Roosevelt's secret war

After reading Jack 1939, I picked this one up: interesting, detailed. Stopped at p. 360

London River

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in London on 7/7/2005, two parents arrive in search of their children: a white woman who lives in Guernsey, and an African man who comes from France, where he works. She is Christian, he Muslim. She is aghast at the changes in London: Muslims everywhere, including the neighborhood in which her daughter had a flat. When she arrives at the address, she incredulously verifies with the taxi driver that it is indeed the right place. He has lived in France for 15 years, has not seen his son in all that time, and arrives at the behest of his estranged wife to find their son.

Stephen Holden writes in the NY Times: Its stars, Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyaté, couldn’t possess more dissimilar screen presences. Ms. Blethyn, the British actress best known for “Secrets and Lies,” belongs to the Mike Leigh school of minutely detailed naturalism. Mr. Kouyaté, who died in April 2010 at 73, was associated for many years with the ritualistic theater of Peter Brook. Tall and gaunt, with graying dreadlocks, his deep-set eyes conveying a stoic, bone-weary resignation, he suggested a mythic African pilgrim leaning on a walking stick while roaming the world on an endless spiritual journey. “London River,” whose title evokes the city’s multicultural stream, was his final film.

A reviewer in the Telegraph UK praised it. Kouyaté, the Burkinabé veteran who died in April this year, won Berlin’s best-actor award, and it’s hard to imagine this film without his gangly, dignified stoicism at its heart. For Blethyn, who has sometimes been broad to the point o caricature, it’s a rare chance to explore a deeply plausible character from the inside out, reminding you how subtly she can handle reflexive, Middle England prejudice while keeping you on side. The film around them is timid at times, a little hemmed in by its own scrupulous humanism, but it still affords as moving an acting partnership as you’ll see all year.


In RottenTomatoes, it gets 90% - 65% marks, well illustrating how critics have a different (in this case, better) grasp of the artistry of a film.

I very much liked it.

Iron Lady

I approached the film skeptical about objections voiced by some admirers of Mrs. Thatcher, to the effect that the former PM was shown disrespect by the film's treatment of her. Part of that was an abiding respect to Meryl Streep's talent and career. Part of it, as well, was my contempt for her admirers; I was never a fan of her politics or policies.

After watching the film, I have two distinct impressions: Streep, as always, nails the role in a way that, perhaps, no one else could have: she becomes Margaret Thatcher, not just with her hair and her accent and her manner, but in the very essence of her.

Secondly, I think the film was indeed disrespectful of Thatcher. The former PM is reduced to a demented former PM haunted by the ghost of her husband. Everything about her revolves around that haunting, to the point that her political career seems secondary. Margaret Thatcher was a far more important political figure, both in British and world politics, than that.

Rogert Ebert begins his review: You have to be very talented to work with Meryl Streep. It also helps to know how to use her. "The Iron Lady" fails in both of these categories. Streep creates an uncanny impersonation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but in this film she's all dressed up with nowhere to go.

 In RottenTomatoes, the film gets 53% - 51% ratings. A reviewer in the Guardian UK site does like it. Eventually, the film-makers suggest, Thatcher's increasing isolation, brought about by her rigidity, singlemindedness, inability to accept advice and contempt for most of her colleagues, brings about a form of madness that foreshadows the Lear-like dementia ("I will not go mad") that infects her dotage. He does criticize it, certainly praises Streep, but, in the end, does like the film (Breathtaking in its detail and nuance, its subtle gestures and inflections, this multifaceted jewel of a portrait is altogether grander than the commonplace setting of the film.)

One review I thought well captured the film was by AO Scott in the NY Times: As for “The Iron Lady” itself, beyond the challenge it poses for Ms. Streep, its own reason for being is a bit obscure. It is likely to be the definitive screen treatment of Mrs. Thatcher, at least for a while, and yet it does not really define her in any surprising or trenchant way. You are left with the impression of an old woman who can’t quite remember who she used to be and of a movie that is not so sure either.

Love or hate her, Margaret Thatcher is a grand historical figure who can not be reduced to a tottering old woman who once used to be Prime Minister.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Murky remake of the Alec Guiness's serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. A little difficult to follow, for the slow twists and subtle turns, as well as the at times thick accents, but, ultimately, good cinema.

