BertBailey
Ottawa Public Library
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L'amour est un crime parfaitL'amour est un crime parfait, DVDLove is the perfect crime
DVD - 2014 | FrenchDVD, 2014. Language: French
BertBailey's rating:
Added Dec 14, 2023
Added Oct 27, 2023
Comment:
Hope it's got a good index of characters and topics.
Just ordered it.
The Best of Bill WithersThe Best of Bill Withers, Music CDLean on Me
by Withers, BillMusic CD - 2000Music CD, 2000
BertBailey's rating:
Added Aug 09, 2023
Comment:
Pity "I Can't Write Left Hand" isn't on this, as it's one of his lesser-known greats--about a soldier who lost an arm in Vietnam. It's only on his Live at Carnegie Hall album, apparently, and my library seems to no longer buy CDs but to confine itself to the Heymann streaming service these days.
Still, Withers is one of the greats of the mid-70s, and the music of only a very, very few is anywhere as soulful.Pity "I Can't Write Left Hand" isn't on this, as it's one of his lesser-known greats--about a soldier who lost an arm in Vietnam. It's only on his Live at Carnegie Hall album, apparently, and my library seems to no longer buy CDs but to confine…
The Devil's ChessboardThe Devil's Chessboard, BookAllen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
by Talbot, DavidBook - 2016Book, 2016
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jul 07, 2023
Blood FeastBlood Feast, BookThe Complete Short Stories of Malika Moustadraf
by Mustaẓraf, MalīkahBook - 2022Book, 2022
BertBailey's rating:
Added May 21, 2023
Comment:
Just learned that Malika Mustadraf died at just 37, and some time ago (2009).
After reading some of the briefest stories in this small, beautiful book, I was left very impressed. Her writing is feminist, succinct, never rabid and quite poignant.
Besides this book she apparently also left behind a semi-autobiographical novel.
Strongly recommended.Just learned that Malika Mustadraf died at just 37, and some time ago (2009).
After reading some of the briefest stories in this small, beautiful book, I was left very impressed. Her writing is feminist, succinct, never rabid and quite…
In safe handsIn safe hands, DVDPupille
DVD - 2020 | FrenchDVD, 2020. Language: French
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jul 29, 2022
Comment:
A touching flick well worth watching.
Nightmare AlleyNightmare Alley, DVDRuelle De Cauchemar
DVD - 2022DVD, 2022
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jul 29, 2022
Comment:
Nightmare Alley, an ambitious effort by Guillermo del Toro, stars an A-list cast: Blanchette, Brad Cooper, T Collette, Rooney Mara, W Dafoe, David Strathairn, etc.
It's sure to win an Oscar for Art Direction, with its eye-popping Chicago Art Deco, plus superb recreations of a 1940s circus settings. Perhaps costumes: not the gowns as much as some vivid depictions of the grunge of the day.
The story moves along, full of incident on the verge of a slick, well-budgeted, colourized noir. With such hefty production values, its top cast and outstanding sets and art direction, the audience might hope for another LA Confidential or Chinatown.
Yet in the end I wasn't as satisfied as I'd hoped. The plot is plausible enough, but the proceedings seem overcooked, the comeuppance too predictable, and the denouement lacks something to give the satisfaction one wishes for, especially if you've been led to associate this with the two mentioned gems.
A good film worth watching, but I wouldn't pitch my expectations too high.Nightmare Alley, an ambitious effort by Guillermo del Toro, stars an A-list cast: Blanchette, Brad Cooper, T Collette, Rooney Mara, W Dafoe, David Strathairn, etc.
It's sure to win an Oscar for Art Direction, with its eye-popping Chicago Art Deco,…
A Short History of the Twentieth CenturyA Short History of the Twentieth Century, Book
by Lukacs, JohnBook - 2013Book, 2013
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jul 26, 2022
BertBailey's rating:
Added Feb 21, 2022
Comment:
This book, The Queen of the South (Reina del Sur), comes well-recommended.
Yet I've decided to order it, being an engaging read by a writer I know and followed through his most enjoyable, and well-translated, series about Capitan Alatriste, of the swashbuckling Golden Age of Spain.
