No-Man's Lands (Scott Huler, 2008) is a memoir of travel and coming to terms with middle age and mortality. After rediscovering the Odyssey, the 44-year-old Huler decides to spend the bulk of his wife's pregnancy (!) tracing the path of Odysseus, as best as we can determine it, around the Mediterranean. Along the way he muses about the lessons Odysseus learns about leadership and life (sometimes you have to run away, don't sneer at good advice whatever the source, etc.) and how they apply to him.
I haven't read the Odyssey since I was 23 or 24, and Huler's contention that it's a midlife book makes me want to attempt it again now that I'm into my late 30's, staring in wary disbelief at my 40th birthday, not too far away at all in January 2011.
He's also got me pondering the trip I'm already planning for when I'm 44 in 2015. Not long after I got interested in military history, it occurred to me that barring anything tragic I should be alive and healthy for the Waterloo bicentennial, and wouldn't it be cool to be there? I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off, but I dream of spending 6-8 weeks in Europe, visiting not just Waterloo but the Peninsular War battlefields of Portugal, Spain, and Southern France (and, you know, some of the other interesting sites that happen to be in that part of the world). Sort of a Wellington pilgrimage. Which doesn't have the inherent universal interest of an Odysseus pilgrimage, but is a lot more me. And, who knows, maybe there's a travelogue/memoir in figuring out and explaining just why it is that I, a politically liberal 21st-century American woman who takes pride in her blue-collar Appalachian Scots-Irish roots, am so fascinated by an Anglo-Irish Tory aristocrat born almost exactly 200 years before I was.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Fusiliers (Book #81)
It's easy to forget how interconnected the past is. All too often we study it as a set of discrete episodes rather than as a flowing river of time.
I knew that the American Revolution was among the causes of the French Revolution, both as an inspiration and because France's war expenditures led to a financial crisis. But until I read Fusiliers (Mark Urban, 2007) I hadn't fully considered that the army of Wellington was only about 30 years removed from the army of Cornwallis.
By focusing on a single regiment that served all the way from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, Urban explores the reality of the British army--as opposed to the caricature of redcoated automatons we learned about in school--and how it changed in response to the challenges of the Revolution. If anything, the army improved considerably. It just didn't do them any good, because it's pretty much impossible to hold a large, hostile territory far from your home base with a small force, no matter its quality. The British effort was probably doomed from Saratoga onward, and certainly was once France entered the war. But the tactics they adopted to go on winning battles even as they lost the war ultimately bore fruit in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.
Incidentally, I'm also reading a collection of Wellington's wartime correspondence. In one letter, he attributes just about everything that went wrong (from his perspective!) from 1776 on to party politics in England--the loss of the American colonies, the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, etc. His thesis seems to be that if the British powers-that-be had put country first instead of party, everything would've turned out differently. Who knows, maybe he's right. He did live through it all, though he was only six when the American Revolution started. Still, if I'm right about Saratoga, that wasn't a political blunder. Howe didn't march to reinforce Burgoyne, and so the Americans had a three-to-one advantage. But, if the British had been willing to come to a quick accommodation at that point instead of stretching the war out, the French would've stayed out of it, and then who knows how the next few decades would've turned out? Somehow I doubt that's what Wellington had in mind, though, because that's a Whiggish approach--it was the Tories, and especially the king, who wanted to continue the war. And even if Wellington didn't admit it, I'm pretty sure his non-partisan world would've involved everyone agreeing with the Tories. I love the man, but he had some obnoxious political views. (Stupid space-time continuum, because I'd dearly love to actually argue this one with the real Wellington instead of just shaking my head at the letters he left behind and quoting Barack Obama at him about how ALL of us love our country.)
I knew that the American Revolution was among the causes of the French Revolution, both as an inspiration and because France's war expenditures led to a financial crisis. But until I read Fusiliers (Mark Urban, 2007) I hadn't fully considered that the army of Wellington was only about 30 years removed from the army of Cornwallis.
By focusing on a single regiment that served all the way from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, Urban explores the reality of the British army--as opposed to the caricature of redcoated automatons we learned about in school--and how it changed in response to the challenges of the Revolution. If anything, the army improved considerably. It just didn't do them any good, because it's pretty much impossible to hold a large, hostile territory far from your home base with a small force, no matter its quality. The British effort was probably doomed from Saratoga onward, and certainly was once France entered the war. But the tactics they adopted to go on winning battles even as they lost the war ultimately bore fruit in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.
