The Lute Player

Synopsis
The crusade of Richard the Lionheart, told by his mother, his lute player, and his sister-in-law.

My thoughts
This is a long book - more than 500 pages - and a lot happens. But what's more striking is what doesn't happen.

This book is remarkable in that it was published in 1951 and it presents Richard I as a homosexual man. Norah Lofts was ahead of her time; she writes Richard without judgment. But she doesn't go any further. The legend (as I remember it) goes that Richard was kidnapped and held captive on his way home from his crusade. No one knew where he was, but his lute player Blondel went from castle to castle searching for him. Blondel would sing a verse from a song he and Richard had written and then he'd pause. He finally found Richard when Richard replied with the next verse from wherever he was locked up. In my imagination, Richard and Blondel were in love, but Lofts shies away from writing it this way and Blondel doesn't even get to tell this most dramatic part of the story. Instead, Richard's sister-in-law, who wasn't even there, gets to narrate this part.

None of this actually happened anyway, but it makes a nice story. There was a medieval lute player named Blondel and he did go on crusade. Richard and his wife Berengaria of Navarre did not have a happy marriage, although Lofts created Berengaria's bastard half-sister Anna for the book. This led to an extremely unsatisfactory love quadrangle: Anna loved Blondel, who loved Berengaria, who loved Richard, who loved Blondel. Fortunately, Eleanor of Aquitaine's point of view was free of this messy narrative and all the better for it. Eleanor is a fascinating woman and I enjoyed her chapters a lot. She also balanced out the hysterical Berengaria nicely.

Bottom line
Solid historical fiction, if a little dated. There's also that anticlimactic ending.

Fine print
The Lute Player, by Norah Lofts
Genre: historical fiction
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I bought this book.

False Impression

Synopsis
A wealthy heiress is murdered, an art specialist is fired, the FBI is investigating her sketchy boss (and, by extension, her), and that's before you throw in a bit of globe-trotting and a Romanian gymnast turned assassin.

My thoughts
I read the first two installments in Jeffrey Archer's Clifton Chronicles, Only Time Will Tell and The Sins of the Father (the third and final book, Best Kept Secret, was published in April). I enjoyed them, so I thought I'd pick up another Archer book - and I ended up liking this one far more than the coming-of-age saga of the Clifton Chronicles.

Part of it was the fact that I liked the protagonist. Actually, I kind of wanted to be the protagonist, what with her extensive knowledge of art and her long-distance running skills. Anna Petrescu is working for a swindler creditor who wants to get his paws on a financially troubled heiress's Van Gogh. The heiress turns up dead when she decides to sell the painting on Anna's advice and we're off to the races on a fast-paced thriller that spans three continents.

There were a few missteps. The story would have been just as dramatic if Archer hadn't used 9/11 as a backdrop (in fact, it feels a bit exploitative to use 9/11 as a plot device). You also have to be able to suspend disbelief for a good portion of the book. But that wasn't a problem for me since I'm trusting and gullible by nature.

Bottom line
Fantastic beach or plane read.

Fine print
False Impression, by Jeffrey Archer
Genre: mystery
Photo by Goodreads
I borrowed this book from the library.

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions

Synopsis
A collection of Gloria Steinem's published writings.

My thoughts
Steinem is such an established feminist icon that it's hard to imagine her as anything else. But she wasn't always and in many ways she never set out to become one of the faces of feminism. This collection of essays shows her evolution from a freelance journalist writing an exposé on the New York Playboy Club to a publishing dynamo at the helm of Ms. magazine. Steinem's admirable strength and courage are clear, but I was surprised at how much humility, uncertainty, and even vulnerability she revealed in her writing.

"I Was a Playboy Bunny," first published in 1963, put Steinem on everyone's radar. She got a job as a bunny in New York's Playboy Club and exposed the lies behind the perky smiles and wiggly bunny tails. It was advertised as an empowering job for a modern woman, but Steinem's piece exposed it as anything but. There was a demerit system of dubious legality, a "uniform" that was painful to wear, and a poisonous work environment. And that's before you even get to the lecherous customers. It was startling to realize what a different world it was for women just a few decades ago. We've come a long way, but the other essays in this collection make you realize that there's still a long way to go.

"The International Crime of Genital Mutilation" was one of the first articles to raise awareness about female genital mutilation. Reading it more than 30 years later, I was inspired to do some research and was disheartened by what I discovered. Despite decades and decades of international efforts to end genital mutilation, the World Health Organization estimates that 140 million women are "currently living with the consequences of FGM." 140 MILLION. I don't even know how to imagine that many people.

Only slightly less alarming are Steinem's articles on pornography. I always thought the argument that women who "star" in porn flicks find it liberating was ridiculous, but I was horrified when I realized the extent of the exploitation in the industry.

"Ruth's Song (Because She Could Not Sing It)" is one of the most powerful essays in the book. It's a very personal ode to Steinem's mother, who went from a headstrong journalist who married for love to a nervous shell of a woman who couldn't function or concentrate before she found help.

