They say Rush is an acquired taste and I can’t say that I disagree. Like a fine single malt whiskey, however, once you have acquired the taste and comThey say Rush is an acquired taste and I can’t say that I disagree. Like a fine single malt whiskey, however, once you have acquired the taste and come to appreciate the nuances and subtleties they express any effort involved proves to be well worth it. I guess Rush as a band is analogous to writers people call “writer’s writers”, the implication being that they may be a bit too rarefied in their artistic endeavours to ever win popular acclaim, but that ‘those who know’ (i. e. those with taste) know how great they are. Have I alienated non-fans of Rush enough yet? Perhaps, but all I can say is that you don’t have to like them…but if you do, you’re ‘right’.
I’ve been a fan of the band for more than thirty years, since a friend introduced me to them in high school, and have seen them in concert at least 5 or 6 times (for which I feel fortunate given how incredible they were live), but I’m still a small fry when you compare that to the fans from when they first formed in the seventies and who’ve seen them literally hundreds of times. Still, I consider myself an old Rush grognard and Geddy, Neil, and Alex are probably my favourite musicians and perhaps among the most talented that have ever graced a stage. Hyperbole? I doubt you could convince me of it.
Being a Canadian I can’t help but indulge in our parochial and somewhat sad habit of pointing out that Rush are ‘hometown boys’ (as though the mere fact we share a national background means I had anything to do with their prowess or that their fame in any way reflects on me). Regardless of how silly it is, please let me just wave my Canadian flag a bit and pretend that our shared heritage means something. I guess I’d like to think that their talent, professionalism, and dogged commitment to staying true to themselves had something to do with where they came from, but even if it didn’t, I’m proud to say they’re true Canadian icons.
Geddy’s memoir charts the course of his life in the world’s greatest band, without discounting the role his early youth, and especially his place as the child of holocaust survivors, played in taking him from awkward nerd from the wrong side of town to one third of the greatest power trio in rock. (Find a better one, I dare you!) Geddy doesn’t shy away from revealing aspects of his personal life, especially from his youth before he was a professional musician and in regards to the strains his professional life put on his marriage and family commitments, but the lion’s share of the book concentrates on Geddy’s remembered experiences on tour and during the creation of their albums…a situation definitely in accordance with the wishes of his fans.
I’d obviously recommend this to any fan of Rush who wants to get an inside look at the professional, and personal, side of one of its founding members, but I won’t bother recounting what you can read for yourself. I just want leave you with a few quotes here that stood out to me as exemplifying some of what I admire so much about Rush as a whole and demonstrate to me what they are all about:
“I have said this before, and so has Neil, but it bears repeating: if we learned one thing from all of this, [the success of 2112 contrary to record company pressure to produce ‘popular’ hit singles] it was that a young artist’s greatest asset is the word “no”. It’s an immensely valuable word. There will always be pressure to sell your dreams short, and there will always be people who want you to be something you’re not, but none of those things can happen without your permission.”(224)
“We were still very much of a mind that we wouldn’t put anything on a record that we couldn’t reproduce live. A classic example is “Closer to the Heart”, in which Alex plays the first verse on his acoustic and then takes a break while Neil gently hammers out a melody on orchestra bells and I accompany him on bass pedals. It’s pretty and adds a moment of suspense, but the main reason we composed it that way was to give Alex time to switch to his electric guitar and play the next verse with full-on power chords.”(271)...more
In _The Last Alchemist_ Iain McCalman takes a look at the life and times of the self-proclaimed ‘Count Alessandro Cagliostro’, one of the most famous In _The Last Alchemist_ Iain McCalman takes a look at the life and times of the self-proclaimed ‘Count Alessandro Cagliostro’, one of the most famous (or infamous) of the occult adventurers of the 18th century. I’ve always had an interest in these intriguing figures: men who combined elements of the grifter, the priest, and the sorcerer in nearly equal measure in order to take advantage of the mania for the occult, especially as it grew out of freemasonry, that was sweeping across the Europe of the day. The book is presented as a non-fiction biography of the man born Guiseppe Balsamo in Palermo and who, though guile, street smarts, and sheer force of will, transformed himself into a variety of guises - from street tough, to military officer and diplomat, to aristocratic cabbalist.
I say that the book is “presented as a non-fiction biography” due to the approach McCalman takes with his text. While ostensibly non-fiction the text is written almost like a fictional novel (though it is a given that its main character is one worthy of such treatment). I don’t mean to impugn the veracity of any of the bare facts of Balsamo’s life as McCalman narrates them, but I often felt that he was somewhat free with his interpretation of them. One example is the way in which McCalman seems to take examples of Cagliostro’s apparent occult powers at face value, or at least makes no attempt at explaining them away rationally. Whether he discusses an apparently miraculous act of healing (many of which seem to have occurred), a séance to commune with the spirit world, or a prediction that seems to come true McCalman simply states the ‘facts’ and never asks what might actually be behind them. Perhaps this is simply academic rigour on his part: we have no idea how or why certain things appeared to confirm Cagliostro’s vaunted claims, so it is best not to speculate. Also adding to the ‘fictional’ aspect of the narrative is the fact that McCalman often speaks on behalf of his ‘characters’ by putting words in their mouths or thoughts in their heads. They may be perfectly suitable words or thoughts based on the context, but it still seemed a little free. It makes for an entertaining story that moves at a quick pace, but it also led me to wonder if he is was approaching the subject as a scholar or something closer to an apologist.
