Does no one read history any more? The author's entire idea is 19th century Nativism and the eugenic hysteria of Madison Grant's 'The Passing of the GDoes no one read history any more? The author's entire idea is 19th century Nativism and the eugenic hysteria of Madison Grant's 'The Passing of the Great Race' rejigged for the 21st century. Do Americans know how incredibly stupid they sound describing 'Hispanics' as an alien, non white (as if that mattered) race. Does no one see the warmed over anti-catholicism of its Anglo-protestant heritage clap trap? I rather prefer Madison Grant, he was at least honest in his prejudices.
(My apologies but I posted a version of this review before correcting it, so forgive the duplication. This is the proper review).
A group of university(My apologies but I posted a version of this review before correcting it, so forgive the duplication. This is the proper review).
A group of university friends agree that in ten years, if one of them gets rich, they'll hire a yacht and all go on a fabulous holiday and low-and-behold in ten years it comes to pass and they sail around the Mediterranean, except for their host who can't come because he's too busy making money (not surprising when rent luxury yachts cost from $150,000+ per week). Then the yacht breaks down and they all settle in a luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, still on their friends tab.
As soon as I read this I was distracted by questions, did they make this agreement at graduation or before? Was ten years part of the agreement or was that just the amount of time it took for one of them to become obscenely rich? Who, unless they are already from yacht owning backgrounds, imagines, at 21, that in ten years they or any of their friends are going to be in a position to hire a yacht? Why, although they are now all 31+ do they still act, behave and talk like teenagers? Why are none of them married, with children? How many people ten years after graduation are still in regular touch with one, let alone ten friends from university?
Almost immediately this collection of friends encounter a mysterious older man, Raul, who proceeds to perform wonders, like curing one of a painful tennis shoulder, another is informed of a lost fortune that will enable him to leave his job, pay off his college debts and 'sail off with the young sailor who lent you his hat two nights ago' and finally warns he their absent host against a approaching financial catastrophe in time to save his fortune (and presumably bankroll his friends holiday).
Almost immediately I was distracted by memories of countless films, most of them old ones, involving groups of strangers meeting in a hotel like 'Halfway House' or 'The Man in the White Suit' or on boats in 'Between Two Worlds' but gradually realised this trope also covered films like 'Ten Little Indians' and those Amicus portmanteau 'D. Terror' horror films and probably every disaster movie ever made. Still I was intrigued to see what Aciman would make of it.
What he did was abandon it, the friends from a broken down yacht (I wonder if any of them wondered why only one of them was told how to become rich and sail off into the sunset? Did the one with the cured tennis shoulder see it as a paltry gift in comparison?) and the story concentrates on Raul sweeping one young lady off on a tour of his memories in which she is his first love who died at 22 in a car crash. Not the reincarnation, more a rebirth of this person, and sure enough as he whisks her about his family home she remembers who she was (who she currently is doesn't seem to matter).
Aciman devotes an inordinate amount of this novella's 169 pages with Raul, not explaining his powers, but explaining his philosophy '...the moment two individuals love each other for who each truly is then time for them stops, and if these two don't die together, then the partner who lives on never recovers, never forgets, and keeps waiting until they meet again in who knows how many lifetimes..." is one the laboriously wordy, but meaningless expositions we are treated to. Considering how short the book is they can't be that lengthy, but they do read as if they were interminable.
This was page 41 and how managed to make it through the next 120 pages (and they are small pages) is a bit of mystery because I hated every sentence - the whole book was a large dollop of over sweetened schmatz on top of sticky, rich pudding of cliches. There is actually something disturbing in Aciman's obsession as he gets older with first love being the great love story and vastly older men involved with women almost young enough to be their granddaughters (his excerable 2019 'Call Me' was full of the same themes. Interestingly 'The Gentleman from Peru' was first published as an audiobook in 2020 makes it, for me, a new edition, not a new work).
There are so many things about this story I loath, Raul who can dissolve kidney stones by touch and see the future but spends his time curing tennis shoulder and providing stock market tips for millionaires? In the near 40 years of his adult life is this the best he could do with such a gift? Did he ever think that maybe he had wasted his gift doing party tricks for the jeunesse dorée trash of wealthy seaside resorts?
Is love only possible when you are 20 with a full head of hair and a flat tummy and a private beach and coastal villa to wander about in lovely linen clothes? What if you are 20 and fat? Is love not possible? Is it only possible for Oscar and the young sailor to find love if they have money? Does love survive the 'pram in the hall' or is it only possible when there are nannies and boarding schools?
I really hated Raul and his true love through time with Margot/Maya and vapid, pretentious, but bogus pronouncements on life the universe and love. Only two groups of people think young love is forever or that losing it will kill you, the very young because they know no better; and the old because they want once to experience that 'Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven'.
This novella is appalling, it is an embarrassing, mastabatory fantasy trash of a geriatric who has abandoned any attempt at writing something worthwhile....more
This book is written by the author Jan Morris, who once was James Morris (but not the James Morris profiled on Goodreads), but not to recognise her neThis book is written by the author Jan Morris, who once was James Morris (but not the James Morris profiled on Goodreads), but not to recognise her new name and sex is, for 2024, worse then transphobic it is an insult. Even more so as neither that neither volume I or III of the Pax Britannica trilogy of which this is volume III are not listed under Jan Morris's 'books' on Goodreads. I could spend every day explaining these mistakes to the Goodreads Librarians group but I don't have the time. Do you?
