komet2020's reviews
1711 reviews

Prior to reading this book, the most I knew about Smedley Butler was that he had been a bold, intrepid, and headstrong officer in the U.S. Marine Corps who had been the recipient of two Medals of Honor - no mean feat, that! And then, after retiring from the Marine Corps, for speaking truth to power to the people through his book, War is a Racket, which was published during the 1930s.

In GANGSTERS OF CAPITALISM: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire, Jonathan Katz sets out to explore and examine the full range of Smedley Butler's life and military service, which had begun in 1898. age 16. He saw action in Cuba, China (during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion), the Philippines (during the insurrection there, in which the U.S. brutally suppressed an independence movement), Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti (during the U.S. occupation there, which lasted from 1915 to 1934), the Dominican Republic, France in 1918 (he was put in a non-combatant command role there, so he missed out on fighting in World War I), and Shanghai during the mid-1920s. Butler retired as a Major General. He was an interesting man. It seems after retiring from the Marines that Butler gave a lot of thought about what he had been called upon to do by the U.S. government as a Marine, which explains why he would later say that war is a racket. He had seen how big business from the U.S., along with the banks, would come into these countries (Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Mexico, and China) and exploit their natural resources and economies. 

Katz himself went on an odyssey, retracing Butler's steps through the countries in which he had so faithfully served the interests of the U.S. government. By so doing, he provides the reader with interesting parallels between now and Butler's time. This is a book I would urge anyone to read who wants to better understand the world in which we now live and how various parts of it were impacted (Katz stresses the negatives) by U.S. foreign policy from the presidencies of William McKinley to Herbert Hoover. 

Before coming to Night Thoughts, I had known of its author, Wallace Shawn, as a character actor I had seen in a number of movies and TV shows through the years without being able to place a name on him. He was to me one of those character actors who is at once familiar from having seen him in movies and TV shows, and yet is unfamiliar at the same time because he remained largely anonymous in my awareness of him.

In this book, Shawn takes the reader on a philosophical journey in which he looks upon today's world with a critical eye while reflecting upon how civilization developed over time a world in which there are, essentially 2 classes of people, the 'lucky' and the 'unlucky.' The 'lucky' is a class of people who make up the corporate, political, military, scientific, and cultural elites who, by virtue of their power, wealth, and influence, lead privileged lives and enjoy a greater freedom in living than those people who are of the 'unlucky' class, who had to struggle and work hard all their lives to obtain for themselves and their families a sustainable standard of living.  Shawn (the son of William Shawn, the longtime editor of The New Yorker, a weekly magazine that has occupied a prominent place in U.S. culture since its founding in 1925) freely admits to being among the 'lucky' and his candor about his unease in being in that number is sobering.

What I most enjoyed about reading Night Thoughts was how much of Shawn's musings on life, people, the 'civilized' societies in which we live, reflect much of my own thoughts in these areas. He "considers justice, inequality, blame, revenge, eleventh-century Japanese court poetry, decadence, Beethoven, the relationship between the Islamic world and the West --- and the possibility that a better world could be created." I think Wallace Shawn should be complimented for making a brave attempt to give an honest appraisal of himself, the cultural milieu that has defined him throughout his life, and the world in its rawness, beauty, and brutality.

The following reflection that Shawn makes about 'Night' has a special resonance for me. He says that "Night is a wonderful blessing. It's amazing and I'm so grateful for it. In the darkness, lying in bed, we can stop. To be able to stop --- that's amazing. We can stop. We can think. Of course it's frightening too. We think of what may happen to us. We think about death. Murders and murderers stand around the bed. But night gives us a chance to consider the possibility that we can start again, that when day comes we can begin again in a different way."   I like that. 

Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties is a comprehensively researched, well-written book about some of the key German industrialists (e.g., Günther Quandt; Friedrich Flick; Wilhelm von Finck Sr.; Ferdinand Porsche, his son-in-law Anton Piëch, and Porsche's son 'Ferry'; and Rudolf-August Oetker) who greedily enriched themselves and were able to expand their economic power through their support of the Nazis during their reign in Germany (1933-1945). 

This is a history in which German industrialists supported Hitler and profited from their association with his government through the "Aryanization" of Jewish-owned businesses which became available for these industrialists to acquire and build their individual industrial empires upon. By so doing, they helped make possible the economic recovery and growth of the national economy in the 1930s, and the development of the German war machine.

