5 comments about The Hidden War: A Russian Journalist's Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

1. Provides the answer to the question, "What were they thinking, and why did this seem like a good idea?" I thought it was a worthwhile purchase and a good read, if not a little dry.



2. History always has lessons for today's policy makers. So it is that Artyom Borovik's gritty account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, "The Hidden War" tells us what we can expect to see today in Afghanistan as we fight the Taliban, Al Queda, and other insurgents. Borovik's account reads like a Rolling Stone article - it is purely grassroots, from the author's limited perspective and first-person interviews with Russian soldiers and officers. No academic analysis of Russian strategic and operational moves here. Nonetheless, Borovik manages to touch on nearly every tactic that insurgents are using against coalition forces in Afghanistan today. Although not nearly as detailed as Bernard Fall's "Street of No Joy", "The Hidden War" has many lessons for anyone involved at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels in Afghanistan. Be sure to pick this one up for new insight into the conflict in Afghanistan today.



3. The author provides a unique insider's view of the (extreme) conditions the Soviet forces fighting the war Afghanistan were facing, and how they tried to deal with these conditions.
   Recommended to anyone who wants to learn and understand what counter insurgency warfare in Afghanistan (then and now) was/is about.



4. I read this book in Husaybah, Iraq on the bloodiest of my three combat tours with Third Battalion, Seventh Marines. The ending is absolutely brutal. It made me question why I was wasting seven months of my life losing the Soviet-Afghan War fifteen years after it'd already ended. Occupations cannot be won. Good book.



5. There are actually 2 books combined in "Hidden War". The first is a few years in to the war when the writer a journalist, who has been to the USA several time and knows a bit about the west, writes as a adventure, propaganda piece. He includes the feeling of the soldiers and commanders at the time. Several years pass and the writer has been back to the USA and interviewed several soldiers who have surrendered to the mujahadin and been expatriated to the west. Also Glasnost or Openness is in full force in the USSR. The army is pulling out after 8 years of a war that produced nothing. The change in tone of the second book is sharp when compared to the hope of doing their duty in the first book.
   
   Mistakes are made by people attempting to draw parallels between America's wars in Vietnam or Iraq. This would be a mistake and reading 'Hidden War' would prove this. The United States is not the Soviet Union, decayed and on the brink of collapse. No is the media as tightly controlled as in the first part of this book (the book was written after the Soviet Union imploded, it could not have been published before then). There are no conscripts in the American Army as there is in the Soviet or Russian armies.
   
   This is a good book about a war many in the west have forgotten due to the current war in Afghanistan.

1 comments about Tim Russert, We Heartily Knew Ye: Wonderful Stories from Friends Celebrating a Great Life.

1. This is a collection of stories - eulogies - written by Tim Russert's friends. Rich Wolfe is the author, but really he is the editor. Or just the one who asked people to write the stories and put them together. If you loved Tim Russert like I did, and want to know more about him, you will enjoy this book. If you want to be a great journalist and learn more about one of the greatest, you might benefit from this book. It is better than a lot of books that get thrown together quickly after someone dies.
   There are so many authors in this book - people who knew him in high school, college - some of them are good writers and some don't have a very polished style. They use unusual sentence construction and some of the sentences are not complete sentences. It is like the authors were talking into a tape recorder and then someone typed up what they said, maybe cleaning it up a little, but leaving in some of the words and phrases that are not used in good writing.
   Wolfe admits that there is repetition in the book, and there is - two or more people shared the same experience with Tim and wrote about it. That's not so bad. The book seems pretty honest about Tim. One of Tim's friends from college described how Tim cheated on a final exam and how he stole meals from the dining hall when he was living off campus. Yet on page 170 it quotes Tim saying in a John Carroll University publication, "You can read all the books...you can know all the facts...but the emphasis on ethics and values are what matter with an education." Those stories lowered my opinion of Tim Russert and his college. But you have to give credit to the book for being honest about it. These stories were included to highlight Tim's social skills - he was able to talk the janitor into opening the professor's office for him, he was able to get the dining hall staff to let him have meals that were not paid for.
   If you already read Big Russ, you will recognize some of the material, but there is a lot of new material too. Woodstock and his trip to Washington D.C. after Woodstock are fun stories. There is not much in the book about Tim's wife. There's more about his father and his son.
   Several things come across in these stories. Tim was enormously intelligent and energetic. He had terrific social skills. He was genuinely kind and generous with his friends and also with strangers.
   When he first joined Meet the Press, I never watched it because I was always in church when it was on. Then I found out how good it was, and started taping it and watching it after church. Now, I still watch MTP, but it isn't half as good as it was, and you can't trust David Gregory to tell the truth.
   I'll tell you a secret - the last story in the book is the best.

5 comments about George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, Vol 3.

1. This is the third book in a great series. Sounds trite doesn't it?
   
   This book is part of a four volume series which includes letters, essays, book reviews and journals. They were edited by Orwell's last wife Sonia(reputed to be a gold digger by some)and include a good chronological appendix. Prefaced sections would have made the collection more readable to those not familiar with the historical context of the writings.
   
   Orwell's letters show the compassion he often did not express in his writings. They always show concern and restraint in his professional and personal dealings. One letter in particular to his first publisher with whom he had serious legal problems shows no hint of resentment only kindness. Is is possible that we can know more about a man's personal life from his daily habits and expressions than from any professed ideology?
   
   The collection of essays in this volume show us the forgotten legacy of Orwell as a descriptive writer that should have surpassed his mediocre novels. The Orwell of Depression era England seems more relevant today than the Cold War era Orwell of "1984" and "Animal Farm". The essays provide rich background material for those who wish to analyze Orwell's books. Source material for "Homage to Catalonia" can be found in the essay "Spilling the Spanish Beans". An essay on common lodging houses tells us about the squalor of working class life in the coal districts...source material for "The Road to Wigan Pier". An essay about hanging tells us about the brutality of colonialism, later written about in Orwell's novel about Burma.
   
   Some essays on societal issues show a disturbing lack of insight that I have noticed in some of Orwell's writings. "My Country Right or Left" written in August 1940, talks about a future revolutionary England that seemingly would not ever come into being. Orwell tells us it was an everyday reality to feel patriotism towards Chamberlain and also for the future red society that is to emerge. Shortly later, Orwell tells us about the red militias " billeted at the Ritz" and London gutters filled with blood. Orwell in the same paragraph tells us that... Only revolution can save England...but now that the revolution has started, and it may proceed quite quickly if only we can keep Hitler out.
   
   Was Orwell's "revolution" the election of Winston Churchill? In another essay, not in this book, Orwell talks about an emerging technocracy that would replace the peerage class system with a post war technical elite springing from the old working class...young Bomber Command pilots who will form a new elite and vote in the welfare state. This second revolution is not the first type nor is it in line with orthodox Communist thought. Is it even logical to posit two things as being true at once?
   