This is the same review I posted against Volume I and III of the Pax Britannica trilogy because my remarks are true to all volumes of really embarrassingly bad work. My Review:
This book, and its two companion volumes, is described by its author as an attempt to capture the feel of the British empire, the view it held of itself, written by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Why that or its florid, and very readable prose, should excuse the grotesquely one-sided presentation of a historical period is hard to understand. What would we think of a history of Nazi Germany's empire building told as a history of the foibles and eccentricities of those madcap National Socialists! That funny little man with his silly mustache at the top of a pyramid of striving officials and soldiers! All those funny encounters between those cultured, educated German administrators attempting to create order in the vast, uncivilized reaches of their empire confronting recalcitrant Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians and who knows what others, those, 'new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child', that the German nation had sent out their best young men 'To serve your captives need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild' and what thanks do they get? None, all that happens is they 'reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard' and after fighting 'The savage wars of peace' they find some Irish, Black, Indian, Pakistan, Pinko, Poufter, Leftie who, when 'your goal is nearest' come along and with 'Sloth and heathen Folly, Bring all your hopes to nought.'
That Britain, just as much as the Nazis, or other empire builder:
'ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant' (created a desert and called it peace, a quote from Tacitus)
is what makes this compulsively readable book an offense because it is apologia for a system that ground a quarter of the world under the heels of some incredibly mediocre people. It was about power and millions not having it and a very, very few white Englishmen from a miniscule part of that nation's population having it. Of course there were a few women involved, there were Irish, Scottish and Welsh men who took part and behaved as abominably as their English counterparts, there were even men from poor and working class backgrounds enthusiastically taking part in the rapine and plunder; but the agenda was set and lead by that minority of over breed and unthinking products of England's upper middle and gentry classes.
I try to find a reason to excuse this, and the other volumes in the Pax Britannica trilogy, almost pathological racism. That Jan Morris was an outsider in many ways as well as a liberal, possibly free thinking, individual makes it worse, though it is a salutary lesson on far attitudes have changed in the past half century, thank goodness. The Pax Britannica trilogy are only worth reading as a demonstration of the delusions the British had and the lies they told about their empire. It is unbelievable how long it took for people in the UK to actually grasp the reality of their country's deeds abroad and how resistant they were to referring to, or viewing, the 1857 Indian rebellion as anything but 'the Indian or Sepoy mutiny'.
All those noble Englishmen intent on doing good, all those funny, childlike foreigners stopping them, is it really that excessive to draw comparisons with Nazi empire building?
I come from England's oldest colony (Ireland) and despite how much I regard the actions of England over many hundreds of years as baleful but I do not believe that the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was a deliberate policy of genocide. It was the result of viewing Ireland through the lens of what mattered for England. For longer than half a millennium Ireland was dealt with as an adjunct of England. It mattered only in so far as it impinged on England. That is the story of all England's imperial possessions, particularly India. Britain didn't allow the 1943 Bengal famine to happen through hatred of Indians (though Churchill's rampant and openly expressed disdain for Indians does suggest, as far as he was concerned, their deaths was not something for him to lose sleep over) but because India only existed to make Britain great and powerful. Irish peoples opinions or desires, exactly like those of the people of India, just did not matter. The English rulers of Ireland, India and elsewhere thought they knew better what was good for ordinary Irish or Indian people then the Irish or Indians who claimed to be their leaders.
It is more than military repression, economic exploitation and cultural debasement that left a legacy in former colonies, a quarter of the world ended up with Stockholm syndrome.
Books like the Pax Britannica trilogy need to be banished to Trotsky's capacious dustbin of history. You should only be reading them if you have read at least a few of the following in part:
'Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903)' by Aidan Forth 'Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire' by Caroline Elkins 'Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor 'Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan' by William Dalrymple 'The Anarchy: the Relentless Rise of The East India Company' by William Dalrymple 'Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age' by Stephen R. Platt 'Paddy’s Lament: Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred' by Thomas Gallagher 'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham
I could go on and on, there is a wealth of information available now that was undreamt of when Jan Morris wrote these books. Caroline Eakins has revealed, via long legal battles, how much of Britain's colonial history has been systematically suppressed, destroyed and hidden. This isn't about portraying Britain as bad it is about growing up and accepting that if for 500 years a quarter of the world was impoverished to make a few thousand Brits wealthy it is time to face up to that. If you are one of the vast majority of British people whose ancestors never benefited from that wealth then perhaps it will make you look with a critical eye and those who did and their descendants who are still benefiting....more
This book is written by the author Jan Morris, who once was James Morris (but not the James Morris profiled here), but not to recognise her new name aThis book is written by the author Jan Morris, who once was James Morris (but not the James Morris profiled here), but not to recognise her new name and sex is, for 2024, worse then transphobic it is an insult. Even more so as neither this book, nor Heaven's Command (volume I of the Pax Britannica trilogy of which this is volume III, for some reason Volume II is correctly listed under Jan Morris's name) are not listed anywhere against Jan Morris 'books' on Goodreads. I could spend every day explaining these mistakes to Goodreads Librarians but I don't have the time. Do you?
