Books and Ideas (32)

I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.

War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy.
Why read it? In War and Peace, Tolstoy alternated literary forms, using fiction to tell his story of the maturing of Pierre Bezukhov, Andre Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova during the Napoleonic campaigns in Russia, and essays in which he discusses the ironies and absurdity of war. In other words, two battles are the essence of this novel: the personal and social battles in fiction; the military battle in essays. The story covers roughly the years between 1805 and 1820, centering on the invasion of Russia by Napoleon’s army in 1812 and the Russian resistance to the invader.
No summary can capture the scope of this novel with over five hundred characters and ideas about life and death and the military. When you have finished reading it, you have struggled with Pierre to understand and accept life; you have faced the confusion of warfare and accepted life and death with Andre Bolkonsky; you have flirted with life with Natasha and begun to realize that she must accept responsibility for her words and actions. And with Tolstoy, you have ridiculed the notion that leaders’ own personal ambitions should doom the mass of the citizens to die for such absurd causes.
Quote: “It is only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our ken….”
Quote: “Just as in a dream everything may be unreal, incoherent, and contradictory except the feeling behind the dream.”

Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II. Thomas Childers.
Why read it? This book is a remarkable piece of writing. You are truly “there” to watch these men in all of their training and their missions over Germany. Childers, an historian, uses the letters from the crew’s family to re-create vividly their lives and times. He uses the techniques of fiction, but the details are historically true. The ironies of war are dramatically presented. When I gave a copy of the book to my brother-in-law, a pilot in the Navy, he could not put it down and read it within a single evening. The book is that compelling.
Quote from a review written by Art Carey of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “His [Thomas Childers’] mother’s brother, Howard Goodner, was a dashing basketball player who won a scholarship to Western Kentucky University. He was a radio operator aboard the last U.S. bomber shot down over Germany. The telegram informing the family that he was missing in action arrived on VE Day.”
Quote from Thomas Childers, the author: “I never knew my uncle, but here I am still thinking about him and writing about him.”

The Way of All Flesh. Samuel Butler.
Why read it? Novel. Butler does well in reproducing the thoughts of a young child viewing the adult world. Through three generations, sons in the family Pontifex lived in fear of their fathers and then treated their sons in the same way. The novel is about Ernest’s progress from thinking about, but being afraid to say, what is wrong in the world, to having the freedom and ability to say/write what he is thinking. Ernest progresses from fear and dependence while growing up to independence as an adult.
An attack on the stereotypical family and the abuse of children by their parents. This abuse is both physical and emotional. Do all sons hate/dislike their fathers? Communication between father and sons is the problem. Neither understands the other. Neither know the other. What I most enjoyed about this book was Butler’s satiric comments on almost every subject.
Quote: "One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home….”
Quote: “Never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good long while by not knowing it; when you find that you will have occasion for this or that knowledge or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly, the sooner you learn it the better….”