Most of the essays are strong, but there are also some that fall flat. I wasn't a fan of "If Men Could Menstruate." Maybe it was funny when it was first written, but now it's become stale. "Men would brag about how long and how much." Har har har.

But as sobering as the book is, there are some truly inspirational passages. In particular, in "Far From the Opposite Shore," Steinem writes that when she ends her speeches, she challenges everyone in the audience to do "one outrageous thing in the name of simple justice" in the next twenty-four hours. These range from the ordinary, like talking to an elected official, to the extraordinary, like organizing a voter registration event, to the heroic, like leaving a violent partner. It's one act, but it takes thought and intent.

The book is certainly dated (it was first published in 1987 and contains essays that date back to the 1960s). But it's worth reading for that very reason. It shows how far we've come in a generation while raising questions about what we must do to keep advancing. The book is a call to action and it has a powerful, enduring message.

Bottom line

Well worth the read even if you're not a women's studies major.

Fine print

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, by Gloria Steinem

Genre: Women's Studies

Photo from Goodreads

I borrowed this book from the library.

April 1865: The Month That Saved America

Synopsis
Winik's theory is that the foresight and actions of a few powerful men saved the United States from a longer and more damaging Civil War.

My thoughts
The historical "what if" game this book plays is both intriguing and infuriating.

Winik knows what he's talking about. He has a background in national security and foreign affairs, and he's witnessed the aftereffects of some of the most brutal 20th-century civil wars. Civil wars generally don't end as cleanly as ours did. Although we still grapple with the legacy of slavery in this country, the reunification was a success. There was no guerrilla warfare. This was a possibility I'd never considered before. Winik's strength is his ability to ratchet up the tension as he considers the options before each of the major players in the Civil War. Will Lee surrender? Will Grant offer good terms? Will the politicians in Washington honor those terms? Winik manages to draw out the suspense surrounding events that happened almost 150 years ago.

On shakier ground is Winik's argument that the Union's reaction to Lincoln's assassination was a miracle of near-biblical proportions. This portion of the book starts out strong, with a thrilling description of the night John Wilkes Booth barged in to the president's theater box and shot Lincoln. But there are too many ifs here. What if ... Vice President Andrew Johnson's would-be assassin hadn't gotten cold feet at the last moment? What if ... Lincoln's cabinet had refused to turn over power to the detested Johnson?

The book itself is well written and a solid read. Detailed biographies of everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Jefferson Davis take up a good chunk of the book's nearly 500 pages. It's discombobulating to be plopped in late-18th-century Monticello when you're under the impression that you should be at Appomattox in, well, April 1865. But it works because the historical context is critical to understanding why the Civil War ended the way it did and how the Union endured. Winik's succinct biography of Thomas Jefferson is probably the best I've read. It does a tremendous job reasoning the contradictions in his brilliant mind (for example, Jefferson recognized the cruelty and injustice of slavery ... yet he owned slaves [and fathered children with at least one of them, but that's a story for another book that I still haven't read yet]).

Winik also lets his subjects speak for themselves. He quotes liberally from speeches, letters, and other contemporary sources. Lincoln was an ingenious speechwriter. Never has a politician said so much with so few words (I'm thinking of the Gettysburg Address but also his second Inaugural).

Bottom line
Fascinating and informative. Definitely recommended.

Fine print
April 1865: The Month That Saved America, by Jay Winik
Genre: History
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed a battered copy of this book from my library; it's (understandably) been in circulation a lot.

The Fourth Queen

Synopsis
Helen Gloag leaves her small Scottish village for America, but her ship is captured by pirates and she ends up in the harem of the Moroccan emperor.

My thoughts
Debbie Taylor did a prodigious amount of research and it shows. She explains in the author's note that Helen Gloag was a real woman who did become a consort to the emperor of Morocco, but the story itself was a compilation of historical accounts of various similar kidnappings in the eighteenth century. (Apparently there were numerous fair-haired beauties who were captured at sea and taken to the emperor's harem.) Taylor invented her other main character, the dwarf Microphilus, who is the head of the emperor's household and who becomes smitten with Helen himself.

I couldn't help comparing this book to Empress Orchid, which I read a few months ago. Both feature a lot of scheming and focus on the jealousy and rivalries that sprout when you throw dozens of women together with only one man. I enjoyed The Fourth Queen more, simply because the narrative was a lot smoother. Somehow, Empress Orchid had to stop the action to explain court customs and international events, and The Fourth Queen did a better job integrating the explanations with the flow of the story. Some of this was because Helen was a complete outsider and everything was as new to her as it was to the reader, while Orchid was thrown into a new situation in her own world (but not a world a Western audience would implicitly understand). The Fourth Queen was also less concerned with politics and less prudish about sexual life of the harem. (Speaking of which, skinniness was considered a disadvantage in the Moroccan harem. That was a refreshing change.)

I enjoyed the fact that The Fourth Queen went beyond the typical fish-out-of-water struggles. Helen adjusts to life in the harem and gains the emperor's favor to become the titular fourth wife, but that's only the beginning of the story. The rest centers around a murder mystery, and then the plot thickens and there are two murder mysteries.