The book goes a long way to highlight, in considerable detail, the ways in which these industrialists shamelessly used and exploited forced and slave labor during World War II in both Germany and German-occupied Europe, and their later efforts in the immediate post-war era to downplay or whitewash their past associations with the Nazis. For a time, most of these industrialists (even those like Quandt, Flick, von Finck Sr., the two Porsches and Piëch, and Rudolf-August Oetker) put on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes - most of these men either served short stints in prison or were --- in the case of Quandt --- acquitted  - were able over time, due to Cold War imperatives and pressures, to reacquire some of their businesses, and rebuild and expand their wealth and influence in Germany. 

Frankly, it amazed me to learn about the current generation of billionaires in Germany who are the direct heirs and beneficiaries of the prewar generation of industrialists. Sadly, much of this current generation, when presented with the Nazi past of their forebears, either choose to ignore that past or minimize its lasting impact on Germany and the world at large. I urge anyone with interests in German and postwar economic history, to read this book. 

I first got wind of The Porcelain Moon a few weeks ago via The New York Times Review of Books, which praised it. My curiosity was piqued because this is a novel that touches upon the small Chinese community in France a few years prior to and during the First World War -- as well as on the lives of a Chinese family from Shanghai who ran an antiques business in Paris -- and, in part, upon the cadres of Chinese contracted workers who were part of the Chinese Labor Corps (CLC) - which was under British command -- and its French equivalent, who provided noncombatant labor, which proved vital to the Allied war effort on the Western Front. 

This is an engaging novel rich in drama and suspense, bringing to the reader the experiences of the Chinese community in France of little more than a century ago, and its personal interactions with Europeans of various social strata. 

Miss Carter's War piqued my interest several years ago because of its author, who is a noted British actress I've seen in a number of TV dramas. It's always interesting to see if a noted actor/actress also has the talent to be a skilled novelist with an engaging story to tell.

I began reading this novel soon after I bought it. But put it aside when I allowed myself to be lured away by another book. Let me hasten to add that this didn't reflect any lack of interest in reading Miss Carter's War.    (I confess to at times being a greedy reader who has often wished that I could read more than one book at the same time.) 

Anyway, I resumed reading this novel a few days ago and once I was past the first 2 chapters, I was fully invested in the lives of Marguerite Carter, her students, her fellow teacher and close friend Tony Stansfield (who spent most of his life hiding what was looked upon as a dark, personal secret in Britain for most of the 20th century), and several other characters who figured prominently in the novel.

The novel begins in the fall of 1948 when Marguerite Carter, a young woman in her early 20s and a recent graduate of Cambridge University, arrives at Dartford County Grammar School for Girls (a real school that Sheila Hancock had attended in her youth) to take up a position there as a teacher of English. The grammar school is very much a school steeped in traditional values in a world newly emerged from World War II, though teachers like Marguerite and Tony (who befriends her early in her teaching career), who were in various ways traumatized by their wartime experiences, see their roles as helping their students to fully realize their ambitions and dreams to help ensure better lives for them.

Marguerite, who had a British father and French mother, had grown up in France. Following the defeat of France in June 1940 by Nazi Germany, she had managed to escape to Britain, where she joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and, following successful completion of her training, had been parachuted into France, where she assisted the Resistance in fighting the Germans. What Marguerite experienced of the brutality of war whilst serving with SOE would linger in the periphery of her consciousness for the rest of her life. It was something she took great pains to suppress throughout what would be a 50 year teaching career in a Britain that would evolve and change in profound and sometimes startling ways that had --- as the novel shows -- weighty impacts on Marguerite's and Tony's lives, as well as the lives of the novel's minor characters

It was interesting for me, as someone who had briefly been a teacher in the West Indies during the late 1980s, to see that Marguerite was expected by the headmistress of the grammar school to teach her pupils to the best of her ability without benefit of prior teacher training. In the Britain of 1948, anyone embarking upon a teaching career was expected to learn teaching in the classroom by trial and error. That I could totally relate to because when I began teaching high school students, I had to learn by doing and consult with my fellow teachers about doing the job.

I LOVED THIS NOVEL, which touched my deepest emotions. I recommend Miss Carter's War to anyone who loves compelling human interest dramas. 

The narrator of the story is a nameless pilot who arrived at an airbase in France in 1942, which was occupied by one of the top Luftwaffe fighter wings, nicknamed "the Abbeville Boys" by their adversaries because of their proximity to the city of Abbeville and the fact that the cowlings of their fighter planes are painted yellow. He finds himself assigned to a squadron where 2 of his closest friends (Ulrich and Werner) have already been assigned. He is 19 and presumably has completed his stint with an Ergänzungsgruppe, which was a type of finishing school for soon-to-be Luftwaffe fighter pilots, who received extensive training in the planes they would be flying in combat with a frontline Staffel (squadron).