As we follow the adventurous life of Guiseppe Balsamo from the slums of Palermo to the palaces and drawing rooms of European nobility we are given the picture of a man of contradictions: was this former street tough merely a talented con man and sometimes violent criminal, or was he a true believer in the theories and powers which he ascribed to himself? Was he a product of his times or an antidote to them? How does one explain the cult of personality that grew up around such an unlikely centre, a cult that seemed based as much on what he was able to accomplish as what he promised?
McCalman tackles Balsamo/Cagliostro’s life by separating it into phases, each of which is given a separate chapter with a title that denotes the role he sees Balsamo filling at the time: Freemason, Necromancer, Shaman, etc. Sometimes these distinctions seem a little forced, but they help to give further structure to the narrative. We see how a young man with a penchant for chemistry and art, as well as a flair for the dramatic, parlayed these things into becoming a famed healer, spirit medium, alchemist, and freemason (not to mention con man, forger and supposed political radical). One of the most fascinating aspects of Cagliostro’s life is the relationship, both personal and professional, that he appears to have had with his wife Seraphina. Not only was she aware of his apparent subterfuges, she took an active part in them…a part that many would find both strange and distasteful. It appears as though Cagliostro willingly, and frequently, prostituted his wife to interested parties in order to gain their favour and influence. It does not appear that after whatever initial methods he used to encourage this behaviour that Seraphina seems to have minded. How do we explain this man’s willingness to prostitute his wife? Was her own apparent complicity due to acceptance or even desire on her part or was she forced into this by the realities of the time or the brutality of her husband? They certainly appear to have had a very complicated relationship as evidenced by the final role she played in his downfall. We also get interesting glimpses of numerous historical personages whose lives intersected with Cagliostro’s from Catherine the Great to that other famed rogue and adventurer Casanova.
Ultimately this was an interesting book and a fun read. I don’t know if I’d recommend it as the definitive academic study of the man of contradictions who called himself Count Cagliostro, but it gives a good overview of his life and times, with special attention given to the fervour for occultism and freemasonry that characterized the period. ...more
John Williams plays a modern-day Nicolaus of Damascus as he tells the story of the life of the first, and perhaps greatest, of the Roman empe4.5 stars
John Williams plays a modern-day Nicolaus of Damascus as he tells the story of the life of the first, and perhaps greatest, of the Roman emperors in his book _Augustus_. As opposed to writing a modern ‘novel’ in which he dramatizes the life of his subject, Williams instead cobbles together his life with a patchwork of extracts from the supposed writings of those that knew the man in what could be termed an epistolary work of fictional history. We hear from the three great friends of Augustus’ youth: Gaius Maecenas, Marcus Agrippa, and Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, who were all present on the day that the young Octavian received news of Julius Caesar’s death and set out on his quest to ‘save Rome’ (as well as his own life). His wife Livia, daughter Julia, and frenemies like Marc Antony and Cicero also have their say; as do the poets Vergil and Horace, along with the learned Strabo and Livy (and afore-mentioned Nicolaus of Damascus) to mention only a few of the main narrators (though perhaps correspondents would be a better appellation). Perhaps surprisingly we hear almost nothing from Augustus himself until a lengthy letter at the end of the book gives us some of his remembrances in his own voice.
It could be argued that we learn as much (or more) about the various correspondents, and their views of the first emperor of Rome, as we do about Augustus himself, but as Augustus (at least as portrayed by Williams) would likely agree that it was his impact on the people of Rome, and the world around him, that was the most important aspect of his life, so perhaps the truest accounting of who he was can only be gained by seeing how he was viewed by others. It’s certainly the case that a clear picture of the man, as much as the legend, emerges from these pages regardless of the disparate sources of information. The fact that we get differing points of view from those that both had cause to hate, as well as admire, the man (often embodied in the same person) perhaps makes the picture more reliable than a simple first-hand account from the man himself would be.
