The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West

I would have been a terrible pioneer. I've had this reaction before, but the thought coursed through my mind time and again as I read Dee Brown's characterization of life in the Old West: work, work, work, Indian raids, work, dust storms, work, you get the idea. The list of tasks an average woman was expected to complete was daunting, from making soap and candles, to pureeing fruit and drying it as a paste to ward off scurvy in winter months, a pioneer was never idle. (In truth, this is not so different from other women's lot either, including many southern plantation mistresses.)

But first, before she could begin her life as a pioneer woman, she had to get there. And it is in telling this part of the story that Brown does her best work. The stories of the earliest pioneers are the strongest, particularly the Army brides bustling from primitive fort to primitive fort and the women making their way across the endless prairie - including one who made the crossing as part of the infamous Donner party.

Once the West is a bit more "settled," Brown spends less time on the individual women themselves and their hardships and lives, and more on suffrage (which originated out West), women's roles as entertainers (of both the professional and, uh, private variety), the fight for prohibition, and women as teachers. The difference between the two halves of the book is that, while I was interested in women's broader roles in the west, I was inspired by their personal stories.

Final verdict: I wanted to like this book a bit more than I ultimately did. The first few chapters, in which the pluck and spirit of the women pioneers nearly springs from the pages, is four-star material. The latter few chapters, which read like something out of a women's history book, are probably two-star material. And for those looking for further inspiration from women who had it so much harder than we did, look no further than They Fought Like Demons, which is the story of women who disguised themselves as men and fought in the Civil War. I bet they would have found soap making child's play after that.

Goodbye to All That

Robert Graves graduated from high school in June 1914 and in perhaps the most egregious example in history of “be careful what you wish for,” hoped that some circumstance would intercede before he was compelled to go up to Oxford that fall. Circumstances did intercede, and instead of entering Oxford, Graves quickly found himself a junior officer in the English Army, shipped to France, and fighting in the trenches.

His memoir, Goodbye to All That, is a beautiful, poignant, and thought-provoking account of one man’s war. It is full of trench warfare, but also of idle times, of injuries and illness, and anecdotes about the French civilians who were attempting to live in the midst of the Great War. Graves also considers the politics of war, proposing at one point that perhaps only those over the age of 45 should be eligible for the draft, as they are the ones managing the country’s affairs. Graves was a published poet during the war and, as such, this book is also full of his encounters with other writers from the era, from Siegfried Sassoon to Thomas Hardy.

Most remarkably, though, Graves has written a clear-eyed account of his struggle with neurasthenia, or what we know today as shell shock (a term that does appear toward the end), or PTSD. Like many soldiers, Graves was badly affected by what he experienced in France, and his description of re-entering civilian life and the nightmares he faced for a full decade after the war are truly remarkable. There is no question that he would agree with Peter Englund's assertion in The Beauty and the Sorrow, "Endurance is far harder than bravery."

I was reminded regularly of Arthur Guy Empey's Over the Top; the best-sourced work (here’s looking at you, Guns of August and The Assassination of the Archduke) simply cannot hold a candle to the first person accounts of war’s terrible toll.

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

Charley Hill rescues art. More precisely, he rescues stolen masterpieces. He is Scotland Yard's art recovery man, and perhaps best known for his role in locating Edvard Munch's Scream, stolen from Oslo's National Gallery in 1994. This is the man, and more to the point, the profession, that Edward Dolnick brings to life in Rescue Artist.

Dolnick's portrait (no pun intended) of Hill is colorful, complex, and frankly quite fascinating. Hill regularly goes undercover, you see, assuming and shedding identities - and the requisite personality traits and accents - as the circumstances dictate. Art theft being big business, Charley Hill is rather a busy man. More than being a biography of Hill, though, Rescue Artist examines the underbelly of the art world in detailing numerous heists, from that of the Mona Lisa in 1913 to, of course, the Scream, whose recovery is the centerpiece of this book.

As an aside, one of the thefts Dolnick describes is the one from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Thirteen paintings were swiped and none has been recovered. This is actually the second time I've encountered these particular stolen works of art (the first time was in The Art Forger), so I decided to visit when I was in Boston recently. 1) They didn't know about their cameo in Rescue Artist, which is too bad, as I actually prefer it to the fictional Art Forger. and 2) I overheard a woman asking a docent about the theft. She would have learned more from Dolnick.

But I digress.

In addition to detailing the theft of art, Dolnick also does a remarkable job or writing about its creation. Having read his descriptions of brush strokes and craquelure, canvas creases, and chalk smudges, it's impossible now to look at art without focusing on these elements (at least when you can get close enough to the works to do so, as at the ISGM), which give a painting nearly as much character as its actual composition.

