Books I'm Reading: Barcelona

I don't know how long ago I picked up Barcelona, by Robert Hughes (Vintage, 1992). It's been on my bookshelf for a long time. Could it have been sometime after I visited the city, in 2010, prompted by that visit? It's a book I ought to have read before going to Barcelona, but, even long after my trip there, it was a worthwhile read. The book clears up a lot of misconceptions about the city and about Catalonia more broadly. Notably, it makes clear the relationship between Catalan and Spanish (Catalan is not a dialect or corrupt form of Spanish, as so many seem to believe) and it goes a long way toward explaining why Barcelona and the rest of Spain have so long been at odds with one another.

The book is dense, particularly in its first half, which devotes rather a lot of space to political history, with a long cast of characters that can be hard to keep straight, but Hughes is a consummate writer. His prose is lucid and he's a lot of fun to read almost regardless of  subject matter because of that and because of his inventive use of language. The clarity of his writing makes it possible to push through the more difficult sections until you get to what seemed to me more interesting material; Hughes really comes into his own when he turns to art and architecture.

When we think of art and architecture in the context of Barcelona, we tend to think only of Antoni Gaudí. This book puts Gaudí into his historical context and explains his relations with the people that became his patrons, mostly Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi. Hughes introduces a host of other architects working at the time, several of them far better known in their day than Gaudí, most notable among these Lluís Domènech i Montaner, designer of The Palau de la Música Catalana, which is dissected in detail (as are many of Gaudí's most important projects, including Sagrada Familia, which, Hughes notes, has became a travesty of itself). Again, I would like to have read this before having visited Barcelona's many architectural gems years ago, but the critiques were very pleasurable to read nevertheless.

Likely to be a bit too demanding for readers casually interested in Barcelona, but a very satisfying deep dive for anyone with a serious interest in history, particularly history of art and architecture. Recommended. Read it before you go.

Books I'm Reading: Danubia

Simon Winder's entertaining Danubia (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) is subtitled "A Personal History of Habsburg Europe," which gives the author ample room to digress, and the digressions are reliably entertaining—in places laugh-out-loud funny. The book is broad in scope, covering the history of Central Europe from the end of the Middle Ages to WWI, but Winder allows himself space to talk about music and art when the Habsburg ruler of the moment is a bore or to offer odd tidbits about some of the many places he explored on foot doing research for the book. That is, the book deftly balances the grand sweep of history with quirky anecdote and detail. His enthusiasm for his subject is palpable and contagious.

Perhaps the strongest impressions the book leaves are, first, that the history of Western Europe, dominated for so long by the Hapsburgs, might have been very different for any number of reasons—that the Hapsburgs remained in control of things (to the extent that they did) for as long as they did often as much because of luck as anything else—and, second, that large swaths of Central Europe were settled by one group of people, completely de-populated (ravaged by war, disease or both) and then resettled so often (rinse and repeat) that few of the ethnic narratives that have fueled rabid nationalism in modern history (meaning the past 200 years or so) have much basis in fact—that they are often myths fueled by little more than wishful thinking and opportunism.

To say that the history of Central Europe is confusing is an understatement. I'm not sure reading Danubia did as much to clarify things as I would have liked, but, having read the book in anticipation of a trip to that part of the world in June, I feel somewhat more prepared than I might otherwise have been. All joking aside, the book has at least helped me to better understand the history of the Holy Roman Empire, of the House of Habsburg, and of the 30 Years' War, among other institutions and events, if not allowed me to remember precisely which Charles, Franz, or Rudolf did what when. Recommended.

Books I'm Reading: On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder

Midnight, Ninotchka, Ball of Fire, The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, One, Two, Three, Irma La Douce—Wilder either wrote or co-wrote the screenplay or wrote the screenplay and directed each of these films (and more than a dozen more Hollywood films that are less well known today, not to mention the many screenplays he wrote before emigrating to the United States). It's an impressive list; each is a classic.

Before picking up Ed Sikov's On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder (Hyperion, 1998) I had seen all of these films but I realized quickly as I began reading the book that I knew very little about Wilder's early life—in particular, that he had written so many screenplays. I knew him mostly as the director of the films from the sweet spot of his career—say, from Double Indemnity to The Apartment.

He got his start, however, as a screenwriter, working first in German, following a period as a journalist in Vienna and then Berlin. He had been born near Krakow, in 1906. Twenty years later, he was leaving Vienna for England in the company of bandleader Paul Whiteman, on tour (he had become friendly with Whiteman by showing him around Vienna; as a reporter, Wilder knew the city well). A few months later he left with the Whiteman entourage for Berlin, never looking back. When it became clear in 1934 that Jews were no longer welcome in the German capital, he left for Hollywood, without his mother, who later vanished in the Holocaust. When he arrived in the United States, he had virtually no money and spoke almost no English, but he quickly found work as a screenwriter anyway, often working as a team with Charles Brackett. Leveraging his quick wit, chutzpah, and good luck he found increasingly lucrative work and eventually landed an opportunity to direct. The Major and the Minor (1942), starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland, was his first directing credit.