What then is this picture that emerges? While not quite a panegyric or hagiography, this work certainly seems to be on the side of its subject, painting the picture of a man driven by necessity and circumstance to become the most powerful man of his world. The fact that Augustus often used violent or ‘underhanded’ means to get his ends is not shied away from, but ultimately he is justified as a man that did the best he could to improve his world with the tools he had at hand. I have always felt that, despite its glory, the Roman Empire was, in the final analysis, an evil (or at the very least misguided) enterprise; a falling away from a purer Republic into an autocratic dictatorship. I don’t know that my overall opinion has changed, but I must admit that based on this book my understanding of the Empire, at least in its beginnings, makes things appear to have been a bit more nuanced than that. Was the fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire perhaps a good thing? At least in its first flush? Was Augustus truly a ‘good man’ who used his absolute power as benevolently as possible in an attempt to overcome the corruption that had already set in and brought about the decay of the old Republic? Was the ultimate downfall of his project the result of circumstances that took away the good men he had groomed, leaving him only with venal and power-hungry successors? Or was the very model of empire upon which he built, in an attempt to consolidate a more effective base of power, the source of all the evils that came after, regardless of who his successors may have been? I don’t think these questions have in any way been definitively answered (by this work or any other I imagine), but the fact that the questions were brought to light was refreshing.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I came to this book, but I definitely came away impressed. I certainly was left with a lot to think about, and a renewed desire to learn more about ancient Rome and the people whose lives Williams’ allowed me to glimpse in however fictional a fashion. It probably really does deserve 5 stars, but I found the last section, where Augustus himself pens a long letter to a friend on the eve of his death, in which he reminisces about his life to be a bit long winded. I was in no way put off by the character of Augustus as seen in his own words, but I think I preferred the mystery of seeing the man from the outside with little or no justification or explanation from the man himself. That being said, it is perhaps only fair to allow the man to have the final word (save the epilogue) in the book that bears his name. Definitely recommended....more
Is there anything worse than feeling like you can’t control your own mind? Can you conceive the helplessness of being able to perceive th3 – 3.5 stars
Is there anything worse than feeling like you can’t control your own mind? Can you conceive the helplessness of being able to perceive the lies that your own brain is telling you, but still being unable to escape them? In feeling unequal to the task of avoiding triggers that send you into depths that despite their destructive tendencies seem at times either desirable or necessary, like picking at a fresh wound to morbidly watch it bleed? Is there anything more self-destructive than depression? To be fair I would imagine every illness is primarily terrifying due to the lack of control one has over one’s self, whether it be a purely physical lack of control over a limb or an organ, or even just one’s overall sense of well-being, but I still can’t help feeling that there is a certain unparalleled horror at the thought that one has little to no control over one’s state of mind. Eventually one can wander into a state like a drunken haze, but far from diminishing the emotional anguish one feels it is actually exacerbated. The pointlessness of one’s life becomes a fact, regardless of the ‘true’ reality of the situation and one ends up playing little more than a waiting game with the ultimate destination likely to be either self-inflicted death or, if one is able to wait it out and find the help one needs, eventual recovery. Unfortunately this help is not in any way a known quantity. What may work for some: medication, counselling, just soldiering through the haze, may have no positive effect on others. Add to that the need for external support at the very time that one least desires to be around others coupled to the fact that one’s emotional and mental state is often seen as inexplicable, distasteful, and even ridiculous to people looking in from the outside and it’s no wonder that recovery from depression is a hard fought battle that often ends in tragic failure.
William Styron, the author of Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner, covers many of these issues in regards to his own bout of severe clinical depression in his memoir _Darkness Visible_. He recalls key moments in the disease’s progression in his life, from the first vague stirrings to the moments of crisis when he knew he was dealing with a life-threatening disease. He details the strange regularity that became a part of his life while he was held in the grip depression, the cycles of limited clarity and soul crushing pain that compartmentalized the moments of his day. He details the near epic failure of his physician to deal with the disease through an apparent inability to grasp the reality of what Styron was experiencing, a problem for all outsiders to the disease, along with ineffective, or downright irresponsible, medication until the final moment of crisis when he was hospitalized and finally found the help he needed to recover. He also provides anecdotes of other sufferers from the world of literature, some of whom he knew personally, others who were only heroes, to give some sense of the widespread nature of the disease as well as the myriad of ways in which it afflicts individuals.
It is notoriously difficult to really explain the experience of depression to those who have not experienced it without resorting to generalities and platitudes, thus making Styron’s job harder. Also, as he notes, it tends to be such a particular illness tailored to each of its victims in a manner as unique as that person’s own history and psyche that any attempt to universalize it or draw any but the most superficial generalizations about the disease is probably bound to fail. Despite this though there are certainly touchstones of commonality for all of its sufferers. Amongst these are the morbid fantasies of suicide, generally misunderstood by external observers, but which “are to the deeply depressed mind what lascivious daydreams are to persons of robust sexuality.” Added to this are the features of self-hatred, an utter lack of belief in one’s self-worth, and an intense sense of loss, whether it be actual or imagined, that each compound the sufferer’s sense that there really is no point to anything anymore regardless of what others might say to them. In early stages the sufferer has to try and pretend that they are still capable of engaging in normal human interaction such as Styron recounts when he was forced to attend a dinner party with friends: “There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship.”
Styron has a lot to say about the then-current state of knowledge and understanding of the disease in the medical and scientific community and while he does try to be even-handed it seems pretty obvious that he had a rather jaundiced view of the medical community’s ability to deal effectively with the disease, or even to understand it. For the most part it often appears as though most practitioners are led by guesswork (as well as the ‘party line’ of whatever school of thought to which they adhere in the psychiatric community) as much as real knowledge and almost seem to view the entire arena as something of a theoretical thought experiment: “The psychiatric literature on depression is enormous, with theory after theory concerning the disease’s etiology proliferating as richly as theories about the death of dinosaurs or the origin of black holes.” Ultimately these theories on depression seem, for the sufferer at least, to be as purely speculative and useful as any of those put forward for the more esoteric fields mentioned. It also seems that there is no escaping the disease given that much of it appears to be derived from a person’s genetics as much as their early experiences and so for Styron: “Thus depression, when it finally came to me, was in fact no stranger, not even a visitor totally unannounced: it had been tapping at my door for decades.”
