2 comments about The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca.

1. You can take it from the head of the cow: America is a lot different than the Europhile blowhards from the International School say. This epic journey of a quasi- transcontinental romp is not for the faint-hearted or loose-boweled....this is some scary stuff. Few books are a exhilirating as this one. Pitch your tent and start reading!



2. I bought this after reading a little about Cabeza de Vaca in another book (Richard Grant's American Nomads--check it out). It was worth reading if you have an interest in these kinds of things: whether its history, exploration, and discovery that interest you, or wandering, roughing it, and exciting stories of survival.
   
   I haven't looked at any other versions of this book, so I don't have anything to compare it to. That being said, this version did have a lot of background, in the forms of introductory material as well as footnotes. These were both helpful and cumbersome. A lot of the footnotes were essentially useless for my purpose in reading the book. I just wanted the story-- I didn't really care about the exact locations and time frames, which is what a lot of the footnotes were about. But I'm sure that if you were doing something more scholarly with the book, the footnotes would be invaluable.
   
   One of it's most interesting features to me was Cabeza de Vaca's thinking. By today's standards, he's still a racist, but for his time, he's outrageously sympathetic to the Indians and their ways of life. He tries to see the reasons behind actions that his civilized contemporaries would instantly dismiss as savage.
   
   It's a great story. A Spanish exploration goes bad, and the few survivors fight against the odds and eventually make it out alive after walking across North America. It's a true story that would put the best Hollywood screenwriter to shame. But like a lot of firsthand accounts from that time period, it can be kind of dense. I got used to that, but it did take a little time. On the plus side, the story doesn't really take off until a little ways into the book, so you can use the first part to get used to the writing style.

3 comments about Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Lives (Oxford World's Classics).

1. Plutarch in his "Lives Of The Noble Grecians And Romans" written around 100 C.E., sheds new light on Greek and Roman history from their Bronze Age beginnings, shrouded in myth, down through Alexander and late Republican Rome. Plutarch is the lens that we use today to view the Greco-Roman past; his work has shaped our perceptions of that world for 2,000 years. Plutarch writes of the rise of Roman Empire while Gibbon uses his scholarship to advance the story to write about its decline. He was a proud Greek that was equally effected by Roman culture, a Delphic priest, a leading Platonist, a moralist, educator and philosopher with a deep commitment as a first rate writer. Being a Roman citizen, Plutarch was afforded the opportunity to become an intimate friend to prominent Roman citizens and a member of the literary elite in the court of Emperor Trajan.
   
   Plutarch's influence and enormous popularity during and after the Renaissance is legendary among classicist. Plutarch's "Lives", served as the sourcebook for Shakespeare's Roman Plays "Julius Caesar", "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Coriolanus". By the way Plutarch is even the only contemporary source of all the biographical information on Cleopatra, whom he writes about in his biographies of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew that there were three books every gentleman had to have familiarity with; Plutarch's "Lives", Livy's "History of Rome" and Virgil's Aeneid. In fact all the founding fathers of note had read Plutarch and learned much from his fifty biographies of noble men of Greece and Rome. When Hamilton, Jay and Madison write "The Federalist Papers" they use many examples of good and bad leadership traits that they read in Plutarch's work. His biographies are a great study in human character and what motivates leaders to decide and act the way they do, this masterpiece has proven to be still prescient today.
   
   If you are truly interested in a classical education, put this book on the top of your list! I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history.



2. This fine, well-edited translation would be THE translation to get for Plutarch's best Roman lives ... IF they had included the Life of Cicero. (Soldiers outweigh orators in the Oxford hierarchy.) As it is, the Penguin "Fall of the Roman Republic" anthology remains useful.

   That said, Oxford has been kicking Penguin tail with its scholarly, up-to-date translations of classical texts. Penguin has been sprucing up its backlist some, but I always look for an Oxford first, if there is one.




3. This is an excellent translation of a timeless classic. The notes are well done and thorough and the introduction is very helpful whether you are a scholarly type or an interested lay reader. The only qualm I have is that it was often hard to know when the action of each life took place. This is a minor glich, however, and does not hinder from the overall enjoyment of the work. The lives are biography, history, psychology, comedy, tragedy and farce all in one. Plutarch's narrative is brisk and never dull; he mixes anecdotes and interpretation deftly, but never forces the reader one way or the other. He is a masterful essayist and biographer and these works can be read repeatedly with enjoyment each time. Highly recommended.

1 comments about Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I.

1. Unfortunately the author should have taken writing classes before attempting this book. The author repeats himself constantly and has produced a boring book. How one can write about the Elizabethan Era and a main character in that era, Burghley, and come up with this dullness is beyond me.

5 comments about Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. Stegner once again reveals his writing prowess, This time in a self-indulgent adventure to haunts of his youth.
   
   I have some qualms about this work, however. In particular, I was not so keen on those parts where Stegner relied heavily on book-based history that never directly touched his own life. To be frank, his writing in these parts surprisingly got a bit stodgy.
   
   His thought on sense of place and belonging, however, are remarkable, hitting me right between the eyes. Indeed, he had me wistfully recalling my own childhood in what seemed a remote area of the world with the archaeological junk heap and all. In measuring his boyhood to my own, I noted how little times had changed in that interval of 60-70 years and how much has changed for kids in the last 40. It had me wondering how my own sons lives would be different were it not for the MAFIA (mother's against fun in America).



