5 comments about Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy.

1. By the time I was old enough to appreciate adult comedies shown on TV, i.e. in the late 50's, Oliver "Babe" Hardy was already dead (1957) and Stan Laurel was on the final downslope of his life. Yet, it was Laurel & Hardy, along with Abbott & Costello, that tickled my embryonic sense of humor before "graduating" to Red Skelton, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason.
   
   Here, in STAN AND OLLIE: THE ROOTS OF COMEDY, author Simon Louvish draws from even more compulsively detailed books on the duo to yield a satisfyingly comprehensive overview of The Boys' professional lives, both solo and paired. I never thought of Stan and Ollie as being anything other than a team. Yet, the first eighteen chapters of this 40-chapter volume reveal that each had a successful career before being eternally cemented together in the 1927 silent movie, "Duck Soup". Each began life separated by the Atlantic, Stan being born in the north of England in 1890, and Oliver in Georgia of the American South in 1892. Before their fateful pairing by Hal Roach in Hollywood in 1927, Laurel worked his way up through the ranks of U.K. and U.S. vaudeville and U.S. film, while Hardy appeared in 200+ silents on his own beginning with "Outwitting Dad" (1914), a release coming from the then-booming Florida film industry. For both, it was a long and tortuous road to Tinseltown and destiny.
   
   I need to stress that STAN AND OLLIE focuses on their professional lives. If you're looking for a detailed inside peek at their personal existences, look elsewhere. OK, sure, the reader learns, as narrative asides, that Ollie bet on the horses and Stan had a weakness for Yorkshire pudding, chocolate candies, and ocean sport fishing. Both enjoyed golf. And, moreover, both had rocky domestic lives with multiple, mostly failed marriages - Hardy totaling three wives in as many marriages, and Laurel amassing four wives in five marriages, plus one common-law relationship. But, I finished the narrative not really having a feel for the men behind their famous on-screen personae. This skewed exposition is exemplified by the choice of photos included in the text; there are virtually none of Stan and/or Ollie outside of stills from their screen roles. Weren't there pesky paparazzi in those days? There was one photo taken of Hardy towards the end of his life that I particularly wanted to see out of morbid curiosity. As Louvish describes it:
   
   "In 1956 ... (Ollie) reduced his weight by 150 lbs ... The last photograph of Stan and Babe together, in 1956, shows a recognizable smiling Stan, but beside him stands a stranger, relatively trim, with flabby flesh replacing his double chins, thin silvery hair and a rictus of a smile."
   
   My distinct impression was that, throughout the composition of STAN AND OLLIE, the author worked overtime to protect the image and memory of his heroes. That's fine, but it results in a somewhat one-dimensional piece, albeit otherwise excellent as far as it goes.
   
   One rarely sees any of the old Laurel and Hardy movies on TV anymore. Maybe it's just because I don't stay up into the wee hours. STAN AND OLLIE compels me to re-visit their screen appearances on DVD rentals to remind myself of the laughter of childhood memory.



2. The title of my review, "Laurel and Hardy Beyond Double Talk" makes as much sense as Mr. Louvish's title. With that stated, I must declare that for the most part, I found his book quite educational and enjoyable. Some other reviewers issued complaints about it being too ponderous, or hard to follow. I found no basis for such criticism. In fact, I found the book challenging from the standpoint that its thoroughness kept me motivated in wanting to keep absorbing more and more information and details about these two comic masters.
   
   It was sad to learn that there was so much unhappiness in their domestic lives. I had heard that rumor before, but Mr. Louvish documents the apparently awful experiences in their numerous respective marriages. Still, I was more interested in what was said about the two men as artists. For example, it fascinated me to learn that both Laurel and especially Hardy had made dozens and dozens of films years before they even met. It was also revealing to learn what a perfectionist Stan Laurel was in creating gags, and striving to improve his art while appearing seemingly non-artistic in the process. With the great Chaplin, for example, one is laughing at his fine comedy, but constantly aware that he is showing you art!
   
   I think the narrated details in Stanley Jefferson, aka Laurel's years as a stage comic in England was difficult to track at times in this book. In defense of the author, it was probably hard to reconstruct much of that portion of the man's career. Having not read any of the other previous biographes of L & H, I cannot say whether or not this is comparatively a greater biography or not. I only know that I walked away knowing more about the team after completing my reading of the book.
   
   Yes, I recommend this "Stan and Ollie" the book to anyone today wanting to learn more about this comedy team. Laurel and Hardy have stood the test of time and in my opinion, are simply the greatest comedy on film. I say this knowing that I also love the Marx Brothers, Three Stooges,Abbott and Costello and Hope and Crosby. Comedy purists keep in mind I am not counting Laurel and Hardy's movies after after "Saps at Sea!"
   
   This book spurs a clear interest in their work. Unfortunately, many of their films are simply not available to see. Why this is the case is beyond me. We have umpteen zillion copies of "Friends," Adam Sandler, and Jack Black staring back at us on the DVD shelves, but not many Laurel and Hardy films. I hope Mr. Louvish's book will help stir up more interest in the team, so that pressure increases from fans demanding the retailing of more L & H films on DVD. Everyone is so divided on this side, or that side today, that it would be refreshing for all of us to see comic films that appeal to humanity in general. Laurel and Hardy literally made the world laugh.



3. ...whoosh, the style of this book is turgid and overstuffed with mixed metaphors (on the order of "They were the conduit for blossoms of comedy which were to explode in fiery mirth."), and there's far too much "Babe had terrible trouble, which will be explained in due course." I did like the subject, but the book was really irritating to read because of the style.



4. How does one do justice to two of the greatest comedy legends to have ever have graced the screen? A daunting task, but one that Simon Louvish (biographer of W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers) accomplishes with great aplomb and thoroughness. "Stan and Ollie" covers all bases as it explores the individual lives of the duo and the eventual pairing of two great screen comedians.
   
   Louvish begins by examining the respective early life of Stanley Jefferson and Oliver Norvell Hardy. Born and raised in England, Stanley Jefferson was the son of a theatre owner and performer, whose children were destined for the stage. But his namesake would take his father's love of acting much farther than the stage and onto screen, a journey that took him half-way around the world to California at the dawn of the movie era. Meanwhile, in small town Georgia, Oliver Norvell Hardy was born, months after his father's death, raised by a mother who ran boarding houses, her perpetually chubby son a constant watcher of the guests. His love of movies hit its stride when he ran projections for the local movie house and decided to test his fortunes on the screen.
   