I couldn’t say I enjoyed this memoir, but I did appreciate its candour and honesty in the face of a disease still generally treated with fear and misunderstanding by the world at large. Blaming the victim is not an uncommon event in many aspects of human life, but it seems to gain a level of tragic poignancy in these cases where a person’s own mind seems to betray them....more
_Tolkien and the Great War_ is an obviously well-researched book that goes into explicit (at times I must admit tedious) detail on J. R. 2.5 – 3 stars
_Tolkien and the Great War_ is an obviously well-researched book that goes into explicit (at times I must admit tedious) detail on J. R. R. Tolkien’s involvement in World War I and its possible impact on his then-current and later writings. We begin by observing Tolkien’s earliest close friendships formed at St.King Edward’s Grammar School under the auspices of the “TCBS” (an acronym for Tea Club, Barrovian Society) where the core group of Tolkien, Christopher Wiseman, Robert Gilson, and G. B. Smith became close artistic confidantes, encouragers and critics of each other’s work. Convinced that they were a group that would change the world with their work, their dreams were turned to harsh reality with the advent of “the war to end all wars”.
We spend the majority of the remainder of the book following Garth as he traces the movements and vicissitudes of the various platoons to which each member of the TCBS was assigned, with a special concentration on Tolkien himself. It’s common knowledge that the Great War winnowed a generation, destroying the optimism of the Edwardian era and putting paid to facile romantic notions of the heroism of war. The ‘innovations’ of technology that made killing men easier than it ever had been before, along with the harrowing conditions of trench life and seemingly incompetent leadership, made this conflict a wake-up call for the world that shattered many illusions. As Tolkien himself noted: “By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.” In the midst of this carnage and despair Tolkien managed to begin work on the poems and stories that would become the germ for his masterpieces The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as well as the accompanying material that would evolve into the posthumously published The Silmarillion.
Garth does a fine job giving us details of the World War I experience, but I have to admit that in general I was a bit underwhelmed by this book. I found the prose to be a bit workmanlike, and this wasn’t helped by the sheer amount of detail. I appreciate the thoroughness of Garth’s research, but I did find my eyes glazing over a bit from time to time as troop movements, platoon names, and other details were gone into. Some of the extra biographical detail given on Tolkien was interesting, but I must admit that most of it I already knew, at least in broad strokes, from other sources so I didn’t come away feeling that I had learned anything heretofore unknown to me about the man himself. The main gist of Garth’s critical argument, namely that Tolkien, far from being an anachronistic throwback despite his literary tastes, was actually truly a man of his era who was responding uniquely to the horrors present at the birth of the twentieth century has also been covered by others, especially Tom Shippey in several of his works.
I did find the last section of the book the most interesting. In it Garth concentrates almost exclusively on the early writings Tolkien did in what would ultimately become his legendarium of Middle Earth and examines how his experiences in the war may have coloured the world he created, or even been lifted from direct experiences in his life. It is a kind of ‘biographical criticism’ for which Tolkien himself had great distaste and whose value he felt was dubious at best, but I must admit that much of what Garth posits makes sense to me, and I imagine that Tolkien’s youth, coupled with the monumental nature of the events through which he was living, could not help but leave their mark on what he wrote in ways perhaps more apparent than exists in his later, more mature writings.
In retrospect my review is probably unduly harsh. This was a fine work of biographical criticism giving great detail about a formative period of a great writer’s life. I think it was simply the fact that I wasn’t utterly wowed by the book, and found some moments slow going, that made it an interesting, though not inspiring, experience for me. ...more
This third volume of Sassoon’s semi-auto-biographical yet ostensibly fictional memoirs of the Great War opens with George Sherston committed to a miliThis third volume of Sassoon’s semi-auto-biographical yet ostensibly fictional memoirs of the Great War opens with George Sherston committed to a military mental hospital for ‘shell-shock’ due to his recently published statement against the war. Here he meets Dr. Rivers, the psychologist who is to have a lasting impact on his life, and ultimately spends much of his time golfing, reading, reliving his peace-time life by taking part in some local hunts, and talking about his “mental state” with the good doctor. Interestingly the result of Sherston’s treatment is to cause him to, if not repudiate his earlier statement against the war, at least to revise it and instil in him a deep desire to return to the front, for he “would rather be killed than survive as one who had ‘wangled’ his way through by saying that the War ought to stop.” I’m not sure how I feel about this since it was Sherston’s (and by extension Sassoon’s) rejection of the insanity of the war on behalf of other soldiers that made him such a unique ‘war hero’ and now his apparent about-turn leaves me a bit ambivalent.