But the edition my library (Ottawa Public Library) holds has been shrunk by about 20%—to the book’s enormous detriment!
In fact it's outrageous that books in new editions appear in formats that CANNOT BE READ with any ease or comfort! Besides an aesthetic sense one may have about books as read, held and owned—which every reader has, whether consciously or not—there’s the matter of simple readability. Given the simple visual difficulty with this edition, I'd suggest that you, the reader, not get discouraged by the tiny type.
Instead, return this mini-copy and look around 2nd-hand bookshops for the earlier edition, as I will. The first one, ideally, when they were interested in gaining an audience and didn’t think they had a captive one yet—so published in a(n easily) readable type.
This, incidentally, now seems to be routine.
It happened to me with the OPLibrary's copy of John Gribbin's excellent book The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors. It's a large tome, fairly comprehensive for educated but non-specialist readers. I read the library copy and liked it so much I wanted my own copy, but the one that was commercially available was also NOT READABLE with any ease or comfort. I had to turn to a 2nd hand shop, and found an earlier edition, luckily. A great book, well worth owning.
I suggest, since publishers are pulling this deplorable trick on the reading public, that libraries invest a bit of energy to label each such book as follows:
"Warning to readers: This edition is a shrunken version of the original publication, and some may find it impossible, difficult, or disagreeable to read."This book, The Queen of the South (Reina del Sur), comes well-recommended.
Yet I've decided to order it, being an engaging read by a writer I know and followed through his most enjoyable, and well-translated, series about Capitan Alatriste, of the…
The Gilded PageThe Gilded Page, BookThe Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts
by Wellesley, MaryBook - 2021Book, 2021
Added Nov 01, 2021
Comment:
See https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S26C915943, about a portrait by Emil Nolde of Mary of Egypt.
Mary Wellesley, a British Library scholar and teacher, is the recent author of a London Review of Books podcast series (and monograph?): Hidden Hands, The Lives of Manuscripts and their Mission.
She argues that Mary of Egypt (3rd to 6th century--if she lived at all) was no prostitute, but an unrepentant, even rapacious hedonist.
She in fact presumably feared turning away potential suitors by charging them, and preferred to remain poor without pay for the sex that she was more than willing to provide to many men.
This is elaborated by her on a CBC radio program, Ideas: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/sex-and-exile-the-wild-tale-of-saint-mary-of-egypt-1.6228645See https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S26C915943, about a portrait by Emil Nolde of Mary of Egypt.
Mary Wellesley, a British Library scholar and teacher, is the recent author of a London Review of Books podcast series (and monograph?):…
Emil NoldeEmil Nolde, BookSt. Mary of Egypt
Book - 2014Book, 2014
BertBailey's rating:
Added Nov 01, 2021
Comment:
An interesting introduction to Emil Nolde's painting, although inaccurate if more recent scholarship is to be believed.
Mary Wellesley, a British Library scholar and teacher, who has authored a London Review of Books podcast series, Hidden Hands, The Lives of Manuscripts and their Mission, argues that Mary of Egypt (3rd to 6th century--if she lived) was no prostitute, but an unrepentant, even rapacious hedonist. She in fact presumably feared turning away potential suitors, and preferred to remain poor by getting no pay for the sex that she was more than willing to provide to many men.
According to this, the brief documentary is apparently wrong.
This is elaborated by her on the CBC program Ideas: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/sex-and-exile-the-wild-tale-of-saint-mary-of-egypt-1.6228645An interesting introduction to Emil Nolde's painting, although inaccurate if more recent scholarship is to be believed.
Mary Wellesley, a British Library scholar and teacher, who has authored a London Review of Books podcast series, Hidden Hands,…
BertBailey's rating:
Added Sep 09, 2021
Comment:
"Controversial" is the usual, tired word most use to describe Christopher Hitchens--who's widely disliked for finding fault in revered characters such as the Clintons, "Mother" Teresa, Kissinger, the rev. Bill Graham, God, etc. A verbal pugilist, and a very successful one, even a Muhammad Ali at the art, no doubt as he perfected his skills in the halls and cloisters of Oxford University. This matters in that the rigour required by such exposure includes becoming familiar with an opponent's likely counter-arguments, so as to be prepared with rebuttals. Online videos show him debating heavyweight thinkers and theologians, usually to devastating result for them, and in some cases with lightweights (Fox's Tucker Carlson) who are surprisingly unlettered.