   Each comic tried to make it on his own - Louvish devotes the first half of his biography to their early lives and the movies they made before they became a popular duo. Stanley's rise was perhaps a bit more difficult due to his theatre training (and his being pegged to impersonate his former roommate, Charlie Chaplin). "Babe" Hardy took easily to the ways of the screen, despite his bulk that haunted him his entire life, which was counteracted by a grace and ease that seemd contradictory to his size. These two very separate beginnings were inevitably paired up in Hollywood at the Hal Roach studio, where these vaudevillan trained actors somewhat reluctantly became Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, a disparate image of perfectly paired clowns.
   
   Louvish traces the years and the films that Laurel and Hardy made together with Roach, intermingling the myriad marriage and divorce affairs that plagued each man, weaving in history of supporting players and screen moments as their story unfolds. He debunks some of the stories that have floated about these two, all the while recognizing that memory is not the strongest recorder of events years after the fact. The subtitle "The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy" refers not to any lurid details, but to the men behind the faces on the screen. Laurel and Hardy were screen personas, not the men who lived and breathed off-screen; while their real lives were sometimes mirrored by what they chose to enact, clowns cannot be funny all the time. Louvish does an admirable job of weaving the good with the bad, the tremendous success while at the pinnacle of their careers, and the sad, dwindling end that included forgettable movies and studio disputes.
   
   "Stan and Ollie", while long and a sometimes wandering read, is a wonderful portrait of two men who were friends until the very end. It is amazing to consider their output of film, and to lament what has forever been lost of their early days and solo work. Louvish truly loves Laurel and Hardy but is able to paint them in an unbiased light, moles and all, revealing the minds behind two comedic geniuses who made it big for not being the brightest bulbs in the story. This book will make fans fall in love with Laurel and Hardy all over again.



5. VERBOSITY, n. the employment of a superabundance of words; the use of more words than are necessary
   
   This probably describes all this author's works. I had a terrible time wading through his bio on W.C. Fields and had to skip over most of it. I disposed of that book as soon as I was finished with it. When I got this book out of the library I had fogotten all about the author. But when I started reading "Stan and Ollie" I quickly looked at the cover and cried, "oh, no!." I made it through almost three chapters before giving up.
   
   Yet, I am a person who loves to read how an author weaves words together. That is part of the pleasure of a book. But this author doesn't weave, he just pours! This book could be a third of its length and do its subjects far better justice

5 comments about The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans.

1. This book won the Bancroft Prize. I can see why. The prose is inspirational, every paragraph a little jewel. The book is absorbing. It was easy for me to get lost in the prose, too easy. But where was this book going, generally? How did the chapters tie together? How does the concept of the destructive war fit into the intellectual patterns of pre- and anti-bellum history? I can't answer these questions and I would hope that no one would ask me this last question on a Ph.D. prelim. I can draw only one conclusion: there was no connection. This was the first modern war in terms of its destructive power. One out of every five who participated, died on the field or, even more horribly, of his wounds, lilke Stone Wall Jackson. The intellectual origins of American politics became uprooted and found no voice in this war. The Jacksonian themes that built on that tradition were mangled by the war. All that was left was the vicarious war: people of all classes struggling to relate to the war in every day language in any way they could. And once the killing stopped and reconstruction began, the destructive war and the vicarious war ended. No one learned anything. Is that the main message of this book? I wish Royster had written it down in black and white.



2. While focusing on the deeper causes of the civil war and their play-out on battlefields, Royster rips the lid off one of the most cherished American dogmas: the assumed sacrosanct value of the press. Royster's deep and thorough quotation from newspapers north and south, for decades preceding the war, lays bare a legacy of mutual hate encouraged by newspapers as they whipped their respective constituents up to a frenzy. The horror of "total war" and its major military proponents, in that context, is not only quite explicable but even ordinary -- even tame. The generals are, indeed, seen as essentially loyal ministers to a vast malaise primarily spiritual and psychic, which was hardly original to them, and which has been allowed to fester in this nation for a long time, and which to a degree poisoned populations both north and south before the war.
   
   This is therefore one of the few major books on American history either to take up an original thesis, or to forward one so counter to accepted thinking. You can like it or dislike it, curse it or scream "ouch," but the evidence is there, meticulously laid out. The fact is, Royster throws great and uneasy light on our present culture wars which are also now several decades running -- and flamed in a quite similar manner.
   
   In the meantime, Royster's descriptions of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain and the burning of Columbia are matchless.
   
   This book leaves all James McPhersons, all Ken Burnses, all Stephen Ambroses, and all similar gurus at the post -- mere babes. No, this is not to say he is some sort of Michael Moore hate America nut, either. He's more on the level of a Tacitus, frankly, or an Isaiah weeping at the gates. Read it and weep.



3. This is a brilliantly labyrinthine disquisition on the American Civil War. Royster's premise is the examination of the wars' scale of destruction, and the surprising extent of its violence, developed out of biographical sketches of Sherman and Jackson, who Royster believes best personify the Union and the Confederacy. Further, Royster sees the devastation of the Civil War as incipient in the antebellum period. The Destructive War is interpretive as well as critical, literary as well as historical, dealing as much with the idea of war as the facts themselves. Indeed, the author terms his work " a long essay."

   Royster depicts the Civil War as-primarily-aggresive, anomalous, vicarious, and as the title suggests, destructive. The Confederacy sought aggressive war to achieve quick legitimacy, its viability depending on the ability not only to wage war, but also to take that war north of the Potomac, make the Yankees feel its effects, and thereby convince them that the costs of prolonged combat would be far too dear. Royster argues that the Union pursued aggresive war, ultimately, to bring progress to the South and demonstrate the superiority of free labor over slave labor, by razing the Confederacy to its foundations and then rebuilding it in the North's own image.

   For Royster no one better epitomizes the Confederacy than Thomas Jonathon Jackson, better known by his sobriquet Stonewall, which Royster asserts, reflected a self-created persona. Jackson's Stonewall was an inelegant fusion of plodding resolve, frustrated (if not checked) ambition, and intense piety, smacking of both Calvinism and Arminianism, all funneled into a zealous devotion to duty. His untimely death at Chancellorsville gave birth to the Stonewall myth-patriotic Christian warrior-providing tantalizing 'what if' grist for the counterfactual mill of post hoc Confederate nation building. An advocate of "the tactical offensive in battle" Jackson is certain the Civil War will be "earnest,massed, and lethal."