2. This book has no right to be so absorbing. Though the topic of this forgotten book by Wallace Stegner reeks of self-indulgence-- A writer returns to where he grew up, reminisces about his youth and the history of the frontier town his transient childhood most identified as home and concludes with a 100-page fictionalized account of a the terrible winter of 1906-- he manages to tie his past inexorably to ours, linking his nostalgia for his youth with our own, and exploring the promise and inevitable waste of the American Dream lived out on our frontiers.
   
   Stegner, like Proust, experiences an "ancient, unbearable recognition" spurred by a return to the sites, sounds, and most importantly, smells of his childhood. He dreams of this period and is "haunted, on awakening, by a sense of meanings just withheld, and by a profound nostalgic melancholy." Everyone has some awareness of a deep meaning lurking in our past that has not, or cannot, be fully interpreted.
   
   Perhaps the best part of the book is section three, the novella length exposition on the hope and danger of the high plains that does a superb job of creating looming dread as the winter drops hard on the land. Near the end of section three, Stegner expounds on what it is to be an American pursuing the Dream:
   
   "How does one know what wilderness has meant to Americans unless he has shared the guilt of wastefully and ignorantly tampering with it in the name of progress? One who has lived the dream, the temporary fulfillment, and the disappointment has had the full course.... The vein of melancholy in the North American mind may be owing to many causes, but it is surely not weakened by the perception that the fulfillment of the American Dream means inevitably the death of the noble savagery and freedom of the wild. Any who has lived on a frontier knows the inescapable ambivalence of the old-fashioned American conscience, for he has first renewed himself in Eden and then set about converting it into the lamentable modern world."



3. This wonderful collection of essays and fiction about the last Western frontier is both romance and anti-romance. Writing in the 1950s, Stegner captures the breath-taking beauty of the unbroken plains of southwest Saskatchewan and the excitement of its settlment at the turn of the century. Part memoir, the book recounts the years of his boyhood in a small town along the Whitemud River in 1914-1919, the summers spent on the family's homestead 50 miles away along the Canadian-U.S border. His book is also an account of the loss of that Eden and the failed promise of agricultural development in this semi-arid region with thin top soil.

   Stegner is a gifted, intelligent writer, able to turn the people and events of history into compelling reading. The opening section of the book describes the experience of being on the plains and specifically in the area where Stegner was a boy. And it lays out the geography of that land -- a distant range of hills, the river, the coulees, the town -- which the book will return to again and again.

   The following section evokes the period of frontier Canada's early exploration, the emergence of the metis culture, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the introduction of rangeland cattle, and then wave upon wave of settlement pushing the last of the plains Indians westward and northward. A chapter is devoted to the surveying of the boundary along the Canada-U.S. border; another chapter describes the founding of the Mounted Police and its purely Canadian style of bringing law and order to the wild west.

   The middle section of the book is a novella and a short story about the winter of 1906-1907. In the longer piece, eight men rounding up cattle are caught on the open plains in an early blizzard. Stegner builds the drama and the peril of their situation artfully and convincingly. The final section of the book returns to Stegner's memories of the town and the homestead, ending with his family's departure for Montana.

   Stegner lived at a time and in a place where a person born in the 20th century could still experience something of the sweep of history that transformed the American plains. I've read many books about the West, and because of his depth of thought, his gifts as a writer, and his unflinching eye, Stegner's work ranks for me among the best. I heartily recommend this book.




4. Part history and part dreamy reminiscence, this book is an account of a boy growing up in Southwest Saskatchewan in the early part of the 20th Century. The central portion of the book is pure history, and the long chapters on cowboys are particularly challenging because they require an intimate knowledge of cowboy terminology. Stegner does not mince words about the difficulties of life on the plains--extremes of heat and cold, wind, hostile topography, lack of cultural amenities--the result of which is that most who grew up there moved elsewhere. But he also shows a passionate attachment for the country of his childhood. The narrative often seems rambling because, like James Michener, the author tries to incorporate so much besides history--including the biology and geology of the nearby Cypress Hills, the biologically diverse area nearby--and even his poetic musings have elements of fact, as when he describes the wind, or the gophers, or his swimming hole, or his school, or his family's homestead, or the problems involved in the town's incorporation.



5. Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Wallace Stegner grew up on the prairie frontiers of North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Montana, and in the mountains of Utah. As is indicated by the subtitle, this volume combines history, a memoir, and historical fiction. Readers who have spent significant time on the snow swept northern steppes may find a small part of themselves, and of this land, in Wolf Willow. ...
   "On those miraculously beautiful and murderously cold nights glittering with the green and blue darts from a sky like polished dark metal, when the moon had gone down, leaving the hollow heavens to the stars and the overflowing cold light of the Aurora, he thought he had moments of the clearest vision ... In every direction ... the snow spread; here and there the implacable plain glinted back a spark - the beam of a cold star reflected in a crystal of ice." (The scene evokes in me a powerful memory, as I recall often standing alone on just such "murderously cold" snow blanketed prairies and gazing into those "miraculously beautiful" night skies.)

5 comments about The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity.