It's a wonderful premise, but one of Taylor's literary quirks drove me nuts. The chapters are written alternately from Helen's and Microphilus's views, which is a technique that I hate anyway because it leads to a lot of needless repetition as you see events from both characters' points of view. But Taylor makes it even more intolerable because Helen's chapters are written in the third person in the present tense and Microphilus's chapters are purportedly from his diaries and are written in the first person in the past tense. I just ... it made my head hurt, is all. (And now re-reading this review I see I've mixed past and present tenses, so I don't know what I'm complaining about really.)

The ending has a bit of choose-your-own-adventure flair to it. Helen and Microphilus each have a choice to make, but Taylor leaves you hanging. I didn't mind this; it left me free to end the story the way I wanted it to end.

Bottom line
It's an interesting piece of historical fiction about a place that doesn't generally get a lot of attention.

Fine print
The Fourth Queen, by Debbie Taylor
Genre: historical fiction
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed this book from the library.

America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Synopsis
A gossipy biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

My thoughts
I didn't know much about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's life beyond the Kennedy years. She was John F. Kennedy's reluctant political asset in The Making of the President and the brave, stoic widow in Death of a President. She lived through remarkable events and I wondered if she was just as remarkable as a woman. I flew through this book and came to the conclusion that she sort of was and sort of wasn't. She wasn't a driving force in any of the political decisions of her day, but up until that point only Eleanor Roosevelt had shown any sort of political drive. She did mastermind the enduring Camelot myth, and the public face she showed after JFK's assassination was truly remarkable.

But by the end of the book I'd formed an opinion I didn't see coming at the outset. I went in expecting to like Jackie and ended up feeling like I couldn't. She was the product of a different time and a different culture - a time when women were subservient and dependent and a culture of debutante balls and grand European tours. She did become her own woman with a successful career, but she was unquestionably a high-maintenance diva.

This is an unauthorized biography written years after Jackie O died, and Sarah Bradford did a breathtaking amount of research and used her own interviews with many, many people to illuminate her subject. Even so, Jackie remains an enigma. She was an intensely private person, so it's difficult to get a sense of what she really thought or felt, which leads to quite a bit of speculation (that Jackie "must have felt" this way or "could't possibly have thought" that way). In addition, I couldn't help feeling that a lot of the people who were interviewed had their own agendas. And sometimes the book was unnecessarily voyeuristic. There are entire passages devoted to JFK's extramarital sex life - exploits that Jackie probably never knew about that just seem thrown in here to increase the scandal factor.

Bottom line
A thorough warts-and-all biography with a lot of dirty laundry.

Fine print
America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, by Sarah Bradford
Genre: Biography
Photo from Goodreads.
I borrowed this book from the library.

To End All Wars

Synopsis
The First World War, with a focus on the pacifist movement in England.

My thoughts
Adam Hochschild explores World War I as not only the first total war but the first war with a sizable anti-war movement. This was the war that changed everything - the scale of warfare, the way war was conducted, and the way it was viewed back home.

I liked the organization of the book. Hochschild uses the Boer War to set the stage for World War I. That conflict involved some of the same people, from the military minds to the nascent pacifist movement. It's an effective way to introduce some of the major players and ideas. I particularly enjoyed the profiles of two women, Charlotte Despard and Emily Hobhouse, who courageously and selflessly spoke out against the war. Less sympathetic are the Pankhursts, who come across as opportunistic, manipulative, and fanatical.



I was struck repeatedly by how different things were a mere hundred years ago. Hochschild describes a battlefield where commanders couldn't tell what was going on right in front of them because they literally couldn't see what was happening through the haze of battle and lines of communication were unreliable (telephone wires were often casualties of the fighting). Contrast that to 2011, when the president of the United States monitored the raid on bin Laden's hideout halfway around the world in real time.



I can never get over the arrogance of the major powers. As in The Guns of August, To End All Wars depicts European powers that enthusiastically prepared for the outbreak of war yet did not recognize the significance of Franz Ferdinand's assassination when it happened. England, for example, was preoccupied by growing unrest in Ireland, so that scene in the first season of Downton Abbey where Carson mentions that the folks below stairs can think of nothing but the assassination of the Austrian archduke probably never happened in any English manor ever.

To End All Wars also underscores the horror of the senseless loss of life in World War I. The numbers are simply staggering, but even more appalling was the attitude of the military brass. They showed concern when their own losses were lower than expected because they estimated that meant that they'd killed fewer enemy troops. Hochshild does a good job describing the impossibilities of trench warfare, from the logistics of gaining ground to the struggle to stay clean, dry, and sane from day to day.

World War I was a hopeless, futile exercise and the terms of the armistice meant Europe was doomed to repeat it in only a few decades.


Bottom line
I'd recommend it, but not as an introduction to World War I.

Fine print
To End All Wars, by Adam Hochschild
Genre: history
Photo by Goodreads
I own this book