This is the same review I posted against Volume I and II of the Pax Britannica trilogy because my remarks are true to all volumes of really embarrassingly bad work. My Review:
This book, and its two companion volumes, is described by its author as an attempt to capture the feel of the British empire, the view it held of itself, written by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Why that or its florid, and very readable prose, should excuse the grotesquely one-sided presentation of a historical period is hard to understand. What would we think of a history of Nazi Germany's empire building told as a history of the foibles and eccentricities of those madcap National Socialists! That funny little man with his silly mustache at the top of a pyramid of striving officials and soldiers! All those funny encounters between those cultured, educated German administrators attempting to create order in the vast, uncivilized reaches of their empire confronting recalcitrant Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians and who knows what others, those, 'new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child', that the German nation had sent out their best young men 'To serve your captives need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild' and what thanks do they get? None, all that happens is they 'reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard' and after fighting 'The savage wars of peace' they find some Irish, Black, Indian, Pakistan, Pinko, Poufter, Leftie who, when 'your goal is nearest' come along and with 'Sloth and heathen Folly, Bring all your hopes to nought.'
That Britain, just as much as the Nazis, or other empire builder:
'ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant' (created a desert and called it peace, a quote from Tacitus)
is what makes this compulsively readable book an offense because it is apologia for a system that ground a quarter of the world under the heels of some incredibly mediocre people. It was about power and millions not having it and a very, very few white Englishmen from a miniscule part of that nation's population having it. Of course there were a few women involved, there were Irish, Scottish and Welsh men who took part and behaved as abominably as their English counterparts, there were even men from poor and working class backgrounds enthusiastically taking part in the rapine and plunder; but the agenda was set and lead by that minority of over breed and unthinking products of England's upper middle and gentry classes.
I try to find a reason to excuse this, and the other volumes in the Pax Britannica trilogy, almost pathological racism. That Jan Morris was an outsider in many ways as well as a liberal, possibly free thinking, individual makes it worse, though it is a salutary lesson on far attitudes have changed in the past half century, thank goodness. The Pax Britannica trilogy are only worth reading as a demonstration of the delusions the British had and the lies they told about their empire. It is unbelievable how long it took for people in the UK to actually grasp the reality of their country's deeds abroad and how resistant they were to referring to, or viewing, the 1857 Indian rebellion as anything but 'the Indian or Sepoy mutiny'.
All those noble Englishmen intent on doing good, all those funny, childlike foreigners stopping them, is it really that excessive to draw comparisons with Nazi empire building?
I come from England's oldest colony (Ireland) and despite how much I regard the actions of England over many hundreds of years as baleful but I do not believe that the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was a deliberate policy of genocide. It was the result of viewing Ireland through the lens of what mattered for England. For longer than half a millennium Ireland was dealt with as an adjunct of England. It mattered only in so far as it impinged on England. That is the story of all England's imperial possessions, particularly India. Britain didn't allow the 1943 Bengal famine to happen through hatred of Indians (though Churchill's rampant and openly expressed disdain for Indians does suggest, as far as he was concerned, their deaths was not something for him to lose sleep over) but because India only existed to make Britain great and powerful. Irish peoples opinions or desires, exactly like those of the people of India, just did not matter. The English rulers of Ireland, India and elsewhere thought they knew better what was good for ordinary Irish or Indian people then the Irish or Indians who claimed to be their leaders.
It is more than military repression, economic exploitation and cultural debasement that left a legacy in former colonies, a quarter of the world ended up with Stockholm syndrome.
Books like the Pax Britannica trilogy need to be banished to Trotsky's capacious dustbin of history. You should only be reading them if you have read at least a few of the following in part:
'Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903)' by Aidan Forth 'Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire' by Caroline Elkins 'Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor 'Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan' by William Dalrymple 'The Anarchy: the Relentless Rise of The East India Company' by William Dalrymple 'Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age' by Stephen R. Platt 'Paddy’s Lament: Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred' by Thomas Gallagher 'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham
I could go on and on, there is a wealth of information available now that was undreamt of when Jan Morris wrote these books. Caroline Eakins has revealed, via long legal battles, how much of Britain's colonial history has been systematically suppressed, destroyed and hidden. This isn't about portraying Britain as bad it is about growing up and accepting that if for 500 years a quarter of the world was impoverished to make a few thousand Brits wealthy it is time to face up to that. If you are one of the vast majority of British people whose ancestors never benefited from that wealth then perhaps it will make you look with a critical eye and those who did and their descendants who are still benefiting....more
This book should be listed under 'Jan' Morris not James Morris, if you don't know why then I suggest you Google Jan Morris. Listing her work as that oThis book should be listed under 'Jan' Morris not James Morris, if you don't know why then I suggest you Google Jan Morris. Listing her work as that of man is transphobic in the extreme. Please note that Jan Morris even when she was called James Morris has nothing to do with the author James Morris described here.
This book, and its two companion volumes, is described by its author as an attempt to capture the feel of the British empire, the view it held of itself, written by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Why that or its florid, and very readable prose, should excuse the grotesquely one-sided presentation of a historical period is hard to understand. What would we think of a history of Nazi Germany's empire building told as a history of the foibles and eccentricities of those madcap National Socialists! That funny little man with his silly mustache at the top of a pyramid of striving officials and soldiers! All those funny encounters between those cultured, educated German administrators attempting to create order in the vast, uncivilized reaches of their empire confronting recalcitrant Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians and who knows what others, those, 'new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child', that German nation had sent out their best young men 'To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild' and what thanks do they get? None, all they receive and 'reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard' and after fighting 'The savage wars of peace' they find some Irish, Black, Indian, Pakistan, Pinko, Poufter, Leftie who, when 'your goal is nearest' come along and with 'Sloth and heathen Folly, Bring all your hopes to nought.'
That Britain, just as much as the Nazis, or other empire builder:
'ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant' (created a desert and called it peace, a quote from Tacitus)
is what makes this compulsively readable book an offense because it is apologia for a system that ground a quarter of the world under the heels of some incredibly mediocre people. It was about power and millions not having it and a very, very few white Englishmen from a miniscule part of that nation's population having it. Of course there were a few women involved, there were Irish, Scottish and Welsh men who took part and behaved as abominably as their English counterparts, there were even men from poor and working class backgrounds enthusiastically taking part in the rapine and plunder; but the agenda was set and lead by that minority of over breed and unthinking products of England's upper middle and gentry classes.
I try to find a reason to excuse this, and the other volumes in the Pax Britannica trilogy, almost pathological racism. That Jan Morris was an outsider in many ways as well as a liberal, possibly free thinking, individual makes it worse, though is a salutary lesson on far attitudes have changed in the past half century, thank goodness. The Pax Britannica trilogy are only worth reading as a demonstration of the delusions the British had and the lies they told about their empire. It is unbelievable how long it took for people in the UK to actually grasp the reality of their country's deeds abroad and how resistant they were to referring to, or viewing, the 1857 rebellion as anything but 'the Indian or Sepoy mutiny'.
All those noble Englishmen intent on doing good, all those funny, childlike foreigners stopping them, is it really that excessive to draw comparisons with Nazi empire building?
I come from England's oldest colony (Ireland) and despite how much I regard the actions of England over many hundreds of years as baleful but I do not believe that the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was a deliberate policy of genocide. It was the result of viewing Ireland through the lens of what mattered for England. For longer than half a millennium Ireland was dealt with as an adjunct of England. It mattered only in so far as it impinged on England. That is the story of all England's imperial possessions, particularly India. Britain didn't allow the 1943 Bengal famine to happen through hatred of Indians (though Churchill's rampant and openly expressed disdain for Indians does suggest, as far as he was concerned, their deaths was not something for him to lose sleep over) but because India only existed to make Britain great and powerful. Irish peoples opinions or desires, exactly like those of the people of India, just did not matter. The English rulers of Ireland, India and elsewhere thought they knew better what was good for ordinary Irish or Indian people then the Irish or Indians who claimed to be their leaders.
It is more than military repression, economic exploitation and cultural debasement that left a legacy in former colonies, a quarter of the world ended up with Stockholm syndrome.
Books like the Pax Britannica trilogy need to be banished to Trotsky's capacious dustbin of history. You should only be reading them if you have read at least a few of the following in part:
'Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903)' by Aidan Forth 'Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire' by Caroline Elkins 'Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor 'Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan' by William Dalrymple 'The Anarchy: the Relentless Rise of The East India Company' by William Dalrymple 'Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age' by Stephen R. Platt 'Paddy’s Lament: Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred' by Thomas Gallagher 'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham
I could go on and on, there is a wealth of information available now that was undreamt of when Jan Morris wrote these books. Caroline Eakins has revealed, via long legal battles, has exposed how much of Britain's colonial history has been systematically suppressed, destroyed and hidden. This isn't about portraying Britain as bad it is about growing up and accepting that if for 500 years a quarter of the world was impoverished to make a few thousand Brits wealthy it is time to face up to that. If you one of the vast majority of British people whose ancestors never benefited from that wealth then perhaps it will make you look with a critical eye and those who did and their descendants who are still benefiting....more
I found this book in a London charity shop a lifetime ago, but long after I was a YA, and I hated it. In fact I found it offensive and my memory of itI found this book in a London charity shop a lifetime ago, but long after I was a YA, and I hated it. In fact I found it offensive and my memory of its ending was that it was a cliche which was now thankfully banished though I was surprised it was still being trotted by 1974.
I've mellowed somewhat because I realise there was a great deal of the egocentric in my response. As a gay male I was fixated on the character of Phil Chrystie, the novel's doomed gayboy (if anyone imagines there is some double entendre hiding in that statement I can only say get your head out of the sewer. But of course the doomed gayboy was only the deus ex machine for the author's examination of homosexuality, the novel wasn't about him at all, it is about Camilla, and her responses to Chrystie. This isn't a novel about a boy accepting his homosexuality so much as about everyone accepting homosexuality.
My interpretation and change of view was largely influenced by my greater knowledge of the author and the books she wrote featuring lesbian characters. Still I don't agree with the whole doomed scenario she wrote for Chrystie but then this was ten years before Boys on the Rock by John Fox. I am also conscious that the novel and film of The Summer of 42 probably was a goad to the author in writing this book. I think she wanted to say that the simplicities of growing up, as presented in The Summer of 42 were in fact far greater and more complex.
I salute her for that but if I saw a young gay person now reading the book I would be tempted to take it away. Good intentions using bad, if not dangerous, storylines make for a bad book, even if the author's intentions were noble. I was still shocked that there was an edition of this book produced in 2000 with a cover that makes it look like a coming out novel - it isn't and despite the warm fuzzy memories of many reviewers on goodreads this is a novel only for nostalgics, not for the young....more
I don't know how to describe the sheer, awful, mind numbing, banality of these stories except through a quotation:
"Alright, me nippy little scamps andI don't know how to describe the sheer, awful, mind numbing, banality of these stories except through a quotation:
"Alright, me nippy little scamps and scrags, me gangle-limbed scallywags, scofflaws too. Shut yer gobs and park your asses...As sure as me name's Gobfabbler Halyard-Dunkling Esquire - and a bugger-your-mum to any who says it ain't..."
I can't even quote more because it is like being trapped in a nightmare of cockney 'characters saying 'Cor blimey guv is that the trouble striff on the apples and pears heading for rubble?' at the same time that a convention of Robert Newton impersonators were going all out with 'arrs, vast me hearties and shiver me timbers'. What was even worse was that this dialogue, for want of better word, began to sound like the ingratiating patter of a particularly oleaginous, but unsuccessful, peadophile/pederast trying to charm or frighten a gang school boys or boy scouts out of their clothes via his fireside chats.
There are not even 80 but long before 40 I was in despair. How the author of the truly remarkable and wonderfully inventive phantasmagorias that are 'Vellum' and 'Ink' could produce such truly horrific prose is beyond me. I actually bought this collection, second hand, and I am almost too embarrassed to put it on sale via ebay. ...more
(This 2021 review was revised for spelling and grammatical errors in 2024. Also my review was originally attached to a later version of this edition w(This 2021 review was revised for spelling and grammatical errors in 2024. Also my review was originally attached to a later version of this edition which had the words 'plus two' in the title so had a totally separate Goodreads listing and as this seemed stupid I have moved my review so it is included with every other 'Blood and Guts' review. I didn't read the 'plus two' stories anyway).
Every now and again I encounter a book which is praised and regarded as important which I fail to understand why it is attracting such praise and/or is regarded as important. This book is one, but it is also a book that I found unreadable and, moreover, a book that I don't think is worth reading - a book that I think is totally bogus and a waste of time. This may be a reflection on all sorts of failures on my part - if it is I am not sorry - I cannot imagine wasting the time it would take to finish this book - and I have tried reading each of its three sections and been defeated by them all. It is not that it is bad in any moral way - it is boring. What more can I say. I doubt my view will stop anyone who is seriously interested in this book from reading it. I only hope that it may help anyone else who finds it a pile of crap to know that they are not alone, nor are they delusional, or that they do not have a sufficient grasp of literature or taste in reading to appreciate the wonders of this book. There is no wonder, no secrets, no nothing. Do almost anything else with your time but don't waste it - unless you really want too - on this book....more
This book is badly written but most importantly it is based on a legend - the hair in the locket is not Beethoven's - so all the insights that it claiThis book is badly written but most importantly it is based on a legend - the hair in the locket is not Beethoven's - so all the insights that it claims to provide about Beethoven's health are spurious. The tale about the artifacts history is interesting but stripped of any direct connection to the compose it is just another family artifact with a 'story' attached to it. That reviewers as late last year appear ignorant that the hair's authenticity has been comprehensively debunked doesn't surprise - it was the sort of review that regurgitates the publishers publicity.
So it is a badly overwritten book based on nonsense. Does anyone have time to waste on this sort of studd?...more
(slightly altered to improve the readability but otherwise unaltered - May 2024)
My reaction to this book has always been that you can't do good by doi(slightly altered to improve the readability but otherwise unaltered - May 2024)
My reaction to this book has always been that you can't do good by doing harm. Shilts deliberately chose to create the myth of a patient zero and then not only named him, Gaeten Dugas, but demonization him for being that ultimate gay stereotype, a promiscuous air steward who, although unfortunately for the rabidly prejudiced USA market Shilts was cultivating was not black or even Hispanic, but was, of course, foreign, a Canadian from that wishy washy liberal effete country that despised red blooded American values sufficiently to provide a refuge for it's draft dodgers.
This is not retrospective loathing or hate, from the time I first heard the 'patient zero' theory I thought it stank of lies and falsehood of the most grotesque type. That Mr. Shilts as a Jew did not see the link between his 'patient zero' and the 'well poisoners' tropes of medieval antisemitism is hard to believe. I can't help but think that he deliberately created a foreign gaydemon to blame the AIDS epidemic on so as to help save American gays.
So I hate this book, for all the truth and good it may have done it is obscene and objectionable for it to be still accorded any honour. Once a journalist stoops to lies and distortions such as Shilts did, no matter what the reason, you have sacrificed integrity which like virginity, is not renewable. No one reads anything by Walter Duranty today (look him up and be revolted) and no one should read Shilts unless his book comes with warnings of the lies and distortions it contains.
I have thought about writing this review ever since I discovered Goodreads - that it has taken me so long to do so is my shame - what is most ironic in the demonisation of Gaëtan Dugas is that Dugas because at early stage he was so honest and open and helpful to researchers that he provided the information and contacts that helped researchers understand how HIV spread. He probably, ultimately, helped save more people then Shilts bored with his tawdry book....more
I knew I was going to be disappointed in this book within the first few pages when Mr. Mason went on about Cleopatra not resembling Elizabeth Taylor iI knew I was going to be disappointed in this book within the first few pages when Mr. Mason went on about Cleopatra not resembling Elizabeth Taylor in the film Cleopatra. I am over 65 so old enough to remember Taylor when she was alive but I am as likely to recall her at her chicken licking largest when married to John Warner then her Cleopatra days and even then her embonpoint reminded me (at 14 when I saw the film on TV for the first time) more of women of mothers era then sex goddesses most my schoolboy friends were into. But in any case it the knowledge that Cleopatra was not in anyway beautiful is hardly news - I can't remember a biography of the queen going back to that of Emil Ludwig's in the 1920's which didn't begin by pointing this out.
Whether Cleopatra was or was not a beauty is unimportant but is perfect example of the type of 'myths' the author looks to 'demolish'. The problem is that most of these myths have been demolished again and again - when I was in grade school (primary school in the UK) in the USA in the 1960's we were taught that the Civil War was fought to preserve the Union not to free the slaves - but Mr. Mason rehashes not simply the work of historians but a great deal of rather bogus and problematic historical theorizing. For example:
1. Psychiatric evaluations of early portraits of Elizabeth I to prove she suffered abuse as a child. This sort of 'trash' history is like all those alarmist reports of various foods causing cancer or aluminium causing Alzheimer - rubbish - because it is based on flimsy or negligible evidence.
2. Revelations that Stalin was a spy for the Tsarist Okhrana. This rumour, presented as 'fact' by Mr. Mason has been around since the 1950's (and possibly earlier - I seem to recall that it was common in White Russian exile circles in Paris in the 1920's). Mason relies on one book by Roman Brackman which is long on revisionist history but almost totally free of any evidence beyond the the circumstantial.
None of this would matter except that he also includes, in a mild way, stories about Roosevelt and the origins of WWII which come directly from the more insane, unattractive, antisemitic and right wing conspiracy nuts. He is particularly virulent in his demolition of Lincoln and Gandhi but provides no context or understanding. When he deals with Winston Churchill he tells tales of his incompetence and drunkenness that are well know and are presented with a degree of indulgence. Needless to say he doesn't touch on Churchill's racism or responsibility for the Bengal famine - far more egregious failures.
The book is ridiculously anglo-centric, the bit on Proust is just silly, but then so is his paragraphs on W.B. Yeats and Beethoven.
I could go on for paragraphs pulling apart the fallacies and pointing the errors, inconsistencies and shallow theorizing in this book but it doesn't deserve such attention. I've given it more than it deserves. A bad book....more
This is by far one of the silliest but also the worst books I ever read though it provides plenty of proof that snobbery is alive and well in the USA.This is by far one of the silliest but also the worst books I ever read though it provides plenty of proof that snobbery is alive and well in the USA. How many times do the authors mention Princeton and the Porcellian club, honestly I thought I was bored with Oxford's Bullingdon but at least it provided brilliant scenes for Evelyn Waugh and such memorable quotes as:
'Any who have heard that sound will shrink at the recollection of it; it is the sound of English county families baying for broken glass.'
What has the Porcellian given the world? Boredom if novels like this are anything to go by. This novel, as an examination or portrayal of university life, as a bildungsroman, or even as a Princeton story, has all the depth of the film 'Love Story' (I am not even going to pretend I read that novel). One could with more ease drown in a puddle on a bar surface then find anything to hold your attention in this drivel.
What is really insulting is the fraudulent history at the root of it, its portrayal Savanrola and the bonfire of the vanities is cliched and based on legend not fact. Maybe the authors haven't noticed it but it is apparent to everyone else that all the greatest masterpieces of Renaisance Florentine art that should have been in utmost peril like the David by Donatello (the first free stading male nude since Roman times) or the 'Primavera' and 'Birth of Venus' by Botticelli (both completely pagan in subject matter) are very much with us without having been buried away or hidden. The whole treasure hunt to find lost works of art is spurious and the silly book in which the clues are encoded (but easily found by those who need to know) is on parr with the intellectual depth of the 'classists' in 'The Secret History' by Donna Tart.
I found this novel insulting, but not half insulting as the ridiculous praise heaped upon it which all reads like a load of wanking nonesense....more
I am amazed that I ever read a book which would attract over 8,500 reviews on Goodreads (as of April 2024) but then I remember this novel even though I am amazed that I ever read a book which would attract over 8,500 reviews on Goodreads (as of April 2024) but then I remember this novel even though it was 20 years since I read it, and hated it. I'll be honest I wouldn't be writing this review if I hadn't been reminded of how much I loathed this book by a piece in Anthony Lane's collected journalism 'Nobody's Perfect'. Aside from being a bad novel with predictable cut-out characters it has as its presiding good guy Theodore Roosevelt, before he became president, when he was New York police commissioner. How can I hate Theodore Roosevelt? Let me name the ways, racist, snob, imperialist it is a toss up whether he or Andrew Jackson is most deserving of being removed from Mt. Rushmore (if you don't know why it is obscene that Andrew Jackson is on Mt. Rushmore ask a native American and look up the meaning of genocide).
Put simply Roosevelt was one of the so-called reform candidates who wanted to clean up New York politics and government in the 1890's. That meant he and other White Anglo Saxon Protestant men, rich men, wanted to claw back power from those politicians who were supported by all those poor descendents of immigrants, mostly catholic ones like the Irish and Italians and ensure that men from the proper ruling classes were in charge. Roosevelt was a great believer in his, and his classes, innate superiority over those bedraggled wretches in the slums who, inexplicably, had the vote.
That the whole novel is an a-historical tale of concern over child exploitation makes it even more grotesque.
This is a badly written novel with no basis in historical fact or circumstance. That it is now a TV series or film (I have no idea which and I won't be watching it whatever form it takes) is irrelevant to how tawdry this rubbish is....more
I couldn't shelve this nonsense as either Literature-biography or History-biography - I must be honest and admit that I have had more amusement and plI couldn't shelve this nonsense as either Literature-biography or History-biography - I must be honest and admit that I have had more amusement and pleasure and certainly encountered more thoughtful apercus in reading graffiti on the doors and walls of public loos than anything in this farago of self indulgent whining. I do feel sorry for Harry, but it is the sorrow of Cecil B. deMille in 'Sunset Boulevarde' when he says of Norma Desmond:
"You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit."
Well the same can be said of what being born into a royal family does to its superfluous members (despite the title of this book and frequent journalistic uses of the term Harry was never a 'spare'. The term is applied only to a second heir to prevent family estates passing out of the mainline of descent to a cadet branch of the family due to primogeniture. Princes Andrew and Edward, Harry's uncles, could be termed 'spares' but so could Princess Anne. Indeed as his grandmother was the monarch and his father was the heir it would be more accurate to say that William was the 'spare' heir. But interestingly Harry's position as the grandson of a long lived monarch rather than the younger son of a reigning monarch has a great deal to do with his current position, but more of that later.
First for the benefit of almost everyone who has either read or reviewed this silly book I am going to provide you with a bit of information on the British constitution (sorry I am not reviewing this silly book - wasn't that obvious when I made plain preference for public toilet graffiti?). The only member of the royal family that has a role, is the monarch, all the rest of them are there on sufferance. The need for the monarch to have a spouse and an heir was always acknowledged but the younger children of the monarch, or the preceding monarch have no role. Back in the 19th century when a monarchical government was the norm throughout Europe it was accepted that a large royal establishment was a necessity and that the numerous progeny of Victoria and Albert were useful as 'ornamentals' throughout the British empire. But post WWII as monarchy disappeared from all except the most irrelevant of European countries and the empire shrank to almost nothing it became more and more apparent that the UK was supporting a wildly irrelevant number of royals. Thirty years ago, after the late queen came under coruscatting criticism post the Windsor castle fire, it was decided that the public face of the royal was to be scaled back to the monarch, their children and most particularly the next heir and his/her family. This is where the case of Harry gets so interesting.
Harry, like the children of Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward was simply a grandson of a monarch. He wasn't an heir, he wasn't a spare. His brother had a fast growing young family on which all the attention would soon concentrate. He would never be a young son of a monarch, like his uncles Andrew and Edward - nobody may remember, or want to remember, but Andrew and to a lesser extent Edward were wildly popular young princes, just as their aunt Princess Margaret was wildly popular young princess. But all of them moved out of the headlines as interest concentrated on the major royals. Younger royals have a built in obsolescence. They are there to take up some of the work and absorb some of the spotlight from the important royals. Nobody remembers Margaret, Andrew or Edward as dashing young royals, only as middle aged irrelevances. Even less people remember young Prince William of Gloucester. But due to the late queen's longevity Harry was faced with being as irrelevant as any of them without having enjoyed any real prominence and that is at the root of Harry's actions.
At the root of his tantrum was an annoyance that his brother, father and grandmother were not willing to grant him, and his wife, an official job/position that would ensure that when Charles became king he didn't disappear into the irrelance of middle aged royal like his uncles and great aunt. He didn't want to step aside for William and his children, he wanted part of the action. Unfortunately royalty is all about precedent, and there was no way the Windsors were going to elevate Harry into some sort of super prince with an ongoing official role. His job was to fade away. There was nothing suspicious about any of it. Megan may have had visions of herself as an important figure with her babies in the arms of imposing bodyguards like Hollywood celebrities but she should have looked at the other grandchildren and great grandchildren of the queen. How many can you name? The future wasn't Harry, it was William and Prince George and his siblings.
Of course being brought up in palaces has a habit of distorting younger royals perspectives. Not even the children of people like the Kardashians Ecclestones or Zuckerbergs live like royals, though they are undoubtedly richer. The Windsors live the way the super rich did before WWI. Who from the time they are born are referred to as 'your highness'? Who else has footmen or valets? How many teenagers have press officers and wear tailored suits and handmade shoes, get married and move into one of granny's spare ten bedroomed 'cottages'?
We all conive in Harry's absurdities - why has no one ever called him on withdrawing from the royal family because he was afraid the media attention on his wife could lead to what happened to his mother (please remember that his mother's death was caused by the drunken chauffeur employed by her boyfriend's father) and then goes off and devotes himself to keeping himself and his wife in the media spotlight. Harry may not want to be a member of the royal family but being an ex-royal is his only skill and only one he has attempted to market.
Harry is nothing more than a celebrity and the fact that almost no one in the UK is aware that Charles at his coronation swore to uphold 'the protestant establishment' (what's that? I hear them ask) simply indicates that by the time William comes to the throne the Windsor will be nothing more than celebrities and finally the whole absurd show may finish. A royalist may love a monarch a republican hate one and an old fashioned anarchist plot to kill one but a monarch who is no more than a celebrity is nothing....more
I thought I'd already reviewed this silly book and I am not going to spend any amount of time replacing my review. There are no mysteries, oddities orI thought I'd already reviewed this silly book and I am not going to spend any amount of time replacing my review. There are no mysteries, oddities or unknown stories in this book - there are many well known stories like who shot down the baron Manfred von Richthofen, but even with these I wouldn't count on the author being up-to-date, his bibliography is not impressive.
I am always amazed that books like this still get published - you can google these stories and get more accurate information, and of course a lot of wrong information - search engines simply provide data you have to shift it.
This book is rubbish but also fun in the same way that pictures of the sacred heart or dayglo last supper images are, it is something to read when youThis book is rubbish but also fun in the same way that pictures of the sacred heart or dayglo last supper images are, it is something to read when you are bored, but not to be taken seriously. Shelving it as waste-of-time is probably unfair but to take it seriously would be a waste-of-time.