   Orwell described himself as a democratic socialist "as far as I understand what that means," yet did his rejection of dialectical materialism include a rejection of intellectual depth? The reader will find the books reviews interesting as source material for future reading as well as an interesting time capsule into long forgotten controversy and popular culture.
   
   One review on a book written by the Duchess of Atholl "Searchlight on Spain" reminds us of the odd radicalism of the English ruling class during the Depression. The Duchess was pro-Soviet. Interestingly, the Mitford family produced the pro-Nazi Unity, who died during the Depression, and the pro-Red Jessica who haunted Cold War society. The reviews on Henry Miller selections seem to show an aversion to surreal and abstract subject matter. Orwell's essay on Dali, in another book, dismisses Dali as a crank and seems to avoid any detailed discussion of surrealism-a popular subject in the 1930's. A book review on Sartre in another collection avoids a discussion of Existentialism. Orwell claimed simply that he did not understand Sartre. Was Orwell revealing a tendency towards mental sloth?
   
   A journal Orwell kept of his Road to Wigan Pier experiences should be read before reading the book as an interesting travel journal on hop picking during the Depression. The hop picking journal appears in "The Clergyman's Daughter". This collection reveals much about a man who influenced the century he lived in, and a time that had a profound impact on ours. A for content, B for organization therefore four stars. What makes this book unique?
   
   This book is unique largely for the large number of Op-Ed pages titled "As I Please" which appeared in the Tribune after Orwell's tenure at the BBC. The pages were divided by section usually consisting of two to three sections organized by theme. The sections were deleted in part or in whole by the editor, Sonia Orwell who could have organized the selections better. Only the partially deleted sections are noted, however. It is sad that things that we Orwell addicts may have wanted to read are not included here. What is missing?
   
   Sorry, I wrote two versions of this review and could not decide which to post!
   
   This is the third book in a great series. Sounds trite doesn't it? Op-Ed pages, essays, book reviews, letters...they are all here as in the other books of this series, but this book is unique.
   
   This book is unique largely for the large number of Op-Ed pages titled "As I Please" which appeared in the Tribune after Orwell's tenure at the BBC. The pages were divided by section usually consisting of two to three sections organized by theme. The sections were deleted in part or in whole by the editor Sonia Orwell who could have organized the selections better. Only the partially deleted sections are noted, however. It is sad that things that we Orwell addicts may have wanted to read are not included here.
   
   Orwell's Op-Ed is filled with his usual wit and humor. These writings are the stuff of morning tea drinking and the commute reading of people living through the daily Nazi V2 attacks on England. The column provides a rich time capsule of chatty political commentary and personal views. The Duchess of Atholl...the Red Duchess...has by this time become an anti-communist Freedom League activist! A V weapon nearly destroyed his house but destroyed the garage instead...Orwell cooly tells us "it is still rocking" while he continued to write his column.
   
   Pop culture is big in this book. English cooking, making tea, humour verses vulgarity. These are essay classics and deserve to be remembered. Orwell's essay "The English People" is good history, but seems aloof from the mainstream in that it overemphasizes class divisions (as other essays do as well.)
   
   An essay on demotic speech typlifies Orwell's strong contributions on language and ideology. I remember that one of his earliest characters,Gordon Comstock, became a advertising copywriter after failing to serve the cause of art. Comstock's hatred of BOVRIL ads became dogged servitude to the advertising industry when he repented from his life of literary asceticism. Did not Winston in 1984 profess love for Big Brother in the end...in Newspeak after the state crushed him? Orwell loved language and this essay is no exception. Well worth reading.
   
   The book review on the poetry of W.H. Davies has sparked my interest in his morbid works. Many lost writers can be rediscovered in Orwell's book reviews...see "Oysters and Brown Stout."
   
   I read many of these selections while drinking my morning tea, but I never took Orwell's advice...I used a tea bag, not fresh tea leaves in a clay pot!



2. This is the third of a four-volume set of Orwell's non-fiction writing. I've been reading through all four volumes over the past month or so; all are excellent, but this volume stands above the others, if only because of the time-period covered. It's an extraordinary view of the literary and political scenes during the final years of World War II, by one of the smartest minds of the time.
   
   Reading this volume, I was repeatedly struck by
   
   * Orwell's extraordinary prolificacy: the sheer volume of his output is staggering.
   * the quality of his writing, which is clear and devoid of affectation throughout.
   * the breadth of his scope (is there anything he doesn't write about?).
   * the acuity of his intellect.
   * the depth of his commitment to his political views, which are obviously deeply felt, and which he defends passionately and articulately.
   * the *sanity* that pervades all of the pieces in this book, all written at a time when Europe was plunged in chaos, and jingoistic propaganda was the order of the day.
   
   It's fascinating to read Orwell's speculation about the likely political structures in postwar Europe, written when Hitler's defeat was by no means a given. A uniquely clear-sighted view of the world from someone who was more often right than not.
   
   I recommend all four volumes in the series; this one is particularly rewarding.



3. Sorry for the prank in the headline, it is not a comment on Orwell but a quote from the book, from the essay 'The English People', written in 44, but published later. Orwell tries to characterize the English. I would never have dared to write that myself.
   This is volume 3 of 4, and the first that I give 5 stars. It is less uneven, less self-contradictory, probably more honest than the previous 2. GO had grown up, I assume. The bulk of the book are his leaders under the name that the collection carries: As I please. He comments on events of the time, and does it with lasting interest.
   I don't want to repeat my friend Jim Egolf's summary of the book, nor his assessment of its historical value. All true.
   But Jim left out an important subject that Orwell also included, and that I want to bring to your attention. The fact is that GO was an impossible romantic about England. He honestly thought that there was merit in English cooking! One essay is called: In Defence of English Cooking.
   He lists a few items that we are supposed to accept as proof of his odd point of view. Believe it or not, one of the items which supposedly prove the high standard of English cooking are English apples. I rest my case.
   'It is not a law of nature that every restaurant in England is either foreign or bad.' Written 1945. My regular visits in recent years, all in basically friendly intention, make me conclude: if anything changed, then for the worse, because now even many of the foreign restaurants are bad.
   Dui bu qi.



4. George Orwell' (1903-1950)anthology titled AS I PLEASE is an interesting collection of his careful literary criticism and political insights which were much more often right than wrong. Readers can learn so much about not only the situation and conditions in Great Britian between 1943 and 1945, they can learn much about the international situtation and Orwell's complete disillusionment with the "Left" both in Great Britain and in Europe.
   