On Sunset Boulevard looks at Billy Wilder as an artist, a businessman, and, eventually, as an exceedingly wealthy art collector gradually left behind by a changing Hollywood. Author Sikov looks at each of Wilder's films in detail, from conception to critical and popular reception, while serving up a great deal of anecdote to create a vivid portrait of one of Hollywood's most important directors. Along the way, Sikov gives us much about the people Wilder worked with and for and the people who worked for him, particularly writing partner Brackett, and performers such as Marilyn Monroe, William Holden, and Jack Lemmon. Wilder was notoriously foul-mouthed and casually abusive and tightly controlling on the set—character traits that not everyone tolerated well. It was his desire for control that drove his ambition to move from writing to directing and that kept him writing much of the material he directed, material that was often on the edge of the limits allowed by the Hollywood production code, a code that Wilder was instrumental in eroding (Wilder's writing was often darker and more sexually suggestive than the censors would allow, particularly early in his career). Long but a worthwhile appreciation of the man and each of his major films and worth reading for the wealth of information it includes about how films are conceived, written, financed, and produced.  

Books I'm reading: Capturing the Light and The Edge of Vision

I've just finished Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry, by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport (St. Martin's Press, 2013). Refreshingly well written, this was a quick read because reading it was a pleasure. Authors Watson and Rappaport give an overview of the history of the invention of photography by focusing on the main characters in the story, Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre, as well as on a number of other characters less well known. Nicephore Niepce, the inventor of the first non-ephemeral (if largely impractical) photographic process was familiar (I stumbled across his gravesite in a churchyard in France years ago), but others such as Frederick Scott Archer (inventor of the wet collodion process) were less familiar. The book gives a good overview of how Daguerre in France and Talbot in England arrived at two very different processes that allowed images to be captured permanently.

Lyle Rexer's The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography (Aperture, 2013, paperback edition) looks at the history of abstraction in photography, beginning with some of the photograms of Henry Fox Talbot and ending with contemporary works that stretch the definition of photography beyond the breaking point. In between, there is much of interest to see and the book seems more valuable for the many illustrations it includes than for the text, although there is some interesting back material included in an appendix, mostly writing about photography by critics and some of the artists whose works are included in the book. This is a good reference that suggests what photography is capable of when released from its traditional role as an objective recorder of the world around us (although many would argue that photography never has been that at all).

Books I'm Reading: Inventing Wine

Two developments in the history of wine and winemaking are largely responsible the quality of the wine we drink today and for the range of choices we have: the development of sturdy glass bottles with reliable cork seals (a combination that banishes oxygen); and temperature-controlled vats for fermentation and storage. These two innovations set the stage for what Inventing Wine author Paul Lukacs rightly refers to as wine's "second golden Age."

Inventing Wine (Norton, 2012) is a history of winemaking from ancient times to the present with an emphasis on how wine was transformed from a highly perishable, short-lived, near accident to a highly sophisticated creation of the human imagination, benefiting from the choices winemakers are afforded today by innovations like temperature-controlled fermentation. Lukacs makes it clear that the global selection of high-quality wines we take for granted today is a very recent development.

Winemaking is believed to have begun as long as 8,000 years ago, but wine is highly susceptible to the effects of oxygen and spoilage caused mainly by the strains of bacteria that convert wine into vinegar. Most wine through history has been short-lived. While amphorae allowed quantities of wine to be sealed against oxygen and stored for long periods if unopened, most wine was stored in casks that, once breached, allow the contents to quickly turn sour if not topped up. Wine was often transported in animal skins (which imparted scents and flavors few would tolerate in wine today). It was typical to add spices, herbs, and resins to wine to mask off flavors and spoilage. Wine has not always been the sophisticated, natural drink it has become. What we think of as wine is comparatively new. Inventing Wine takes the reader on a journey through the history of winemaking with an emphasis on how we got from sour, adulterated wines of little distinction to the highly particular, carefully handled fresh-grape creations we enjoy today.

Books I'm Reading: Triumph and Tragedy (January 17, 2013)

At nearly 600 pages, Triumph and Tragedy, the sixth and last volume in Winston Churchill's history of WWII, is one of the shorter volumes. It moves at a much faster pace than any of the earlier ones, with more about politics than military operations, but it's no less interesting for that.

