Recent Reads: Reviews at Lightning Speed!
I didn’t think I’d ever read another book about Abraham Lincoln since finishing the elegant, immensely moving Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer. But this volume intrigued me, especially in regard to the history of the Booth family. As Alford succinctly states, “The son of one family killed the son of the other in the most infamous and consequential murder in American history.”
This book is filled with largely anecdotal tales of people possessing knowledge of events that will occur in the future. The accounts are spread out over time and place, giving the book a somewhat confusing structure – at least it seemed so to me.
One event that does loom large is the collapse of the Aberfan Colliery Spoil Tip in October of 1966. (Aberfan is a village in Wales.)
Knight also tells the story of a train wreck. One of the passengers was Robin Gibb, soon to become famous, along with his brothers, as the Bee Gees.
Some years later, the Gibb brothers were at a recording studio when the power suddenly went out. They found themselves sitting in a darkened stairwell, waiting for something to happen.
Barry Gibb recalls:
‘”That song didn’t take a lot of thinking about because it is a catastrophe and catastrophes happen all the time.” He added: “The atmosphere just came and the song just came.’
The song was odd and somewhat haunting.”
This was fun! I learned a lot, too. Heller introduced me to a number of interesting artists. Admittedly, some of these works didn’t do much for me, but I was pleasantly surprised by others.
Like this one, by Frank Stella:
The story of the nineteenth century obsession with finding the source of the Nile River. The expeditions undertaken into Africa are good examples of a trip you would never wish to take, unless you are confirmed masochist. Millard’s focus is on two explorers who did in fact undertake it: Richard Burton and John Speke.
That’s Burton on the left. This visual makes them look like great buddies. In reality, they were anything but.
Candice Millard is the author of Destiny of the Republic, a book which made a powerful impression on me and on many others as well. She admits that it was a difficult story to write, and I can understand why. It was difficult to read, too. But people need to know about the quiet heroism of James A. Garfield. He was shot by an disappointed office seeker who was clearly insane. Garfield endured months of acute misery before finally passing away at the age of 49.
The plot of Swanson’s thriller is exceptionally cunning and fast moving. Nothing too profound here, but good fun and excellent escapism.
A primer on the ecology of the Southeast, a subject about which I knew next to nothing. I know more now, but the book is so rich with anecdote and evocative description, I fear I have retained very little of its riches. A Road Running Southward is a prime candidate for rereading, I think.
The author’s choice to anchor his own experience to that of John Muir is a device that works beautifully. Many people know of Muir’s explorations of Northern California, especially his adventures in the High Sierras, his “range of light.” But before heading West, Muir headed South, and kept a detailed journal of his observations while traveling – on foot, naturally.
“‘Today, emerging from a multitude of tropical plants, I behold the Gulf of Mexico stretching away unbounded,except by the sky,’ he wrote in A Thousand Mile Walk. ‘What dreams and speculative matter arose as I stood on the strand, gazing out on the burnished, treeless plain!'”
Comparisons between what Muir saw then and what the author sees now are inevitable, and often deeply dismaying.
Dan Chapman has produced a marvelously informative work. A world unknown to me came vividly to life. Highly recommended.
The first part of this book reads more like an exposé than anything else. Most of us know about the lobotomies, but not about the furious rate at which they were performed in the early years of the twentieth century, and the inadequacy with which the outcomes were made known. Then of course there is electroconvulsive therapy, the results of which were also rather horrific, at least when it first came into use.
That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This is a complex subject, but Scull treats it in a lucid manner. One thing is made clear: Treating mental illness is a very perplexing undertaking. That is as true today, as it was a hundred years ago:
“Mental illness remains a baffling collection of disorders, many of them resisting our most determined efforts to probe their origins or to relieve the suffering they bring in their train.”
This book is filled with fascinating revelations. I found it a mesmerizing read.
And now: Even in a field of such superior works , this one stands out.
The Goldenacre is many things at once: a thriller complete with a cunning plot and a twist at the end that I, for one, did not see coming; a terrific sense of place, that place being Edinburgh, a compelling cast of characters whose motives are not always obvious, and finally, writing that absolutely soars.