   This reviewer thinks that Orwell's literary criticism of Arthur Koestler is the best article of literary criticism. Orwell focused on Koester's DARKNESS AT NOON which Orwell thought was Koestler's best work. Orwell argued that Koestler was a supporter of the "Left" during the Spanish Civil War and was arrested and faced the prospect of being shot. Koeslter escaped but had to know how the Stalinists betrayed the Spanish Left during the Spanish Civil War. Koestler was a member of the Hungarian Communist Party, knew of the Stalinist purges of Lenin's Bolsheviks, and saw a repeat of all this in Spain.
   
   Orwell also had intelligent commentary of literature and humor. Orwell stated that good humor had all but disappeared in Great Britian because of political and religious sensitivity. Orwell stated that the best comedy was that which attacked hypocrisy and pretensioness. Orwell cited Aristophanes, Rabelais, Shakespear,Voltaire, etc. who did not hestitate to mock and write comedy of the self righteous and "high and mighty." Orwell was bothered by the fact that such humor almost disappeared from English litature during his life time. An interesting aside is that Orwell complimented Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton for their humor. Orwell was critical of both in some of the other essays in this anthology.
   
   Orwell not only wrote good literary criticism, he wrote solid political commentary. Readers can see the beginnings of his best known novels-ANIMAL FARM and 1984. Orwell's comments on ill feeling between British and American troops. Orwell stated that since American troops were paid at least five times as much as British troops, social divisions and hard feelings were almost inevitable. Orwell also commented that many American troops refused to admit that British casualties were larger than American casualties which indeed they were.
   
   Orwell's best political commentary dealt with such concepts as Fascism, Pacifism, the Trotskyites, the Stalinists, etc. Orwell's major criticism of the "Leftists" was that because they were anti-Fascist, they would not become anti-totalitarian because of refusal to oppose the Stalinists and Big Communism and its obvious record of mass murder and concentration camp brutality. Orwell makes hash out of the accusation that the Internatianl Jews heavilty subsidized Britian's Trotskyites. Orwell commented if that were true, one had to ask why Trotsky's supporters were always so poor. Orwell accused much of the "Left" of refusing to accept facts and assessments of World War II. For example, many of the British and American leftists commented that the Soviet Union was an example of the biblical inscription that the meek shall inherit the earth. Orwell noted that those who made this remark obviously had not read Soviet anti-German propaganda which was full of hatred and violent vengence. Orwell also noted that the Left expected British military failure while extolling Soviet victories during World War II.
   
   Orwell also expressed serious concern over the distortions and falsification of history. For example, both the "Allies" and "Axis" claimed victory when their was defeat. Casualty figures were distorted as were events. What was worse was the description of non-events or events that never occured. Orwell commented that the Leftists never wrote a word about the SovietGerman "Non-Aggression Pact" which was negotiated in 1939 with the secret protocol of the Soviets and Germans to invade Poland.
   
   Orwell made comments that his novel titled ANIMAL FARM was censored or kept from publication because of British concerns of offending their Soviet "allies." Little did Orwell know that this novel would be a best seller after he died. Orwell can also see the outlines of his 1984 in this collection of essays.
   
   One development that concerned Orwell toward the end of World War II was the emerging anti-Semitism in Great Britain and to a lesser degree in the United States. Orwell was clear that accusations and slurs agains Jewish people were patently false. Yet, Orwell was clear that facts and reason were of no avail to many because they were immune to knowledge and reasoned thinking. Orwell attributed much to a weakened Great Britain at the end of World War II, and the British Empire would soon be dismantled. Orwell argued that nationalism and the fear of the loss of Empire incited anti-Semitism among people who would otherwise not fall for such nonsense.
   
   While Orwell was wrong in some of his earlier predictions, he was honest enough to admit this and explained why which something most "intellectuals" are loathe to do. If Orwell had lived another 50 years, he would know that his important predictions came true. This reviewer was pleased to see Orwell admit he was wrong as this showed a degree of honesty that is sadly lacking.
   
   This reviewer did not like the format of the book. As this reviewer stated elsewhere, the book should have been arranged by topic rather than by chronology. However, this is a matter of taste. This reviewer strongly recommends this anthology which is part of a four volume set of Orwell's thought. This is yet another excellent collection of Orwell's great writing.



5. The last review that I did on George Orwell's work was Homage to Catalonia, his compelling story of his involvement in a Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) left-wing militia regiment in the Spanish Civil War. I noted there that this is the Orwell that today's militant leftists need to read. The current compilation of articles that he did during World War II and shortly thereafter are not in that same category although they are, as always with Orwell, well worth reading. No matter the subject matter of the articles they conform to the points that he made in Politics and the English Language about using precise, clear and rational political language. Unfortunately, at the time of the Tribune writings Orwell had already made his peace, even if critically, with British imperialism. This is obvious from the subject matter of some of the articles, particularly those in defense of holding on to the old empire or at least its prerogatives. The articles themselves vary from the topical and mundane under war time conditions to the speculative but as always written in a bit of a tongue and cheek manner. That said, although Orwell by this time was an anti-Stalinist socialist of some sort he preferred to outsource the fight against Stalinism to world imperialism. Apparently, as the recent furor over his naming names of British communists to British intelligence indicates, he had no such qualms about doing so. Certainly this was not his finest hour. He left that in Spain.

5 comments about The Gold-Plated Porsche: How I Sank a Small Fortune into a Used Car, and Other Misadventures.

1. I finished this book a while ago and I enjoyed it, but given the author's knowledge level, I felt it could have been more in depth. This book is about half a recount of the authors experience in buying and building a Porsche 911, and the other half random tangents about his life experiences. While some of the stories are interesting, it dilutes the purpose of the book. If you are looking for an in depth guide filled with advice on how to buy and build your car, you will get some of that but not really enough to make it worth it. If you just want to read a book that has some car stuff in it with some other stories then its not all that bad. I just felt that the author with his vast mechanical background building planes and things could have imparted more really helpful information. I don't mean a technical manual, just more real experience stuff. I guess I just wasn't that interested in some of the non car stories. Also, the rebuild was supposed to take a couple years and cost many thousands of dollars, but I just didn't get that feeling - more details might have helped. I don't want to slam this effort and the details of the building experience that he does include are worth the read, just expect to read a bunch of extraneous stuff.



2. Outstanding book especially for porsche enthusiasts. Not too technical heavy. It is essentially an autobiography.



3. Having suffered a number of sports car ownership misadventures, I came to Wilkinson's tale predisposed to empathize. The narrative is compelling enough that I read it in a weekend, groaning at his missteps and cheering his successes as he tells tales of flying, driving, and most particularly the reconstruction of what began as a relatively nasty old 911. He does not bog down in technical details, but some sense of cars is most likely a prerequisite to enjoying this book. I gave a second copy to a friend as a gift; hopefully he'll enjoy it as I did. This might also be a good read for anyone who is about to embark on some kind of automotive restoration project; it is both cautionary and encouraging at the same time!



4. Author lived through some interesting times provided some insights about some of my favorite car magazine along the way. As a new owner of a used '82 Porsche 911, I especially enjoyed reading about his restoration project.



5. I love this book. For any car freak it is great! Don't buy this book looking to learn the in's and out's of rebuilding a Porsche. It does have some worthy tips though. Buy this book if you want to be entertained and learn the ups and downs of the authors journey through life. Great book for people who pronounce it Porsh as well as people who say it right...Porsche!

5 comments about Beyond Bogota: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia.

1. I found the book to pretty much on the mark, as some one who spent several years in the Central and South American area or operation, the only thing that I find distrubing is the author's options on the subject, I felt he was leaning to the left on many of the issue, while he does address many of the issues in the area, he missed the main mark. Corruption is a way of life in the area from the top to the bottom, until the Government is fixed, the issue will continue. I suggest reading "Hunting Pablo Escobar", another good read, both should be read to give thought too



2. I would love to just sit down with the author and talk to him about his time in Colombia. This book ranks up there with the best. Read It!!!



3. I think this is a very good book about conditions in the Zonas today. A few stories seem anecdotal but by and large, it describes Colombia very well. It hasn't changed much in 40 years.



4. Mr. Leech has been on a multi-year mission to report on the U.S. government's "escalating role in Colombia's civil conflict and military interventions", and on the atrocities committed in Colombia's war on drugs and the FARC, Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla group. To accomplish this goal, Mr. Leech has spent most of his time in rural areas and outside of the relatively safe capital of Colombia, Bogota, where most mainstream foreign media confine themselves to. Mr. Leech believes the mainstream media report news that is predominantly influenced by the Colombian government and military, the U.S. embassy, and business elites.
   
   Once again, as has been the case in numerous other countries both in South America and elsewhere, Washington's foreign policies are rife with militaristic reactions to undesirable conditions such as coca cultivation, and there is little done in the way of addressing the root causes of rampant illegal cocaine production and distribution which are almost always social and economic in nature. Thrown into the mix is the ill conceived and aggressive displacement of locals, often by the paramilitary forces to pave the way for multinational corporations to conduct their operations, e.g. Occidental Petroleum, Drummond Company Inc. et al. As a result, Colombia is host to the world's worst population displacement conundrum.
   
   Five billion dollars of aid and eight years of the controversial Plan Colombia announced by then president Bill Clinton has failed to reduce cocaine production. Plan Colombia was originally proposed by Colombian President Andres Pastrana in 1999. With the U.S. involvement and aid to Colombia's government, the focus quickly shifted to counternarcotics and the strengthening and utilization of military forces.
   
   Unfortunately, Mr. Leech comes across as a FARC sympathizer, and his coverage of the crimes perpetrated during the decades old war between the FARC and the Colombian government and paramilitary forces is lopsided. An armed struggle against any government almost always leaves all parties, including innocent bystanders worse off.
   
   Mr. Leech's stories are told in the backdrop of his capture and eleven hour detention by the FARC, in a simple diary format. Whether one agrees with his scathing criticism of the U.S. and Colombian government policies or not, Mr. Leech deserves much respect for his courageous journalistic effort with great personal sacrifice and risk to his life.



5. I start loosing interest in Garry Leech book in the second chapter, when in an effort to illustrate horrors, committed by Salvadorian army(supported by USA) fighting communist guerrillas, he brings up 3 times 4 nuns that have been raped and murdered. Let me wonder if Garry completely unaware about millions murdered and starved to death by communists government in Kampuchea, China , Russia ..? Or he thinks that his readers unaware and will be impressed by 4 nuns and one bishop?
   By the way, killing of 3 American human rights workers by FARK was just a "horrible mistake" and not an illustration of FARC "human rights OB-BLA-bla".
   Next chapter he informs us that paramilitary "closely allied with Colombian military" was responsible for exactly 78% of human rights abuses. Not 79 or 76%. He did not give any evidence of this close alliance.
   Sure in two chapters we find out that "indigenous villages" are mostly harassed by government troops not by FARC or paramilitary groups.
   I came to a conclusion that after so much time spend in Colombia Garry produced one more peace of "blame America" liberal propaganda instead of honest research. There are thousands of similar books already on the shelves. Waste of time.

5 comments about In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran.

1. Two and a half decades after the Islamic Revolution (the book was published in 2004), Iran clings tightly to its past, yet feels the tremors of change. Christopher de Bellaigue, a Brit who lives in Tehran with his Iranian wife and son, writes vividly of his encounters with revolutionaries, veterans, mullahs, and reformers, delivering a multifaceted collection of snapshots of Iran and its people.
   
   Among the revolutionary generation, a wistfulness and disappointment seems to pervade. They reminisce about the sense of purity and purpose the revolution brought, and they speak reverently of the spirit of wartime sacrifice. Still, despite the debilitating war wounds many suffer (including the effects of poison gas), and despite omnipresent reminders of the great legions of martyrs, reality has failed to live up to revolutionary ideals. De Bellaigue captures both the idealism of the revolution's "true believers" and the hypocrisy of many of its leaders. He also conveys the tragedy of a devastating eight-year war that could have been much shorter if Iran--initially fighting a defensive war--had not become so caught up in a war mindset that peace became unthinkable. The book impresses upon the reader just how deeply the concept of martyrdom is embedded in Iranian society, from the passion plays on Ashura reliving the martyrdom of Imam Hossein to the torture suffered in the Shah's prisons to the gruesome human wave assaults that hopelessly pitted youths against Iraqi troops. That many Iranians yearn for change is evident in the book, which brings up the youth-driven movement toward increased freedoms and the brutal suppression of dissent.
   
   De Bellaigue has a keen flair for writing and description, but the book's nonlinear quality makes it unfocused. The book takes the form of a series of vignettes, which sometimes jump around in a confusing way. It is an interesting read, however, and De Bellaigue portrays an Iran that is nuanced and dynamic, full of contradictions and conflict.



2. This is the story of experiences during and after the Islamic Revolution In Iran in the 1970s. De Bellaigue is a British journalist married to an Iranian woman. He relates his own experiences thorugh a period of turmoil in modern Iranian history, and the stories of many friends and acquaintances.
   
   He has an engaging and artful style that details his own experiences, his interviews and encounters with leaders and victims of the Islamic Revolution. He also provides an almost incidental wealth of cultural observations.
   
   His insights and stories brign to life the people of Iran and the struggles with the competing ideologies that have torn at the country's heart for the last several decades. He reveals these as people like us -- struggling with real life, and most caught up in a complex stream of events and religio-political mosaic where the many suffer because of the few and their ideologies.
   