   The essence of the Union, according to Royster, can be found in William Tecumseh Sherman. Alarmed by Confederate strength and resolve, Sherman presciently observed that tactical defensive warfare would be woefully insufficient in what he believed would be a long and costly war. Egged on by newspapers ravenous for victory on the cheap, and deferring to troops already engaged in wanton mayhem, Sherman embraced, then embodied, that which he originally resisted: total war.

   Royster includes subsidiary characterizations of the war as drastic, Republican, and vigorous. Drastic war knows no limits in the pursuit of emancipation and abolition. Republican war means "Emergency war powers" and "passionate nationalism" which will create "a new republic, purged of antebellum evils and backwardness." Vigorous war is possible because of the "widespread eagerness to be exonerated of the criminality attached to bloodshed." Auxiliary adjectives such as harsh, bitter, ineluctable and causeless are employed to complete the illustration. In the book's chapter on vicarious war the author asks, "How had the naive notions prevalent at the start given way so readily to killing on a scale supposedly unimaginable?" This single question is the essence of Royster's work.




4. The book The Destructive War by Charles Royster, examines the war policies and strategies of the Union and the Confederacy during the civil war. The book talks extensively about Confederate general Jackson and Union General Sherman.

   At the beginning of the war the Union did not attack citizens or their property. The Union did not destroy any property of the citizens of the Confederacy because they anticipated winning the war. They realized that if they won the war it would be their responsibility to help the south rebuild. They also thought of the south and the people of the south as Americans despite labeling them traitors. But despite the reluctance on the part of Union Generals to damage citizen's property it eventually became policy. This change in policy came about because, "northern expressions of support for intensified war-making assumed that the Confederate army was an instrument of the Southern populace and that the populace was a legitimate object of attack," (Royster, 81). Women were also subject to attack. Union soldiers attacked women because "in the conventions of the time, women were supposed to use their power to ennoble and civilize-whereas, Southern women, it seemed, were serving what Elizabeth Cady Stanton called "mere pride of race and class." By promoting war against the union and by showing their hatred of Federal soldiers, they imitated Lady Macbeth and "unsexed themselves to prove their scorn of `the Yankees'." Thus they forfeited their exemption as ladies and noncombatants," (Royster, 87). Confederates did not share this policy. They always were proud that when Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863 that he gave an order that soldiers were not to damage citizen's property or plunder it.
   
   The book also talks about General William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman was a southerner who chose to stay in the Union. "He shared (southern) distaste for abolitionist and for Northern politicians who made hostility to slaveholders a political platform. Still, he told Louisianans that secession was treason and that he would not collaborate with it by remaining in the state," (Royster, 90). He hoped to stay out of the war but eventually he joined the Union army. He participated in the battle of Bull Run and blamed the "defeat on the inexperience and panic of the privates," (Royster, 92). He was the senior commander of central and western Kentucky in 1861, despite his desire not to be in charge. He was dismissed of command of the area and rumors spread that he was insane. He eventually led campaigns down the Mississippi River and captured Atlanta. He became famous for his destructive marches through the south.
   
   General Thomas Jonathan Jackson or Stonewall Jackson was a very famous and effective Confederate General. Everyone even Northerners considered Jackson a "genuine general," (Royster, 42). Jackson on many occasions outmatched many Union Generals on the battlefield. He died on the battlefield on May 2, 1863 from friendly fire. Many Confederate Generals including Lee thought that if Jackson had not died that they would have won the war. After the war Jackson came to symbolize many things after the war. He epitomized the courageous and skilled Confederate soldier. He also represented a model "to all the men especially ambitious and aspiring youths, that the self-control and assiduous application he had become a self-made man," (Royster, 162).
   
   The civil war was "an interior struggle in the (Confederacy and Union), an effort to make the newly forming conceptions of nationality inclusive lasting while they were still controversial and nebulous," (Royster, 145). Both sides believed that the best way to validate their idea of the nation is to destroy the other side's army. The Confederacy thought the best way to establish itself as an independent nation would be to deliver to the north a decisive defeat on their soil. General Stonewall Jackson gave the south many victories against the Union and came to be one of the most famous Generals in the war. The Union thought one of the best ways to bring the Confederacy to its knees would be to attack Confederate citizens. General Sherman was famous for his invasion into the south, wrecking havoc on the Confederate citizens.

   I had to read this book for my Civil War class. I thought that the book was a valuable source of civil war information. However Royster repeated himself several times in the book. The book also jumped alot from subject to subject. The chapters did not flow into each other; they tended to skip from idea to idea. Despite this it was full of very detailed information.




5. Royster's "The Destructive War" is one of the most important works of Civil War Scholarship in the 1990's. He blends a sweeping narrative with extensive analysis to explain the development of "total war" and its effects on Americans. What will really engage the reader is not so much Royster's examinations of General William Sherman's actions and those of his men, but rather the ideas of Stonewall Jackson and the calls for the destruction of Northern cities that they elicit from the Confederacy, a nation that was supposedly only wanted to fight a defensive war. While Royster's argument is not without some structural flaws, it makes some very interesting points about Confederate war aims and the willingness of populations and troops of both sides to destroy the cities of their former bretheren. I've read this book twice for graduate level classes and each time a lively discussion has been generated. An excellent book.

5 comments about Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene).

1. While this biography of Franklin may not be for everyone I found it highly readable (except for a few sections on Pennsylvania politics), authoritative, and very interesting in the path in takes as the historian seeks to understand this remarkable man. It couldn't have been easy being a genius living in a time of superstiution, ignorance and enormous intolerance. Franklin not only navigated successfully but was able to quietly effect great change be it starting militias, hospitals, fire departments,and libraries or gently guiding his fellow colonists toward independence. He said he wanted to be remembered as a man who 'lived usefully' a suitable goal for us all I think.



2. I purchased this book because the author was a professor from the respectable Yale Univ and it was not too thick of a volume. I find the content is excellent and engaging. Morgan does not dwell too much on trivial details but seems to cover the important aspects of Franklin's life.
   
   One thing I am not happy about is the difficulty in reading this book. I can understand it overall, but there are sentenses here and there that are confusing to me. A good editor should have made some corrections to confusing sentenses. The Yale professor might be a good historian and scholar, but not necessarily well versed in composition.
   
   Am I the only one complaining about the rhetoric? Strangly, I don't read such comments/reviews from others here...