Those disputes justify Hitchens' fame for a sharp wit, an often acerbic approach, and his extensive vocabulary. A prodigious memory helped him to draw on his vast learning. Some find that erudition irritating and pretentious, although to the contrary, I feel it had more to do with modesty. In my view, he seemed hardly able to express a thought or marshall some argument without recollecting some ancient or modern source who'd anticipated it, or a poem that in some way expressed it best.
A reporter, columnist, lecturer and writer by trade, to me he was one of our era's sharpest critical thinkers--in the iconoclastic tradition of Gore Vidal, perhaps Noam Chomsky or, previously, even George Orwell. This book provides a sort of overview of his life, thought, and doings--and it's an eminently worthwhile read.
He travelled almost everywhere that there was dissent, conflict and/or war. Among the subjects covered here are his defense of Salman Rushdie during the Iranian Ayatollah's fatwa; his support of the Second Iraqi invasion; and less grand but as interesting events--such as his discovery, after his mother's suicide, that she was a Jew; word games he'd play with pals Rushdie and Martin Amis; a visit to Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires; and his deep love of the United States, mostly for the first-ever secular foundation provided to it by two Enlightenment figures, Jefferson and Adams.
While his career began as a marxist debater in England, as it came to its end he defended the US's controversial Second Iraqi War and responded to the accusation that he cozied up to the neocons who pressed for it (he even defends his friend, the much-detested Straussian Paul Wolfowitz). Yet Hitchens came to this conservative stand, and his skepticism about US liberals, through exposure to Bill Clinton, about whom he wrote a book on his corruption. He also considered that the First Iraqi War was left damagingly incomplete by leaving a dangerous Saddam Hussein in power.
Among other incidents and ideas discussed, Hitchens, a famed atheist, provides a tantalizing account of why he's not a nihilist. There's sufficient meaning in life, he says, to reject that bleak outlook as, "A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humour, parenthood, literature and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others, cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so." In the light of these, he adds, it is, "...not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if ...all existence is a pointless joke." (p. 331)
Besides supporting his unusual verbal and writing skills, Hitchens' prodigious memory gave him access to a vast store of poetry. In addition to the mentioned subjects, this book is well worth reading for some well-chosen poetry he quotes, such as this fragment from Rosetti:
What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood
How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?
Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes,
Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?
Equally weighty, even perhaps revelatory, is Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est.' ...
[see Goodreads for the rest of this review]"Controversial" is the usual, tired word most use to describe Christopher Hitchens--who's widely disliked for finding fault in revered characters such as the Clintons, "Mother" Teresa, Kissinger, the rev. Bill Graham, God, etc. A verbal pugilist,…
Added Sep 07, 2021
Comment:
[Clive James calls his stories about as good as Chekov's, and his observation that desire can overwhelm someone drew admiration from Freud and makes him a forerunner to Philip Roth]
BertBailey's rating:
Added May 06, 2021
Comment:
Be warned, this is not THE Steve Lacy, a jazz saxophonist with a career stretching back at least to the early 60s, and celebrated for his interpretations of Thelonious Monk, his collaborations with Mal Waldron, and his own sometimes avant gardist music making.
This is some pop musician from the 21st century who hasn't differentiated himself from the above--the real thing.Be warned, this is not THE Steve Lacy, a jazz saxophonist with a career stretching back at least to the early 60s, and celebrated for his interpretations of Thelonious Monk, his collaborations with Mal Waldron, and his own sometimes avant gardist…
BertBailey's rating:
Added Feb 21, 2021
Comment:
Whether history is a science or a form of literature, in my experience historians are usually excellent writers: paragons of plain language that makes their subjects approachable and understandable both to their peers and amateurs. Trevelyan, AJP Taylor, JH Plumb, John Lukacz, and Lynne Olsen are among those who, beyond instructive in their areas of fascination, consistently write books that are easy to read, even a pleasure.