Aside from the obvious opportunities for leisure that Sherston takes advantage of as part of his recuperation, his time at the hospital also gives him a chance to see other walking wounded whose mental scars are much deeper than his own. He comes to see the real cost and horror of war and he is not oblivious to the high price involved despite his renewed enthusiasm to return to the fighting. Sherston realizes that it may often be worse to be a survivor than a casualty of the guns & bombs as he witnesses men
many of whom had looked at their companions and laughed while inferno did its best to destroy them. Not then was their evil hour, but now; now, in the sweating suffocation of nightmare, in paralysis of limbs, in the stammering of dislocated speech. Worst of all, in the disintegration of those qualities through which they had been so gallant and selfless and uncomplaining—this, in the finer types of men, was the unspeakable tragedy of shell-shock
Sherston’s own version of shell-shock seems to be most intimately related to a deep nostalgia for, and desire to return to, the Front Line from which at the time he had so greatly wished to escape. He does admit, however, that his rebellious side has not been fully ‘cured’ and he is aware (at least in retrospect) of his own ambivalent attitude to the war itself:
That was how active service used to hoodwink us. Wonderful moments in the War, we called them, and told people at home that after all we wouldn't have missed it for worlds. But it was only one's youngness, really, and the fact of being in a foreign country with a fresh mind. Not because of the War, but in spite of it, we felt such zest and fulfilment, and remembered it later on with nostalgic regret, forgetting the miseries and grumblings, and how we longed for it to come to an end. Nevertheless, there I was, a living antithesis to the gloomier entries in my diary, and a physical retraction of my last year's protest against the "political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men were being sacrificed".
Thus Sherston continues to be aware of the continual failings of the war machine at the same time that he voluntarily returns to it.
After being discharged from the hospital Sherston returns to the war, though his first posting (much to his dismay) is to Palestine, not the Western Front. Here he becomes enamoured of the beauty of nature and begins to throw himself into his work as an officer with the aim of making the lives of his men easier, taking on a decidedly paternal role. Ultimately this limbo-like war experience cannot last, and his Brigade is sent to France where fresh troops are needed to fight against recent German advances. Once back in familiar territory Sherston seems almost nostalgic to be back “home” on the front line he so vividly remembered, though he does tend to sublimate both his fear of death and his feelings of inadequacy as an officer by rash acts of valour (his self-avowed moments of “knight-errantry”) when he heads out alone into No-Man’s Land. He freely admits to himself that these are prompted more by fear and ennui than by any sense of bravery. Aside from the ability to lose himself in the ‘excitement’ of action Sherston’s other greatest comfort is his ability, and opportunity, to find refuge in books. He looks at the mostly uneducated soldiers under his command with pity, for they have nothing to turn to except for the small cafes set-up by the military where they spend nearly all of their pay in order to drink away their worries. The War is not only wiping out a generation, but leaving survivors who are the victims of shell-shock and alcoholism.
As with all of the other volumes in this series of memoirs, _Sherston’s Progess_ ends rather abruptly, though it does come full circle to the beginning of the volume: hit by friendly fire Sherston is sent back home for the last time, there to once again meet up with Dr. Rivers. The war is still on-going, though we are told it will end in a matter of months, and Sherston is left contemplating both what he will do with his life from this point forward and reminiscing on what the war has made him into. All in all this series of books was an intriguing look into the life of a soldier during the first ‘Great War’ that shaped the 20th century and into the mind of a sensitive and artistic individual forced into a world of horrors and death in the name of the “greater good”. ...more
Reading works like this makes me wonder how the human race has survived the hugely numerous and multifarious wars, battles, skirmishes, a3.5 – 4 stars
Reading works like this makes me wonder how the human race has survived the hugely numerous and multifarious wars, battles, skirmishes, and ‘military actions’ that it has undertaken during the relatively brief span of its existence when they constantly bring home just how truly limited the insight and abilities of the military elite to see beyond their own arses seems to be. The glamourization of war in both historical and current popular culture makes the ability of a highly trained force of soldiers under the direction of charismatic leaders to meet their objectives appear a no-brainer. When one really stops to ponder the sheer logistics involved in the organization and deployment of anything approaching the size of an army, adds to that the conflicting aims of the various political entities or opinions involved (on only one side of the conflict), and then layers in the seemingly absurd pride of place given to the egos and various personal manias of the leaders making all ‘strategic’ decisions one soon realizes that we ought to have wiped ourselves off of the globe a long time ago. The sheer pigheaded inertia of the military mindset which allows it to calmly accept the fact of attrition as a valid method to achieve success and thus throwing away thousands, if not millions, of human lives in the name of achieving ill-defined (or even explicitly well-defined) political and military objectives rather than re-think the current political position or military tactics is terrifying. Simply confining oneself to such modern military actions as the Civil War, WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War and being constantly told of the insanely costly (in human lives) fuck ups that various battles or engagements were simply due to the wrong people being given the power to lead and make tactical or strategic decisions for the wrong reasons blows my mind.