3. Edmund Morgan presents a very different approach to analyzing Ben Franklin's life. He does not go day by day or even year by year but instead looks at the overall legacy. While I think this is an interesting way to look at Franklin's life it is not as useful as Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. It is still possible to learn a lot about his cultural legacy and intellectual legacy. I did learn things about Ben Franklin that I had not from other biographies because this does stick to the large picture. This book does cover the essentials as others have noted but I think it also sets a new and exciting trend for biographies. To get the place of a person in history it is worth looking at how they fit in to larger events as opposed to just their life. Morgan's writing is very engaging and this is a valuable addition to the literature on Benjamin Franklin.



4. I was sorely disappointed by Edmund Morgan's biography of Benjamin Franklin. Despite having America's most creative, funny, and interesting Founding Father, perhaps second only to George Washington in importance, Ben comes across boring and leaden in Morgan's account. I found little of Ben's humor and warmth in this book. While it covered Franklin's scientific and diplomatic efforts in great detail, it spoke little of how Ben helped make America...indeed, I found little to prove him a Founding Father. I persisted through the interminable treatment of pre-Revolutionary Franklin, hoping for a solid treatment of the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional Convention, only to be completely disappointed. In sum, I feel that I know only marginally more about Ben after reading this book; I hope Issacson's account illuminates Ben better.



5. I am interested in comparing the 5 best biographies of Benjamin Franklin that have been written (thus far) in the new millennia, emphasizing Morgan's account.
   
   THE BEST 5 BIOGRAPHIES ARE (in order of publication date)
   Edmund S. Morgan's Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene S.)
   H. W. Brands's The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
   Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
   Gordon S. Wood's The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
   Jerry Weinberger's Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (American Political Thought)
   
   
   The first 4 of these biographies are presented as in the typical historically (and chronologically) biographical approach. Morgan's biography was the first written and all the later biographers mention his work and try to build (and critique) Morgan's interpretation of Franklin.
   
   There are 24 pictures in Morgan's book, no pictures in Brands's book, 32 pictures in Isaacson's book, 25 pictures in Wood's book, and no pictures in Weinberger's book.
   I am not going to write about how great Franklin was or what he did (he was great and he did so much). I want to write primarily about how each of these authors portrays Franklin's character differently by highlighting different aspects of his life.
   
   In London (1725) Franklin wrote "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which seemed to show that Franklin was a young radical Deist. Later, when the pamphlet was reprinted in Boston, Franklin became a social outcast of sorts and he wrote that he was "inclined to leave Boston" because people were calling him "an infidel or atheist." When Franklin fled Boston he was 17 years old. He later wrote about that pamphlet that Ï began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful."
   Later, after becoming rich from his printing presses, writings, and scientific discoveries, Franklin became a statesman, diplomat, Founding Father, and icon.
   At the end of his life he wrote his "Autobiography," where Franklin said that he "never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity, that he made the world, and governed it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service to God was the doing of good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded either here or hereafter; these I esteemed the essentials of every religion".
   
   Morgan affirms what is in Franklin's "Autobiography" by writing, "Franklin seems never to have doubted...etc" (pg. 16). All the other biographers affirm Morgan's interpretation except Weinberger. Weinberger thinks that Franklin is purposely contradicting himself to play with his readers...to reveal a Franklin that would have possibly be called again an "infidel or atheist" if he had not cloaked his message. Morgan, however, highlights the phrase in the "Autobiography" where Franklin says "that the most acceptable service to God was the doing of good to man." After describing the 13 virtues listed Franklin's "Autobiography" Morgan notes, "What is totally missing from the list is charity, love of one's fellow man. And charity, it will become evident, was actually the guiding principle of Franklin's life" (pg. 24). Morgan says that charity brought Franklin to be a public servant; Brands agrees but says that Franklin was a skeptic and a pragmatist; Isaacson focuses on the Franklin who, it's argued, helped found American pragmatism, Wood focuses on the political Franklin who had to be "Americanized" because Franklin too often wanted to be part of the old gentry class and this was evident in some of his politicking, Weinberger calls Franklin a "radical skeptic" and says he was a political "Baconian."
   
   Morgan's work on Franklin is most like Brands's biography. Brands's work is much longer and often recounts extraneous things in accomplishing the most contextually based Franklin written so far.

5 comments about The Private Lives of the Impressionists.

1. I found this to be an excellently researched book covering the lives of the artists known as Impressionists. It went chronologically, with stories of their work, their families, and what was going on in the world around them that affected their ability to make a living at their art. It wasn't boring in the least, and let the reader get a clear picture of the personalities and characters of those struggling artists who are so well known to us now.



2. 
   An excellent work. The author has captured the feeling of each artist and the lime they lived.A must for all those
   interested in the impressionists.



3. One of the great benefits of living where I do is the opportunity to take in great art. A reasonably short train trip lands me in Manhattan and I'm able to go and gaze at the glories of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the huge draws of the Met are the galleries of paintings by the artists of nineteenth century France and the movement known as Impressionism. Filled with light and colour, these paintings caused mockery from the critics, outrage, and yet were still able to find a market -- and one that has become even more so in the modern world, where Impressionist paintings fetch prices in the millions of dollars.
   
   In this narrative group biography, author Sue Roe explores the lives of the leaders of the Impressionist movement from 1862 to 1886, the most troubled -- and most prolific -- years that these artists shook up the rather staid art world. Each artist is given a bit of a brief biography, and some of the details of their childhood and early careers, along with the women they married and their struggles for either money or recognition or both.
   
   She begins, naturally enough, with Edouard Manet, and his painting, Le Dejeneur sur l'Herbe first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1863, and which caused outrage. It wasn't a biblical or historical subject, or a portrait, or even a landscape. Instead, two modern Parisian men are sitting out of doors on the grass, with a naked woman. And she's being bold about it, staring out at the viewer with a frank and somewhat amused expression. His next painting, Olympia, had the same naked model, this time as a grand courtesan in a modern setting, and this time, the critics really screamed in horror. Other artists were pushing the limits with experimental work that played with light, such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. Two women would join the Impressionist circle, Berthe Morisot (she would marry Manet's brother in time) and Mary Cassatt. Shunned by the judges of the Paris Salon, they would eventually stage their own exhibitions, with varied success.
   
   What makes this one different is that Roe takes a look at the lives of these people outside of the art. She looks at how they met one another, their marriages and children, how the outside world treated them. Most of her attention is focused on their financial and marital world. The popular idea of an artist struggling and slowly starving in a garret, fighting the world that scorns them, probably grew out of these lives, if Roe's information is any indication. With a few exceptions, nearly every artist in this story is going broke in a big way -- there are vivid details of their private lives, the quiet frustrations of their wives trying to raise their children on nearly nothing, and especially the choice that some of them took to paint more popular paintings that would make them money, and so, survive.
   
