TWIB-II 32
May. 22nd, 2008 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanBirthdays and visits from old friends conspired to make this week's entry late. Still, I managed to squeeze in three books amidst all the socializing.
1) -- - --
This is a placeholder for a 273-page self-published ARC, which was closer to a first draft than a bona fide book; thus I will say no more about it here.
2) The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
I figured The Lace Reader was going to be a quick, light read with some supernatural elements that I'd enjoy but nothing that would really grip me. I was certainly right about the quick part, but that's only because I couldn't put it down once I started.
At its heart, The Lace Reader is the story of three generations of an extended family in Salem, Massachusetts. The family's women all share the ability to "read" lace the way psychics read crystal balls--a skill that both puts them in demand with Salem's pagan elements and makes them anathema to the fundamentalist "christian" sect that has taken up residence in the town.
But there are many other elements besides: witchcraft, disappearances, romance, family drama, and examinations of the lines between good and evil, sanity and lunacy, dogmatism and true faith, and the passage of time. Ambitious, to be sure, but Barry is largely able to pull it off thanks to her solid but restrained touch.
Her descriptions are so vivid readers will feel as though they're in Salem themselves. Keys to the plot's main mystery are sprinkled liberally throughout the text, although one has to have a good eye in order to catch them. I was very pleased with myself upon finishing the novel for having spotted several of them, and also enjoyed the Aha! moments whenever Barry revealed a clue whose significance I'd missed. There is a lot of exposition in The Lace Reader, but it reads like action, which is no easy feat to pull off.
True, a few plot points don't seem entirely resolved after the final page has been turned, but the overall experience of the read is so satisfying that I really didn't mind; indeed, it was only after the afterglow had worn off that I even realised that not every question the story raised had been answered. Overall, however, The Lace Reader was a rollicking good read and I'm quite glad I picked it up.
3) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland - Christopher R. Browning
This WWII history has an ambitious goal: to explain how the ordinary men of its title--working-class Germans lacking the desire or qualifications to become Nazi soldiers or SS troopers--turned into disinterested murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.
It divides into three rough sections. The first, in which Browning summarizes the origins and early years of the Nazi party, its activities in Poland, and the composition and command structure of the Nazi Germany's armed and police forces, is confusing and rushed. Although these elements are not the core focus of the text, Browning's treatment of them here is too brief to be of use to the lay reader and so simple as to be annoying to readers more familiar with the subject. Not much can be done to address the latter group, but Browning would have done well to include a glossary of the organizations and individuals in this section, as well as a chart or two summarizing the information graphically. He did not, however; and the book suffers for it.
The second section relates the findings of Browning's research concerning the 101's men from their first action in Poland to their final slaughter of 14,000 Jews in 1943. It's chilling reading to say the least; the endless litany of near-six-digit figures tallying Jewish deaths in each "action" will leave readers with a sort of grey, numb horror. Browning is not a particularly gripping writer, but he does try to put the humanity of the battalion's more reluctant members, and the inhumanity of its sadistic members, into context in as objective a way as possible.
The third section is more theoretical in nature, examining the relationships between the Germans occupiers, Polish occupied, and Jewish victims, as well as the various influences acting on the 101's men and the explanations put forward for how they became capable of committing such attrocities--the volume's standout moment. Its final chapter, an extended "Afterword" in which the author both elaborates on these subjects and takes another author to task for his criticisms of Browning's work is equal parts engrossing and frustrating. Engrossing because Browning finally starts deeply examining the issues he's raised earlier, frustrating because one wishes it hadn't taken an academic spat to force him to do so.
All in all, while I'm glad I read this book, I still came away with the feeling that it had just scraped the surface of its subject. It's an interesting read to be sure, but I'd advise potential readers to look elsewhere first for lay histories of the holocaust.
That will be all.
1) -- - --
This is a placeholder for a 273-page self-published ARC, which was closer to a first draft than a bona fide book; thus I will say no more about it here.
2) The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
I figured The Lace Reader was going to be a quick, light read with some supernatural elements that I'd enjoy but nothing that would really grip me. I was certainly right about the quick part, but that's only because I couldn't put it down once I started.
At its heart, The Lace Reader is the story of three generations of an extended family in Salem, Massachusetts. The family's women all share the ability to "read" lace the way psychics read crystal balls--a skill that both puts them in demand with Salem's pagan elements and makes them anathema to the fundamentalist "christian" sect that has taken up residence in the town.
But there are many other elements besides: witchcraft, disappearances, romance, family drama, and examinations of the lines between good and evil, sanity and lunacy, dogmatism and true faith, and the passage of time. Ambitious, to be sure, but Barry is largely able to pull it off thanks to her solid but restrained touch.
Her descriptions are so vivid readers will feel as though they're in Salem themselves. Keys to the plot's main mystery are sprinkled liberally throughout the text, although one has to have a good eye in order to catch them. I was very pleased with myself upon finishing the novel for having spotted several of them, and also enjoyed the Aha! moments whenever Barry revealed a clue whose significance I'd missed. There is a lot of exposition in The Lace Reader, but it reads like action, which is no easy feat to pull off.
True, a few plot points don't seem entirely resolved after the final page has been turned, but the overall experience of the read is so satisfying that I really didn't mind; indeed, it was only after the afterglow had worn off that I even realised that not every question the story raised had been answered. Overall, however, The Lace Reader was a rollicking good read and I'm quite glad I picked it up.
3) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland - Christopher R. Browning
This WWII history has an ambitious goal: to explain how the ordinary men of its title--working-class Germans lacking the desire or qualifications to become Nazi soldiers or SS troopers--turned into disinterested murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.
It divides into three rough sections. The first, in which Browning summarizes the origins and early years of the Nazi party, its activities in Poland, and the composition and command structure of the Nazi Germany's armed and police forces, is confusing and rushed. Although these elements are not the core focus of the text, Browning's treatment of them here is too brief to be of use to the lay reader and so simple as to be annoying to readers more familiar with the subject. Not much can be done to address the latter group, but Browning would have done well to include a glossary of the organizations and individuals in this section, as well as a chart or two summarizing the information graphically. He did not, however; and the book suffers for it.
The second section relates the findings of Browning's research concerning the 101's men from their first action in Poland to their final slaughter of 14,000 Jews in 1943. It's chilling reading to say the least; the endless litany of near-six-digit figures tallying Jewish deaths in each "action" will leave readers with a sort of grey, numb horror. Browning is not a particularly gripping writer, but he does try to put the humanity of the battalion's more reluctant members, and the inhumanity of its sadistic members, into context in as objective a way as possible.
The third section is more theoretical in nature, examining the relationships between the Germans occupiers, Polish occupied, and Jewish victims, as well as the various influences acting on the 101's men and the explanations put forward for how they became capable of committing such attrocities--the volume's standout moment. Its final chapter, an extended "Afterword" in which the author both elaborates on these subjects and takes another author to task for his criticisms of Browning's work is equal parts engrossing and frustrating. Engrossing because Browning finally starts deeply examining the issues he's raised earlier, frustrating because one wishes it hadn't taken an academic spat to force him to do so.
All in all, while I'm glad I read this book, I still came away with the feeling that it had just scraped the surface of its subject. It's an interesting read to be sure, but I'd advise potential readers to look elsewhere first for lay histories of the holocaust.
That will be all.
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on 2008-05-22 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-05-25 05:40 pm (UTC)