The narrator manages to survive a series of harrowing missions, witness one newly arrived pilot (George) boasting of his first kill in aerial combat only to be informed later by his commander that he had shot down and killed one of his squadron mates by mistake and would be facing a court-martial (George is distaught upon learning of his mistake and wants to die as a way of removing his shame), and be a part of the desperate fighting put on by his unit and the German military in France following D-Day, which sees his unit evacuated to Germany as the war enters its final months.

The narrator is no glory hound keen on accruing kills in aerial combat and earning high promotion and decorations - though he admits - in one terse sentence - to having earned a few. He loves flying, being part of a fighter Staffel, and has a respect for his opponents in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF). He is set on doing his duty but, as time goes on, he has no illusions about the war, its impact on Germany, and takes life at face value.

Any reader who comes to this novel expecting to read extensively of the death-defying ballet of dogfights (aerial combats) pitting fighter against fighter, and the perils of attacking enemy bombers bristling with arrays of machine guns spitting out hundreds of rounds a second, will be a bit disappointed. This is a novel that conveys more of the routine frontline experiences faced by the narrator and his feelings about his squadron mates, the war, and his anxieties about it all. (Every now and then, the narrator does punctuate his account with his descriptions of taking on enemy planes in combat and engaging in ground attack missions.)

The book also has several photos attesting to the life of a German fighter pilot in the West during World War II, including one showing the author poised to take off in his Focke Wulf FW 190 fighter.

This is a book I had known about for years. But it was only a few days ago that I acquired it from an online bookseller at a bargain price. Bloemertz (1923-1994) had scored a kill in aerial combat, and was subsequently shot down by a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter in 1943 whilst attacking a B-17 bomber stream. He sustained grievous wounds that kept him away from JG 26 (Jagdgeschwader 26 or the 26th Fighter Wing) for some time. He would return to JG 26, albeit in a non-flying capacity, and serve out the remainder of the war with it 

In The Bombay Prince, Perveen Mistry, a young, Oxford trained lawyer in her father's employ, is visited by Freny Cuttingmaster, an 18 year old Parsi university student, for a legal consultation. It is late 1921 and Bombay is soon to be visited by the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII). There is unrest in the city surrounding the Prince's visit among elements of the populace opposed to continued British rule in India. 

Sadly, a short time later, Freny herself is found dead under questionable circumstances on the grounds of her university on the day of the Prince's visit to Bombay. Perveen is much upset about this, reflecting upon what Fremy had confided to her days earlier in her office. She takes it upon herself to represent Freny's parents in the matter of the coroner's inquest surrounding their daughter's death. There are numerous perils and challenges that Perveen encounters. Consequently, Perveen risks both her reputation and personal safety in her efforts to uncover the truth behind Freny's death once it is determined to have been a homicide. 

What I found remarkable in reading this novel is Perveen's sheer grit and guts in her quest to establish who caused Freny's death. The pacing of the drama is one that kept me reading up to the last page. Again Sujata Massey has crafted a thoroughly engaging story that I enjoyed throughout. I can't help but wonder: What's next for Perveen Mistry? 

My curiosity was piqued to read this novel because of its subject:  Lucy Maud Montgomery (Maud), famous for writing the popular 1908 international best-selling novel, Anne of Green Gables situated in Montgomery's home province of Prince Edward Island (Canada).    While I have yet to read Anne of Green Gables, I have seen on TV its 1934 movie version several times as a child, as well as the 1985 TV version starring Megan Fellows, Colleen Dewhurst, and Richard Farnsworth  --- both of which I loved. 

The novel gives the reader entree into Maud's life from her early 30s (at the time Anne of Green Gables was soon to be published) to the time of her death in April 1942.   If anyone has the impression that a writer of children's stories lives a largely happy, full, and joyous life, perish the thought.   Maud harbored ambitions that were seen by the society of her time as inappropriate and were often discouraged.    She had been a schoolteacher until her maternal grandfather's death, thereupon she went to live with her grandmother, who comes across the pages of the novel as someone who lived according to societal norms she learned to embrace and make her own, giving her character an unflappable solidity.    I enjoyed the scenes featuring Maud's interactions with her grandmother, as well as with her best friend and beloved cousin Frederica Campbell (affectionately referred to by Maud as "Frede.")

This is a novel that for me helped to convey the ups and downs that Maud contended with in life, with herself, her husband (a shy, insecure man who later lapsed into mental illness and abandoned his ministry), and her 2 sons.     

From reading After Anne, I now feel so much sympathy for Maud that I want to, in the offing, begin reading some of the journals (diaries) she meant for publication that I've had in storage for a few years.  

