After the exhausting week and the icky Saturday (which probably came through loud and clear in my curmudgeonly post yesterday) I just have to say how thankful I am for this Sunday. The temperatures moderated into the low 30s, which did wonders for my morale.
Morning worship was lovely, infused with a lot of music that paid tribute to the late Andrae Crouch (an amazing gospel singer and musician who passed away last week). D and I both dearly love Andrae's music, and our family has been praying for him for quite some time in his recent months of illness. I loved the fact that our congregation is Anglo-Baptist (grin) enough that today we got to celebrate Andre's legacy, especially with the final rollicking strains of his "Soon and Very Soon, We are Goin' to See the King."
Sunday School and missions committee meeting were both full of challenges, but today challenges felt good, as did loving and serving as wholeheartedly as I could. Despite my inadequacies everywhere, God's love sure does make up for all I'm not.
A walk home in those more moderate temperatures, fifteen minutes of pure quiet to enjoy before the rest of the fam got home from grocery shopping, and a lunch made of fresh strawberries, Robert Frost poetry, and time with my 12 year old -- thankfully in much better space herself today! -- were also blessings. D. had to go back to work (it is, after all, still January) but S. and I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon baking bread after she built a quick snowman on our sidewalk, courtesy of the slight melt that had come to the snow mountains.I snuck in a little bit more reading on Charles Marsh's new biography of Bonhoeffer, and even managed the first chapter of my new P.D. James.
I know I may rue the fact that I didn't work on deadlines today, but sometimes rest, in all sorts of forms, is even more important. Very thankful for this day!
Showing posts with label biography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biography. Show all posts
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Monday, October 08, 2012
Pearl Harbor (by Steven M. Gillon)
I found an unexpected treat on the new nonfiction shelves at the library this weekend: Pearl Harbor: FDR Leads the Nation into War by Steven M. Gillon.
I've read several books on Pearl Harbor and on FDR over the years -- it's a topic I tend to go back to. I think it started long ago when I visited Pearl when I was eighteen (my sister was living in Hawaii then). Not only did I pick up my first book on Pearl Harbor in the gift shop at the visitor's center there, but seeing the monument and much of the surrounding area forever cemented the place in my mind, so that whenever I read books about it since, I can picture things so clearly.
I also spent a winter in the company of Roosevelt when I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time. Maybe it's the sudden chill to the weather that made me drift over to the nonfiction shelves -- autumn and winter tend to be my time to hunker down with history and biography, especially big tomes.
But this is not a big tome, and I am speeding my way through its very accessible prose. Some of this is not new to me, but it's been a few years since I've visited Pearl Harbor in my reading so it feels fresh. I like Gillon's shaping of the narrative too -- he's essentially focused on the first 24 hours for FDR following the attack, though he does some necessary prologue work at the beginning and some side-stepping and rabbit trailing to provide other stories of interest.
Lots of interesting bits stand out, but one struck me especially this evening. At one point Gillon is detailing some of the condescending, sneering attitudes of the fascist nations toward the U.S. -- how many of the leaders assumed our nation was too "soft" to make a difference in the war or see it through, partly because of their beliefs about capitalism, partly because of their racism. At least in one case, however, that of Mussolini, there was sneering condescension about Roosevelt's ability to lead a country because he was crippled. Writes Dillon:
Contrast this with Dillon's profile of FDR's actual courageous fight to overcome polio and to help others who were battling it, and his long, arduous return to a political career despite his limitations.
Two things really stand out to me here:
~ the difference between looking only at what the surface shows you about a person versus really knowing and understanding their character, and
~the way that tribulation truly can encourage patience, build character, and lead to hope
The very thing that some thought had weakened Roosevelt had, in actuality, made him much stronger and tempered him into a man uniquely qualified to lead our nation in a time of crisis.
A lot to think about in our image conscious time. A lot to think about as we ponder the qualities we consider essential in a leader.
I've read several books on Pearl Harbor and on FDR over the years -- it's a topic I tend to go back to. I think it started long ago when I visited Pearl when I was eighteen (my sister was living in Hawaii then). Not only did I pick up my first book on Pearl Harbor in the gift shop at the visitor's center there, but seeing the monument and much of the surrounding area forever cemented the place in my mind, so that whenever I read books about it since, I can picture things so clearly.
I also spent a winter in the company of Roosevelt when I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time. Maybe it's the sudden chill to the weather that made me drift over to the nonfiction shelves -- autumn and winter tend to be my time to hunker down with history and biography, especially big tomes.
But this is not a big tome, and I am speeding my way through its very accessible prose. Some of this is not new to me, but it's been a few years since I've visited Pearl Harbor in my reading so it feels fresh. I like Gillon's shaping of the narrative too -- he's essentially focused on the first 24 hours for FDR following the attack, though he does some necessary prologue work at the beginning and some side-stepping and rabbit trailing to provide other stories of interest.
Lots of interesting bits stand out, but one struck me especially this evening. At one point Gillon is detailing some of the condescending, sneering attitudes of the fascist nations toward the U.S. -- how many of the leaders assumed our nation was too "soft" to make a difference in the war or see it through, partly because of their beliefs about capitalism, partly because of their racism. At least in one case, however, that of Mussolini, there was sneering condescension about Roosevelt's ability to lead a country because he was crippled. Writes Dillon:
"Most of all, he (Mussolini) simply could not understand how a man incapable of walking could lead a nation during war. 'Never in history has a people been ruled by a paralytic,' he contemptuously said of FDR..."
Contrast this with Dillon's profile of FDR's actual courageous fight to overcome polio and to help others who were battling it, and his long, arduous return to a political career despite his limitations.
"Once easily dismissed as superficial, ambitious, and shallow, FDR responded to polio in a way that added new depth to his character. It intensified his ability to set priorities and to focus. 'Polio,' Franklin Jr. said, 'taught Father to concentrate on the things he was physically able to do and not waste time thinking about things he could not.'...When asked how polio had changed him, Roosevelt replied, 'If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy!' 'Having handled that, he probably thought there wasn't anything he couldn't deal with,' said Henry Morgenthau. 'Once you've conquered that kind of illness, anything's possible.'"
Two things really stand out to me here:
~ the difference between looking only at what the surface shows you about a person versus really knowing and understanding their character, and
~the way that tribulation truly can encourage patience, build character, and lead to hope
The very thing that some thought had weakened Roosevelt had, in actuality, made him much stronger and tempered him into a man uniquely qualified to lead our nation in a time of crisis.
A lot to think about in our image conscious time. A lot to think about as we ponder the qualities we consider essential in a leader.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
On Conan Doyle
I'm about midway through Michael Dirda's biography/memoir On Conan Doyle. I'm really enjoying it, and learning some fascinating things I never knew about Doyle (though admittedly, I went to the book not knowing much).
First off, I love how this book feels in my hand. Especially in this age of e-readers, I think it's worthwhile to celebrate the pleasurable physicality of a book. It's small and slender with a lovely dust jacket featuring a black and white photo of Doyle reading in a remarkable looking sitting room with a tiger-skin rug at his feet.. My copy is from the library so my jacket is also covered in smooth plastic; even that seems to add to the pleasure of how easy it is to hold and read this book. It has ragged edges on raw-cut pages that are a perfect shade of cream for the dark text. (I live in hope that the age of e-readers may, among other things, be creating a culture of beautifully made physical books again....)
I like the way Dirda mixes biography and memoir. The reflections on Conan Doyle are biographically weighty, but they're shaped by Dirda's love of reading...not just Conan Doyle, but many other good books. For him, Doyle was his gateway into a lifelong love of reading, and many of the books and authors he's read since have some connection to Doyle, either in style or simply because he tends to compare other writers to Doyle (the first author of his heart -- he fell head over heels for Sherlock at the age of ten).
It's been interesting to realize just how prolific Doyle was and how much he wrote that most of us never hear about, knowing him primarily as the author behind Sherlock Holmes. Apparently, even in his lifetime, that drove Doyle a little crazy. That people only knew him for Sherlock was especially annoying because Doyle didn't consider Sherlock to be his "important" work. Despite not having read the historical novels and non-fiction of his that he did consider important, I found myself disagreeing -- quite vehemently -- with the sharp distinction he made between important and non-important work:
To which I found myself saying "no, no!" in passionate (albeit inner) tones. I really struggle with this sense of "high" and "low" work -- it seems to dismiss good storytelling (and the huge human need for it) far too easily, not to mention it disqualifies a whole body of fiction from being "serious" in one fell swoop. I'm not saying I turn to detective fiction primarily for information or training in the virtues, or that it isn't pleasurable and lighter reading than, say, scholarly writing. But a well crafted work of detective fiction can provide both pleasure and tremendous insight into the human condition and into how human beings respond in times of suffering, confusion, and crisis. Compare Doyle's words there to P.D. James, in this recent interview, who provides a helpful insight into how such fiction has changed since the Golden Age:
In a less exalted way, James also values detective fiction for the way it can capture the tone and liveliness of an era (and though she uses Sayers as an example, certainly Sherlock Holmes is also proof of this premise):
Yes and yes. Both of James' insights here point to reasons why I read her books -- and Sayers, Christie, and Crombie, just to mention my favorites.
First off, I love how this book feels in my hand. Especially in this age of e-readers, I think it's worthwhile to celebrate the pleasurable physicality of a book. It's small and slender with a lovely dust jacket featuring a black and white photo of Doyle reading in a remarkable looking sitting room with a tiger-skin rug at his feet.. My copy is from the library so my jacket is also covered in smooth plastic; even that seems to add to the pleasure of how easy it is to hold and read this book. It has ragged edges on raw-cut pages that are a perfect shade of cream for the dark text. (I live in hope that the age of e-readers may, among other things, be creating a culture of beautifully made physical books again....)
I like the way Dirda mixes biography and memoir. The reflections on Conan Doyle are biographically weighty, but they're shaped by Dirda's love of reading...not just Conan Doyle, but many other good books. For him, Doyle was his gateway into a lifelong love of reading, and many of the books and authors he's read since have some connection to Doyle, either in style or simply because he tends to compare other writers to Doyle (the first author of his heart -- he fell head over heels for Sherlock at the age of ten).
It's been interesting to realize just how prolific Doyle was and how much he wrote that most of us never hear about, knowing him primarily as the author behind Sherlock Holmes. Apparently, even in his lifetime, that drove Doyle a little crazy. That people only knew him for Sherlock was especially annoying because Doyle didn't consider Sherlock to be his "important" work. Despite not having read the historical novels and non-fiction of his that he did consider important, I found myself disagreeing -- quite vehemently -- with the sharp distinction he made between important and non-important work:
"The best literary work is that which leaves the reader better for having read it. Now nobody can possibly be the better -- in the high sense in which I mean it -- for reading Sherlock Holmes, although he may have passed a pleasant hour in doing so. It was not to my mind high work, and no detective work ever can be, apart from the fact that all work dealing with criminal matters is a cheap way of rousing the interest of the reader."
To which I found myself saying "no, no!" in passionate (albeit inner) tones. I really struggle with this sense of "high" and "low" work -- it seems to dismiss good storytelling (and the huge human need for it) far too easily, not to mention it disqualifies a whole body of fiction from being "serious" in one fell swoop. I'm not saying I turn to detective fiction primarily for information or training in the virtues, or that it isn't pleasurable and lighter reading than, say, scholarly writing. But a well crafted work of detective fiction can provide both pleasure and tremendous insight into the human condition and into how human beings respond in times of suffering, confusion, and crisis. Compare Doyle's words there to P.D. James, in this recent interview, who provides a helpful insight into how such fiction has changed since the Golden Age:
"I think that when one writes detective stories one is imposing order, and a form of imperfect but human justice, on chaos... I think there's been a huge change since the novels of the Golden Age," she suggests. "What was popular then was the puzzle: such qualities as psychological truth or even atmospheric location were secondary to it. For me, characterisation is at the heart of my books. From the start, I felt that what I was doing was examining human beings under the strain of an investigation for murder. And such an investigation tears down all the walls of privacy that we build round ourselves and reveals us for who we are. It's a fascinating way of dealing with people."
In a less exalted way, James also values detective fiction for the way it can capture the tone and liveliness of an era (and though she uses Sayers as an example, certainly Sherlock Holmes is also proof of this premise):
"A detective story can give a much truer picture of the society in which it's written than a more prestigious literature," James suggests. "If we want to know what it was like – actually like – to work in an office between the wars, we should go to Murder Must Advertise. It's all there: the people and personalities; the inter-departmental rivalry; the great excitement of having a flutter on the Grand National; right down to how much things cost and attitudes to sex and class. I wanted my books to do the same; to be unambiguously set in the present day, so that they give a picture of the life we're living. And if I'm lucky enough to be read in 50 years' time, I hope people will be able to point to them and say: that's what it was like."
Yes and yes. Both of James' insights here point to reasons why I read her books -- and Sayers, Christie, and Crombie, just to mention my favorites.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Art of Biography, the Art of the Quote
A few days ago I started reading Eric Metaxas' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's been on my reading list for months, but I purposefully held off until January because I knew I would need to a book like this to fall into during the hardest, cold days of winter.
And I knew I would "fall into" this book. At least I would if it was anything like my experience with Metaxas' other well-known biography of William Wilberforce, a book I almost literally couldn't put down.
Good biographies, the kind that make you feel as though you've been in the subject's company, are some of my favorite reads. Metaxas seems to have mastered the art of telling a life in a way that's colorful, compelling and thoughtful. As I read Bonhoeffer, I keep trying to put my finger on what exactly makes up the art of good biography. I'm still working that out in my mind. But one thing that struck me yesterday was that a masterful biographer knows the value and artistry of a good quote.
A "good quote" can have different types of qualities (or a mixture): one that shows depth of research, one that feels particularly well-placed within the narrative, one that reveals something you never knew or stopped to consider about the subject, or one that looks small and commonplace on the surface but in consideration of the whole of the subject's life, offers a poignant phrase or line that feels weighted with more meaning that its original intentions.
That last jumped out at me yesterday as I was reading about the Bonhoeffer family's great love of music, and how the young Bonhoeffer had a real genius for music. Metaxas cited a quote from Dietrich's twin sister Sabine to make note that he was an "especially sensitive and generous" accompanist. And then he quoted Dietrich's future sister-in-law:
"While we were playing, Dietrich at the piano kept us all in order. I do not remember a moment when he did not know where each of us was. He never just played his own part: from the beginning he heard the whole of it. If the cello took a long time tuning beforehand, or between movements, he sank his head and didn't betray the slightest impatience. He was courteous by nature."
"He never just played his own part: from the beginning he heard the whole of it." A line that makes beautiful sense in context -- can't you just picture the young blond-haired man at the piano, keeping time, patiently observing and waiting for the others, helping them all to pull their music making into coherence and beauty? The whole vignette wonderfully captures something essential about Bonhoeffer's personality, something people never forgot. But that one line also seems to ring with deeper resonance when you consider Bonhoeffer's life as a whole.
And maybe that vignette offers a good analogy for what a biographer, at his best, does: he listens to snippets of music, played at or sung about a person's life, from very different places and voices. And he brings them all together into a harmonious whole that helps you to not only appreciate the snippets, but the entire composition of someone's life.
And I knew I would "fall into" this book. At least I would if it was anything like my experience with Metaxas' other well-known biography of William Wilberforce, a book I almost literally couldn't put down.
Good biographies, the kind that make you feel as though you've been in the subject's company, are some of my favorite reads. Metaxas seems to have mastered the art of telling a life in a way that's colorful, compelling and thoughtful. As I read Bonhoeffer, I keep trying to put my finger on what exactly makes up the art of good biography. I'm still working that out in my mind. But one thing that struck me yesterday was that a masterful biographer knows the value and artistry of a good quote.
A "good quote" can have different types of qualities (or a mixture): one that shows depth of research, one that feels particularly well-placed within the narrative, one that reveals something you never knew or stopped to consider about the subject, or one that looks small and commonplace on the surface but in consideration of the whole of the subject's life, offers a poignant phrase or line that feels weighted with more meaning that its original intentions.
That last jumped out at me yesterday as I was reading about the Bonhoeffer family's great love of music, and how the young Bonhoeffer had a real genius for music. Metaxas cited a quote from Dietrich's twin sister Sabine to make note that he was an "especially sensitive and generous" accompanist. And then he quoted Dietrich's future sister-in-law:
"While we were playing, Dietrich at the piano kept us all in order. I do not remember a moment when he did not know where each of us was. He never just played his own part: from the beginning he heard the whole of it. If the cello took a long time tuning beforehand, or between movements, he sank his head and didn't betray the slightest impatience. He was courteous by nature."
"He never just played his own part: from the beginning he heard the whole of it." A line that makes beautiful sense in context -- can't you just picture the young blond-haired man at the piano, keeping time, patiently observing and waiting for the others, helping them all to pull their music making into coherence and beauty? The whole vignette wonderfully captures something essential about Bonhoeffer's personality, something people never forgot. But that one line also seems to ring with deeper resonance when you consider Bonhoeffer's life as a whole.
And maybe that vignette offers a good analogy for what a biographer, at his best, does: he listens to snippets of music, played at or sung about a person's life, from very different places and voices. And he brings them all together into a harmonious whole that helps you to not only appreciate the snippets, but the entire composition of someone's life.
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