   It was this constant focus on the lack money and the descriptions of poverty that really struck me with this nonfiction work. Again and again Roe focuses on the subject, and seems to take delight in describing the misery, from the Franco-Prussian War and the Communard uprising that soon followed, the disputes that Cézanne and his father had over money, and the constant borrowing and pleading for cash. What with all of the whinging going on, I wonder how anyone had time to paint...
   
   And that's the disappointment of this work. The narrative has a very gossipy tone, and Roe continually focuses on the negative aspects of life. After a while, it became rather tedious to read about, and combined with the fact that she had so many leading characters necessarily leads to everyone getting a little piece of the story, and not too much lead time. I came away with a good perspective and idea of the time range of the Impressionist movement, but I also came away with not really knowing a great deal about any of the artists. If I had not already read some fictional and nonfiction works about Manet, Morisot and Cassatt, I would be heartily confused. Too, Roe mentions various paintings and works, but then doesn't have any pictures of them in the two photographic inserts. It all comes across as very confusing in the end, and while the book does have some positive aspects, it's not one that I would recommend for casual reading.
   
   If the reader already has some knowledge of the Impressionists, this would be a good gateway book to spur some interest in more specific artists, but it really doesn't reveal anything new. Along with the two inserts of paintings, small black and white pictures are at the start of each section, along with two maps showing Paris and the surrounding countryside during the period. Plenty of notes and a bibliography and index complete the book.
   
   Overall, this is about a three-four star read. It's worth reading once, but it's also one that I don't think I will reread any time soon. Which is a pity. So this is not a book that I would recommend, despite giving it an overall rating of four stars.



4. It is to Sue Roe's credit that THE PRIVATE LIVES OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS is not a fun or funny book.
   
   Ms. Roe is a serious scholar and she has written a serious work.
   
   Writing a definitive biography of even just one person is a huge and somber undertaking...writing an anthology about an entire discrete group is almost too huge to comprehend.
   
   Yet because PRIVATE LIVES is not fun in no way negates its worth.
   
   Sue Roe has assembled the ultimate work on those artists who coalesced to form the movement now well-loved as "Impressionism."
   
   She explains the history of the movement, and how reviled it had been by the establishment. In the process of this explication, she also tells a great deal about the moment in which this movement came to life, at the precise time of the transformation of Paris from a patchwork of farming communities to a cosmopolitan city.
   
   She does as good a job of detailing the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune as I have read anywhere.
   
   Roe has done enormous research on the personal lives of the most important of the artists, and of their joint struggle to be accepted for the type of imagery they were trying to display.
   
   It was startling to read that the great names of Impressionism considered themselves to be cohorts and supporters of one another.
   
   I didn't have fun reading THE PRIVATE LIVES OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS, but the time spent was worthwhile. The book was everything that I hoped it would be: A true learning experience.



5. The title of the book is misleading. Most, like me, would believe that it is about the various affaires des coeurs of the Impressionist painters. But it is far from that. It is an insightful look into the struggles of the impressionist painters during the years of 1860-86; this was before they became famous.
   
   The book covers the lives (intimate or otherwise) of the better-known impressionists such as Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Cézanne, and Pissarro and the not-so-well-known painters who were in their company Berthe Morisot, Frédéric Bazille, Mary Cassatt and Gustave Caillebotte. The author describes how these painters tried to break the rigid moulds of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which controlled the technique and subjects of mainstream painting in France.
   
   The author described many of the better-known and the not-so-well-known paintings in such an anecdotal form that the reader is forced to have a look at those paintings somehow (in a coffee table book or online). She brings alive the characters who had posed for the paintings that give a greater depth to the work.
   
   The author has researched this period well and one not only gets an insight of the lives of these painters but also of the world around them. The reader can literally visualize the gradual realization of Haussman's vision of Paris, or the soirées and evenings spent in cafés. The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the siege of Paris are also described in detail - it led to tremendous upheaval in the French society as also the lives of the painters - a large amount of their output was lost during this war and the sense of loss is transferred to the reader.
   
   The author manages to intertwine the lives of the painters - the individuality of each painter is maintained even though all are presented as a collective. Despite the fact that so many characters are being biographed, the author doesn't leave the reader of being overwhelmed with the plurality of characters.
   
   Use of exact addresses and trivial but minute details such as a `thirteen-minute stop for hot chocolate' (238) which Eugène Manet made on way to Paris from Nice. Though the use of French words was rather limited despite the fact that the setting and the painters were French. Most words can be understood from the context - However, some words (cocottes, arrière pensée) do require a bit of looking up to understand the true import of the sentence.

1 comments about A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent.

1. Guibert (born 1055, died 1125)was born a noble, but followed his mother's lead in abandoning his wealth. He joined a monestary and excelled in his studies, dedication to the Christian faith, and in politics, so that he rose through the ranks and was appointed to run a monestary at Nogent, France. Paul Archambault, the translator and editor, is a professor of French at Syracuse University.
   
   Guibert's "Confessions" is divided into three parts. In the first part, he tells the story of his life--the low character of his father, the goodness and saintliness of his mother, a harsh education under a beloved tutor, the hedonistic lifestyle he lead after his tutor left to join the monestary, his own decision to join the monestary, his work as a monk, and his eventual election to run the Monestary at Nogent. Part one ends with several stories of divine punishment (through lightning, etc.) of sinful monks.
   
   The second part of the book is the shortest and concerns itself with the history of the Monestary at Nogent. Like the previous division, this section ends with anecdotes concerning divine punishment for sinners.
   
   The third division of the book is a lengthy account of the Laon serf's revolt from Guibert himself, a man who lived in the area and was personally aquainted with the principals of this revolt. He gives first-hand testimony of and second-hand accounts of the characters involved in this revolt including Enguerrand de Boves, Saint Anselm, Biship Gaudry, and Gerard de Quiezry. He knows the political intrigues, who hates/is allied with who, and the secret motivations of powerful persons. It makes for an interesting historical read. Guibert follows his established pattern as he finishes this book citing examples of divine judgment for various sins.
   
   Guibert of Nogent's book is an important contribution to both French political history in the 1000s and 1100s as well as ecclesiastical history. Guibert gives important details about French politics (including the role of bribery) and the mechanics of revolutionary riots. This book is also useful for one who wants to grow in their knowledge of the Church. Guibert shows how one might join a monestary, what monks actually did, how they rise in influence, and how that influence might be wielded. Most intersting of all, the reader can see the degree to which church politics influences state politics and vice versa.
   
   Paul Archambault has translated this book from its original Latin. I'm not in a position to critique the accuracy of his translation, but since the previous (1970) edition contained many archaic words (thou, thee), this readable translation is appreciated. Archambault's footnotes (which give brief biographies of people Guibert mentions, defends difficult translations, cites Bible references, and gives other general information) was very helpful to this reader. His 40-page introduction clued this reader into themes, set the historical scene, and gave a personality sketch of Guibert of Nogent himself.
   
   In all, this is a recommended book for those interested in this period of European or Ecclesiastical history.

5 comments about Mr. Capone: The Real - and complete - story of Al Capone.

1. This is a very well-written and interesting book. It's not a page turner but is very entertaining. If you like mafia books or movies...you will love this book.



2. This book is fantastically written. I picked it up in the book store and could not put it down. From Italy to his death, this book tells the entire story in fantastic detail. Without restating what other reviewers have already stated, I just wanted to say that this is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Meticulously researched and written, the details bring the book to life, making you feel like you are living in the 1920's, viewing everything. The book also does a good job of telling the story of the rival gangs and gangleaders in Chicago, like Bugs Moran and the Irish, as well as the contemporary politicians of the day. From the shootouts to the drug running, the bootlegging to the day-to-day of Al Capone, this book nearly reads like an action novel!
   
   Also, having lived in Chicago for two years, I really enjoyed the references to the neighborhoods and streets.
   
   Highly recommended.



3. this book gives an interesting aspect to the Capone story particularly in regard to Capone's Florida excursion. It seems Al went to Florida to escape the "heat" of Chicago but found the heat and humidity of Florida eventually put him in jail. The IRS investigated his holdings and possesions in Miami and Big Al found that all the rackets were already covered by business developers from Ohio. These snowbirds once they got a handle on Florida's vice industries weren't about to tolerate Capone and the attention he could bring to some of their more dubious business enterprises.In alot of works on Capone the writers make the point solely that there was moral outrage and this was enough for the state of Florida to want Capone out.However from the Schoenberg book read there is alot more involved in the reasons for the riddance of Capone. It seems his high profile was not welcome because it brought to much attention to the fishbowl and no respectable fish wants to be seen devouring the smaller ones.



4. Before I say much else, let me congratulate the author, Robert Schoenberg, on this work. This study of Al Capone is an elevation of the standards of biographical presentation, and I found it as enjoyable as it was informative. The word "fearless" also comes to mind, and by that I refer to Schoenberg's capacity to advocate his own carefully-formulated views on the real Al Capone, behind the enduring legend, the misunderstandings, and the deliberate misinformation long spread as character assassination.
   
   Exhaustively-researched, Mr. Capone---the book---does everything but bring Mr. Capone---the man---from his time into ours. Capone was comparatively no monster, nor was he a saint. He was no more ruthless than circumstances in his business ever required him to be, and was by degrees shrewd, wise, cautious, generous, fun-loving, tough, pious, forgiving, sadistic, kind, and patriotic. Capone's philanthropy has never received the coverage it deserves, and his philandering has been too focused upon. Capone, let's not forget to mention here, made his name and rose to power on the strength of his talents as a peacemaker among the warring ethnic gangs of the east coast. A deft negotiator who could be trusted to deal fairly with all sides and to keep his word when given, Capone had far more friends than enemies in the underworld, and it was the strength of these alliances that he drew upon in the 1920's when he made his move to become the top power-broker in the city of Chicago: not the most powerful underworld figure, THEE most powerful person in America's second-city.
   
   Capone was a larger than life figure, and a man with as many weaknesses as talents. Foremost among his weak points was his all-possessing vanity. This vanity drove him to revel in the publicity and fame he both intentionally created and magnified via his extensive influence on the Chicago press. (It's said by 1930 there wasn't a Chicago newsman worth his salt who hadn't had dinner with Al Capone.) This desire for the spotlight put Capone into international headlines, and made him the focus of seemingly every legitimate law enforcement agent with any ambition. Schoenberg's emphasis on the role played by members of the Treasury Department, men unknown today in comparison to the self-promoting Elliot Ness, a being every bit as obsessed with his own celebrity as was his foe Al Capone, is especially refreshing.
   
   Schoenberg portrays Capone's pragmatism and realistic attitude about the conviction for tax evasion that eventually sent him to prison, first in Georgia, later in Alcatraz. Beneath his bravado ("I plan to spend a third of my sentence asleep.") Capone made the best of the bitter hand he was dealt. We come in the last chapters to meet the most surprising incarnation of "Scarface Al" Capone, that of Capone the model inmate, a man too learned in hard wisdom to make trouble for himself among either the prison population, or those who governed it. Finally we see the sad final years of the one-time boss of Chicago, as he wastes away on a modest Florida estate, a victim of cardiac troubles and neurosyphilis. One final myth, that Capone's phobic reaction to needles prevented his receiving treatment for syphilis, is exploded, and the truth revealed at last: this being that because of America's involvement in the Second World War the penicillin used in the treatment of syphilis was virtually impossible to attain on the homefront, even for the dying, and even for a legend like Al Capone.
   
   Mr. Capone is among the best examples of biography I've ever read, and should be studied for what it brings to the field of research, as well as for its presentation of an oft-mythologized man. Easily a five-star book that I'd recommend without question. It's not only great, it's good.



5. Building and expanding upon the solid foundation previously laid by Pasley and Kobler and correcting old errors, and guided by the likes of top-notch Capone experts Mark Levell and Bill Balsamo, Schoenberg has crafted one of the best Capone biographies to date, far superior to Bergreen's ludicrous fluff. The author puts perhaps too much faith in the questionable testimony of "Born Again" hoodlum George Meyer but that is abbreviated and an almost a minor aside in this comprehensive, well-researched bio of America's all-time greatest gangster.

5 comments about The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival.

1. I was unfamiliar with the Kindertransport that moved 10,000 Jewish children to safety from the Holocaust. This biography brings that event to life through the memories of Lisa Jura. At 14, her parents sent her to London and the book covers that wrenching journey and the next six years of her life. Growing up during the blitz in a refugee home with 31 children makes a fascinating book.
   Lisa's devotion to music weaves the story together as she strives towards her parents' dream. Becoming a concert pianist seems unachievable under the circumstances, but this touching biography details Lisa's progress towards that goal. This account has appeal for both adult and teen readers.
   I also recommend In The Shadow Of The Cathedral: Growing Up In Holland During WW II by Titia Bozuwa



2. author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
   
   from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
   August 30, 2002
   
   Vienna, 1938. In the city of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Strauss, 14-year-old musical prodigy Lisa Jura looks forward to a promising career as a concert pianist. Hitler has other plans. With the breaking of glass on Kristallnacht, Jura's dreams are shattered.
   
   Internationally celebrated concert pianist Mona Golabek, with journalist and poet Lee Cohen, has crafted a loving, lyrical tribute to her mother, Lisa Jura, in "The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival."
   
   Jura was one of 10,000 Jewish children saved from the Nazis by the British and sent on the Kindertransport to safety from Eastern Europe. Already being compared to "The Diary of Anne Frank," this simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting tale weaves together the stories that Golabek's mother told her about prewar Austria; the gut-wrenching separation from her family; life at the orphanage on Willesden Lane; and the power of music to help her survive.
   
   As Jura's mother, Malka, puts her on the train, she says the prophetic words that will sustain and inspire her daughter and future generations: "Hold on to your music. Let it be your best friend."
   
   In a world turned ugly, the beauty of music becomes Jura's strength, and, against tremendous odds, with the help and encouragement of the 30 other displaced children at the orphanage, she wins a scholarship to London's Royal Academy.
   
   "Each kid saw something in my mother's music that reminded them of what they had left behind in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, in Germany," says Golabek, a Grammy-nominated artist, "and that's what I tried to do in the story, not only to pay homage to my mother, but to all these kids and to their bravery."
   
   The book opens with Jura's tantalizing daydream of performing in a great concert hall and closes with the fulfillment of that dream, as she makes her debut before an exhilarated crowd. And in between, the pages burst with melody: Jura pounding the cadenza of the Grieg "Piano Concerto" to drown out the sounds of bombs during London's blitz, Jura visualizing Chopin fleeing a flaming Warsaw as she struggles with the somber coda of the "Ballade," Jura remembering her mother's Sabbath candles as she plays the solemn opening of Beethoven's "Pathetique."
   
   "My mom and her mother never cared if a piece is in C major. What really counts is the passion behind it, the image. If it's `Clair de Lune,' imagine the moon over a desert island. That imagination allowed her to survive the horrors of what she experienced, because a C-major chord will not inspire you through the horrors. It's the moonlight, the idea that maybe the composer wrote it for someone he loved. These things inflamed her imagination, and that's how she inflamed mine."
   
   And now Golabek's book will inflame the imagination of a whole new generation. The Milken Family Foundation, together with Facing History and Ourselves, an educational organization that teaches tolerance to 1 million students annually, are working with Golabek to bring the story to schools across the country by developing a companion curriculum guide.
   
   Plans are under way to launch the book in Austria, and make it available to teachers as part of the now mandatory four-year Holocaust education program for students.
   
   The saga of Golabek's 18-year struggle to get the story published is almost as harrowing as her mother's story itself. "It went through many, many writings; many, many ups and downs, starts and disappointments," Golabek says.
   
   Now the accolades and offers are pouring in. On Sept. 24, she will be an honored guest speaker at the California Governor's Conference for Women at the Long Beach Convention Center and will appear at Beth Am on Nov. 17 with her sister, pianist Renee Golabek-Kaye, and Jura's four grandchildren, all musicians: Michele, 16; Sarah, 14; Jonathan, 8; and Rachel, 7. Brandeis University will honor her at the Skirball Cultural Center next March 31.
   
   Last week Golabek was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition and was the subject of a feature story by Andy Meisler of the New York Times. In the planning stages is a concert next year co-sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Austrian government. And, of course, Golabek is considering movie offers.
   
   On her syndicated radio show, "The Romantic Hours," which highlights stirring writings against a musical backdrop (Saturdays at 10 p.m., 105.1 FM), Golabek often quotes the poet Jean Paul Richter: "Life fades and withers behind us, but of our immortal and sacred soul all that remains is music."
   
   "That was a quote my mother taught me, and the whole reason why I wrote this book and why I created `The Romantic Hours' was that my mother felt through words and through music our souls would be immortalized."



3. This is one of my all-time favorite books. If you are a musician, you will fall in love with it. The story is inspiring and moving and will make you appreciate music to the greatest extent possible.



4. Full of history. Easy to follow. Great read for young and old alike.



5. This is a story which every parent should read to their children. Talk about the history of WW2 and discuss the extremes of humanity. A book which once read you will never forget.

5 comments about The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush.

1. At the end of this book, despite having interviewed plenty of people for it, this reader still doesn't really know who Laura Bush is. She comes off as very private, and seems to be doing a noteworthy job of her quasi-job - "First Lady", which we learns is a term she does not care for in the least.
   
   The author takes a few pot shots at President Bush ~ such as saying that the President has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and Mrs. Bush has one with reading. She paints them as polar opposites, and I got the sense that the author was constantly shaking her head at what possessed Mrs. Bush to marry Mr. Bush. She also tries to suggest that Mrs. Bush is farther to the left than she would like to let on, but I don't necessarily buy that.
   
   Ms. Gerhart takes a chapter and dedicates it to the Bush daughters, and to their parents' parenting style, which suggests that the girls were brought up spoiled. She seems to nitpick every comment Mrs. Bush has ever publicly made about the girls, and this reader got the feeling that the author was shaking her head over the Bush girls' antics.
   
   Overall I didn't come away learning anything important about Laura Bush. Maybe someday she'll write her own story, in her own words. It would be fitting considering her fervor for the literary arts, and quite probably it would be without the sniping that the author sneaks in every few pages.



2. I'll admit up front that I am not a George W. Bush fan (does an American exist who does not have a strong opinion of him one way or the other?). But I thought there must be a deeper, more complex Laura Bush.
   
   Ann Gerhart's book is well written and I could not stop reading it once I started. There are lots of interesting tidbits (Laura Bush smokes cigarettes, but never in public) and revealing anecdotes and interviews. The chapter on the twins is ruthless. In another chapter, Gerhart describes in detail the tragic car accident that Laura Bush caused when she was seventeen, and what a traumatic experience it was for all concerned.
   