1. Mendelsohn, Daniel. "The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity", Vintage Plume, 2000.
   
   Understanding Identity and Desire
   
   Amos Lassen
   
   I have been accused of gushing over the books I like and quite frankly I cannot help that. But now I mist add Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Elusive Embrace" to my list of gushers. Mendelsohn explores issues of identity, sexuality, fatherhood, family and history in five essays that, in effect, add up to a memoir of the author. Mendelsohn attempts to understand the contradictions of his own life as a gay man and father figure to a friend's son as well as a critic and consumer of gay culture who lives both within and apart from his Jewish family. He attempts to unravel family myths and his book looks at the nature of gay identity and the mythology of family by looking at ancient literatutre. He finds a natural connection between pagan culture and pagan acts and discovers that both Greek mentality and language has a tendency toward bipolar thinking which simply means that any articulated idea invites an opposite interpretation. This, the author states, is the nature of gay identity which rests somewhere between the straight world into which we are all born and the gay world which we choose to live in. This is quite an interesting theory and Mendelsohn's explanation makes a great deal of sense.
   Mendelsohn looks at the neighborhood in which he grew up and the gay ghetto of Manhhattan where as he says "the desire for love" is in competition for the "love of desire" and a house where a friend's son instructs him in the meaning of fatherhood. He then ventures into an old Jewish cemetery where he finds a family secret that shows the need for storytelling and the invention of myths. Like the ancient Greeks, Mendelsohn gives a new significance to individual experience. The book is divided almost equally between memoir and essays and written in exquisite prose. What he is doing is building his own mythology and he does so beautifully.
   The book works on many different levels. It is not only a memoir of gay experience; it also speaks to the straight community. It is an engrossing look at self-discovery and his arguments are sound and convincing. It challenged my own feelings and it is the honesty of the author that makes this book so special and it is a rich and intelligent exploration of the human condition. Mendelsohn gives us expressive arguments for his beliefs that, even in disagreement, it is necessary to stop and question. Here is a wonderful and poignant walk through the classics and what it means to be gay and it deeply affects and holds universal appeal. By reading about Mendelsohn's life, the reader reads about his own life.



2. At first I was intimidated by the customer reviews that made mention of the author's use of classical references as I am not classically educated and often find such references pretentious. However, I am happy to report that Mr. Mendelsohn's work is compelling and always easy to follow.
   
   "The Elusive Emrace" is equal parts memoir and essay, filled with keen observations and poignant scenes from his life. I was especially moved by those involving his god son Nicholas, and the final sections dealing with ancient family secrets and myths. His prose is beautiful, and his ideas about the duplicity of identity, how we are all many things at once, are succinctly articulated.
   
   I highly recommend this book, though I do have one caveat. On page 82 (of the paperback) the author notes that all the happy gay couples he knows have sex outside of their relationsips. He follows this observation with the gross generalization: "This is a fact of gay life." It may be a fact for some gay couples, but certainly not all. It sounds like the author is trying to justify his own suspect promiscuity by proclaiming it to be the norm. I would advise hime to reference his own comments from page 38: "Knowledge may make you aware that the certainties of others are often more convenient than true, allowing those who hold them to live a coherent and sensible life, allowing their choices and their ideologies to make a kind of sense."



3. I was intrigued by the split in the reviews here: for the most part, readers either loved or hated the book. I found myself unambiguously in the first camp. I devoured the book in two reading sessions, could hardly put it down. For me it is less of a memoir, and more of an incredibly perceptive and thorough contemplation on identity, or rather, on how -inherently- no identities are ever simple and straightforward but always (at least) dual, entangled, complex and evolving. So the book appealed to me intellectually. Reducing the book to its "intellectual content," however, would not do it justice. The ideas are delivered in a language that is so enchanting that it almost intoxicates. Finally, the depth of some of the connections and affections described in the book made the reading of the book a poignant and moving experience.



4. Perhaps the best thing I can say about this gorgeous and provocative book is that the author has crafted such movingly expressive arguments for his beliefs that even when I disagreed with those beliefs (for instance, his sense that sexual fidelity not worth making any personal sacrifices to maintain), I found myself taking a moment to question myself because I was so seduced by the beauty of his writing style that I almost felt compelled to agree with his content. This is a challenging work of art that, in the end, is less a broad social argument than one man's highly personal search for meaning in his own life.



5. Daniel Mendelsohn is a beautiful writer and the Elusive Embrace is quite lyrical at times as it looks at desire and the riddle of identity. His memoir flits from his Jewish childhood, family history, gay New York (actually only Chelsea, actually only one avenue in Chelsea), Greek language and literature, and beautiful (mostly now dead) Southern boys. He is building a mythology of himself and the process is wonderful to go through even when the creation of said mythos requires the narrowing of his vision. He is blissfully unaware of gay men outside of Chelsea and the fever dreams of his Southern past, partly because many of these men would not fit his defintion as "boys" and quite likely fall outside his radar. But that is understandable in a memoir such as this when the point is to write what you see and not what remains invisible to you. Also I was less than thrilled with the chapter on being a surrogate father (gay men as the new spinster aunts?) but even here the writing carried me along. As did the references to Greek myths that connected and substantiated all the ideas. These were evocative and necessary to the entire book. A well written look at myth making on a personal level that is worth a read.