Man in the middle

Not quite sure why I picked out this film, but I have always liked Robert Mitchum. Here he plays an army lifer who gets called to a joint American-British theater during the Second World War (keeping with the theme of my currently reading H.W. Brands's biography of FDR, Traitor to his class), and is asked to provide a credible defense for a GI who has murdered a Brit in cold blood in front of numerous witnesses. Mitchum pays Lt. Col. Barney Adams; he has been summoned by General Kempton (played by another favorite, Barry Sullivan), a friend's of his father (an off-screen senior Adams). Col. Adams reluctantly accepts the assignment, and then pursues all leads, in order to provide a vigorous defense.

Adams refuses to accept what is obviously a coverup. Along the way he meets a nurse, Kate Davray (played by France Nuyen), who provides him with evidence he is, at first, reluctant to accept. What he is not reluctant to do is pursue Nurse Davray, in a 1963 sort of way.

There is much cigarette smoking, much alcohol drinking. Adams defiantly pursues a vigorous defense that even his client, played with a slightly too-heavy hand that almost descends to schtick by Keenan Wynn. Mitchum does a deft job of acting, and fully extends the role. Trevor Howard underplays a British psychiatrist who has been shunted to dispensing medicines, exiled from his true work. Cynical, Major Kensington comes to the rescue of Adams, whose every attempt to get at the truth is frustrated by roadblocks thrown in his way even by his sponsor, General Kempton.

Adams finally accepts Nurse Davray's evidence, and, along with Kensington's corroborating evidence, wins the case. Nicely done.

What becomes: stories

Well reviewed in Kirkus; that should be enough to spark the curiousity. Reviewed in NYT Sunday 23 May.

Hubris of a Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon

This review of the book Russia against Napoleon in the Times seems to take the same tack as the reviewer in the Journal (cf. post below) points out as being erroneous. This reviewer is John Steele Gordon. His history of the national debt, “Hamilton’s Blessing,” has just been released in a updated edition by Walker & Company.

In the Journal review, Jennifer Siegel states: In Mr. Lieven's eyes, this story has two great heroes, and neither is Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian general lionized by Tolstoy and, later, Stalin. Mr. Lieven praises Kutuzov, the commander in chief of the Russian forces, for his courage, skillful soldiering and mastery of public relations, but the author does not consider him the military genius that tradition has trained us to see. Rather it is the czar, Alexander I, and the historically undervalued Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, minister of war and the commander of the Russian forces before and after Kutuzov, who inspire Mr. Lieven's admiration.

In this review, Gordon states: With greatly inferior forces, Russia could not afford to confront Napoleon head on. Instead, the Russian commander, Mikhail Kutuzov, of necessity adopted Fabian tactics, harassing the invaders but avoiding pitched battle when possible. The one really big battle, Borodino, was more or less a draw, after Napoleon gave up personal command for reasons never satisfactorily explained. On Sept. 14 Moscow fell to Napoleon, and he sent peace overtures to Alexander, thinking the czar had no option but to negotiate. The Russians stalled and hinted but never gave a firm answer, seeking to keep Napoleon in Moscow as long as possible. On Oct. 19, with the czar still dawdling, French food supplies dwindling rapidly, and the Russian winter closing in, Napoleon had no choice but to begin withdrawal.

Kutuzov is painted as decisive, Alexander as indecisive. Stein sees it differently. Nonetheless, both  priase the book.

Moscow on the Seine

How a czar and his army saved Europe from France's Grande Armée.


After two years of nearly continuous fighting against Napoleon in the longest campaign in European history — a campaign that had marched the Russian army from Vilna in the west, eastward to Moscow, then all the way to Paris — the end to the conflict seemed for the first time to be as close at hand as the city rising on the horizon.

Dominic Lieven relates the tale of this campaign with masterly skill in "Russia Against Napoleon." It is a story that students of European history and admirers of Russian literary classics think they know well: Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and stayed too long; was trapped by the Russian winter and stymied by the nationalistic heroism of the Russian people; destroyed his Grande Armée in an ill-timed retreat across the snow-covered, war-ravaged fields; and was slowly pushed back to Paris by the re-formed and newly invigorated coalition of Great Powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia). In 1814, as every schoolchild once knew, Napoleon was dispatched to Elba, leaving open the possibility that Russia would dominate the recently liberated Continent.

Mr. Lieven, a professor of Russian history at the London School of Economics, paints a far more textured picture of Russia's crucial role in halting Napoleon's advance and containing France within its historic borders. "Russia Against Napoleon" is informed by Russian sources and focuses not only on Russia's oft-praised people but also on the country's oft-underappreciated leadership in the early 19th century.

In Mr. Lieven's eyes, this story has two great heroes, and neither is Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian general lionized by Tolstoy and, later, Stalin. Mr. Lieven praises Kutuzov, the commander in chief of the Russian forces, for his courage, skillful soldiering and mastery of public relations, but the author does not consider him the military genius that tradition has trained us to see. Rather it is the czar, Alexander I, and the historically undervalued Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, minister of war and the commander of the Russian forces before and after Kutuzov, who inspire Mr. Lieven's admiration.

Russia Against Napoleon   940.2709 L

Dominic Lieven
Viking, 618 pages, $35.95

Barclay de Tolly was responsible for Russia's successful strategy of "deep retreat," which he had recommended as early as 1810. The idea was to lure the French far into Russia's heartland, stretching out their supply lines and making a potential French retreat crippling and costly. He was under constant criticism in his day for abandoning Russian ground to the French in 1812 without any real resistance, and he was under perpetual suspicion from the "Old Russian" camp at court and in the army because of his "foreign origins"—even though his family, of Scottish descent, had lived in the Russian Empire since the mid-17th century. In Mr. Lieven's hands, Barclay de Tolly comes across as tireless, dedicated, brave and strategically sound.

And Czar Alexander, often portrayed as unpredictable and ungrounded, frequently shows good leadership and diplomatic finesse in Mr. Lieven's telling. Despite ... constraints, Alexander proved an effective wartime leader, particularly after 1812, when the conflict moved out of Russia and diplomacy became paramount. He recognized that only a peace signed in Paris could guarantee the restoration of order in Europe and the security of Russia; but he also saw that Russia alone could never defeat the French forces. A victory over Napoleon was possible only because Alexander managed to form a grand alliance and keep it intact. This coalition-building, Mr. Lieven argues, was the czar's greatest achievement.


Russia's triumph is also a story of logistics, supplies and, above all, the horse. The country's leaders mobilized what Mr. Lieven calls "the sinews of Russian power": its vast population (although much smaller than the combined numbers at Napoleon's disposal); its outstanding and plentiful horse stock; its arms manufacturing; and even the sometimes unstable Russian economy. Of these, it is the horse, and Russia's ability to mobilize its light cavalry to harass Napoleon's rearguard as it retreated across the great European plain, that receives the greatest attention in "Russia Against Napoleon." Coming in a close second to the horse in significance were the victuallers who managed to feed and supply more than a half-million troops during the two-year campaign.


Mr. Lieven ends by arguing that in 1814, as in the present day, the security of Russia and the security of Europe were interdependent. True enough, but he also shows in this absorbing book that the defeat of Napoleon hinged on the resources, leadership and sacrifice of the Russian empire.

Ms. Siegel is a history professor at Ohio State University.

Historical British Novels

 I don't read them myself, but I do enjoy reading this weekly column, written by Cynthia Crossen.

I have a niece who's read ALL of the historical novels about the English; she loves Philippa Gregory. Is there an obscure novel she might not have come across that I could get her for her birthday? — J.M., Cold Spring, N.Y.

Until last week, I had never read anything by Philippa Gregory. I was put off by the covers of her books—her best known is "The Other Boleyn Girl"—which suggest the subgenre of historical fiction that Hilary Mantel, author of "Wolf Hall," calls "chick-lit with wimples."

My library had Ms. Gregory's 2008 "The Other Queen," so that's what I read. It wasn't bad. Bosoms didn't heave, manhoods didn't throb, and the real historical characters seem to have done more or less what history says they did.

In my favorite historical novels of Great Britain, I can really feel the cold, smell the smoke and taste the mutton. Among them:

"Jack Maggs" by Peter Carey. Inspired by Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations," this is the story of an ex-convict who returns to London from an Australian penal colony in the 19th century.

"The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber. It's been described as bawdy—the heroine is a prostitute—but this novel of 19th-century England is about class, medicine, manners and hypocrisy.

"The Observations" by Jane Harris. The saucy heroine of this novel (set in Scotland) is tart in every way; though she's nothing but a servant girl, she outsmarts many of her so-called betters.

"The Quincunx" by Charles Palliser. This 800-page doorstop is one of the few modern historical novels that deserves to be called "Dickensian." It teems with plot, characters and the bare bones of 19th-century London.

"Rose" by Martin Cruz Smith. A mystery, a love story and a terrifying depiction of the lives of coal miners in 19th-century England.

"Restoration" by Rose Tremain. A doctor in the 17th-century court of Charles II survives the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London and, barely, his marriage to one of the king's mistresses.

"Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters. Crime and love in Victorian London as two women plot to escape their destinies—one as a petty thief, the other as a captive of her aristocratic uncle.

My promise: None of these falls into the category of historical fiction George Steiner once described as "improbable gallants pursuing terrified yet rather lightly clad young ladies across flamboyant dust-wrappers."

The man who never was

Quite good. 1955. It worked quite well. Of course, there is a website for the operation itself.

Clifton Webb plays the role of Ewen Montagu, the British operative that masterminds the deception of the Germans, an operation to make them think that Sicily will not be the main objective of the Allied invasion of Europe in 1943. A body is sent as an emissary, his pockets filled with the every-day objects that any man would have; an attached briefcase contains documents that make it seem that Greece will be the main objective of the Allied invasion.

I became aware of the story in reading David Ignatius's Body of Lies. I have the book, written by Ewen Montagu, who was portrayed by Clifton Webb in the film.

Webb was born in Indiana, yet his English accent was quite good. His career was rather interesting: he did not make many films, yet had a handful of very good roles, including this one, Laura and Razor's Edge (nominated for awards for the latter two).

Gloria Grahame plays the role of a woman looking for romance, an American who every so often has something approaching an accent I judged to have been English. She shares a flat with Pam, who is secretary to Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu. When the plan is underway, implementing it requires credible details and items. One is judged to be a love letter from the dead man's sweetheart. Lucy (who refers to herself early in the film as a librarian) is falling in love with a pilot. Pam is assigned the task of writing a love letter, but has trouble with it (being somewhat sexless herself, she remarks to Lucy, after warning her not to fall in love with a pilot, that if she were to fall in love, she would allow it to happen during the war, to avoid pain and to save her full effort and strength for the war effort). Pining for her pilot lover, Lucy dictates a letter full of longing, pathos, unfulfilled love, fear, and passion.

The body is released from a submarine, wearing a Mae West (also called so in the book), his briefcase attached to a chain that wraps around his waist and down and out of his sleeve. It is found by Spanish in Huelva. That is described  in the book: Huelva is far enough away from Gibraltar that it is trusted the body will not be delivered to the British there. It is also known by the British that there is a German operative in the Huelva region who is likely to get documents from the washed-up British man.

The Germans (called Jerry by the British officers) are impressed, but need confirmation that the dead man (Michael Martin) was really whom he seemed to be. An operative is dispatched to ascertain the truth; he is played by Stephen Boyd. He lets a room in a boarding house, using an Irish brogue to charm the landlady. Once inside, he sets up his telegraph machine, communicates with his people, and sets out to find proof.

He goes to a tailor shop and inquires about his "friend" having bought shirts there. That is inconclusive. He winds up in the flat of the two women, and waits. Pam comes home, and he speaks with her, not knowing her role or job. Eventually Lucy shows up, after having received a phone call from her Joe's pilot mate, telling her of his demise.

In the flat Patrick O'Reilly asks questions, including some about Michael Martin. In her grief Lucy speaks of the pain of romance and of loss, and O'Reilly is convinced that Michael martin was a real man. Before leaving he gives the women his address. He goes back to his flat and telegraphs his contacts including saying that if they do not hear back from him in an hour then they can assume that Michael Martin wasn't real.

The Brits go after O'Reilly, but before actually arresting him Montagu calls the commander and reasons with him: O'Reilly wants to be arrested, so let us not do so. When they do not arrest him, O'Reilly telegraphs his contacts that martin was real.

Sleuth

Usually I do not like to compare films, but let each stand on its own merits, but, I do feel compelled to say, this original version is superior to the 2007 version.

I liked the 2007 film, with Michale Kane playing Andrew Wyke, the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 film; Caine played Milo Tindle in 1972. Jude Law played Mile Tindle in the 2007 version. All the acting is quite good; Olivier was superb, Caine better in 1972 than in 2007, and Law was excellent.

Books on Language

April 17, 2009, 6:55 P.M. ET
Books on Language
by MICHAEL QUINION

1. The Stories of English 427 C [420s in Dewey are English & Old English; 427 is for variations]
By David Crystal
Overlook, 2004

This richly textured, nontechnical account of the evolution of English is fascinating because it interweaves multiple narratives. In parallel with the standard language, David Crystal discusses varieties usually considered nonstandard -- dialect, slang and the speech of ethnic minorities -- which previously hadn't received the same level of attention. Traditionalist speakers and grammarians deplore such varieties as inferior or corrupt, but they are increasingly becoming accepted as legitimate, not least because only one in three speakers of English now has it as a mother tongue. With a cornucopia of examples that range from "The Canterbury Tales" to "The Lord of the Rings," and from the correspondence of medieval kings to Internet chatroom gossip, Crystal's exposition is a delight.


2. Language in Danger 417.7 D [410s are Linguistics; 417 is Dialectology & historical linguistics]
By Andrew Dalby
Columbia University, 2003
Languages not only change, they also die: World-wide, a language vanishes on average every two weeks. Andrew Dalby argues that each disappearance diminishes us, because a language encapsulates local knowledge and ways of looking at the human condition that die with the last speaker. Stronger languages squeeze out others: An early example is the language extinction that occurred around the Mediterranean in classical times, through the rise of Latin. Closer to our own time, minority languages -- Irish, Welsh, Native American and Australian tongues -- were banned in school to force minority groups to speak the language of the majority. The mood is now swinging toward encouraging minority languages, and some of those in danger may be saved. Dalby's engrossing account documents endangered languages throughout the world.


3. The Thurber Carnival 817 T [810s are American Literature; 817 is Satire & humor]
By James Thurber
Harper, 1945
James Thurber's antic attitude to language was a revelation when, at age 12, I bought this compilation of essays and stories in a British paperback edition. I first understood that grammar could actually be interesting when I read "Here Lies Miss Groby," his recollection of an English-composition teacher who drilled into her charges that metonymy means "Container for the Thing Contained," as in the phrase "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" -- "ears" is not meant literally; their hearing is. Young Thurber lies awake at night wondering about a wife threatening to hit her husband with the milk -- would "milk" be a case of Thing Contained for the Container? Thurber's whimsical drawings are a joy -- one has a puzzled man sitting on a motionless sled, holding his dog on a leash, as a passing skater, apparently steeped in Swinburne's poetry, shouting: "I said the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, but let it pass, let it pass!" I am glad to have encountered Thurber's storytelling skills and his humor so early in life.




4. Words and Rules 400 P [400s are Language]
By Steven Pinker
Basic Books, 1999

When Americans prefer "snuck" and "dove" to the British "sneaked" and "dived," they're pointing up one of the curiosities of English: the battle between regular and irregular verbs. These two American usages are especially odd because they're 19th-century revivals, reversing what grammarians often assert is an unstoppable historical trend toward regularization. The battle of the verbs can be especially vexing for children, who are avid for rules when they learn a language -- rules that lead to errors such as "breaked" and "holded." Steven Pinker's research confirms that we actually use two tools for making words: rules and memory. Regular verbs pop into mind almost automatically; irregular ones take longer to process because they must be retrieved from memory. Pinker's "Words and Rules" is erudite, readable and funny, leading the reader through a great range of topics, one of which is the cause of the gradual transformation of language over time.

5. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress SF Heinlein
By Robert Heinlein
Putnam, 1966
Science fiction has invented much vocabulary -- "robot," "force field" and "spacesuit," for instance -- that has since reached the mainstream. And linguistic change itself has been a significant sub-theme in many science-fiction works, partly because it contributes to the sense of otherness that is key to the suspension of disbelief, partly because it is a useful indicator of social and cultural distinctness. Anthony Burgess's anglicized Russian slang in "A Clockwork Orange" and George Orwell's Newspeak in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" are two famous examples. Another memorable example is Robert Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." With a sentient computer as a main character, the story is set in a lunar penal colony in 2075, where the inhabitants speak in an English dialect influenced by Russian and Chinese: not yet a pidgin, certainly not yet a creole, but a form of speech indicative of the changes that happen when disparate language communities are forced to communicate.

Mr. Quinion's most recent book, "Gallimaufry: A Hodgepodge of Our Vanishing Vocabulary" (Oxford), has just been published in paperback.

A Year of Living Dangerously

1848
By Mike Rapport
(Basic Books, 461 pages, $29.95)

Reviewed by William Anthony Hay

Dramatic changes over the early 19th century and the long shadow of the French Revolution set the context for 1848.