I would not be surprised, conversely, if their scholarly articles broke with this general rule, since shorter pieces focus on issues of narrower interest to target specialist audiences.
At least going on this book, AP Martinich is not among these more popular, in the sense of .readable. historians. This biography of Thomas Hobbes goes for completeness, and his interest is in disputes about when Hobbes went on his European tour, his early patrons and their complicated family relations, how well Hobbes's books were received at the time and by whom, disputes about religion and monarchy during that time, etc.
Being a Cambridge University Press publication, it is properly referenced, with abundant footnotes and a detailed Index--which can be extremely useful to anyone with specific interests. Just the kind of book I'd've appreciated visiting as an undergraduate, writing essays--though that was well before 1999, when this came out. In that context, I'd appreciate Martinich's specific explorations of topics in Hobbes's thinking. Hence my high rating: this book's instructive, scholarly, and thorough--beyond any doubt.
For those interested in an enjoyable-to-read biography of this great political philosopher and his very interesting times, I'd recommend looking for something less dry and scholarly.Whether history is a science or a form of literature, in my experience historians are usually excellent writers: paragons of plain language that makes their subjects approachable and understandable both to their peers and amateurs. Trevelyan, AJP…
BertBailey's rating:
Added Feb 13, 2021
Comment:
The original title reads as 'The Paradise on the Other Corner', and is not as wooden but more eloquent than its translation as 'The Way to Paradise: A Novel.'
'El Paraíso en La Otra Esquina' is Mario Vargas Llosa's fictionalized dual biography of the painter Paul Gauguin and of Flora Tristán, a political reformer and writer who was Gaugin's Peruvian grandmother. This rewarding read is hampered in one or two ways.
The plot lines never converge, and the chapters alternate--switching from Flora's rejection of some suitor or her activism in France, to, say, an episode from Gauguin's time in Provence or Polynesia. Their lives never intersected significantly, so the book's unity must be by thematic connections or contrasts. Both flouted convention while trying to realize their aspirations, but each came to a solitary, painful end. In some ways they're opposites: Gauguin was near-priapic, while Flora Tristán found most sex repugnant; social inequities drove her to passionate activism, while he was indifferent to or complicit in his world's injustices.
The dual structure raises issues about cohesiveness, and a challenge that one plot line may interest one more than the other: you may welcome returning to your preferred plot or regret having to wade through another one before getting to it. Other challenges arise, such as: why does this episode follow the last one? Is there a symmetry in the sequence of chapters?
Second-person remarks also intrude on the narrative, raising issues about the speaker's identity. That narrator even addresses Gauguin and Flora, in reproachful or nagging tones: "Was it your ill health that made you so impatient?", etc. One expects a crafty, Nabokovian solution to these periodic metafictional intrusions--perhaps that the narrator is even a relative reviewing their lives. But in the end the source is, simply, Vargas Llosa.
This overt role in his novel may reflect the author's wish to escape third-person narrative forms, echoing how Gauguin and Tristán railed against convention; or he may regard the intrusions as the bridge they clearly lack. Yet the puzzlement never quite vanishes. Vargas Llosa's writing has seldom involved tight plots or fancy devices: his literature always explores history, the unseemly grit and sinew of human action--precisely the domain of this novel.
Another curious liberty is in articulating mental goings-on. This toys even further with the readers' suspension of disbelief, since the thoughts are ascribed to historical figures. While probably supported by his research, their presentation as mental musings--rather than as correspondence, for instance, or as someone's say-so--inserts an omniscience that biographical works generally avoid, quite sensibly. Streams-of-consciousness belong in fiction but not in biography, so muddying this line calls on readers to decide yet again if something is being violated or if it somehow 'works.'