5 comments about The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan.

1. In Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, a young adventurer named Daniel Dravot penetrates feudal Afghanistan disguised as a cleric. In this nonfiction account with a similar title, MacIntyre, a columnist for The Times of London, tells the story of the real life adventurer who may have been Kipling's inspiration. He describes the life and adventures of Josiah Harlan (1799-1871), a young Quaker from Chester County, Pennsylvania, who set sail for China in 1822, telling his fiancée that they would marry when he returned. Upon reaching Calcutta, Harlan received a letter announcing that she was marrying another man. He resolved never to return home.
   
   So began his adventures. After a failed stint in the Indian army--an action for which the Quakers excommunicated him--Harlan met Shujah al-Mulk (1792-1842), an Afghan king exiled to India in 1809 after just six years on the throne. Harlan offered a deal: he would raise an army, subdue Kabul, and restore the kingdom. In exchange, he would become vizier, the equivalent of prime minister. The deal struck, Harlan began recruiting native troops, using the U.S. flag as his own. In 1827, he and his army began their long march. But he soon had second thoughts about his army's loyalty. He picked a trusted team, paid severance to the others, and launched his Plan B: dressed as a dervish, he made his way to Kabul, arriving in 1828 just as an epidemic of cholera ravaged the city. Years passed and Harlan changed his allegiance to Shujah's rival, King Dost Muhammad Khan (1793-1863), to whom he became aide-de-camp. This Afghan king granted Harlan's wish for power. The itinerant Pennsylvania Quaker and stilted lover became prince of Ghor, today a province in central Afghanistan.
   
   Harlan's story is riveting. MacIntyre describes his adventures, disillusionments, and eventual return to the United States as the only Afghan general to serve in the U.S. Civil War.
   
   Harlan was not alone in his adventures. In the nineteenth century, a handful of men made dangerous journeys through Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Tibet. Not all survived. Author Peter Hopkirk has chronicled their stories.[1] But it is rare that so much new material surfaces in one book, and for this MacIntyre deserves special credit. After learning of this curious American from cursory references and footnotes in old travelogues gathering dust in the British Library, MacIntyre made it his mission to uncover the saga of this historical Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. His quest took him to Punjab and Pennsylvania, Kabul and California. He scoured through the official records of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore and poured over the intelligence archives of imperial India, whose agents were suspicious of Harlan's plots and schemes. Finally, in a Chester County museum, MacIntyre found a long-lost manuscript replete with love letters and sketches. Explanations of historical and cultural context weave together in his fluid prose. The result is impressive and well-worth reading.
   
   Note
   
   1. See for example, Great Game (London: Murray, 1990); On Secret Service East of Constantinople (London: Murray, 1994); Trespassers on the Roof of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
   
   Michael Rubin
   Middle East Quarterly
   Fall 2006



2. A fascinating read in every respect. Macintyre is a fluid writer and the book is a real page turner. Apart from vivid details of the remarkable adventures of the first American in Afghanistan; the intrigues, machinations and sheer depravity of virtually all the players in the great game are in plain sight. The book also provides rare insights - via Josiah Harlan's prism - of British mendacity, misrule and astounding arrogance. Harlan's account of British shenanigans may have a tinge of exaggeration owing to his eventual deep hatred of the Empire and many of its emissaries but the substance of Harlan's writings can be corroborrated in other accounts such as the Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham (another British author) and in more substantive form with relevant data in Angus Maddison's The World Economy. Macintyre deserves considerable praise for presenting the unvarnished truth, albeit through Harlan's pen, about the largely negative legacy of the British Empire. It is a shame that Harlan's story, despite this wonderful book, remains largely unknown both in the US and the East.



3. Most people who pick up this book will already have read some of the travelogues of the "mad dogs and Englishmen" who wandered through Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th century: Burnaby and Nazaroff's memoirs, as well as any of Peter Hopkirk's books on the era.
   
   But here we have a real fish out of water story, and a fascinating one at that: an American Quaker leading, or joining, armies through Afghanistan and elsewhere in the name of, variously: the sitting ruler of Afghanistan, the deposed predecessor, his Sikh neighbor, the British Empire, and arguably himself as "Prince of Ghor."
   
   The tale is fascinating because it's so poorly-known, despite the fact that Kipling's fiction, which I understand to be inspired by Harlan and other adventurers of the time, is so well-known.
   
   Undoubtedly, Harlan's own financial misfortune and quiet death contributed to the obscurity of the narrative, but Macintyre does a great job of weaving the scraps together, and keeping the story's pace. An interesting read, and a bit of history which has earned its place in Central Asian lore.



4. Considering all that's happening in Afghanistan today, this is a timely and fascinating story of an American who travled there in the early 1800's. Fast paced book that's hard to put down and it gives a glimpse into early 1800's life in a country that most people still don't understand today.



5. If you enjoy history, especially military history, then you will enjoy this book. Written in much the same style as Byron Falwell's "Armies of the Raj," this amazingly true yarn about a Quaker who becomes, if not a king, the Prince of Ghor will keep you wondering just what is going to happen next. I absolutely enjoyed the book. My only negative comment is that the later years of his life are glossed over rather quickly, but, that is understandable since the last years were no where near as exciting as the first 40. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history or biographies. Enjoy.

5 comments about The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria.

1. I enjoyed the book. It was well written and obviously well researched.
   I like the way it had info from personal writtings from the time, also.
   
   I enjoyed the gallery of pictures included in the text, as well.
   
   I will probably read the book at least one more time.



2. to me she should never married franz joseph i,she was to much of a free spirit.austria court was to old fashion for a soul like hers.she had the mother -in law from hell didn't help.



3. I was dreading that this book would be like all other's in that it would portray Elizabeth as a poor little spoiled, mis-understood rich girl. It didn't and I found that very refreshing.
   My only critism of this book is that there is only one occasion when the author translated the french, german, russian, etc. quotes that were used and I found that mildly annoying as I don't speak or read any of those languages.
   Overall a very good book!



4. I really enjoyed this book, there was only a minor matter which rather annoyed me. I wonder why nobody seems to have taken the trouble of checking the proper spelling of all those European names?
   As a native speaker of both German and Hungarian, I was quite
   distracted by reading Gödollo instead of Gödöllõ, to name just one of many blunders.
   Crenneville sometimes becomes Grenneville, Marie Vetsera turns into a Mary, Maria Theresia is always Maria Theresa, robbed of an i, the Ballhausplatz is shortened into Ballplatz, and while Hapsburg is not exactly wrong, it was apparently never used officially - and you don't often come across it even in Austria.
   Perhaps in future editions someone might provide corrections? I think the book is worth it.



5. Top of Form
   
   
   I was somewhat reluctant to first start reading The Lonely Empress because, from the some of the biographies I've read (but certainly not all!), they tend to start out interesting but then become dull and boring. It usually takes a talented author to write a biography on a boring royal. But even an unskilled author would have no trouble about sounding fascinating if their subject matter was Elisabeth of Austria.
   
   Born a mere daughter of a duke in Bavaria, Elisabeth had a fairytale (ish) romance. The emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, was already engaged to Elisabeth's sister Helen when he fell in love with her. All of a sudden, to everyone's surprise, the Emperor started to rant about the grace and beauty of this younger sister, much to the dismay of his mother, the archduchess Sophie, who thought that Helen would become the perfect empress.
   
   Elisabeth was still a child when she became engaged to the Emperor. Suddenly, she wasn't allowed to run wild, like she had been when she was younger. Elisabeth had been known to skip her lessons and go out riding for hours. She inherited her father's peculiarity and was known to be her happiest when surrounded by less than royal people. Her father, Duke Max, was renowned for his strangeness. He was known to travel the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties and delighted in circuses. The poor Duchess Ludovica, Elisabeth's mother, must have had a terrible time with her daughter and equally childish husband. Because of her strangeness and wild country ways, the Viennese court look down upon Elisabeth.
   
   What makes this book more interesting is how the author has portrayed Elisabeth. She doesn't try to make her into a selfish, spoiled woman yet she doesn't spend the whole book describing her flawless beauty. Elisabeth seems to be a difficult topic to write about. As many people who have met the Empress say about her throughout the book, "She could be quite charming when she wanted to be. Yet she could also become cold and haughty."
   
   Elisabeth has you admiring her at times, like when she tries to help the Hungarian people regain their Constitution, and at other times hating her, the way she treated her husband and children, the woman whose husband spent fortunes building her three homes around Europe and who still wasn't grateful or satisfied. This woman traveled to countries far away so she could escape her duties as an Empress and her husband.
   
   But one feels for Elisabeth at how much misfortune she had dealt with in her life. She seems to be a caged bird, she seems to have those natures that cannot be trapped or caged. She needed wide spaces so she can spread her wings. The author portrayed Elisabeth excellently and made the book an enjoyable read.

5 comments about Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970.

1. The problem with any biography or autobiography is the problem of bias. As much as a biographer (or autobiographer) wishes to be impartial or objective, his pen is ultimately driven and guided by his own beliefs and ideologies. It is for this reason that Jenn S. Wenner's 1970 interview Lennon Remembers with John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono is truly remarkable.
   
   The semi-autobiographical interview leaves no room for dishonesty or bias; neither interviewer nor Lennon has the luxury of time to craft a story. Thus, neither individual is capable of bending and changing details or infusing partiality into the account. The result is a shocking collection of unbridled and unfettered memories that provide readers with a glimpse into the life of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century.
   
   The majority of the interview deals with the period of Lennon's life dominated by "Beatlemania." Lennon very candidly talks about virtually all aspects of his life as a superstar. For Wenner, no stone is left unturned, as Lennon tackles issues around his tumultuous relationship with members of the band and his "insane" experiences with LSD and "going around London on it."
   
   Wenner also works to explore Lennon's life as a musician-activist. In the interview, Lennon acknowledges how his work as a pacifist won him notoriety in many circles, saying, "If I walk down the street now I'm more liable to get talked to about peace than anything I've done." His pacifism breathes within the lyrics of songs like "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas." Also, Wenner exposes the creative dimension of Lennon and Ono's pacifism. For their honeymoon, Lennon and Ono conducted a "beautiful" "Bed-in," refusing to leave their bed as an act of protest against war and violence. The couple sent acorns to heads of state around the world, including Golda Meir and Haile Selassie, as a symbol of their peace campaign. Whether they were singing at the Moratorium Day in Washington, DC or promoting their "War is Over" poster campaign, John Lennon and Yoko Ono did what they could to aggressively and effectively advance the pacifist cause.
   
   Wenner does a commendable job of investigating the source of Lennon's pacifism, taking a look at important influences in the musician's life. Certainly growing up in Liverpool, a working class English city devastated by World War II, helped cultivate Lennon's apparent disdain for violence. Furthermore, The Beatles' connection with Hinduism and the Maharishi, the pioneer of Transcendental Meditation, intensified their preoccupation with the horror of war and bloodshed. The interview, however, seems to suggest that Lennon's love for Yoko Ono most noticeably influenced his pacifist activism. When talking about his pacifist career with Ono, Lennon said, "Yoko didn't want to do anything that wasn't for peace." Indeed, Lennon's love for Ono, and his belief in the power of love constitute the foundation for all of Lennon's pacifist beliefs and actions.
   
   On the other hand, Wenner does a marvelous job of exposing Lennon's growing uncertainty about the place of pacifism in a war-torn world. In the interview, Lennon seems content with accepting the inevitability of war, saying, "But I'm beginning to think what else can happen?"
   
   However, Lennon's apathy and resignation are the symptoms of a life characterized by volatility. In a life marked by moments of incredible happiness and indescribable agony and depression, Lennon and Ono appeared ready to live each day as if it were their last. Lennon articulates this belief in the "now," saying, "It's only going to be alright now, this moment, that's alright."
   
   The strength of Wenner's book are quite evident. The candor and striking honesty of the interview are refreshing, a pioneering piece of journalism in a field characterized by spin and sway. Furthermore, Wenner masterfully uses questions to craft a brutally accurate story about the life of an amazing man. The interview paints a complete picture of a beautiful life, characterized by depression, euphoria and music.
   
   The interview's strengths, however, do not eclipse the glaring weaknesses of the story. Although she manages to discover a little bit about life in Liverpool for Lennon, Wenner does not explore this aspect of Lennon's life adequately. Rather, readers are left with a superficial account of a meaningful period of time in the musician's life.
   
   Way too much time in the interview is spent investigating the shaky relations of the band members. Such stories make for interesting, juicy reads, but do not abound with substance and meaning.
   
   Lastly, the interview, for one with no previous knowledge of John Lennon and his life, presents Lennon as a flaky, waffling character with no concrete belief in anything. Lennon's disillusionment with pacifism, amongst other things, must be contextualized and examined as a product of circumstance.
   
   Wenner's interview with Lennon is an honest account of the life of a very honest man. The interview format is problematic in its lack of organization and informational incompletion. However, the candor of the interview provides readers with a complex, multi-dimensional picture of a man who believed in the potential for change within himself, of a man who claimed, "I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me."



2. 
   The journalistic style of Jann S. Wenner's book Lennon Remembers offers a new, non-traditional, and fascinating glimpse into the mind of John Lennon. Rather than telling the story of Lennon's life through her own methods of research and writing, Wenner has elected to let Lennon tell his own story in an interview - style method. The conversation between the journalist, and Lennon (along with his wife Yoko Ono) allows the reader to see John Lennon's true self better than any form of factual biography possibly could. Lennon's first person account of his life is told in 1970, after the breakup of the Beatles. The slowing of the pace of his life has obviously given him some time to reflect, and Lennon's demeanor is telling of this. The book leaves the reader with a multifaceted, less idealized, and altogether more real understanding of Lennon's views towards what he has accomplished through his music, his efforts for peace, and even his shortcomings.
   As a book, Lennon Remembers draws its strength from the manner in which it exposes John Lennon's human side. After reading the exact words from Lennon's mouth, one begins to see that Lennon was, like the rest of us, a mortal who grappled with conflicting ideas in his life. Throughout the dialogue, Jann Wenner manages to expose Lennon's frustration with aspects of his career, how the `dream of the Beatles' died within him, and his general distrust of dogmas after his time spent with the hypocritical Maharishi. Lennon's description of his life makes it clear that he values the extent to which he could spread pacifism through his music, but simultaneously conveys a tragic loss of faith. The book Lennon Remembers, because it is a direct transcription of Lennon's own words, portrays this somewhat depressing shift more powerfully than any traditional biography could.
   The main downside to Wenner's book is the multitude of technical musical discussion which pads some of the discussion. Rather than focusing on the meaning of Lennon's music and his philosophies, the book tends to get caught up in the personal relationships of the Beatles and specific musical analysis which seems irrelevant to any reader who is not an avid musician. Lennon, himself, admits that he believes lyrics are the most important part of a song, yet the book devotes entirely too much time to the discussion of musical technicalities, and not nearly enough to the overall message which Lennon wanted to convey to his audience.
   After reading Jann Wenner's Lennon Remembers, I found myself with a new, yet ambivalent view of John Lennon as a person. I had always thought of Lennon as a man who valued peace above anything else in his life. Reading his own reflections about his career made me see him as far less perfect than I had imagined. At times he seemed bitter, prone to bickering, faithless, and as if he had given up on anything he once valued. His admissions to excessive drug use and constant fighting with his band members also seemed to suggest that Lennon was far less of a role model than many think. Upon reflection, however, these flaws are somewhat endearing as well. John Lennon was, after all, a human. He was a man that found himself in a unique position that allowed him tremendous influence in the world, and he tried to do what he could to make the world a better place. He wholeheartedly believed in pacifism, and tried to use his power to further peaceful causes. Even with his pessimistic comments, Lennon allows the reader an opportunity to relate. After all, do we not all go through phases of doubt? If for no other reason, Lennon Remembers is a successful journalistic work because it paints John Lennon for who he truly was.



3. Although I agree it's a decent interview once you get past the overt anger, Lennon seems to have short-term memory loss throughout. Compare this interview with David Sheff's in "All We Are Saying". Lennon's tormented artist soul is more at peace and his memory is better.



4. In the "Forward", Yoko describes the interview as unsettling:
   "You will probably feel like getting up and walking around the room after every paragraph...It's a jolt on your nerves like bad, bad espresso. People with weak stomachs should close the window before reading. You might just feel like jumping out."
   With words like that, you might expect to be deeply disturbed by the impending interview. Or fearing worse, you might even soil your trousers. Was John a necrophiliac? Did he like to wear ladies' stockings? Did he sleep with Phil Spector?
   
   All that really managed to surprise me was how easily he used the word 'fags' to describe gays despite the fact that he had many gay friends and co-workers. However, I can't imagine anyone having to don a helmet or feeling as though they couldn't stomach this interview. I read it in two sittings.
   
   If anything, Lennon Remembers gives me a negative impression of John. At the time of this interview, he seems highly judgmental, bitter and more egotistical than I had been familiar with. On the other hand, 1968-1970 were tough times for John and Yoko: the Beatles and the press treated them harshly - especially Yoko; their experiments - both artistic and political - were often criticized by a trite, conventional media; Yoko had suffered a miscarriage, etc...all of which might have contributed to the tone of the interview. Often accustomed to the edited and fun-loving John, I have no doubt that this interview will reveal his human fallibility...even to his most die-hard fanny-licking fanatics.
   
   Jann Wenner, as interviewer, frequently comes across as a broken record: 'What do you think of Paul's album? What do you think of George's album? of Dylan's? What do you think of Sgt. Pepper's? Rubber Soul? Abbey Road? Are you pleased with your new album?'
   Even Jann seems bent on dragging John through his turbulent years with the Beatles. It's understandable that a representative from a rock magazine would be more interested in talking about the Beatles' phenomenon, but it's pretty obvious that John, no longer a member, would have wanted to talk about the here and now of 1970: what he's involved in, how he's changed, what he'd like to do, etc.
   
   Lennon Remembers is a pretty decent offering, but it fails to capture the essence of John's new found independence. John was much more than a Beatle, he was a person of great wit, talent, and charm. With the demise of the Beatles, his life was only just beginning.



5. John Lennon gave only two lengthy, in-depth interviews in his life. The first was in 1970 to Rolling Stone magazine and his final interview was given in 1980 to Playboy. Both are instructive to read, especially when you contrast their tone and content. The Lennon in this book had just left the Beatles and was trying desperately to convince the interviewer and the public that it just didn't bloody matter. Though history has shown Lennon emerged from the Beatles break-up much more undamaged emotionally than McCartney, the dissolution of his band was bound to leave some scars. John puts up a bit of a front here and I fear he doth protest too much, especially when he says he can't remember much about the Beatles and didn't think they were that great of a band to begin with.

   In 1970, John was in the midst of his Arthur Janov primal scream therapy and he talks about this at great length. If you're primarily interested in the Beatles, then you might wish to skip over this section. The most interesting chapters of the interview are undoubtedly his thoughts about the Beatles and his individual bandmates. Read this with caution, however. This was the same year Lennon penned the visceral anti-Paul ode, How Do You Sleep? His caustic comments about Paul would soften a trifle by 1980, as he himself admitted in the 1980 Playboy piece. There is also some intentional untruths here, such as when John says Lennon and McCartney rarely collaborated on a song post-1964. He corrects this in his '80 recollections. He tells some wonderful stories about Ringo and how he helped George with the lyrics to Taxman in 1966.

   I first read this book at the age of 8, when it was published. It's remained an integral part of my Lennon collection and still makes for some excellent reading. Whether you've grown up on Lennon or are new to him, this is an indispensable tool in trying to understand his mindset at the critical juncture of his life.

5 comments about The Passing of the Night: My Seven Years as a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese.

1. I read this book and was so moved I wrote Robbie Rinser sometime in the 80s to tell him how moved I was, how much I was impacted by his book. Little did I know, that some months later, I would find him in my office...without going into the details, I was fortunate enough to work alongside him for several years. I got to pick his brain and ask him questions that I had wondered about when I read his book. He told me many details of his capture. One that I found especially inspirational. He was beaten unconscious one night, and awoke the next morning to open one battered eye..his face pressed against a crack in the wall. He said he felt a breath of fresh air through the crack and could see one blade of green, living grass...and that it inspired him. He returned to the floor each morning to look at that blade of grass; It gave him a reason to live, a reason for hope.
   He told me many similar stories..all demonstrating his courage and dedication; and every time, he attributed his survival to two things: Faith in God and belief in his country.
   A great book.



2. Even though this was written 35 years ago, the messages in this little book are extremely valid for today. Risners' thoughts about Family, God and Country need continual reemphasis. This is a great book for young men and women,particularily those serving in our military.I would also recommend it for other Vets who have served out country.



3. Well written book, heart breaking story. This man was a well respected Air Force officer. My husband served under him in Okinawa. We waited for years to see if he was still alive. This is the fourth copy of his book we have bought. People borrow it and "forget" to return it. Would recomend this to any one that reads. We need to find out what goes on in the life of the military family. What a great thing this man did for our freedom.



4. This book was originally written in 1973 and details the violations of the Geneva Convention by the North Vietnamese. Colonel Risner details how he first resisted the North Vietnamese and later signed statements after extreme torture. The North Vietnamese were very cruel to their captured POWs. It is a wonder why we didn't have protesters telling the world of the inhumane practices of the North Vietnamese government.
   
   This is a nice read on how these American patriots resisted the efforts of the North Vietnamese to break their spirit. As Colonel Risner would say, you found God in prison and faith in the American system. It is amazing this man spent 7 and a half years with little food, lots of torture, and still maintained his faith in the American system. This is an inspirational read.



5. I had the privilege and honor of meeting and getting to know General Risner shortly after he was appointed as commander of
   the 832nd Air Division at Cannon AFB, New Mexico, in 1973.
   He was a humble and gracious gentleman of great dignity. I was
   blessed to get to know him personally and to jointly procure a copy of the movie: In The Presence of Mine Enemies, for showing at the base chapel. On the day of my release from active duty I purchased his book and, it being a Saturday, visited him in his office, entering with his permission through his private entrance and he graciously signed the book for me with a personal message for future success. The book is a must read for anyone who considers themself an American, as all Americans should become aware of the sacrifices of people like General Risner in keeping us free. Sadly, I loaned the book to a friend
   and never had it returned. But I will never forget General Risner's story, not the man himself. Knowing him was truly one of the best blessing I have experienced in my 54 years of life.
   You must read this book!

5 comments about The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery.

1. An interesting and historical view of one very early practicitioner who realized the importance of cleanliness. Very well written and interesting for anyone intersted in history, medicine and surgery; or just a great read!



2. A thorough, very well researched biographical account of the Georgian surgeon/naturalist/anatomist/educator John Hunter. I think anyone, after reading this book, will be amazed that Hunter's name is not more commonplace today. He was a revolutionary within surgery and medicine and worked with and trained others who shaped medicine in the U.S. and elsewhere. For anyone interested in history, science, or medicine, this is a valuable and interesting book to read.
   
   Wendy Miller obviously went to great lengths to research the subject matter for this book and is able to present what at least to the less informed reader seems to be a genuine account of Hunter's life. While she is obviously enamored with Hunter's ingenuity and approach to his craft, Miller also points out the many places where his theories were incorrect and where he obeyed convention, albeit incorrect, rather than pressing forward with his hypothesis driven approach. Each chapter of the book is titled after some artifact or preparation of Hunter's and describes the situation regarding it's creation or acquisition by Hunter. While this makes each chapter somewhat a story in itself, it is at times difficult to follow the events of Hunter's life as they are not presented chronologically. A timeline is at the back of the book, but often chapters overlap by ~5 years, such that the beginning of a new chapter must revert back 5 years before the end of the preceding chapter. This is effective in spots, as Hunter's diverse interests are presented one by one rather than in parallel with his other concurrent academic pursuits, but the structure sometimes complicates descriptions of Hunter's interpersonal relationships.
   
   Overall, this is a very well done book and should be read by anyone interested in science, history, or medicine. It is regrettable that Hunter is not more widely appreciated, but this fact makes the book all the more amazing/valuable.



3. John Hunter was one of the champions who introduced scientific methods to medicine over the opposition of those who valued ideology over evidence. He fought this battle only about 225 years ago when doctors often prescribed bloodletting. John Hunter paid attention to evidence that it was sometimes best to leave gunshot wounds untreated rather than apply the remedies physicians often applied at that time. This book is fascinating and is written very well. I was shocked to learn how primitive medicine was only 225 years ago. Our recent progress under the scientific approach has been astounding. John Hunter's personal story was also a very dramatic rise from poverty to recognition as his nation's leading surgeon and physician.



4. Fantastic, intriguing, fun to read. Brings a deep respect to our progenitors and how they ever survived those "unapprised " years. It is a great tribute to the great man John Hunter.



5. Wendy Moore does an excellent job of bringing John Hunter's life and accomplishments to us in the context in which they occurred. This book is not only a well written biography on a subject deserving of widespread recognition; it also serves as a great historical reference with intersections into minute aspects of the lives of other notables. The horrific conditions under which individuals in the 1700s underwent surgical procedures are elucidated in this work. In a time where there was no standardized process of peer review, the work of this genius was plaigarized by several who attended his anatomy lectures and much of his writing has been lost to us because of the plaigarism of one of his pupils, who eventually burned many of his papers following his death after he had used them as resource material for discoveries he himself claimed to have made. I am glad that this biography has done some justice for a previously obscure figure. That his conclusions about the evolution of species predated Darwin's birth is a testimony to his relentless pursuit of material fact in a climate where disputing biblical accounts of human origins was considered apostate.