Incidentally, I'm also reading a collection of Wellington's wartime correspondence. In one letter, he attributes just about everything that went wrong (from his perspective!) from 1776 on to party politics in England--the loss of the American colonies, the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, etc. His thesis seems to be that if the British powers-that-be had put country first instead of party, everything would've turned out differently. Who knows, maybe he's right. He did live through it all, though he was only six when the American Revolution started. Still, if I'm right about Saratoga, that wasn't a political blunder. Howe didn't march to reinforce Burgoyne, and so the Americans had a three-to-one advantage. But, if the British had been willing to come to a quick accommodation at that point instead of stretching the war out, the French would've stayed out of it, and then who knows how the next few decades would've turned out? Somehow I doubt that's what Wellington had in mind, though, because that's a Whiggish approach--it was the Tories, and especially the king, who wanted to continue the war. And even if Wellington didn't admit it, I'm pretty sure his non-partisan world would've involved everyone agreeing with the Tories. I love the man, but he had some obnoxious political views. (Stupid space-time continuum, because I'd dearly love to actually argue this one with the real Wellington instead of just shaking my head at the letters he left behind and quoting Barack Obama at him about how ALL of us love our country.)
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
My husband knows me well
I just got a new laptop--not a family laptop to replace a broken/outdated one, but MY computer, one for me to do my writing and researching on. (Which, uh, makes us a four computer household. Two laptops, two desktops.)
Anyway, I'd already decided what I wanted to name it, even though it would go against my husband's pattern of naming our machines after collegiate mascots, sports figures, etc. So when I came in from picking up our daughter from daycare to discover my husband already had the computer out of its box and was setting it up, I asked if I got to name this one. He said he already had. I asked what, expecting it to be my high school mascot or a prominent Mariner or somesuch. He then asked what I'd planned to call it.
"Wellington," I said.
He grinned. "I named it Wellie."
Anyway, I'd already decided what I wanted to name it, even though it would go against my husband's pattern of naming our machines after collegiate mascots, sports figures, etc. So when I came in from picking up our daughter from daycare to discover my husband already had the computer out of its box and was setting it up, I asked if I got to name this one. He said he already had. I asked what, expecting it to be my high school mascot or a prominent Mariner or somesuch. He then asked what I'd planned to call it.
"Wellington," I said.
He grinned. "I named it Wellie."
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Perfect Gentleman (Book #80)
Back in high school, I loved Marion Chesney's Regency romances. My library had her Six Sisters and House for the Season series, and I devoured them all. So now whenever I find one of her books in a used bookstore, nostalgia inspires me to pick it up. They're light, quick reads, usually heavy on the farce and slapstick. Frankly, I enjoyed them more in high school than I do now. Nowadays I like my stories a bit grittier and more realistic, or else with humor more witty than farcical.
But sometimes I crave that quick, nostalgic read, so today I enjoyed The Perfect Gentleman (1988). An orphaned country girl whose bad eyesight keeps getting her into scrapes keeps falling afoul of her chaperone's perfectionist son.
But sometimes I crave that quick, nostalgic read, so today I enjoyed The Perfect Gentleman (1988). An orphaned country girl whose bad eyesight keeps getting her into scrapes keeps falling afoul of her chaperone's perfectionist son.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Save the Cat (Book #79)
Everywhere I've gone this summer, people have recommended Save the Cat! (Blake Snyder, 2005) to aspiring novelists. It took 3-4 mentions to get through to me, because it's a screenwriting book, and I figured there were advice books just as good that were actually designed for novelists.
I'm glad I decided to give it a try. It's a clear, chatty description of how to structure an exciting, marketable story--sort of a simplified Hero's Journey. Since I'm a big fan of Christopher Vogler (who, now that I think about it, is also primarily advising screenwriters), it made a lot of sense to me. I'm also just at the right point for such a book, since I've finished a rough draft and am about to plunge into revision mode. Since I'm planning some big structural changes, I think I'm going to try using his storyboard and beat techniques. Not slavishly, but as a loose framework. That's been the lesson of my WIP--that I can't get by without a framework in a tightly plotted action story that's designed to be first in a series the way I could when I was writing standalone romances.
Snyder is an unabashedly commercial writer, to the point where art film/litfic types might not find his advice relevant or helpful. Since I'm trying to figure out how to make my book simultaneously accessible and intelligent, I like his approach as a guide for how to make my history geekery fun for people who haven't spent as much time immersed in military histories and Wellington biographies as I have.
I'm glad I decided to give it a try. It's a clear, chatty description of how to structure an exciting, marketable story--sort of a simplified Hero's Journey. Since I'm a big fan of Christopher Vogler (who, now that I think about it, is also primarily advising screenwriters), it made a lot of sense to me. I'm also just at the right point for such a book, since I've finished a rough draft and am about to plunge into revision mode. Since I'm planning some big structural changes, I think I'm going to try using his storyboard and beat techniques. Not slavishly, but as a loose framework. That's been the lesson of my WIP--that I can't get by without a framework in a tightly plotted action story that's designed to be first in a series the way I could when I was writing standalone romances.