Thus we come to the continuing story of George Sherston (the semi-autobiographical stand-in for author Siegfried Sassoon) who, by this second volume of his memoirs, has graduated from a somewhat feckless and leisure loving dilettante of the upper middle class to become an old hand as a low-level officer in the Machine that is the allied force of WWI. This is not to say that Sherston feels in any way qualified for his job, for the most part he is simply trying to muddle along and look like he knows what he’s about without making any errors that are too egregious or obvious. This eminently unqualified (except by his place on the social ladder) individual assigned to lead his men in battle readily admits at one point that “I had no idea where our objective was, but the corporal informed me that we had reached it, and he seemed to know his business.” To me that statement alone stands as an utterly terrifying testimony to the situation for many of the men, both leaders and led, in the Great War. As the story opens Sherston at least has faith in both the alleged aims of the powers that are leading the war from his side as well and their ability to do so. This conviction begins to waver, however, as he sees friends and comrades drop like flies to gain (if anything) little more than a few feet of muddy ground in increasingly botched actions along the trenches of the western front. Compounding this are the sheer monotony, confusion, and uncertainty that characterize the quiet moments filling up the lengthy gaps between the terrifying chances to lose one’s life. Sherston recalls a moment typical of his front line experience:
But I can remember a pair of hands (nationality unknown) which protruded from the soaked ashen soil like the roots of a tree turned upside down; one hand seemed to be pointing at the sky with an accusing gesture. Each time I passed that place the protest of those fingers became more expressive of an appeal to God in defiance of those who made the War. Who made the War? I laughed hysterically as the thought passed through my mud-stained mind.
“Such sights must be taken for granted…” reflects Sherston, but the disturbance they cause deeper in his psyche can ultimately not be ignored.
Sherston is one of the lucky ones. Through a series of illnesses brought on by the poor conditions in the trenches and a few ‘lucky’ wounds he is able to leave the front at key times and return to ‘Merry Olde England’ when he would otherwise have likely met the bullet with his name on it as did so many of the friends and comrades he names in these memoirs. It is during these quiet moments that he is able to contrast the conditions of his strange new life with those being lived by the civilians at home. It becomes clearer & clearer to him that these civilians in England are no longer a part of Sherston’s world whether they are the well-meaning, but vacuous, supporters of the British war effort against “the Boche”, or war profiteers and ‘conscientious objectors’ living in relative comfort and ease while the cream of young men from his generation are being obliterated at a staggering rate. Indeed everyone around him (even, or perhaps especially, the commanders on the home front) seems to completely misunderstand the position of the soldiers in the trenches and Sherston is slowly forced to re-evaluate his position on the war. As with the participants in many other wars Sherston slowly becomes disassociated from his own countrymen. He is no longer a member of the society for which he is fighting, he is instead a member of
…the survivors; few among us would ever tell the truth to our friends and relations in England. We were carrying something in our heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we had left behind us in the battle.
He is a member of a much smaller community formed by violence and loss and he begins to realize that he has more in common with the enemy, a likely group of ‘poor blighters’ more akin to him and his friends, than any of these ‘allies’ at home.
Slowly Sherston comes to hate the war and all of the meaningless death and destruction it brings. As he digs further and asks more questions he comes to believe that those in charge, the people for whom he and his friends are putting their lives on the line, are pursuing not a noble war of defense in the face of tyranny, but a war of aggrandizement and acquisition. Is this worth dying for? Is it worth killing for? Sherston knows the answer to these questions that his own heart gives, though he feels keenly the futility and alienation of his position should it ever become known. Still, he begins to tentatively travel in some of the anti-war circles of his day and formulates an idea that he must do something, anything, even if it is simply to state his opposition to the horrors continuing unless the Allies’ objectives become clear and open knowledge. He is not really a member of the anti-war intelligentsia though, and even his desire to act in some way outside of the military sphere is one fraught with internal conflict. He is still simply a soldier thinking of the needs of other soldiers and while it may be true that in the eyes of the anti-war protestors
…there was no credit attached to the fact of having been at the front… for me it had been a supremely important experience. I am obliged to admit that if these anti-war enthusiasts hadn't happened to be likeable I might have secretly despised them.
In the end this second volume of his memoirs closes in media res as Sherston sends in his statement of protest (just as Sassoon himself did in reality) and awaits imprisonment as a criminal or confinement as a mentally ill invalid with the prospect that no good at all may come of his apparently futile gesture. ...more
On the one hand Siegfried Sassoon’s _The Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man_ (the first volume in a trilogy)can be seen as a **spoiler alert** 3 – 3.5 stars
On the one hand Siegfried Sassoon’s _The Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man_ (the first volume in a trilogy)can be seen as a paen to the idyllic way of life of a country gentleman before the war to end all wars destroyed any pretence to concepts of chivalry and gallant action. On the other hand it can be seen as an indictment (knowing or otherwise) of the generally indolent and purposeless lives of the idle rich before an entire generation was nearly decimated. Either way it is a well-written and interesting picture of Edwardian life seen from the point of view of someone definitely in the upstairs portion of the upstairs/downstairs equation.
George Sherston (a semi-autobiographical stand-in for Sassoon) is the ‘hero’ of our tale, a young upper-middle class/lower-aristocratic orphan being raised by his well-meaning and generally absent aunt in the idyllic English countryside. His main concerns are cricket and fox hunting, and he is saved from seeming to be an utter upper class prig by virtue of his relatively shy nature and well-meaning intentions (not to mention his fairly impecuniary status compared to most other members of his social circle). Young Sherston also seems to take quite some time to grow into himself, and his longstanding feelings of being a virtual outsider in his own society, exiled to live in the far-flung environs of his aunt’s estate while the rest of the fashionable world seems to mostly pass him by, also allows him to be a fairly sympathetic narrative voice for readers who are also looking in on his world from the outside.
Sherston is something of a loner, his education being mostly the result of ‘home schooling’ under a tutor and his university experience cut short when he decides he’d rather play cricket and follow the hunt than take a degree. The best friend of Sherston’s youth is probably his groom and all-around gentleman’s gentleman Tom Dixon who is the primary influence in making young George into a “sporting man”. His solitary life does not seem to be broken up by much companionship of his own age until he meets Stephen Colwood, the son of a rector and fellow enthusiast in both the hunt and the related point-to-point races they spawn. The two soon grow quite close, aiding each other in their attempts to ensure they come up to the requirements of a model huntsman (which really in their case means horseman since their primary concern is having a good piece of horseflesh with which to jump over fences and race across the countryside) and take part in the best outings of the season. The only other significant character in these memoirs (aside from genial old Aunt Evelyn who remains mostly a passive and amiable figure in the background) is the enigmatic Denis Milden, a young fox hunter hero-worshipped by Sherston in his younger days who eventually reappears as a Master of the Hunt whose friendship and approval George prizes above almost all else. Peppered throughout all of these reminiscences, however, are a host of amusing and varied secondary characters who make up the bulk of the hunting society and rural village community that are Sherston’s entire world.
So far it sounds pretty priggish and boring, doesn’t it? I have to admit that there isn’t exactly a lot of high octane action, but Sassoon keeps things moving as each chapter highlights various events of signal importance to young Sherston’s growth as both a horseman and a man, from his initial successful cricket matches and his time spent with various hunting groups, to his purchase of his first excellent “piece of horseflesh” and eventual success at the all-important point-to-point races. Ultimately everything leads to the final two sections and his enlistment in the army as WWI looms unexpectedly from out of the quiet pastoral background in which he has been snuggly swaddled up to this point. The latter segments are likely where most reader’s main interest will lie (as well as in the next volume of the trilogy that makes up the memoirs of George Sherston’s experiences as an Infantry officer at the front) in order to get some insight into how a relatively feckless young man could grow into a soldier and leader in one of the most crushing episodes of the modern era. This is probably especially the case given the book’s semi-autobiographical nature and Sassoon’s place as one of the premier War Poets of the day, not to mention his position as a famous agitator for peace while still a soldier (of course we must always keep in mind that there is not a one-to-one correlation of Sherston to Sassoon regardless of the shared experiences they may have had). The early segments are certainly still of interest, though, for they do a good job of showing us the kind of inexperienced young men, whose heads were filled with thoughts of gallantry and were raised in days of relatively placid complacence, who were ultimately called upon to sacrifice themselves in the midst of horror and chaos. I even found myself carried along with Sherston’s own anxiety mixed with expectation as he ran his first great point-to-point race and was holding my breath until the very end. He really is such a likable young man that you can’t help but be infected by his inner thoughts and concerns, no matter how trivial they appear when you examine them from a wider context. Sherston himself, as narrator, is distinctly aware of this as he remembers his worries on the eve of a race:
Anyone who cares to do so is at liberty to make fun of the trepidations which a young man carries about with him and conceals. But there is a risk in such ridicule. As I remember and write, I grin, but not unkindly, at my distant and callow self and the absurdities which constitute his chronicle. To my mind the only thing that matters is the resolve to do something...even though [these thoughts] are only about buying a racing-cap.
When he first gets to the front, Sherston finds that he is one of the lucky ones, posted as Transportation Officer for his platoon and thus stationed behind the trenches. Still, he has to experience the hardships of army life and quietly, almost without comment in the memoirs, he experiences the deaths of his best friend Stephen Colwood and mentor Tom Dixon (the latter having joined up even though he was nearing fifty). All of the tragedies he witnesses are treated in this way, matter of fact; they are something to be regretted, but not something that one has any real power to change. It is in this context that, while on leave in England, Sherston ponders what has become of his life stating simply: “…I began to realize that my past was wearing a bit thin. The War seemed to have made up its mind to obliterate all those early adventures of mine. Point-to-point cups shone, but without conviction. And Dixon was dead…” That simple final statement of fact seems to contain in it a world of loss, expressed in the most austere manner possible. Sherston soon discovers that whether it is terrifying danger or mind-numbing boredom, the only way to deal with the horrors of his new life is to forget what he had left behind to “…try and feel secretly heroic, and to look back on the old life as pointless and trivial.”
One of the most feeling, though still poignantly understated, episodes is when Sherston loses a friend he had only met after enlisting and with whom he had managed to get posted to the same battalion:
Once the chaplain’s words were obliterated by a prolonged burst of machine-gun fire; when he had finished a trench-mortar ‘cannister’ fell a few hundred yards away, spouting the earth up with a crash. A sack was lowered into a hole in the ground. The sack was Dick. I knew Death then.