Final Verdict: I really, really enjoyed this book. It should appeal to a wide audience, from art lovers to crime fans. Dolnick's style is fast-paced and his prose is crisp and lively. Four stars.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage

Bill Bryson begins by acknowledging how very, very little we know about William Shakespeare. From these paltry facts, Bryson builds an entire, and entirely entertaining, biography. That said, given the few concrete pieces of information we have, I'm not sure I learned much new about Shakespeare. (Caveat: In addition to a mostly-forgotten Shakespeare class, I have visited all places Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, where I learned not only about the man himself, but the origins of such phrases as "sleep tight" and "lunatic.")

I did, however, learn a great deal about Elizabethan England. This is Bryson at his finest. The subject is light years from hiking the Appalachian Trail or the great American summertime, but the research, the style, and the serious irreverence are Bryson's hallmark. And the plagues. Oh, the plagues. It is easy to forget how absolutely incessant they were.

As much as I enjoyed Bryson's work on Shakespeare, and more broadly on Shakespeare's times, I was most impressed by the way Bryson dispatched with the doubters. Systematically, he examined the claims of those who posit "Shakespeare" was other than Shakespeare. Although I'm positive a deep body of work exists on this aspect of Shakespeare alone, this is the first I've really delved into it and, let me say, Bryson is extremely persuasive.

Shakespeare is one of the slimmest volumes I've read this year, but it packs an outsize punch. This is a great little book for anyone who loves biography, or English literature, or history, or Bill Bryson. Happy reading!

Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen

Had I read the description more closely, I probably would not have read Laughing Without an Accent. I thought this was Firoozeh Dumas's memoir about growing up as an Iranian American in California. Oops - that was the description of a previous best seller and the hook to for Laughing, which contains "stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition." It's no wonder my favorite chapters were the earliest ones which were heavy on memoir and life in pre-Revolution Iran, as opposed to musings on andouillette and bedroom decor.

That said, I did enjoy this book. It's a fast-paced, lighthearted, lightning fast read, and I found Dumas's descriptions of life in the Middle East especially interesting. Although it occasionally feels like she is trying a little too hard to be witty, for the most part I liked Dumas's style; a few passages are laugh-out-loud hilarious, which never hurts. The most memorable anecdote involved the ruination of an Iran Air carry-on bag and Dumas's musings that perhaps the loss would not have been so keenly felt had one known that in the future it would be less than advisable to carry such a bag through TSA checkpoints.

The final verdict: Had I not misread the description I would have missed out on this eminently readable little book, which I heartily recommend to those looking for reading material for a trip to the beach (or enroute).

Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure

Earlier this spring I read and reviewed The Nightingale and complained about what I perceive to be the over-saturation of the French Resistance genre within World War II historical fiction. I wanted a more nuanced history, I said, one that acknowledged the reality that every Frenchman was not for Charles de Gaulle or the Maquis. 

Well, it’s not fiction, but Wine and War fits the bill. Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup have written an insightful, multi-dimensional, and frankly fascinating account of the actions of French winemakers (and, in some cases, restaurateurs) during World War II. Some were actively engaged in the Resistance. Many undertook their own, independent acts of subterfuge or rebellion against the Germans. A few collaborated with the boches.  

The authors Kladstrup also take pains to ensure their readers understand that not all Germans were created equal. Many of those responsible for the oversight of the wine and champagne industries in France were Francophiles - a few had previously owed their own maisons before losing the property following Germany's loss in World War I. Often they wanted to preserve the French heritage, tradition, and friendships in spite of orders from above. Others were keen profiteers. 

Most impressively, this is not a textbook history, per se, but more of an anthropological one. The Kladstrups conducted countless interviews with French and German survivors of the war, as well as their children and sometimes grandchildren. They have taken pains to tell the history of wine in France and the winemaking process, as well, rather than diving directly into the events of the second World War. Taken together, this is a fascinating history, and would that should interest history lovers and especially World War II buffs and Francophile of all stripes.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue

I have read and enjoyed so many of Melanie Benjamin’s books now that I never doubted I would read – and like – The Swans of Fifth Avenue. What was different about this book from her previous works, at least for me, is that I was previously unfamiliar with Babe Paley (as opposed to the Lindberghs, for example), and remained completely disinterested in her (unlike Mrs. Tom Thumb, for instance).

Swans is Benjamin’s recreation of Truman Capote’s friendship with – and ultimately betrayal of – Bill and Babe Paley circa mid-nineteenth century. I found Bill Paley, founder and chairman of CBS, to be the most interesting character. Benjamin’s portrayal of Capote made me dislike him immensely. I should add that what I knew about Capote previously can be summed up by the following: from Alabama, related to Harper Lee, author of In Cold Blood, gay. Certainly Benjamin colors in this portrait more completely; I just didn’t care for him.

The most wonderful attribute of the book is Benjamin’s writing. Her language is beautiful, her sentences well designed, her paragraphs a delight to read. It is rare that I have the pleasure of reading such marvelously crafted words from the opening page to the closing one. Although I can’t recommend Swans as heartily as either Alice I Have Been or The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, it is a very good read and the hesitation on my part stems entirely from my previously mentioned disinterest in the characters rather than Benjamin’s work.