Triumph and Tragedy is in two sections, the first, beginning with the D-Day invasion, takes us through the end of the fighting in Europe and then the final stages of the war in the Pacific. The second treats the aftermath of the armed world conflict, particularly dealing with Stalin and the question of how to balance Soviet claims to Polish territory with Polish claims to German territory. In other words, Churchill describes the triumph of the victories over Germany and Japan and the tragedy of how the aftermath of the global conflict played out. He makes it clear that he feels the partitioning of Germany into zones of influence administered by Germany, France, the US, and the Soviet Union could have been handled far better than it was. The second half of the book is largely a chronicle of Churchill's frustration. Throughout the six volumes, but particularly in this one, the clarity of his vision regarding the Soviets is remarkable. He saw the falling of the iron curtain long before it happened, and it happened much the way he warned it would.

Books I'm Reading: Winston Churchill's Closing the Ring (December 26, 2012)

Closing the Ring, volume five of Winston Churchill's six-volume history of WWII, The Second World War, is the shortest of the six volumes, at about 640 pages, but it is as interesting as the preceding volumes. Closing the Ring takes the reader from June 1943 to June 1944--to the eve of "Overlord," the Normandy landings that opened a second major front in Europe. Perhaps the central event of the period was the shift of Italy from the Axis side of the conflict to the side of the Allies, with the successful invasion of Sicily and the overthrow of Mussolini. In the Pacific theater, Japan is no longer expanding but instead struggling to maintain control of the vast area her armies had conquered.

Much of the volume deals with the conferences among the allies at Quebec, Washington, and Tehran held to unify strategy, mostly centering on the ongoing preparations for the Normandy invasion. Sections dealing with actual fighting focus on the above-mentioned progress against Japan and events in Greece and Italy (mainly Anzio and Cassino), as well as the fighting around Imphal, in India.

Perhaps of greatest interest in this volume is the drama surrounding the British, US, and Soviet discussions about whether to stage a diversionary attack in the south of France (up the Rhone Valley) in conjunction with the Normandy invasion and the timing of such an attack. The southern invasion was conceived at the Tehran conference as a means of keeping German forces pinned down in the south and away from the struggle anticipated on the northern beaches of France as "Overloard" began. Churchill sees a stubborn US attachment to the southern invasion plan, known as "Anvil," at the expense of making further advances in Italy (and after conditions have changed) as a mistake in strategy (conditions were no longer what they had been at the time of the Tehran discussions--in particular, progress in Italy had been much slower than anticipated). Churchill believed also that the Rhone Valley was too far from Normandy to be an effective diversion anyway--better to press ahead in Italy while concentrating in France on "Overlord." In this volume, we begin to see growing American muscle overshadowing British contributions, and Churchill's frustration and annoyance at US influence are at times palpable--which is not to say that he is ungracious; he remains single-mindedly focused on winning the war by whatever means--but ultimately the US view prevailed over what Churchill saw as a superior plan. Closing the Ring, like the preceding volumes is well-written, detailed, and insightful, but I sensed Churchill's energy beginning to wane, and he paints with rather broader strokes here than in earlier volumes. Nevertheless, another worthy installment. On to the sixth and final volume....

Books I'm Reading: Bruce Catton's Civil War Trilogy

Perhaps I was dimly aware that 2010 marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the US Civil War, but it wasn't really on my mind when recently I turned to reading Bruce Catton's three-volume history of the conflict (Phoenix Press, 2001, but, originally published 1961-1965, to mark the Civil War centennial). I received the set as a birthday gift years ago. I just happened to get around to the books at what has turned out to be an appropriate time.

Totaling 1,430 pages, the trilogy (The Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword, and Never Call Retreat) is considered by many to be the definitive treatment of the conflict between the North and the South, but I think first of Shelby Foote's trilogy (Vintage, 1986; Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox), simply because I read it first--probably 15 years  ago now, in the mid-1990s. Speaking in the broadest terms, the two authors have done much the same thing--painted a comprehensive picture of the causes of the war, looked at the struggle itself, and then considered the state the Union was in when fighting ended and after Lincoln's assassination. The story, constrained as it is by fact, is the same. However, the flavor of the two sets of books is rather different.

I must admit, I preferred the Shelby Foote books. When I read them, I thought it difficult to imagine anyone doing better. I still feel that way, but the Catton trilogy is well written, enjoyable, and recommendable.

The main differences, it seems to me, are in how the writers feel about whether the South could have won the war and in the way the two use anecdote. Foote suggests that indeed the South might have won and that the victory of Federal forces over the South was not inevitable. If I remember correctly, I was well into volume two before I began to relax--that is, before I began to feel reassured that the story would end the way I knew it had to end, with the utter defeat of the South. Catton concedes that the Southern soldier was a determined fighter, that the South won many important battles, and that northern generals were oddly ineffective early in the war, but at every turn he takes pains to suggest that it didn't matter, that the rebels never really had a chance--mainly because of inadequate resources. Both men are right, of course, but Foote somehow gets better mileage out of the drama.