   The reader will be able to rise above the political stereotypes and empathize with what some of these individuals go through. Likewise most readers will also grieve and seethe with anger at the insensitivity of political power-grabbers and ideologues who seem to give no thought to the ordinary citizen whose lives are destroyed by their demagoguery.
   
   A great value for westerners -- and especially Americans -- is a portrayal of how the United States looks to an Iranian, aside from any political ideologies. Iranian history and culture come alive in a practical way, beyond the ordinary academic study of culture or religion you might read about Iran.
   
   This author's skillful and expressive command of the English language will mesmerize the reader with his delightful, artistic turns of phrase.



3. This memoir reads like a compilation of thorough newspaper articles or short stories, I never quite knew where the book was going next. It contains snapshots of Iranian life, histories of people involved in the Revolution and people who oppose its growing hypocrisy, and the reflections of a foreigner trying to understand and be understood. I found it very enjoyable to read, an absorbing glimpse into the lives of people who are motivated in ways foreign to my experience and a testament to the difficulty of turning a revolution into a stable government worthy of its citizenry.



4. The book opens and closes with descriptions of scenes from an Iranian festival celebrating the martyrdom of the Imam Hossein, hero of Iran's Shia Islam. Sandwiched in between are snippets of the country's history, snatches of the personal experiences of the author's life as a Westerner in Iran and descriptions of the lives of ordinary Iranians and their experiences of the Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and life in post-revolution Iran. The theme of martyrdom seeps through all of these encounters and experiences, and we are presented with an assortment of attitudes to the sometimes senseless, sometime noble aspects of martyrdom in Iranian history. The book has moments of thought-provoking brilliance as the author presents us with some of the dilemmas and paradoxes faced by ordinary Iranians. It also has moments where things become disjointed and it is easy to lose the thread. In the end, the idea of martyrdom is not enough to hold together a loosely structured narrative that jumps back and forth in history and alternates historical explanations with the anecdotal stories of a large number of diverse characters.
   
   De Bellaigue never claims to have no personal opinions on the issues he is writing about and in fact he presents his own biases plainly on occasion. This does not prevent him from offering up alternative points of view, however, and these are the moments that become thought-provoking. It is a struggle to give this book a star rating. At some points it deserves 5 and at others 2. The author's masterful command of language rates a 5 throughout. All in all though, I would say it is a worthwhile read.



5. This is a well-written and engaging book. It provides a close look at Iranian society and culture. When it comes to politics it is not as relevant and clear as it could have been.

4 comments about In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 (Collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell).

1. Do you know what a time capsule is?
   
   I saw one pictured in an old Life magazine back issue about the 1983 World's Fair in New York. 1938, the brink of war's abyss. The time capsule was featured at the Fair, filled with Depression era technology and pop culture. An ominous looking black tank... a dark looking torpedo thing... metallic, shiny and heavily lowered by chain into a cement crypt to sleep for decades...observed by people who would never live to see it opened. The metallic time traveller contained hopeful letters to the future from a world on the brink of war and beset by economic decline.
   
   The old world of sentiment was dying... to be replaced by a new streamlined world that promised utopia to some and endless darkness to others.
   
   The last book in this great series...perhaps the saddest and most ominous. The begining of the atomic age (1945)is mentioned in this last part of the series... a bright atomic flash succeded by a long proceeding dark shadow...pointing towards 1984? Devolution, decay and death not evolution, utopian progress or hope shadows this last book.
   
   The Penguin Books edition is simply a reprint of the earlier edition by Sonia Orwell made two years earlier in 1968. It is better bound as the earlier editions tend to crack because of their great age. This book is unique for two reasons: it is loaded with letters and tends to reveal more about the inner thought life of Orwell. This collection of writings shows the Orwell of the Cold War, far removed from the Edwardian England of his youth as was his character George Bowling from his childhood; Bowling looking at the crumbling churchyard of his youth from a street leading to the streamlined future Orwell and Bowling seemed to fear more than embrace.
   
   The technology of mass death has also the power to end dictatorships while paradoxically threatening life on earth. The threat of total war would make slave states stable enough to survive without any credible threat. In other words, Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania would be forever locked into the static war of "1984" much like 1948 was locked into the seemingly permanent Cold War.
   
   The problem of England's birth dearth reappears in yet another essay as an unavoidable fate...a fact "In Front of Your Nose."
   
   The "Red Duchess" wrote back to Orwell after he had long written about her. The Duchess of Atholl had long been a subject of interest to Orwell who commented often on the "Blimps" who seemed to plague english society with various hues of functionlessness. Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists seemed to echo the Duchess' radicalism on the right wing.
   
   The letters in many of the Orwell collections never seem to have answers. It is interesting to ponder why so few answers were ever published or if they ever existed. Was this an issue of deliberate omission?
   
   Another curious unanswered fact: was why Orwell never seemed to write detailed letters about his personal life. There are no details about the adoption of Richard, the death of his first wife, or his second marriage...critical time points. When Orwell writes about hospital visits near his death bed, there is nothing about Sonia's involvement. Personal illness letters would have revealed much integrity and compassion, yet they are conspicuously abscent. Did Sonia want to leave out embarassing details such as why Orwell was so often alone with his TB or why she insisted on using his pen name as her married name? The last selection in the book is a poignant diary and note book, Orwell's last writings laced with gloomy thoughts about children dying, an outline for a long short story and notes about Evelyn Waugh.
   
   It is ironic that Waugh wrote the "Loved One" about the funeral industry in America and Waugh was the last writer Orwell wrote about. Was Orwell thinking about death, but felt a need to intellectualize it rather than confront it honestly? There is no introspection involving Christ or eternity (despite Orwell's traditional values and previous essays on religion)...only a pointed remark about how appropriate a symbol (seen in a picture) was a crucifix hiding a stiletto "for the Christian religion."Interestingly,Orwell pointed out the contradiction in Matthew about the geneology of Jesus without citing the commonly known answer to it. Orwell also quoted a wrong verse for the whale in the book of Jonah when talking about Henry Miller's book "Inside the Whale." It is strange that a mind as sharp as Orwell's would find death a non-issue as he lay dying and would apply little intellectual accuracy towards the Bible even though he lamented the collective lost of the belief in immortality in several writings, claimed, in one letter, to have seen a ghost, and was upset that hell was often lampooned by comic strips. Orwell and death... quite an enigma.
   
   Orwell was one of those men cursed with integrity and conscience who have no beliefs to sustain their integrity. Men like Winston in "1984" are forced to eventually pay homage to the idols they fight..."I love you Big Brother"... then die obedient under the System; like the show trials of Communists under Stalin with its numerous self-confessions followed by executions or banishments.
   
   The man who died in 1950, midway in the twentieth century, was embraced with its begining and cursed with its future. Orwell longed for the Edwardian society of his childhood, yet had to live with the dawn of nuclear armed super states. Orwell was the
   policeman shooting an elephant in Burma, and later performing a hanging for an empire he detested, yet had the integrity to serve. Orwell was Dorthy Hare dutifully accepting the role of a church spinster and a life of forgotten service. Orwell was George Bowling looking with longing recollection at the church of his youth and seeking the inner freedom of the long lost fish pond.
   
   Orwell was frequently at odds with left culture: abortion, homosexuality, trendiness (vegetarianism), yet he was part of the Left. The man who died in 1950 had an Edwardian soul, yet was damned to live in a totalitarian-threatened world created by the failure of Capitalism in 1929.
   
   Orwell's intergrity of vision may have kept that totalitarism from ever being justified.



2. This fourth volume concludes the excellent essay collection from a man who died much too young and with whom I do by far not always agree, but who provided me a very satisfying and instructive reading experience.
   I chose the headline from one of the essays in this volume because it gives Orwell in a nutshell, including my own ambiguities about him. He argues against the Soviet apologists, in the early post war time, who say that one must break eggs to make an omelette. (Is that a Lenin quote, btw?) His question: so where is the omelette? strikes me as witty and appropriate, but at second glance as callous and cruel. After all he seems to imply that yes, you may kill a few million people for a 'good' purpose, but the purpose must be met.
   In such moments Orwell is deserted by his own devotion to clarity and he gets caught in his own puns. That does happen to him. As much as he lambasts against bad language, he will write e.g. 'I could multiply these examples endlessly' (talking about bad stories from the Soviet Union), when he actually means, he could add to these examples for some time.
   Reading the man for 4 volumes gives me the conviction, that this suspicious interpretation of mine is unfair. No, he would not have intended to mean that.
   The title 'In Front of Your Nose' refers to our ability to harbor contradictory notions without suffering too much from it: the English intelligencia in the 30s was able to oppose Hitler as well as disarmament and conscription. Another example: the gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus descended from Abraham and David through his father Josef, and then proceeds to tell us that Josef was in fact not the father. (I am sure theologists are perfectly able to talk this contradiction away.)
   Vol. 4 has plenty of worth while literary criticism as well, like the previous 3. The essay on good bad books predicts that Uncle Tom will outlive the complete works of Virginia Woolf. (Frankly speaking for me that has already happened.) Jack London could tell his stories well, but they are not well written.
   Let us close our Orwellian peregrination with a timeless reminder: political language is designed to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Right, my AFs in the much afflicted US?



3. The late James J. Martin stated that one could learn great prose from reading George Orwell. Orwell's anthology titled IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE is a good book to learn political insight and excellent writing. Orwell was not only knowledgeable, but he expressed some of the political tragedies and problems of the 20 th. century in this book. Readers should note this book is the fourth volume of essays of Orwell's essays literary criticism, political protest, etc.
   
   Orwell was one of the very few who realized what a disaster W.W. II was for both Europeans and Asians. His essays on the forced repatriation of millions to the Soviet Union to miserable die in concentration camps were among the first to publicize this tragedy. Orwell's essays were blunt in stating that the only real winner from W.W. II was Big Communism especially in lieu of the rapid disintegration of the British Empire.
   
   Orwell gave a good description of the inconsistent thinking of the British people. The British wanted total victory at any cost, and found themselves in bad economic shape. Many British complained about the immigration of Polish refugees to mine coal in Great Britain. Yet, the British public also complained (whined) about coal shortages. Orwell indicated the inconsistency of these remarks and commented that the British failed to see the logic between acts and consequences. Orwell Presented a clear picture of what was to occur with the British Empire which disintegrated rapidly after "victory" during W.W. II.
   
   Orwell's essay on Gandhi is an interesting case study of Orwell's honest assessment of political leaders. Orwell is clear that he could not live like Gandhi, and Orwell admitted that he probably could be friends with the Hindu leader. Yet,Orwell highly praised Gandhi's courage, policy of nonviolent resistence to the British rules, and Gandhi's honesty. Orwell gave Gandhi praise for being honest and a decent man among political rogues, hypocrites, and cowards. Whether one agrees with Gandhi, he was indeed a brave, honest man. Among poltical figures these are rare traits indeed.
   
   This reviewer disagrees with part of Orwell's criticism of James Burnham. Orwell correctly shows Burnham's errors in predicting the outcome of W.W.II. However, Orwell should have recognized Burnham's book THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION was a solid account that political and economic affairs were to be controlled by managers and "experts" rather than a market economy and by traditional political processes.
   
   Orwell's anthology has interesting essays of literary criticism and correspondence. Orwell was suprisingly well versed with continental European poltical leaders and literary figures. There is an interesting letter that Orwell wrote to Arther Koestler, author of DARKNESS AT NOON,in which Orwell favorably compares this book with Orwell's own 1984.
   
   Orwell also has some disturbing remarks regarding "allied" abuse and torture of defeated German prisoners of war. Orwell reflected that he remembered British and U.S. propaganda against the Germans before and during W.W. II. Yet, right in front of his nose, the "allies" were acting in the same beastial manner against those caught on the wrong side of the war. This was quite disturbing to Orwell, or any thoughtful person.
   
   This reviewer has always been very impressed with Orwell's work. Any thoughtful individual who is not afraid of clear writing, honesty, and truth would enjoy Orwell. Unfortunately, the number of such people is small. As Orwell wrote one time, propaganda and lying do not decieve people. Propaganda and lying only help people who want to be deceived.



4. Essays and journalism and very good footnotes deal with starvation in Europe, prevention of literature, Gandhi, an attempt to form an organization which would deal with issues like expelling people from their homes, people forced back to Soviet Russia, and much more including civil liberities for anarchists.

5 comments about Chronicles of Wasted Time.

1. I've finally finished Chronicles of Wasted Time by Malcolm Muggeridge.
   
   The autobiography consists of two previously published volumes, The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove, as well as the previously unpublished beginning of a third volume, The Right Eye. The writing is superb. Clean, clear, exhilarating. (Although I did notice more typographical errors in the second volume than in the first.) Muggeridge (1903-1990) often references historical works and personalities, which shouldn't be surprising given that he spent most of his working years as a journalist.
   
   I was intrigued by how (apparently) easily he moved back and forth between journalism and working in the public sector.
   
   One complaint: The chapters are too long, averaging roughly 70 pages each. I assume this is partly why I read the tome slowly.
   
   The book was on my to-read list because it's on the Image Journal list.
   [...]



2. Endearing portrait of an old crank, a devilish view of ruined idealism and fond memories. Thought provoking, yet faith upholding.
   
   Loved it. Read it slowly, not in big bunches.