If a library hadn't stocked the book I would never have even glanced at a copy - which would have been a pity because it was, like some heart attack inducing junk food, enjoyable, for a very little time. In the days when there were bookstores it was the sort of book you read in them, unless you read in the loo of some friend's house. ...more
The best thing about this novel is the title - well it made me go to a bit of trouble to track down and acquir9slight corrections made in August 2024)
The best thing about this novel is the title - well it made me go to a bit of trouble to track down and acquire a copy without spending enormous of money on having it shipped to the UK, perhaps the lack of any copies this side of the Atlantic should have suggested there might be a reason - but if you are going to use a title like this you need a novel that will live up to it and this one doesn't. As a hook for attracting readers it might have been a marketing person's wet dream but that is about it.
Really terrible books have inspired me to some of my best reviews - this novel didn't, in fact what I associate it with is terminal boredom - it is 200 only odd pages but I had barely made it halfway before I was struggling to overcome an all pervasive ennui that just made me want to give up on everything. How could something so terminally mediocre and awful have ever been published? Well reading the acknowledgements I found a clue, amongst those name checked are not parents, family or teachers (they are only generically remembered) but ten prominent writers (there may be more I only recognised ten - and three of them provide 'puff' quotes on the back cover) and a variety of trendy groups, organizations and publications, and who published excerpts from this novel.
I couldn't help feeling that what I was holding was a monument to networking and influence building. I couldn't help regret that Travers Scott had not spent more time on reading, even if only the works of the authors he so determinedly cultivated, and practising his craft. It also didn't surprise me to learn that 'bits' of the novel had appeared in numerous literary magazines, it was easy to pick them out - segments of clever writing all of which failed to come together as a whole.
Just in case you imagine I am some snooty European who knows nothing about the USA let me say that I have read other authors who have written of the midwest and of the southern USA and been moved and astounded by their work. Don't read this drivel read:
'Pryor Rendering' by Gary Reed, published the same year as this novel and a novel on incomparable beauty.
'Lake Overturn' by Vestal McIntyre
'Send Me' by Patrick Ryan
'Mother of Sorrows' by Richard McCann
These novels are so far ahead of Mr. D. Travers Scott's efforts that I wonder I am doing them a disservice in mentioning them within this review. If any of Scott's awfulness reflects back on them I will be mortified....more
I loathed this book as a dishonest and trashy attempt to continue cashing in the QI bandwagon. It is worse than simplistic and superficial - it is actI loathed this book as a dishonest and trashy attempt to continue cashing in the QI bandwagon. It is worse than simplistic and superficial - it is actually offensive in its down right racist and simplistic giggling at funny foreigners behaving badly. Santa Anna may have been absurd but the loss of Texas was not his fault but the result of a collection of racist citizens of the USA trying to force slavery on a country which had abolished it. Smyrna did not burn because King Constantine I died from a monkey bite - it burnt because of the grandiose idiocies of a 'Greater Greece' policy which accepted the large scale massacre and expulsion of Muslims and which was the policy of PM Lloyd George and his supporters like Winston Churchill.
Leonardo da Vinci was not gay, he probably had lots of sex with members of his own sex, but as what it means to be 'gay' has changed dramatically since the term began to be used in 1969 and, it seems to me, idiotic to call someone who lived 500 before then 'gay'.
The Danish Royal family is not German - certainly less German then the Windsors were a generation ago - and probably before the first world war was one of the most anti German of Royal Houses, as was the Greek Royal family, not surprisingly as they were descended from a 'Danish' prince the brother of Queen Alexandra.
I could go on with the sloppy, careless, inaccurate and stupid mistakes in this volume - normally this would be nothing surprising, but the QI 'brand' is based on an idea of accuracy which this book just makes a mockery of.
Badly put together, a complete rip-off, and clearly the creation of marketing, rather than editorial, input. Avoid at all cost....more
utter rubbish just drivel hoping on england's interminable wank fest over that ghastly edwardian era of brutal empire and mass poverty that supported utter rubbish just drivel hoping on england's interminable wank fest over that ghastly edwardian era of brutal empire and mass poverty that supported fat men and women in stupid hats - more soon...more
(I revised this review to increase readability but have not altered or softened my views of this novel)
I didn't care for this novel, honestly it just (I revised this review to increase readability but have not altered or softened my views of this novel)
I didn't care for this novel, honestly it just isn't my scene, maybe I don't like the cold enough, maybe all the talk about this being a man's book or about masculinity are just reminding me what a faggot I am, but a novel that opens with a main character killing a man, than a boy, then raping the dead boy (who he'd been regularly raping before he killed him) is not one that grips me particularly when the rest of the novel has copious descriptions of blood from slit throats, blood from bullet-shot guts, blood pouring from the stump after a limb is chewed off by a bear, pus from infected wounds, faeces from not only the usual place but also from lanced abdominal abscesses, vomit of all textures and colours, "jism" leaking from various places, and let's not forget a child's tooth embedded in the bad guy's shoulder. Yet all of this techno violence is perfectly acceptable as reading fodder to be handed around friends and family and I doubt anyone would object to it adorning the shelves of a high school library. Yet the novels of Dennis Cooper, none of which describe a fraction of the violence and gore and criminal sexuality this novel does are held by so many to be beyond the pale. Why? because they are honest and the violence, which is never described, represents the desperate loneliness of individuals and the moral bankruptcy of a culture.
Dennis Cooper's novels are true, they are Jerimands of a moralist. Novels like this use are violence porn
Aside from all that I thought the story contrived with a pointlessly complicated backstory which didn't convince me - the author may describe ice and snow brilliantly but he doesn't conjure up a convincing India, or Indian army, nor Indian mutiny....more
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