Foote is a master of the anecdote. His narrative is deftly interwoven with vivid sketches of people and particular events that stick in the mind. I can recall many of them even fifteen years later--even if at this remove I'd have to go back to the books, search the stories out one by one, and reread them before I could with confidence recount any one of them in detail. Whose death was it that was supposedly heralded by a pair of Mourning Doves? Which confederate general was in danger of being hacked to death by a lone Union cavalryman that happened upon him when he was unescorted? Who brought in carpenters to extend Lincoln's too-short berth on the boat that brought him to see Grant at the front? What was the story about Jefferson Davis and confederate gold? As I say, I'd have to re-read the three books, but the flavor of the writing created by Foote's liberal use of the particular has remained etched in my mind and the books were riveting at the time. I remember the pleasure of reading the details more than the details themselves, but the books were indeed a great pleasure to savor. Catton's style, although fluid and clear, is comparatively unadorned with this kind of color.

One particular effect of Foote's style was that he left me with a much greater sense of the horror of battle in the 1860s. Essentially the Civil War was a war fought with modern weapons (repeating rifles) but still in many instances using the tactics of the past (with men, inexplicably, still consenting to stand in rows and shoot each other to death at close range). Beyond such subjects as the effects of bullets and artillery on infantry and the realities of amputations and other battlefield medicine, Foote discusses defensive works and armaments in more depth than Catton, he talks about paroles, prisoner exchanges, and prison camps, and he goes into greater detail and into a greater number of battles than Catton (for example, covering the Red River Campaign, which Catton mentions only in passing). Foote left me feeling as if I'd been there from Sumter to Appomattox. In short, Foote's account was more vivid and colorful and it was farther-ranging.

Comparing the two and arguing about which is better seems to be a much-played game. I amused myself last night for an hour or so reading posts on various Websites by partisans on both sides of the argument. Those that prefer Catton seem to fault Foote mainly for a comparative lack of footnotes, casting aspersions on his sources by implication, although nobody seems to have specific lapses to point to; the critics claim a general uneasiness and favor Catton for being an historian rather than a storyteller. I, for one, am willing to take it on faith that Foote wasn't making things up as he went along, and telling a good story seems no fault to me.

Some that prefer Catton suggest Foote's account is tainted by Southern sympathies, Foote being a southerner himself. I felt he struck a rather good balance, and I say that as a Northerner (if anything--it's not really part of my self-image); I lived a short spell in St. Louis, but I was born in New York, lived a long time in Ohio, and my Civil War ancestors were Ohio volunteers, mustered out of Holmes or Stark County. One fought at Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge, and was wounded at Chicamauga (my mother has the bullet he was shot with). He was among the many German immigrants granted US citizenship in exchange for a three-year stint in the blue uniform of the Union. He left the service at Marietta, Georgia close to the end of the fighting. Another ancestor was captured at Gettysburg and died in Andersonville Prison.

What no one seems to disagree about is that these trilogies are the finest two overviews of the Civil War we have. Perhaps the best approach is to read them both, Catton, then Foote. Follow that with Jay Winik's excellent April 1865: The Month that Saved America (Perennial, 2002; first published in hardcover by HarperCollins, 2001)--a superb book focused on the very end of the war, Lincoln's assassination, and the nation's halting new beginning after the war--and you're likely to come away with a very well-rounded appreciation of the meaning of the US Civil War and its aftermath.

[Update: Not long after reading this, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals (Simon & Schuster, 2005)--another excellent Civil War book.]

Books I'm Reading: Four Essays on Liberty

I just finished Four Essays on Liberty, by Isaiah Berlin, a collection of his essays on liberty (obviously) with a long introduction (longer than at least one of the collected essays) refuting criticisms of his positions. The edition I read is ancient (Oxford University Press, 1969), and falling apart, but has that used bookstore smell about it that I love.

Very enjoyable, but hard work. The prose is lucid and deliciously dense, but therefore demanding of great concentration. This is the kind of book that requires multiple readings to digest. Highlights were the essays on determinism and John Stuart Mill. Berlin pretty neatly demolishes determinism and makes a cogent case for human free will. The Mill essay put Mill's thinking into some semblance of perspective for me--ignorant me. The essay on positive and negative notions of liberty was also interesting and what initially attracted me to the book, which I purchased years ago in Tokyo. It only took me about 15 years to get around to it.... Recommended (if you enjoy this sort of thing).