One or two chapters get weighed down by this intruding narrator, although most are rich with engrossing, well-spun incident--staying abreast of every good story-teller's attentiveness to the question: And then what happened? This book does this, and well, shining brightest with historical narrative and fiction. Vargas Llosa chisels a fine, stony portrait of Gauguin's sexless wife, the Nordic "Vikinga," whom he leaves with their kids when he runs off to Polynesia to discover primitivism--including young Polynesian girls he bedded even during his gradual putrefaction to death by advanced syphilis. Along with the development of the central characters, all of these are handled masterfully. Since he knew he was ailing, and knew very well about the mechanics of infection, one's admiration for Gaugin's art is liable to change forever.
Vargas Llosa remains among our foremost living writers, and this novel does not disappoint. Its portraits are memorable (no easy feat) and as a narrative it provides rich rewards. Among an array of options.. [see Goodreads for the rest]The original title reads as 'The Paradise on the Other Corner', and is not as wooden but more eloquent than its translation as 'The Way to Paradise: A Novel.'
'El Paraíso en La Otra Esquina' is Mario Vargas Llosa's fictionalized dual biography of…
Our ManOur Man, BookRichard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
by Packer, GeorgeBook - 2019Book, 2019
BertBailey's rating:
Added Feb 03, 2021
Comment:
Holbrooke's big achievement was the Clinton admin's largest foreign policy triumph: the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars. Even so, a Nov 1995 Guardian headline casts this diplomatic victory as due to "Holbrooke’s tantrums and swashbuckling tactics." Apparently charismatic, widely admired and his generation's most enterprising US diplomat, he was also deeply flawed: abrasively ambitious, vindictive, and widely detested.
My first glimpse was back when, via a photo of the negotiations, where Holbrooke's body language--elbows perched over the back of a sofa while looking down on the negotiators. It bore all the signs of an imperious bully affirming his control. His team secured the peace, but in various ways he antagonized the Russians, our European allies, and both parties to the Accord.
Beyond the usual research, Packer's portrait digs into personal archives to reconstruct his career and complex personal & love life, citing over 40 pages of his diary. Detailed and rich about the man, it's also an intriguing history of the era.
He joined the State Department in 1962, and soon caught on to the futility of the US role in Vietnam. Afghanistan and Bosnia were also prominent in Holbrooke's career. He aspired to be the next Kissinger; we hear about his affairs (including with Diane Sawyer), which often seemed to involve mutual use more than heartfelt love; and he admired and was a sycophant to Averell Harriman. His dealings with the Kennedys are of interest, notably by indirectly helping JFK when he faced blackmail over one of his liaisons.
I first saw Packer in a YouTube discussion with Christopher Hitchens about Orwell (recommended!). He's become an author of some note and certainly a readable writer, yet I had to wonder if a teenager occasionally took over. That Washington DC women might regard Holbrooke as "unfuckable" seems a bullet-headed way to sum up their assessments; I wondered if I'd soon turn the page to find "real douchebag" used as a descriptor.
A very notable failing to me about this 500-page tome is its lack of an index--so easy to configure in the computer era, and of immense value to those eager to hone in on a subject, most especially since chapters are unhelpfully titled 'Dreams so Far Away,' 'Since I am now Hopeless,' etc.
All the same, about its subject and the era, this is a readable, rich and informative book. Recommended.Holbrooke's big achievement was the Clinton admin's largest foreign policy triumph: the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars. Even so, a Nov 1995 Guardian headline casts this diplomatic victory as due to "Holbrooke’s tantrums and swashbuckling…
The ScientistsThe Scientists, BookA History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors
by Gribbin, JohnBook - 2002Book, 2002
BertBailey's rating:
Added Feb 03, 2021
Comment:
Very readable about my current interests, Newton and Hook--but while this book provides the introductory overview I'm interested in, it's a huge tome for my tastes and relatively narrow interests.
JH Plumb's excellent book on 18th century science sparked renewed interest in the area, and I'm currently looking into borrowing other library books by Gribbin, since he makes this material so palatable for this curious, non-specialist reader.
Interestingly, Gribbin's also the author of a book on Buddy Holly(!), and of an astonishing near-libraryful of books about science.Very readable about my current interests, Newton and Hook--but while this book provides the introductory overview I'm interested in, it's a huge tome for my tastes and relatively narrow interests.