The title refers to a painting attributed to Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Here is how it is described:
“Mackintosh had painted a blaze of white sky, and, within that blaze, something living and diaphanous. In the distance sat the black of the Pentlands. They had been rendered as if they were not bare hills stripped of their native trees but two giant legs and a mammoth body: a distant giant cut from the landscape. The perspective of The Goldenacre was unnerving: the field was both flat and three-dimensional, and the height down to the foreground was precipitous. Throughout, the colours were bold and watery, as rich as a passing reality, as sorrowful as a dream departing upon waking.”
The story involves a young man with the improbably name of Thomas Tallis whose job it is to verify this attribution.
Anyway, just take my word for it. The Goldenacre gives proof that people can still create works of this caliber. I’m deeply grateful to Philip Miller, a writer whom I did not know. I know him now. And on the strength of this novel, I am deeply, deeply impressed by him.
Nonfiction, Part the First, Art: Hans Holbein the Younger
The King’s Painter: The Life of Hans Holbein, by Franny Moyle
A fascinating, eminently readable biography. I learned, among other things, that Holbein, born in Switzerland, made many more works than the (justly famous) portraits of King Henry VIII and Thomas More.
Holbein also painted this strange and somewhat disturbing yet riveting image:
What a great portraitist Holbein the Younger was!
Oh – and Holbein the Elder was no slouch, either:
Ambrosius Holbein, brother of Hans the Younger, was also a painter:
Who Killed Jane Stanford? by Richard White
Who even knew this was an issue? The main reason so few people knew is that from the moment of her demise in Hawaii in 1905, those who were associated with Jane Stanford fought desperately and cunningly to have her death ruled as natural. This included her family, her friends, her servants, and others who were part of her circle at the fledgling university founded by her late husband and herself.
They each had their reasons.
The Stanfords had one child, Leland Stanford Junior, born in 1868 when Jane was 39 years old. While they were vacationing in Florence, Italy, Leland Junior died of typhoid fever. He was fifteen years old.
His parents were devastated. Their grief gave rise to a desire to memorialize their deceased son in a way that would be meaningful and enduring. Leland Stanford Junior University opened on October 1, 1891.
Leland Stanford’s enormous wealth derived from his initial investment in the Central Pacific Railroad, followed by his acquisition of the Southern Pacific Railroad. There’s more – Stanford’s rise to power and fortune is a complex story. When he died in 1893 at the age of 69, he left an extremely well-off widow. This book is her story.
Actually, it’s the story of the last years of her life, those that culminated in the act that caused her death. Jane Stanford was poisoned. The attempt was made twice. The first time, in California, it failed. The second time, in Hawaii, it succeeded. Both times the agent used was strychnine.
For me, the most interesting aspect of this book was the story it told of the early days of Stanford University. It was a surprisingly rocky beginning. Jane Stanford’s domineering presence on the scene was not helpful. Somehow, from the turmoil of a constant power struggle, Stanford ultimately emerged as a world class institution of higher learning.
Not long after Jane’s death, William James arrived at the university. His brief while there was to teach a course in philosophy to a group of relatively clueless undergraduates. “James was attracted to Stanford University by an easterner’s fascination with California, but mostly he came for the money.” He had some things in common with Jane Stanford: he too had lost a child, and he was also drawn to the practice of spiritualism. But James was possessed of a towering intellect which Jane, for all her affluence, could not even approach.
As for Jane Stanford herself, she is not an especially sympathetic person. Her obsession with the memory of her husband and even more powerfully with that of her son should have made her more so, and yet, for this reader at least, by and large they did not. She adhered to a confused mixture of fervent Christianity and spiritualism in a desperate attempt to obtain solace for her profound losses. And her interference with the running of the university was frequent and unhelpful.
At times, White’s narrative drags. The reporting on the wrangling among Jane Stanford’s servants and among various luminaries in the university’s administration at times seemed positively granular. Admittedly, true crime maven that I am, I was chomping at the bit as I awaited the climactic story of the murder of Jane Stanford. But somehow, when it finally came,it seemed a bit of an anticlimax. But…the description of death by strychnine poisoning is harrowing. In her last moments, Jane cried out that “This a horrible death to die.” Events bear out her final cry of agony.
No one deserves to die in so terrible a manner. And yet, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Jane Stanford’s demise was judged to be by natural causes. The title of this book tells you right away that the author Richard White does not accept this ruling. In fact, in the epilogue – entitled “Who Killed Her?” – he offers a solution to the mystery. I won’t reveal the name here, but I will say that, given all that went on before the event, it was not at all surprising.
Books to the Ceiling 