   So how does a woman who voted for Eugene McCarthy, who hangs out with liberal friends, and who loves her work, meet a guy who is running for congress on a Republican ticket and marry him six weeks later, giving up forever a career she has wanted since she was in second grade? I was certain that there was more to Laura Bush than meets the eye. After reading The Perfect Wife, I am convinced that there is less.
   
   Maybe she couldn't bear the thought of staying single into her thirties. I don't doubt that she loves George and that he loves her. It is obvious what George gets out of the deal. Less obvious is what Laura gets. One (male) interviewee suggested to Gerhart that George was irresistibly handsome and sexy. Please.
   
   There is little evidence that Laura Bush is an introspective person. She reads a lot, but seems to be as shallow as her husband. If she ever does evaluate her life and her decisions, I wonder how she will come to grips with having left the desperately important job of teaching at-risk children to raise a pair of self-centered and inconsiderate daughters. And with having supported a man who is dismantling the most important social programs this nation has. Will she ever speak out?
   
   Gerhart leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but by the time you finish The Perfect Wife, you will have enough information to form your own opinion about Laura Bush.



3. I read this book in October 2004 - an interesting time to be reading such a book, during the latter weeks of the US presidential campaign with Bush seeking a second term as president. The book dragged in places, the earlier and latter chapters being the more interesting. The writer seems sympathetic to Laura Bush - hence it is almost a shock to read the chapter on their twin daughters which is not at all sympathetic to them, and critical of the parenting they have received, such a contrast to the tone of the rest of the book (and perhaps also something of a relief?). A woman who says (and seems to believe) that supporting her husband is the most important part of her job, "whether my husband is president or not", and who gave up her own career as soon as she married him (after knowing him for just 12 weeks), a woman who has been able to refrain from voicing any of her own views and opinions - maybe that sort of woman is indeed the perfect wife for a President of the United States. I may have my own thoughts about what that tells us, but it is interesting to read about a woman with such a different outlook from your own and to try to see the world through her eyes for a time. I have considerable respect for anyone who has been through what she went through as a 17 year old (when she drove her car through a STOP sign at 50 miles an hour, crashing into and killing a very popular 17 year old male friend) and has managed to come to terms with it and go forward. And there is no denying the wisdom of this woman - whether it has come from her life experience or from her extensive reading - we can probably all take something from the lessons she teaches. Having read the book, I am no more enthusiastic about Bush and his policies than I was before, and have not been converted to a die-hard Laura Bush fan either, but I feel considerable respect for the choices she has made and for her commitment.



4. Laura Bush and her mother in law, Barbara, both reflect the enigma society has long created that women who have little or no income lack status or deserve no status, and therefore, have little or no value to society. The misconception arises from the hierarchy which values income level over social contribution and one that fails to recognize the value of marital support, childbearing and raising activities and housewivery. Women and men have been led to believe that unless they have substantial income, they have little value to society. Yet, First Ladies are always valued for their voluntary contributions, expected or not, but anticipated with enormous respect and anticipation with each new administration. Defying the logic that, by default, falls upon every female in this nation, or any nation, the income-based hierarchy of capitalism that fails to acknowledge the contributions of women to their families, to the community, and even to themselves, presents the most schizophrenic of economic philosophies to women, and the most difficult to digest over their lives. Due to the trend to adopt more women into the economic hierarchy of income earnings, Mrs. Bush represents the remnants of our civil society that once respected women for their presence, rather than the barbaric feudal world to which America continues to gravitate which defines women only by their level of income, as it does for males, and ignores their status as wives and mothers, deferring to the singular world where the benchmark of status is conferred by the status of the warrior, as measured by his conquest alone. That women allow this to happen is even more striking, and shows they lack the wisdom of the ages to allow themselves to be placed in so narrow a social box!



5. The woman KILLED a boy - she was driving her car down the street and of all people in town for her to accidently kill - she runs over her boyfriend!!! Talk about coincidence! There's a lot of bloodshed in that family. They're the new Kennedy's!! Let's open a dialogue about what a murderer Laura Bush is! Why didn't her husband send her to the deathchair???

5 comments about Gone Native: An NCO's Story.

1. A well-written document by one of the troops on the ground. Crazy moments of a GI under stress, a good feel for the local hill people, and remembrances of buddies in the field. Some of the actions and soldiers described by Cornett have been written about by others and it is always good to see another version of events, not for differences but for shades and nuances to flavor the stories.
   
   A personal growth story: A boy does good, does bad, then good again and manages to live through the process in a war that featured so many wrong decisions from higher and so many incompetent lower and mid-level officers more concerned with careers than with their men.



2. This was a good book to read. It gave a new perspective from "pre-military to post. I considered giving it 4 stars, but for an overall score, I thought 3 stars was more justified.
   
   I can recommend Gone Native to anyone who is thinking about purchasing this book, but it is not a page burner and it seemed to ramble a little towards the end. But in no way would I want a perspective purchaser of this book to think it's not a good one. It is. He is frank and honest and what landed him in the stockade was quite refreshing. (You always hear about the other guy. Well, Cornett was the other guy. Thank you for your honesty.)



3. Once I started reading the book, I could not put it down. I kept coming across places and people I knew and it brought back a lot of memories. I eventually supported several of his units with intelligence and map overlays for "sensitive" operations, and was in-country myself for six years. I had several run-ins with jerk officers but thankfully they were rare. But I did pull my .45 on three Pentagon O-6s at a SOG briefing when they refused to assist us. Luckily, an SF 1SG Deluca grabbed me and said they were not worth killing as they ran from the room. A couple of weeks later I was jerked out of VN and sent to Germany. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to know how close many of us got to the Vietnamese and the war, and I would very much like to be in contact with the author.



4. This was one of those books I didn't want to put down until I was done.



5. I have read hundreds of Vietnam nonfiction books and this is in the top 15 for sure. Great book and flows great, did not want it to end...

1 comments about James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery (Southern Biography Series).

1. Hammond is not a nice guy. He married for money, was not a great father, and campagined for elected office at time when no one else did and against the 'party' candidate to boot. Most interesting of all was his commitment to the Confederate cause but resistance to the call for material and manpower to help the cause. In the end, he could not believe it when his slaves were jubilant about the prospect of freedom. Through Hammond's eyes we see the south changed forever by the Civil War, not only due to the lost of their slaves but also by the unsouthern actions the Confederate government had to take and how they affected the southern way of life. Hammond is not a nice guy but this very readable book provides an excellent insight to the antebellum southern mind.