1 comments about Mountbatten.

1. Philip Ziegler was Mountbatten's official biographer. However, he claims in the preface to the book not to have been subject to any censorship, and given the frankness with which he acknowledges his subject's flaws, one can believe his claim. Mountbatten was a close relative of the British royal family; Prince Philip is his nephew, and he regularly referred to Queen Elizabeth as his niece; and he was also a close confident of Prince Charles. He was quite ambitious, and not above using his royal connections to advance his military career. How successful that career was is open to some debate. There is no question about his physical courage -- indeed, he may have had too much of it. As Field Marshall Mountgomery enjoyed pointing out, Mountbatten had three destroyers sunk under him during the early part of the war. Later, he oversaw the Dieppe raid, which was one of the worst fiascos of the war -- a large commando raid on a fortified port resulted in near elimination of some units by German forces composed in many cases of file clerks and cooks. This loss did not stop his career, however; he ended the war with the command of the Burma theater, where he seems to have performed well. After the war, he became the last British Viceroy of India, with the task of working out a peaceful transition from British rule. That was a failure, as hundreds of thousands died in riots between Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims could have been forgiven for suspecting Mountbatten's neutrality; his wife was carrying on an affair with the Indian leader Nehru. Mountbatten was no saint in these matters, and could hardly complain. Mountbatten was murdered in 1979 when the IRA put a bomb on his boat. Why they did this has never been clear. Mountbatten had never been involved in Irish affairs, and at almost 80 years of age played no important part in the Government.

   Ziegler does a good job of capturing Mountbatten's charm -- almost everyone who met him liked him -- and his vanity -- after Elizabeth became queen, his aides would compete to see who could be the first to get him to refer to "my niece, the Queen." Curiously, Ziegler begins the book with a description of Mountbatten enjoying reading books on his family tree, an opening that is quite similar to that of "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. The similarity is odd because the character in Austen's novel is a fool and a snob with no ability, and no other claim to distinction. That could not be said of Mountbatten.

   Mountbatten lead a truly interesting life, and Ziegler has produced what is likley to be the definitive biography of that life. His honesty is such that one need not be an uncritical admirer of Mountbatten to enjoy this biography.

1 comments about Black List, Section H (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. I am intrigued by the continuing controversy over Aosdana's election to the office of Saoi of my cousin Francis Stuart, author of Black List. Francis is the cousin I didn't know I had, at least until last year. The family black sheep, the skeleton in the cupboard, he has been the family member that everyone found so hard to deal with that it was easier to deny his existence completely and since the war he has been written out of the family history, both in Burke's 1958 Landed Gentry of Ireland and in their 1978 Irish Family Records. It was not until I found the rather obscure 1930 family history "Three Hundred Years in Inishowen" by our mutual cousin Amy Young (nee Stuart) that I started to fill in the gaps and realised who he was. Francis has said (Irish Times,November 14, 1996, "Nothing But Doubt") that "the Stuart family, however, never forgave Francis's mother and blamed her for Henry's death." That's probably only a partial truth; rather, Henry's suicide shattered the family in ways that have resonated down the generations. The collective failure of the Stuart family, including, but not only, Francis, to integrate the trauma were surely a factor in the 1993 suicide of his and my cousin, travel writer Miles Clark, and so it continues. I confess I read Black List Section H at least in part neither as a literary masterpiece nor as a justification for Francis' wartime actions, but as a family history. Where he writes of how "he'd imagined his cousin Stella coming to his room at night to initiate him into the sexual mystery" I read of my godmother, later Stella Greer, who used to send me 5 quid at Christmas, and was said to be a bit of an old dragon. I presume she was the cousin whose love-letters Francis kept in the pigeon-holes of his roll-top desk at Rugby (Things to Live For (1934) ,page 17) and mentions again on the first page of Black List. And I suspect that, despite two marriages and a divorce, her cousin Francis was in some ways the unrecognised love of her life. I didn't meet her until she was eighty, but as Francis confirms, she must have been young once!

   The claims against Francis of anti-semitism are a malicious nonsense. Francis's biographer J.H.Natterstad (Irish Writers series, 1974) notes that "There is no evidence whatever that he saw the Jew as part of an international conspiracy or as the incarnation of evil. Although he was not sympathetic to what he saw as the Jewish obsession with money, the Jew was, as the archetypal outcast, a natural ally and was treated as such in "Julie" (written in 1938, a year before he went to Germany). Natterstad also notes that at Rugby, "There were others, he discovered, who felt themselves outsiders, and they formed their own clique, which insulated them to some extent against the life around them: 'Well, we Irish and a Jew and a Pole,' he recalled, 'we made a little group, and it was good.' " Francis has said that "I have spoken and written several million words in my life. No one could ever point to a sentence of mine that was or is anti-Semitic." In fact he could go further than merely denying any expression of anti-semitism; he has firmly nailed his colours to the mast and they contain nary a shred of racial or other prejudice. The only circumstance in which I could imagine Francis being anti-Jew is if he went to live in Israel, when he would no doubt quickly identify with the downtrodden Palestinians.