Snyder is an unabashedly commercial writer, to the point where art film/litfic types might not find his advice relevant or helpful. Since I'm trying to figure out how to make my book simultaneously accessible and intelligent, I like his approach as a guide for how to make my history geekery fun for people who haven't spent as much time immersed in military histories and Wellington biographies as I have.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Rock and Roll Never Forgets (Book #78)
In Rock and Roll Never Forgets (Deborah Grabien, 2008), the author (a friend of mine) draws on her experience in the 1970's music scene to bring behind-the-scenes life with a rock band to life. The narrator is JP Kinkaid, middle-aged guitarist with a long-lived band called Blacklight. When a journalist planning a tell-all expose of the band turns up dead in Kinkaid's dressing room at Madison Square Garden, suspicion falls on his long-time lover, and secrets everyone wanted to stay buried are brought to life...
Monday, August 18, 2008
Napoleon's Privates (Book #77)
Napoleon's Privates: 2500 Years of History Unzipped (Tony Perrottet, 2008) is a perfect book to keep in a magazine rack or on a bedside or coffee table--and just to be clear, I mean that as a compliment. Each chapter is only a few pages long, witty and concise, so it's the perfect book to dip into for a few minutes of historical snacking.
Perrottet flits back and forth through history, exploring such topics as Cleopatra's looks, greatest papal sex scandals, and how the French Revolution caused the restaurant industry to take off (behead or drive into exile your aristocrats, and suddenly you have a lot of unemployed cooks who, you guessed it, open restaurants). As far as I can tell the book is well-researched. At least, I never caught the author in errors on topics I know well, which inspires me to trust him in other areas and eras.
Napoleon shows up quite a bit, as the title suggests. Perrottet's research was inspired by learning that Napoleon's corpse might have been, um, emasculated by an unscrupulous surgeon at his autopsy. The part in question (housed in a handsome case bearing the imperial crest!) now resides under a bed in New Jersey, since the woman who inherited it from her collector father hasn't made up her mind what to do with it. The French government, incidentally, firmly and understandably refuses to exhume Napoleon's body to check for missing parts or run DNA tests. Good for France. Let the dead have their dignity...
...OK, if you completely allow the dead their dignity, you'd spoil the fun of this book. Wellington partisan that I am, I had to grin when Perrottet included the story of how as ambassador to France after Napoleon's abdication, Wellington slept with at least two of Napoleon's mistresses. One of them was questioned at a dinner party as to which man was the better lover, and she said that "the Duke was by far the more vigorous." It's hard to say how much of a accomplishment that really was, however. Given that the incident is reported in a chapter titled "Three Minutes With the Emperor," I think it's fair to say Napoleon was easier to vanquish in the bedroom than on the battlefield.
(Susan blinks innocently.) I wonder if my pastor or any of my relatives read this blog?
Perrottet flits back and forth through history, exploring such topics as Cleopatra's looks, greatest papal sex scandals, and how the French Revolution caused the restaurant industry to take off (behead or drive into exile your aristocrats, and suddenly you have a lot of unemployed cooks who, you guessed it, open restaurants). As far as I can tell the book is well-researched. At least, I never caught the author in errors on topics I know well, which inspires me to trust him in other areas and eras.
Napoleon shows up quite a bit, as the title suggests. Perrottet's research was inspired by learning that Napoleon's corpse might have been, um, emasculated by an unscrupulous surgeon at his autopsy. The part in question (housed in a handsome case bearing the imperial crest!) now resides under a bed in New Jersey, since the woman who inherited it from her collector father hasn't made up her mind what to do with it. The French government, incidentally, firmly and understandably refuses to exhume Napoleon's body to check for missing parts or run DNA tests. Good for France. Let the dead have their dignity...
...OK, if you completely allow the dead their dignity, you'd spoil the fun of this book. Wellington partisan that I am, I had to grin when Perrottet included the story of how as ambassador to France after Napoleon's abdication, Wellington slept with at least two of Napoleon's mistresses. One of them was questioned at a dinner party as to which man was the better lover, and she said that "the Duke was by far the more vigorous." It's hard to say how much of a accomplishment that really was, however. Given that the incident is reported in a chapter titled "Three Minutes With the Emperor," I think it's fair to say Napoleon was easier to vanquish in the bedroom than on the battlefield.
(Susan blinks innocently.) I wonder if my pastor or any of my relatives read this blog?
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