It is this constant, trudging experience, even expectation, of death and loss, that begins to form a change in Sherston. The happy-go-lucky cricketer and huntsman is beginning to appreciate some of the darker realities of the wider world outside of his limited and parochial experience. Men under his charge die instantly and largely without comment, or quietly suffer a life of indignity and squalor in the name of a country whose concerns and existence seem more than a world away. It is in the midst of these harsh experiences that we begin to see a true echo of the feelings of Sassoon the writer come forth most boldly in Sherston the character. He remembers a period in the early days when he could still feel that…”the War was inevitable and justifiable. Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity.” The hardening of George Sherston’s heart has begun and when the opportunity comes for him to escape his cushy posting in favour of joining his comrades at the front he jumps at it. This quiet and gentle young man has been so desensitized by his quiet losses that he has reached the point where he could cold-bloodedly decide to go “…to the trenches with the intention of trying to kill someone. It was my idea of getting a bit of my own back.” Not a feeling we are likely to find surprising, or all that blameworthy given his circumstances, but even then Sherston is conflicted and we are left with a final sight of the young officer standing watch across no-man’s land as a bird sings to the sunrise on Easter morning: “Standing in that dismal ditch, I could find no consolation in the thought that Christ was risen. I sploshed back to the dug-out to call the others up for ‘stand-to’.” ...more
_The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot_ (vol. 1) were something I approached with a small amount of trepidation. There was a fairly good chance that _The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot_ (vol. 1) were something I approached with a small amount of trepidation. There was a fairly good chance that these remembrances of an old Napoleonic soldier from the Grande Armée might be dry as dust, but they are actually quite entertaining. Marbot is a charming raconteur and it is easy to believe that Arthur Conan Doyle used this book as one of his primary sources when writing his equally charming adventures of the Brigadier Etienne Gerard. Some have seen Marbot himself as the inspiration for Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard, but while the General is certainly not averse to blowing his own horn when the occasion permits (even to the point of allowing himself to second guess Napoleon with the wisdom of hindsight) he seems to me an altogether more mindful figure than Gerard. I think, though, that his very first mentor might as well be Gerard himself and I’m sure his description tickled Doyle’s imagination: "This example of the old type of Hussar was a rowdy, quarrelsome, swashbuckling, tippler, but also brave to the point of foolhardiness; for the rest, he was completely ignorant of anything that was not connected with his horse, his arms and his duties in the face of the enemy."
We begin with a quick glimpse into Marbot’s early life and education, his memories of an idyllic childhood, and his attachment to his father, a French general whose example did much to inspire Marbot in his own military pursuits. Both were actually present at the seige of Genoa where Marbot’s father died under the horrific circumstances of famine which the defending soldiers and townsfolk experienced. Indeed I was a little surprised to see that Marbot’s descriptions of his military experiences were not all simply the glorious memories of a swashbuckling soldier coloured with splendour by the misty glow of hindsight. After the siege of Genoa Marbot was forced to convalesce as he experienced something akin to shellshock and
…fell into a state of sombre melancholy, and [his] health deteriorated. [He] had suffered so much, physically and mentally! [He] became incapable of doing any work.
After recovering and returning to active duty Marbot rose quickly through the ranks and was aide-de-camp for many of Napoleon’s greatest generals, thus giving him an intimate view of the actions and decisions and the power brokers of the day. This has resulted in more than a few amusing anecdotes, such as the story of the body of General Morland, killed in battle on the Pratzen heights, which was supposedly preserved in a cask of rum in order that Napoleon might inter it in a mausoleum to be built on the Esplanade des Invalides. It appears that the mausoleum was never built and the general’s body was still in a room in the school of medicine when Napoleon lost his empire in 1814. So much for the glory of the dead. Or again the classic tale of intrigue revolving around M. de Czernicheff, a Russian colonel and intimate of the Czar who according to Marbot was “Handsome, courteous, likeable, highly deceitful and exquisitely polite…” and used his political connections to gain access to the French court at which point he beguiled a clerk of the Ministry for War to sell him secrets. He was not apprehended, being warned by a lover of Napoleon’s suspicion, leaving the poor clerk to be shot by a firing squad.
Marbot is also not averse to pointing out the failings of his superiors. He notes with disdain the attitude of a foppish general who disbelieved Marbot’s scouting report of a sizeable Russian force ahead of them and instead decided to continue his luncheon and then barrel ahead with no regard for what he had been told lies beyond the nearby forest, much to his eventual chagrin. He will, at times, even go so far as to question the wisdom of some of the decisions of the Emperor himself, attributing hubris to some of his more fatal decisions, despite his obvious love for his commander.
All in all this was an entertaining read as it not only gave me some grounding in an era of history with which I was not previously much familiar, but a pleasurable one as well as it was seen through the eyes of one who had lived through it and was not afraid to give his opinions and let slip a few anecdotes that gave colour to his tale. ...more
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