3. This book is what I call "chewy" - not one to just breeze through in a day or two as you would a bestseller. There is a lot going on here. I think MM had a manic-depressive disorder, and that comes to light in his other autobiographical book (of his diaries) as well. Interesting to read about his
   rocky journey through all the highs and lows, and how he finally finds serenity later in life.



4. It is almost sixteen years since the death of this great writer, broadcaster, actor, soldier-spy and latterly Christian apologist and his voice is greatly missed, particularly at this time with so many major and controversial issues dominating the news agenda. Because love him or loathe him, Muggeridge always had a unique, and often tangental, view to offer on the significant events of the day.
   Without doubt, Chronicles was his greatest work and should be compulsory reading for anyone learning English literature, for it will be found a totally engrossing read, start to finish. Spanning the early part of the twentieth century, Muggeridge was a master in use of the English language and his love of writing comes out on every page, together with his wit and wisdom. The Malcolm Muggeridge Society is bringing more of his work back into print and I'd like to think that it will be read not by existing fans but by a new generation.



5. While I don't claim to have read everything in English, this is the best-written book I've ever read. I remember hoping not to pass on before I'd finished it. Five stars is not enough for this absolutely delightful book, or rather two books. It was originally published in two volumes, "The Green Stick" and "The Infernal Grove", both included here. This is the first edition to include the remnants of the barely-begun third volume, "The Right Eye" (the Chronicles were to have been a trilogy).
   
   Thanks to the efforts of the Malcolm Muggeridge Society in London, here are all three (or two and a bit) books together. What's more, the introduction is by Ian Hunter, who penned his own riveting bio of MM, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life, as well as assembling short bits and shreds from hither and yon in The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge.
   
   To my view, the Chronicles are the very best of MM. Were he to have some place in the literature of the last century, this is the book that would assure it. Not that he would want a place. He considered himself a journalist, not a writer, or as he loved to quote St. Augustine, "a vendor of words". However, as Ian Hunter reveals, he was not simply an observer but a player on the scene of the most tumultuous century in history. As biographer Richard Ingrams has noted, he seemed to know everyone and be everywhere.
   
   In a sense, there was a third book, called Conversion, which appeared instead of The Right Eye. It's the only book he wrote after becoming a Roman Catholic in 1982, and appeared with various subtitles. It's not, as one might think, about becoming an RC, although it does cover that. Oddly enough it's written in the third person, and subject-wise takes up where his book and TV show, A Third Testament, left off, in chronicling his various inspirations. It's best read after the Chronicles, as he retreads some of the same ground, commenting and adding anecdotal reflections.
   
   As much as one would long to read The Right Eye in its entirety, this is all we have. One imagines him reciting that third book somewhere to rollicking applause, for closing this volume one gets the sense that even after a long and prolific life he left us much too soon, and with music still in him.

5 comments about War Reporting for Cowards.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed War Reporting for Cowards. I laughed repeatedly. Ayres is a very amusing writer.
   
   I recommend it highly.



2. This book has a lot of substance, but is too heavy on confessions of personal foolishness. It has gripping eyewitness accounts of the 9/11 attacks, the Anthrax bio-terror scare, and the US invasion of Iraq. But most of the book is a self-depreciating account of the author's life to date. The war reporting part only starts with chapter 12, and the invasion starts on page 206.
   
   Throughout the book, Ayres remains basically non-critical of everything but himself. Concerning the Iraq War, about as close as he gets to giving personal opinions is the following:
   
   "How was I supposed to feel at this point? Glad that Saddam was going to get his comeuppance and excited by the professional challenge ahead? Or should I have felt moral outrage at the imperial violence about to be visited on Iraq, and pround of my role in exposing the horror of twenty-first-century warfare?
   To be honest, I didn't feel any of those things.
   All I felt was an overwhelming concern about my personal safety. And, of course, a tug of guilt over my own selfishness.
   To my right, a man was smiling at me. I recognized him as a reporter for National Public Radio. 'Hey," he stage-whispered. "Ever get the feeling we're cheerleaders on the team bus?" He continued smiling.
   I nodded and continued sipping the dregs of my cappuccino."
   
   But then, maybe embedded war reporting doesn't get much better than this anyway.



3. This book is in a light-hearted English tradition of which the most distinguished representative is George MacDonald Fraser's Harry Flashman: the Englishman who willingly admits his terror on the battle-field.
   
   Chris is too hard on himself, for he more or (mostly) less chose to be in Iraq in order to not let a friend down, and he (more or mostly less unwillingly) was in "at the death", the most advanced embedded Times reporter. He spares us Billy Russell posturing as was seen in the Crimea: he spares us Churchill's flatulence. For this alone he deserves a Pulitzer.
   
   However, his management at the Times was most irresponsible in even asking him to take the job. Their decisionmaking resembles the way in which Bush and Blair lightheartedly ignored Blix to waltz into the current quagmire, because if there had been grown-ups in charge at the Times instead of vicious children, made so by the corporate brutalization of journalism in the UK, no manager would have considered Chris a candidate for war reporter.
   
   They considered his experience on September 11 and in the October 2001 anthrax attack a qualification along with his youth, and they completely failed to READ and UNDERSTAND his texts of the time, which indicated that he was not at all interested in being the next Ernie Pyle.
   
   They passed over older and more qualified men because of the vicious, and corporate inspired, ageism of the media today, and in so doing they placed a man, who hadn't really chosen to risk his life, in the line of fire. Chris escaped, narrowly, Daniel Pearl's chosen fate and in my opinion should sue the Times along with his Mum and Dad for mental stress alone.
   
   Ayres bugged out because he could, because to him a headline in the Times, which he did get, wasn't worth getting killed. But this means he was never qualified as a war correspondent. That's what a real career is: putting it on the line.
   
   Unlike Flashman, who was qualified to be a military man albeit fictional because of a brutal streak revealed in the first Flashman book (in which Flashman behaves abominably and is a truer representative thereby of a brutal Empire), Ayres had no brutal streak, and this is a Good Thing: Wilfred Owen knew that war "teaches" nothing.
   
   Men return to war claiming to have "learned" great lessons. It has to be stated once and for all that learning takes place at universities, not on battlefields.
   
   But like Flashman at Flashman's best, Ayres wanted to stroll along Pall Mall, assuming that's still a fashionable district. Well could he sing, along with WWI soldiers, "I don't want to join the Army, I don't want to go to war: I just wants to live in London, on the earnings of an [...]".
   
   There is nothing wrong with this instinct: as Hegel knew, the Slave, who sees in "the sweetness of life" something worth preserving, is the motor of history: if we were all Reginald Dyer, Flashy at his worst, or suicidal war correspondents like Russell, Churchill or the Dutchman who Ayres meets, we wouldn't be here: our lives would be nasty, brutal and short.
   