JH Plumb's excellent book on 18th century science…
Not A DrillNot A Drill, eBookA Jack Reacher Short Story
by Child, LeeeBook - 2014eBook, 2014
Available
Added Jan 23, 2021
Blow-upBlow-up, DVD
DVD - 2017DVD, 2017
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jan 14, 2021
Comment:
So much fogginess about this movie in the comments.
Like Performance, with Mick Jagger (also based on a story by Julio Cortazar, of South America's literary 'Boom'), this classic flick was a big smash when it came out, partly for depicting London as a "swinging," "happening" centre. It featured young, beautiful people as all the rage when boomers turned our eyes England-wards, thanks to the Beatles and all that followed.
Although laid out artfully and, yes, a bit cryptically, no mystery should remain about its dealing with an issue all youths face--namely, between self-absorption in a life of plenty, or involvement in the world beyond.
Plenty because this guy has everything: good looks, girls, casually enjoyable drugs, fame (he was modelled after David Bailey, fashion photographer, and of Rolling Stones LP covers), a Rolls convertible, a cool studio/house, a yummy neighbour (Sarah Miles), etc. Yet when he wanders into a performance by The Yardbirds, after a struggle he walks out with a piece of Jeff Beck's guitar yet chucks it, not fired up by the memento.
Voyeuristically--aren't all youths, and photographers, voyeurs?--he snaps away at a couple in a park having an argument, and later realizes there's more there than meets the eye: a murder. The girl--Vanessa Redgrave trying to transition from modelling to acting--turns up at his pad, after the negatives, willing to do _anything_ for them. But uncharacteristically again, he hands her back her blouse, the pix/negatives get stolen, and on from there.
His dilemma becomes whether to stay in his unengaged bubble, or act, become involved. At the end, we learn which--subtly, again, with the appearance of a whisper of mimes who keep coming in and out of the action.
This classic flick's single mystery to me is why Hemmings didn't have a stronger career.
Only Lawrence of Arabia and maybe 1 or 2 other 60s movies are in this class.So much fogginess about this movie in the comments.
Like Performance, with Mick Jagger (also based on a story by Julio Cortazar, of South America's literary 'Boom'), this classic flick was a big smash when it came out, partly for depicting London…
BertBailey's rating:
Added Jan 10, 2021
Comment:
This excellent short novel becomes almost uninvolving when it reaches its dramatic climax, considering the dramatic subject matter, although never for a moment does it come close to becoming boring (as another reviewer affirms).
Based on history about the treatment of black boys in a US reformatory school during the early 20th century, it's written by one of the finest writers I've come across in a long while. Whitehead has a keen eye for the telling detail, and the skill to convey incidents and things with artful simplicity.
Such as about a grandmother who's "...shocked, as if someone had tossed hot soup in her lap."
He describes prison-like rooms where there are "...fuzzy haloes of finger grime around every cabinet latch and doorknob." The protagonist in this reform school, "...heard stories of home and distant cronies, juvenile conjectures about how the world worked and ...naïve plans to outwit it." It was populated by such guards as one "man of secret menace who stored up violence like a battery."
A short, powerful book.
I look forward to reading more from Whitehead.This excellent short novel becomes almost uninvolving when it reaches its dramatic climax, considering the dramatic subject matter, although never for a moment does it come close to becoming boring (as another reviewer affirms).
Based on history…
DetourDetour, DVD
DVD - 2019DVD, 2019
BertBailey's rating:
Added Dec 27, 2020
Comment:
While annoyed at some implausible plot turns in this short flick, it's deeply dramatic and, for a 1945 pre-noir, is realized with astonishing punch.
I'll avoid spoilers here and say only that we're given no reason or backstory to account for why the lead 'resolves' his ride issue in a way that, precisely, is bound to raise a heap of suspicion. He then implausibly tags along with a very fatale femme, when he could've easily dumped her. Such odd twists in the plot, and in the lead's progress or trajectory, undermined my interest in his fate.