   But it should be remembered that Francis was not the only member of his family to spend the war in Germany, the other being his cousin's son, my uncle Bob Stewart-Moore. Bob,brought up on the same Queensland sheep station where Francis Stuart was born, and traumatised not by the suicide of Henry Stuart but by the accidental death an elder brother Henry Stewart-Moore, was in bombers, shot down over Germany and,rather than being "passionately involved in my own living fiction", as Francis Stuart claims to have been, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war at Lamsdorf, some fifty kilometres from Auschwitz. He then walked 500 miles in three months through Poland and Germany in the middle of winter to freedom at the end of the war, eventually being picked up by American troops near Muhlhausen. The group of Australians with whom he was imprisoned recently published a book on the experience, titled "The RAAF POWS of Lamsdorf", which is certainly anything but fiction, and in it Bob recounts the experience of being shot down, crashing in the Elbe canal, getting out of the plane underwater, and being imprisoned by the Germans. Certainly a different way of entering Germany to that chosen by his cousin Francis! One can only hope that the account in Black List of Francis's meeting with a POW at Frankfurt is not a (heavily disguised) description of a wartime meeting with his cousin. The age is wrong, as is the nationality and the rank. In fact the flying boots are about the only thing that is right. But the overtly and quite unnecessarily sexual references he ascribes to Captain Manville are something that this encounter has in common with Francis's descriptions of his cousins Maida and Stella: Are they a device he has used to distance himself from a connection uncomfortably intimate? Do I read too much into this encounter, or are there some subjects too tough even for Francis Stuart's brutal brand of honesty? The Aosdána award seems richly deserved, awarded as it is on literary merit, and I congratulate him on it. But now that he has done the easy bit and made his peace with Ireland and the world, perhaps it's time Francis tried something a little more challenging, and started to reintegrate with his family, starting with Bob Stewart-Moore in Sydney? I would have given Francis a ten for a book that I found to be quite enthralling (and not only for the family connections), but subtract one point for what appears to be his apparent failure to confront this most difficult of issues.

2 comments about Celtic Saints: Passionate Wanderers.

1. The study of what is usually called Celtic Christianity is in a parlous state. Except for particular issues such as the life of Patrick - where Dumville?s recent collection of studies has managed to shed as much darkness as light - little of note has happened since E.C.Bowen's questionable but at least scholarly study of the connection between "Saints and seaways" in the sixties, and practically no translation has been published since A.W.Wade-Evans' erratic 1944 collection, which is written in abominable English and leaves the Welsh-language LIVES untranslated; and, before him, we have to go back to the still more erratic Llandovery translations of W.J.Rees, dated 1854, and containing not only mistranscriptions and mistranslations, but actual grammatical mistakes IN ENGLISH!
   Not, alas, that this means that the subject is left untouched. Where the real scholars don't bother going, the popular scribblers wander at will. A real cottage industry has sprung up about "Celtic spirituality", and this book, while not belonging to its lunatic fringe, is clearly a part of it. What scholarship there is in it, is dated and unperceptive; assertions, especially as to the periods in which various saints lived, go unsupported; and the whole is bathed in a sentimental air that shows its desire to flatter the reader rather than to lead to any understanding of the subject. Also, while it annexates the Curch of early Northumbria to the Celtic world because of the influence of missionaries such as St. Aidan, it altogether neglects Brittany; could it be because to investigate it would require reading texts in Latin and - heaven preserve us - in FRENCH?
   Altogether, I cannot recommend this book either as a general introduction to its subject or as a study. Those who can, would be well advised to read Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher's ancient (1904) four-volume account of the Celtic saints, which is sometimes mutton-headed but has at least the virtues of thoroughness and consistency.



2. This is a very nice book by a very nice person. There's an excellent gazetteer showing how to get to some of the places she mentions and she is tremendously enthusiastic about her subject.
   The main problem is that she mixes historical fact with legend. The very existence of many of these "saints" is doubtful. What would happen would be that a name got attached to a place and then many centuries later someone would make up a story to go with the name. Then the story would get embellished. In many cases the stories were made up as late as the nineteenth century, although these saints are supposed to have lived in the sub-Roman period, the time between the Romans leaving Britain and the Anglo-Saxons coming in. The Roman Empire had been Christian for a hundred years when they left. It's a very dark period without much in the way of historical documentation.
   To take one example; there was a church in a place called St David's that had been in existence for a long time by the tenth century, when the Annales Cambriae were written. The writer of the Annales Cambriae merely put in St David's name and gave a date for his birth some time in the fifth century. In the 11th century a monk at St David's wrote a "life" of the supposed St David, which is what Rees largely treats as authentic history.
   To be fair to her she usually, but not always, prefaces some such stories with "according to legend" or "it is said that" but she sneaks it in so that you may not notice it.
   St. Patrick, St Columba, St Aidan and St Ninian are fairly well authenticated from near contemporary writings, including St Patrick's own memoirs. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, written in the eighth century confirms some of the data.
   Rees keeps mysteriously referring to people as missionaries, when they were traveling in lands that were already Christian. She has Welsh missionaries going to Cornwall to convert the Cornish. I couldn't quite figure that out.
   She assumes a certain knowledge of Celtic languages, which is needed to explain some of the changes the names underwent. Lenition and mutation in these languages alters the beginning of words, so that the mutated forms are very different. Even allowing for that I couldn't grasp how Kentigern became Mungo.
   Almost all the references are to secondary sources in English. A very nice book by a very nice person, but niceness doesn't always mean accuracy.

No comments about Duff Cooper: The authorized biography.

1 comments about De Valera.

1. Tim Pat Coogan is one of Ireland's better known journalists, a former editor of the de Valera owned Irish Press, and a noted biographer of Michael Collins. In this critical biography of Eamon De Valera, De Valera doesn't come off looking too good. More importantly, the criticisms Coogan makes of De Valera are well-founded, and well documented.
   
   Despite its many criticisms of De Valera, this book is not so much a book dedicated to denigrating De Valera, as Coogan's lamenting that Ireland was not led by Michael Collins, the brains behind its quest for independence, but rather by Eamon De Valera, who came to prominence as the only commandant in the uprising of Easter 1916 to be spared by the English, because he was deemed to be too insignificant.
   
   As a general rule politicians come in two types: the visionary whose foresight allows him or her to enact policies that are beneficial to the country, and the schmoozer, whose rhetorical abilities and eagerness to set up a spoils systems a la Tammany Hall allows them to enjoy long periods in power.
   
   Coogan emphatically asserts that De Valera was a professional schmoozer and master of bureaucratic infighting, and far less competent as a policy expert. He shows how DeV frequently chose an understanding of history that suited him, so-called "De Valera facts," was very pragmatic when the need arose "As so often happened, De Valera wrestled with his conscience, and won..." questions his paternity, mentions rumors about his relationship with his secretary. He makes much of De Valera's propensity to make political hay out of Ireland's partition, and plead for a reunification, all the while fusing church and state to such a degree as to make this inconceivable.
   
   His most trenchant criticisms are that De Valera plunged Ireland into a civil war to guarantee his preeminence in Irish politics, that he barely if at all understood the economic facts of life. Coogan himself writes that he bears the De Valeras a grudge for what he felt was their shabby treatment of their employees; perhaps for this reason he appears to underestimate the good that De Valera gained for Ireland by keeping it out of the war.
   
   This book is well-written in the sense that if you already have a background in Irish history, Coogan will articulately and thoroughly go over the controversies that he wishes to raise, and give you his take on them. If you don't know that much about Irish history, you'll find many of the issues he refers to be at the very least close to arcane and somewhat baffling.

No comments about My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress.

2 comments about Flannery O'Connor: A Memorial (Mlkam-Screen Arts and New Media Aesthetics).

1. This is the first book published as a reaction to Flannery O'Connor's death in 1964. It is a valuable reaction to her work by a group of writers and scholars who are not interacting, particularly, with other scholars. That is, these are scholars talking to readers rather than to other scholars--it makes a big difference in what is said, and how it is said. For one thing, the book is free of much of the literary jargon that has since become so fashionable.
   
   In 1964 there was little "critical" material available on O'Connor. She was admired by a select few readers and critics. Over time here place in the American canon has risen considerably so that now, each year seems to see a new critical study of her work.
   
   This small book is valuable as a very early collection of discussion of her work. I am so glad to see it back in print. If you are an O'Connor enthusiast you should get this book and read it--everything in it is quite readable.



2. The volume I have in-hand is the 1995 edition of this book and I am comparing it to the original edition -- that is, according to the editor, very similar to this, the current edition.
   
   Quinn states that this volume is based upon a special O'Connor commemorative edition of "Esprit" -- a small campus journal published by the University of Scranton. The issue [8.1 (1964)], was published shortly after O'Connor's death.
   
   Noting the "heavy demand from around the country for copies of this special edition," the University of Scranton Press published the issue as a book as a way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of O'Connor's death.
   
   Articles in the issue are abstracted in Robert E. Golden and Mary C. Sullivan's book, "Flannery O'Connor and Caroline Gordon" [Boston: G.K. Hall, 1977]. Thus, reader's are referred for Golden's guide descriptive summaries of articles which appeared in the original issue. However, a comparison of this volume with the original issue reveals some differences.
   
   Not included from the original volume are: Nine drawings by Paul W. Lowry and Anthony R. Cannella depicting various O'Connor characters; several photographs (mostly of Andalusia) which had been used to illustrate Katherine Anne Porter's essay, "Gracious Greatness"; and, essays or poems by Rudolph Fara, John F. Judge, Jr., John Connolly, Robert C. Gredlicks, Joseph C. Townend, Paul D. Liesman, Kenneth Zeiss, Richard W. Quinn, Frank Kelly, and Bernard A. Yanavich, Jr.
   
   Added to the 1995 reissued edition are: a letter from Flannery O'Connor to Fr. Quinn in which she ranks short stories submitted by students for a contest; O'Connor's remarks at a University of Scranton symposium in which she defines what a short story is and offers advice to those who might wish to become short story writers; her remarks upon receiving the Georgia Writers' Association Scroll; and two concluding essays by Fr. Quinn: a review of The Violent Bear It Away and a discussion of the influence of Joseph Conrad and William F. Lynch on O'Connor's work. An index is also included.
   
   R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University

5 comments about The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation.

1. It's amazing and refreshing that Mr. Mortimer can make 13th C English history come alive. This reads like a novel, and provides a lens through which to see the context in which the "barbarities" of this period must be appreciated. This historical period has been substantially inaccessible to me, using the available resources, and this book illuminates it beautifully.



2. Ian Mortimer is a meticulous historian with the ability to seamlessly blend momentous historical sweep with touching personal account. Edward the III is portrayed with all his strengths and weaknesses, ultimately emerging as a sympathetic character. Mortimer himself creates a new history of the period that goes beyond Froissart, Le Bel and other traditional medieval historians to find a history that is not jaded by period bias. He delves into primary sources resulting in a convincing and thrilling tale.
   
   It is rare for history to come alive as it does in this book. Battles are fought by flesh, blood, and spirit, and kings and queens agonize over their decisions, delight in their children, and experience the drama of the human condition which we all share. A marvelous book that will instill a love of this fascinating and pivotal time in English history.



3. Edward III reigned over England and Wales for over 50 years (1327 to 1377). He also had claims over Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man (from 1333) and France (from 1340).
   
   In this book, Ian Mortimer combines a very clear respect for his subject with meticulous research and succeeds in providing a detailed contextual picture of this monarch.
   
   Many with an interest in this period of history will know of Edward III as the king who started the 100 Years War, who won a number of battles (including at Crecy and Calais) - and who added Calais as a long standing English possession.
   
   `For the 30 years between 1334 and 1363 he was the greatest exponent of chivalric kingship there was.'
   
   The Black Death (1348-1349) occurred during his reign. The tragic loss of life and resulting labour shortages brought changes to the structure of society: a subject of study in their own right.
   
   Ian Mortimer lists five overarching achievements:
   (1) Kingship
   (2) Domestic peace
   (3) England's standing in the international community
   (4) Modernised warfare
   (5) Participatory government
   
   I agree with these broad headings, but would make special mention of The Statute of Pleading (1362). This was the first piece of legislation to officially recognise the English language - thus making the law (potentially at least) more accessible to all.
   
   I'd highly recommend this book to those with an interest in the life and times of arguably one of England's greatest monarchs. In his later years, Edward's authority waned but his achievements stand alone.
   
   Jennifer Cameron-Smith



4. Ian Mortimer goes a long way in this amazing feat of work. He lets us begin to see Edward III in his (Edward's)eyes. In some way he remakes Edward's story and protrays him as a warrior, a lawmaker, and a knight. This is the most amazing work on Edward yet.
   
   I recommend this book to anyone who wants to go deeper into the life of an amazing man. Without a doubt the warrior-king known as Edward III was the real Arthur



5. This is a fine book about the long and memorable 14th century reign during which occured the beginings of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the height of medieval chivalry and the rise to importance of the House of Commons.
   The narrative moves along at a nice pace and the author writes with a genuine feeling for his subject and the time period. If there's anything negative to say about the style, it's that some readers may be left craving even more detail, as I was, being a great fan of the "Yale English Monarchs" series.
   Mortimer does, however, indulge in some revisionist history. For centuries it's been accepted that the subject's father Edward II was done away with after being deposed. Mortimer is a firm believer that Edward II survived for at least another 15 years, incognito, wandering through Europe. In spite my being a traditionalist, and not buying any of that, I didn't find that it took away from what was a well rounded and authentic portrait. Mortimer does present all the evidence in a rational and non-sensational way. All in all a wonderful, concise, well balanced book.

No comments about Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.

No comments about Lord Hervey's Memoirs (Lives and Letters).