   Unfortunately, Ayres appears to have bought into the illusion, popular at the beginning of the war, that the Americans and British were doing the miserable folk of Iraq any good. Hindsight tells us that the invasion made an awful situation worse, and Ayres has failed, upon return from the war, to be anything more than a junior edition of P. J. O'Rourke, that is the man who announces that come what may, his personal comforts are the most important thing on earth and who is willing to light his cheroot on the burning remains.
   
   Another man would have figured out how to fix the United States Marines coffee in the abundant spare time which Ayres seems to have had, but as Ayres cheerfully confesses, he was brought up in an era when even more than my generation (which was bad enough) kids in the West were handed their lives on a silver platter in most cases, and who expect retail service from people with the bad taste not to be A level.
   
   As it happens, the Marines have to fix Ayres coffee, even as they will when they return to Civvy street.
   
   This is the blind spot, the aporia, in almost every article in the journals of *bien-pensance*: each A-level may be viewed as supported, in much the same way as the Edwardian gentleman, by a chain of service. The Edwardian gentleman had a personal relationship with a butler and a chef: today, alienation obscures the relationship but does not destroy it.
   
   I fear for Mr. Ayres, because many wars and experiences of war seem from the record to compromise an immune system, metaphorically. If the first experience (whether the first Gulf War, or the first Opium war in Hong Kong) is restrained or comic opera, or if as in Ayres' experience there is a (sensible) bug out parallel to Bush's father's (sensible) 1991 exit, a sort of mass-psychological phenomenon occurs in which there is an auto-immune itch to have another go, and this time do it serious.
   
   Ayres crossed a line in American and British society between the sort of people who file stories and the sort of people who serve them at Pret a Manger while worrying about their husbands in the Irish Guards in Basra. And it has long been axiomatic on the clean and well lighted side of the line that it encloses a laager which can't be expanded to include everyone: some must pass their A-levels and some must fail, and a bit later brave shot and shell in heathen lands.
   
   Ayres meditates on the strangely primitive look of the artillery used by the Marines despite the large computers used to target. What he sees is that the highest technology, dedicated to a brutal end, is just a war club, but he seems to have buried this insight in the SAME closet "real" veterans bury their insights, a closet in which demons howl.
   
   The British Empire entailed a war continuously somewhere in the world during most of its existence, yet it was supremely, sublimely, and world-historically unnecessary: the loss of America didn't teach Britain the lesson that a free trading partner was in the long run, even in the short run as early as 1820, a better deal as investment capital flowed freely to the Yanks, replacing a two-way trickle that had flowed, like the molasses in which it dealt, through the grasping hands of a few rich men in the East India Company, a mercantilist folly that was to create the Indian Mutiny's preconditions.
   
   But, even Saint Bloody George Bloody Orwell thought that absent their Empire, absent market failures tinted red both on the map and in the wells of Amritsar where Indians sought refuge from disciplined and deliberate Lee-Enfield fire in Sir Reggie Dyer's 1919 massacre, Britons would have to work very hard and live on herring and potatoes.
   
   The Americans likewise charged into Iraq for a grand market failure, the pricing of oil in dollars, because the thought of walking to work like a loser was as unacceptable as Orwell's subconscious racial memory of a Scandinavian Britain, when Angles and Sassenach were working very hard and living on herring and potatoes in Frisia.
   
   But Empire abroad creates Empire at home, including steadily increasing Fundamentalism and its complementary yobbery in London, so that Ayres isn't able to not notice the feral kids who steal his phone.
   
   Must we suffer it all again? This illusion of an unreflective journo that he's failed and the real compromising of his moral immune system, which when multiplied through countless male psyches becomes Suez, over and over again? Do we need a resurgent Russia to stop this so-called Great Game in Asia, in which Bedooins must be flattened as collateral damage while we eat at Pret a Manger?



4. I loved the premise of this book, when it was first described to me: a pampered Fauntleroy-turned-journalist leaves his cushy business reporting post on a lark, for an assignment as an embed with an American Marine unit in the early stages of the Iraqi War. For the most part, the story didn't disappoint. The juxtaposition of Chris Ayres, an admitted hypochondriac, and the gritty scenes of the early stages of combat provided more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. Noteworthy was the tent he bought at a sporting goods store, later discovered as fluorescent yellow with a bulls-eye on top; packing so much gear, including hand cream and moisturizer (his girlfriend asked, "Have the marines ever met a metrosexual?"), that the wheels on his accompanying luggage rack (!) failed in the Iraqi sand; and struggling at tasks like digging a latrine or making remote phone calls while drowning in sweat and rendered nearly blind by weighty desert gear.
   
   One reason War Reporting worked so well is that Ayres so often found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time- great for journalism, horrible for a paranoiac with anxiety issues. He arrived in New York from London just before September 11th; the floor of his office building was targeted with mailed Anthrax spores; and he climbed the professional ladder just in time to be particularly conspicuous for a war assignment. Self-deprecating throughout the book, Ayres admits that his cowardice contributed to his volunteering for Iraq, in that agreeing to the job represented the path of least vocational resistance, and that he felt compelled by a fear of someone else stealing his combat opportunity and succeeding.
   
   All told, Ayres was only in combat for a few days, and spent far more time in training and living high on the hog at a plush hotel in Kuwait. Plus, the very hypochondriac qualities at the fore in repeated scenes in the doctor's office also had a way of making the Iraqi scenes seem overdramatic. Ayres only saw about one or two days' worth of fighting, and then he bolted for the safety of home, leaving behind the Marines whom he half-respected, and half-pitied in a smarmy, borderline-condescending way. There wasn't a ton of editorializing in War Reporting, but enough to make you want to remind Ayres that the military was doing him a favor by letting him tag along (and potentially endanger their safety), and not the other way around.



5. My husband suggested that I read this book because I am not a huge non-fiction reader and I didn't know a lot about what was going on over in Iraq. This book talks about war and 9/11 in terms that everyday people who don't have a huge interest in war can understand. I watch the news, but it is always so sad and depressing that I often would rather watch my daughter's TV shows. Chris explains what is going on over in Iraq, the kinds of weapons we have, the tanks, etc. It is very informative. The humor and feelings that Chris has endear him to you immediately. I really enjoyed reading this book, and would suggest it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the war, from a surprisingly neutral position.

2 comments about Road Work: Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts.

1. If you like Mark Bowden you'll enjoy this book. Maybe not love it but enjoy it. He started as a sport writer so many of the included subjects are naturally about sports. Since I lost interest in sports a long time ago those arent too interesting to me but still well written. I'd get his other books first and make this your last choice for a Bowden "fix".



2. Mark Bowden has a knack of putting you in the middle of the action. At times it feels like you are actually there in that part of history experiencing everything that all the personnel are going through. He gives you all aspects of the experience from both the good and bad guys perspective.