original Latin and an English translation is included, together with some good commentary and a modern Irish translation. Too few know his story as Patricius himself told it.