Some claim that this points to an unreliable narrator relating this tale, but another option is to see it is as a function of plain old bad plotting.
Yet I liked almost everything else about this production, which the director claimed was undertaken for no more than US$18K (disputed by others). If true, it's an astonishing feat crafted with real feel and energy, great direction, decent acting and, occasionally, a script that's very slick indeed.
In short, I'd say that this precursor to the noir genre that would soon take shape is worth watching, & closely--although if, like me, you might've wished for a more plausible plot, gird yourself for one or two disappointments.While annoyed at some implausible plot turns in this short flick, it's deeply dramatic and, for a 1945 pre-noir, is realized with astonishing punch.
I'll avoid spoilers here and say only that we're given no reason or backstory to account for why…
Leadership in Turbulent TimesLeadership in Turbulent Times, Book
by Goodwin, Doris KearnsBook - 2018Book, 2018
BertBailey's rating:
Added Dec 18, 2020
Comment:
Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times is a very readable history--especially if, like me, you come to it with an eye on learning about US Presidents (Lyndon B Johnson was my particular interest, given the 4 years the US has just had to endure under Trump--and to think about what Biden could set in motion to avert the threat of anarchy and dictatorship).
She uses the prism of leadership to examine the careers of 4 presidents who managed through considerable adversity: Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin FDR, and LBJ.
She alternates biographical data on each of them to examine the notion of leadership through the historic events her subjects' endured--wars, failed electoral bids, polio (FDR), depression (Lincoln), etc.
Kearns highlights such biographical circumstances for each man to scrutinize the personality traits and strategies each man adopted with a view to triumph over adversity and in their struggles to lead.
She provides an excellent encapsulation (pp. 110-111) of the complexities involved in the historic debate between Lincoln and Douglas, illuminating the subject by way of some of the important, strained political compromises regarding slavery that led to the Civil War.
Another thing this book provides neophyte readers, such as me, is that debate's social context, through an account illustrating how political disputes were key to social life at the time, providing what we'd perhaps foolishly call the "entertainment" of Americans in the hinterland, whose lives and routines were enlivened and enriched by the appearance of heavyweight intellects in their midst, such as Lincoln and other politicians. (Which is clearly lacking in current public life throughout the liberal democracies.)
Kearns highlights Lincoln's and LBJ's insistence on plain language, short sentences and the use of anecdotes to enliven their communications for their audiences. Yet, while her prose is readable, lively and full of incident, she occasionally fails to adopt such pointers. While her prose is often admirably enriched with telling details, she seems overly fond of long and mighty sentences (at least one, on p 187, has no fewer than 91 words!).
A good editor might have also been of benefit now and then, too, to help simplify her sentence structure. One with a convolution of clauses (on p 120) endeavours to convey Lincoln reaching out to the South, calling for calm after the country was severely lacerated. The point is buttressed with a confusing parenthetical clause that illustrates by way of 3 examples. The point and its particulars could have so easily been rearranged, thereby sparing readers from lunging at their aspirin bottles.
A special liking for the words 'crucible' and 'probity' is also greatly in evidence. I'll look both up at some point, although I'm sure I'll muddle through life just fine until I get around to it.
For a historian Kearns seems rather oddly averse to citing dates. We hear that LBJ impressed FDR, who thought much of his future and provided the Texan with support; it might help if dates located this mentorship--considering that its shape might differ considerably if it happened before or during the war, and if his influence lasted into the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, etc.
I must emphasize, after these few niggles, that I thought this a fine, readable book with a surefooted analysis of political leadership, and useful for its concise biographies of some important US Presidents.Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times is a very readable history--especially if, like me, you come to it with an eye on learning about US Presidents (Lyndon B Johnson was my particular interest, given the 4 years the US has just had to…
Added Nov 24, 2020
Comment:
Recommended by Christopher Hitchens, at 24:30 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atk7V3W6oUc Said to be AJP Taylor's favourite book.
The Illustrated PepysThe Illustrated Pepys, BookExtracts From the Diary
by Pepys, SamuelBook - 1978Book, 1978
Added Mar 22, 2020
Comment: