2 comments about Home from the Hill (Ulverscroft Large Print).

1. I'm amazed nobody has reviewed this book yet. I strongly recommend it as a well written account by a man's man who led very adventurous life. It's a classic in the tradition of "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" ( though better written in my opinion), an account of a full life in an era now long past, that an officer of the British Army serving in the far reaches of the Empire, before, during, and after the second World War. If the thought of fishing the Nile, hunting lion in the Sudan and tigers and pigsticking (hunting wild boar on horse-back) in India makes your heart beat faster, this is the book for you. Likewise, if this turns you off, it is obviously not. Hook is not one to lay his private life on the line, so we learn little of such matters as his marriage and subsequent divorce, but he is a most perceptive observer and an accomplished raconteur and we learn a good deal about the people and animals of the countries he serves in. Hook tells us of his experiences in the hunt and on the field of battle in a simple, direct manner, not without a touch of humour. Refreshingly, as one would expect from an officer and gentleman of his time, there is no gratuitious sex, violence or obscene language, though I have no doubt he was exposed to a great deal of the above. A good reminder that you don't have to talk tough to be the real thing.



2. Great book. Now, when is the video/dvd of the accompanying documentary going to be released ? By Molly Dineen, made in 1985 and shown on the BBC at the time.
   
   It's listed as no. 45 in the 50 best documentaries of all time ( a UK survey - check Wikipedia for the entry )
   
   But nowhere is it possible to find a copy to watch....come on Amazon, your fat tail profits from hard-to-find videos should mean that its worth getting hold of this one. And fifty quid from the RAI is just too much [...]
   Let's see...

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5 comments about An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us.

1. This is a rare, beautifully written personal memoir of a most unusual family in the Vietnam war. The author was a prominent anti-war priest: his father was Lieutenant General Joseph Carroll, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
   
   Highly recommended.



2. In this book we see Jim Carroll right of passage to manhood. It takes place during the same years of Vietnam. And his families like many others were placed in conflict by it; it split two generations apart like no other war. Father and son were being at odds with one another. And the author uses this book to support his position that he took in protesting the war.
   
   Though his famous father, Ex-FBI Agent and Lt. Gen. Carroll in command of the DIA is the subject of some of his consternation. The book is not about him. It is about Jim Carroll and his relationship with his father who seemed to never be able to fill a void he made in himself by not becoming a Priest himself. And it seems to me this is the large reason for the conflict between them...Jim felt his father expected to be redeemed by his works as a Priest. Though his father never says this.
   
   So when you pick up this book to read, remember it is about Jim Carroll's life and his struggle with his faith and his father. And it does show the spirit of those times. Worth the read.



3. An American Requiem
   
   An American Requiem is a tribute to Lieutenant General Joseph F. Carroll, who, according to the Arlington Cemetery website, "was a US Air Force officer who was involved in national security affairs for 30 years. Headed Defense Intelligence Agency from creation in 1961 until he ret in 1969." He was the father of the author, James Carroll. The book is a biography of the father's adult life but it is also an autobiography of part of the life of the son.
   
   In recounting the difficulties they experienced as a result of their taking opposite sides during the Vietnam War the book also becomes a memorial to the terrible confusions brought about by that still disputed conflict. Through the account of the pain of the father and of the son it also becomes a valuable account of the pain felt by many Americans who fought, protested or just tried to understand.
   
   The final account in the book may also be a memorial to all who try to deal with the new Imperial role of the US.



4. James Carroll's memoir, An American Requiem, displays many examples of scenes and narrative structures that are simply ineffective. As I was reading the book, I often felt as though I was skimming through a history textbook. Instead of focusing solely on his lifelong memories, Carroll often would jump into a long, detailed history lesson in which he would drop names in order to try and appear knowledgeable. While one can see why these can be necessary in some areas, it seems as though Carroll doesn't focus enough on himself. One of many examples of this can be found on page 37, where Carroll proceeds to give a detailed overview of various events that took place in the 1950's.
   Another area in which I feel Carroll could improve is character development. I felt as though we were always being told of characters that affected his life, yet not shown how. In comparing this book to J.R. Moehringer's, The Tender Bar, it is quite easy to see how many characters in this book are underdeveloped. For example, when writing of Patrick Hughes, Carroll simply states why he and Patrick were friends, but refrains from really showing us how he was so different from the rest of the Paulists (p. 101).
   Finally, Carroll has a definite ethos problem throughout the entire book. By oversimplifying his father, while also ignoring his side of the story, it appears as though Carroll always thinks he is right, and that his father is wrong. The final paragraph of the book proves this when Carroll states that his father is "fallible," yet forbears from looking towards himself with criticism (279). By the end of the book, I was completely turned off to the story because of Carroll's inability to look at his father's point of view instead of always assuming his own as the correct one.



5. I forgot that I had ordered it on August 30 and tried to cancel, but you shipped it so quickly that it couldn't be canceled. Thank Heaven! It is truly a wonderful book (topical and timely and all of that). I am way over the age of 13.

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5 comments about Foreign Correspondence.

1. I read this book in one day - it is beautifully, intelligently written with well developed characters and a true story that reads like fiction. It is a rare gem of literature that provides insight into the dreams of a young girl that many people can identify with - male or female. I have read a lot of books lately, but this was one of the finest books I've come across in a while.



2. Australian born Geraldine Brooks spent many years as a foreign correspondent covering the Middle East. I loved her book, "Nine Parts of Desire" which was about Muslim women, and I have followed her life somewhat as she is often mentioned by her husband, Tony Horwitz, in his books "Confederates in the Attic", "Baghdad Without a Map," and "One for the Road." I find her an excellent reporter and in this memoir, "Foreign Correspondence," she turns the spotlight on herself.

   As a child growing up in a lower middle class neighborhood on a street actually called "Bland Street", she yearned for a larger world. And so she developed pen pals. There was a girl from New Jersey, another one from France, and even one from an upper class neighborhood just a few towns away. And then there were two Israeli boys, one an Arab and one a Jew. As an adult, she found these old letters in her father's basement and, now more than twenty years later, she decided to look up each of these people. What follows is the result of her quest and some wonderful insights into world events from a personal one-on-one perspective. It was fascinating.

   As a teenager in the early seventies she was aware of the new consciousness developing, even reaching her in her protective Catholic school. She had an active imagination and the gift of using words well. It's not surprising that she developed pen pals and that they influenced her life so much. Her gift of words certainly reached me too. I shared her sense of wonder and enthusiasm as she looked forward to each letter. I felt her straining to break the bonds of her loving but restrictive world. I felt her hopes and dreams and frustrations. And then, later, I shared her discoveries as she searched out the people who had meant so much to her early life. She writes with a clear voice, painting a picture with details, taking me on her quest to discover the world and eventually to discover herself. The book is short, a mere 210 pages but she sure does pack a lot into it. It's a wonderful read. Highly recommended.




3. I bought this as an "airplane read" but couldn't put it down. Geraldine Brooks has done us a great favor by not only illuminating the process of finding one's long lost penpals, but also by educating many folks about Australia in the process. It's fascinating to see her perceptions of the world, and particularly America, based on the letters that come in her mailbox each month.

   While I read this one on my own, I have since leant this book to several friends and we've engaged in some interesting discussions about our own penpal experiences, so I recommend it for book clubs.




4. I have read several of Brooks' books (both her non-fiction and fiction) and I was excited to rec'e and read Foreign Correspondance. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed.

   The book has an outstanding premise---as a child growing up in Australia during the 1960s, Brooks was eager to experience the outside world. An avid letter writer, she found pen-pals in the U.S., Israel and France. As an adult, Brooks set off to meet and re-discover these people. So far so good. But the book peters out---with the exception of the American pen-pal (to whom she was closest), the characters lack enough detail to be interesting.

   Her meeting with her French pen-pal was especially disappointing. This was a girl who chose to remain in her native village (while Brooks became a world-traveler and global correspondant). I hoped for more insights and more discussion of the contrast and why they chose such radically different paths---despite coming from somewhat similar backgrounds (Brooks saw herself as living in a giant provincial village---the village of Australia). But there was little discussion and the meeting simply sounded painful. Her trip to Israel to meet her non-Jewish Israeli pen-pal would also have benefitted from a deeper discussion about one's choices and opportunities (there was some discussion of this but I wanted to know more).

   Had I not read Brooks' other books, I probably would have thought this was a fairly good book. But I know she can write such a better book!




5. Geraldine Brooks has written a book that I can empathise with. I think of how I might have had that life in Australia had my parents not returned to England in the 1930's. I wanted, and still do, very much to talk to the author and ask her questions as she is such a good writer with a warm personality.

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