I was prompted to pick up this book from the neighborhood library after watching Andrew McCarthy at an event at a local bookstore about 2 weeks ago speaking about his latest book -- about a pilgrimage he and his son Sam made recently on foot along the 500 mile Camino de Santiago in Spain. McCarthy had during the Q&A session with the audience, briefly alluded to this book, which sheds considerable light on his early days as a popular young, Hollywood actor during the 1980s.

BRAT: An '80s Story is a book rich on revelations and reflections. As someone who is not far from Andrew McCarthy in age, I felt an instant connection to much of what he touched upon when discussing his experiences on the sets of movies like "Pretty in Pink", "St. Elmo's Fire" (which came out during my college days in 1985), and "Mannequin". Frankly, I had no idea how insecure McCarthy felt about the status he had at that time, and how he tried to escape from it through heavy alcohol and sporadic drug use. It was also fascinating to learn through him about the opening of doors to opportunities beckoning for those actors and actresses who, with a hit movie or two under his/her belt, become much sought after in the Hollywood firmament -- as well as the pitfalls that loom as threats to cinematic careers aborning. 

All I can say is: Thank you, Andrew McCarthy, for this wonderful, well-written book, which carried me back to the best decade of my life - the 1980s - when just about anything seemed possible to achieve for the 20-something I was then. 

 It has been quite a while since I've read a Susan Howatch novel. She's a writer whose work I had stumbled upon by accident in a BORDERS bookstore a long time ago, some years before the advent of Kindle. I bought one of her novels from her Church of England series --- Absolute Truths, which examined the inner struggles of a respected, high ranking Anglican priest following the unexpected death in 1965 of his beloved wife who had long been his rock and ever faithful helpmate --- which I read and savored. This was a novel that had real, relatable characters in a story that was both compelling and intriguing. And so it was that I went on to read the other novels in the Church of England series. Howatch showed herself to be a writer with a sure touch for telling rich and well-crafted stories with complex characters whose own stories made for rewarding reading.

A Question of Integrity shows Howatch in top form. It's centered on a healing center in the City of London --- the Church of St. Benet's --- that is headed by an Anglican priest (Nicholas Darrow, who had figured prominently in one of the novels of the Church of England series) known for his psychic gifts and capacity for helping its parishioners and anyone else who entered the center in need of help and assistance.

One rainy day in March 1988, Alice Fletcher, a plain-looking, shy, dumpy woman in her 30s who has been caring for a dying, cantankerous aunt who had helped raised her, comes into London during her lunch break. She is stressed out, frustrated, and in despair following a pointless job interview earlier in the day with a personnel officer she had described as behaving like "a sadist." Alice is someone whose life had been one of unremitting struggle in which she felt herself unloved by the wider world. Only the support and guidance of her aunt -- a woman whose granite views of life and people, fueled her with a resoluteness that defined her character and approach to living --- who had taken on Alice after her parents abandoned her as a child, gave Alice a sense of purpose. Indeed, it was her aunt who helped get Alice into a culinary school, where she proved to be an apt pupil, and graduated to become a superb cook.

The rain came down in sheets. Alice, in seeking a place that could offer her some temporary relief from the elements, stumbled into a church and, in the process, "stumbles into a situation that will revolutionize her life. She discovers [in the Church of St. Benet] a modern but mysterious healing centre and is drawn inexorably into the lives of the people who work there."

The novel, as laid out by Howatch, is tightly structured, made up of stories as told by not only Alice, but also Nicholas Darrow, his wife (who comes across as glamorous and successful from having built up a thriving business, and reveals her growing frustration and unhappiness from a 20-year marriage in which she has been neglected by a husband wholly devoted to his priestly vocation), and the Reverend Lewis Hall, an "irascible traditionalist [a widower in his late 60s]" working with Nicholas at the healing center who is a bit of a misogynist, as well as a homophobe at odds with the liberal spirit then sweeping through the Church of England. Added to all this is Francie, a woman working at the healing center as a 'Befriender' (i.e. a layperson employed by the Church who is qualified and highly capable of meeting the needs of people who enter Reverend Darrow's church seeking a way of sorting out their lives and addressing their spiritual needs). Though on the surface Francie shows herself to be a superb Befriender, she is later revealed as someone with deep, unresolved needs and desires that causes a major shakeup affecting Darrow and the healing center itself throughout most of 1988.

I ABSOLUTELY SAVORED this novel, whose reading for me was like watching a richly textured and captivating PBS TV mystery drama from the UK.  Frankly, why A Question of Integrity was never, to the best of my knowledge, adapted for either the small or large screen, boggles the mind.