Ronald Lewin Hitler’s Mistakes (1984)

      Ronald Lewin Hitler’s Mistakes (1984) Lewin had a good reputation as a military historian, so it’s not surprising that this book focusses on Hitler’s mistakes as a “warlord”, which were many, all derived from a hubristic belief in his own military skills, compounded by his impatience with and contempt for the professional soldiers who could, if he had left them to fulfill their mission, have won the war for him.
     But the fundamental error was in his conception of the Thousand Year Empire. He conceived of imperial power as pure oppression. Despite his professed admiration for the Roman (and British) empires, and his claim that he had studied their histories, he did not grasp that these successful empires lasted for hundreds of years because they brought law and order, and hence a measure of peace, to the nations they controlled. True, they both suppressed anything that looked like organised opposition or rebellion, but they were more concerned with maintaining order and promoting trade than with establishing totalitarian rule. Both also afforded the subjugated people the advantages of citizenship, the Romans explicitly, the British implicitly by assimilation, especially of the conquered ruling classes.
     In contrast, Hitler’s vision was that of raw power, exercised by the Aryan colonists over the Untermenschen of the conquered lands. Lewin, following other people’s attempts at writing a psychological profile of Hitler, claims that Hitler’s character made it impossible for him to imagine any other form of empire. He was an egotistical, narcissistic psychopath, incapable of conceiving of anything beyond his self; but that self was empty at its core. The external trappings of power, even when he despised the toadies who flattered his ego, were all that sustained Hitler. He existed only as reflected by his environment; and so he had to build an environment that assured him that he was the most important object in the world, at its very centre, the hub that held together the wheel that turned and turned around him.
     The misconception of imperial power as oppression was one of the two primary socio-economic mistakes. The other was the eradication of the Jews, which from a purely practical point of view was stupid, for Hitler thereby eliminated a vast pool of labour and talent. It was conceptually stupid, too, because of course the Jews did not have the power and influence that Hitler ascribed to them. His belief in Jewish control in a way was a distorted reflection of his self-concept as the man of iron will, who made things happen merely by willing them. That it was a moral horror compounded the error, for it gave his enemies one more reason to attack him.
     Reading Lewin’s carefully laid out case for the errors that cost Hitler the war, one is left wondering how he could impose his will on a nation, and on a cadre of professional soldiers who obeyed him despite his obvious incompetence. How could such a stupid man get so many smart people to do what he wanted?
     One reason, in my opinion the main reason, was that he surrounded himself with thugs and psychopaths and then set them at odds with each other, thus ensuring that they would do whatever they thought he wanted merely in order to gain and hold power and the spoils of power. This method also prevented anyone from building a power base from which to claim the succession. But in preventing anything resembling a succession plan, Hitler also undermined his vision of a millennial empire. Even if he had won the war and established Nazi rule over Eastern Europe, the thugs and psychopaths would have engaged in ruinous internecine warfare as soon as Hitler died. The empire would have disintegrated almost immediately.
     Several times while reading this book, I was reminded of C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. The state of constant “competition” described by Screwtape as the natural order of things (in contrast to the Enemy’s maundering on about Love) is, I think, a perfect image of the world that Hitler created. It also explains why that world was doomed to end in abysmal failure. The tragedy is that while it lasted, it cost millions of lives; and destroying it cost millions of lives more.
     Lewin also mentions that Hitler was a coward. He visited a front only once. In 1944 he travelled to consult with the generals commanding the defence against the Allied advance in France. When an Allied bomber dropped a few bombs a couple kilometres from where Hitler and his generals were holed up, Hitler promptly turned around and went back to Berlin.
     A good book worth reading for the lessons it teaches. If you want to found an empire, do the opposite of what Hitler did, and you’ll likely succeed. A few too many typos mar an otherwise excellent text. ***

Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983)

 

    Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983) A headless torso, academic hatreds, sleazy Soho massage parlours, and revenge for ancient slights fuel this investigation by Morse and Lewis. Well done as usual, although the puzzle creaks a bit. This book was one of the early TV episodes, and worked very well in that medium. Dexter’s sense of evil is almost as acute as Ruth Rendell’s. **½ (2004)

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Redhead (1997)

     W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Redhead (1997) An old murder causes trouble, as the daughter of the convicted man takes a job with the man whose evidence put her father away. Her body is found in a quarry, and Wycliffe’s investigation reveals more secrets, etc, until the true perp is unmasked. Well crafted, but forgettable (I’m writing this some three weeks after I read the book, and I can’t remember much, even with the help of the cover blurb.) I’m finding other Wycliffe books and reading them, but I probably won’t keep them. the TV series based on these books was/is above average. This often happens with merely good genre fiction. ** (2004)

Andre Norton. Uncharted Stars (1969)

     Andre Norton. Uncharted Stars (1969) A picaresque adventure story, in which shape shifting, hyperspace, mind-reading, narrow escapes, etc, figure prominently. A swords’n’scorcerers fantasy transposed into a technological universe, in other words. Murdoc Jern continues his quest for the zero stones with the help of Eet, a mutant pussy cat who teaches Murdoc to use what little ESP powers he possesses. The ending promises further adventures, as Eet is transformed into a human-type female of spectacular beauty. I don’t know if Norton produced more stories in this series; but as the characters don’t drive the plot, I don’t feel any real loss if she didn’t. The cover blurbs praise the book rather extravagantly. ** (2004)

M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell (2001)

     M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell (2001) Agatha and James have married (I missed the book(s) in which this happened), but they are not as compatible as they thought they might be. James takes up with a local hoyden, is attacked by person(s) unknown, and disappears. A few days later, the hoyden turns up very dead, and both James and Agatha are the obvious suspects. The tale focuses on Agatha’s attempts to clear her name by finding the murderer, with the help of Sir Charles Fraith. They succeed of course, but not without the usual near-death experience that Agatha suffers in every case. James and Agatha agree to a divorce, so we will see her as a single middle-aged woman in future. I suspect these aspects of the story relate to M C Beaton’s own life, but whether as reflections or variations is impossible to tell. Better plotted than others, somewhat more characterisation, too, but still basically fluff. ** (2004)

M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (1996)

     M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (1996) Agatha’s wedding to James is stopped when her long-lost drunkard husband Jimmy shows up. A day later Jimmy turns up dead in a ditch, strangled by a man, or so it seems. Wanting to clear themselves of the obvious suspicions, Agatha and James investigate, and turn up a tangled history of blackmail. Further murders complicate the case, but in the end justice triumphs, while true love languishes. Agreeable but not memorable fluff. Beaton can write better (she did in the first couple of books in this series.) *½ (2004)

M. C. Beaton Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993)

     M. C. Beaton Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993) This time, a new vet with googly eyes and a smooth manner disturbs the ladies of Carsely, until he is murdered. Agatha finds out that he has conned loadsadough out of his smitten victims, and of course has made enough enemies that the field of suspects is satisfyingly large, his partner among them. Both lust and money figure in the motives. Plotting is creaky, style is slapdash and superficial; Beaton is simply churning out this series. Agatha’s continuing romance with her neighbour and sleuthing partner James Lacey is tied into the plot, but isn’t really necessary. *½ (2004)

Kingsley Amis What Became of Jane Austen? (1970)

Kingsley Amis What Became of Jane Austen? (1970) Amis wrote occasional pieces, mostly book reviews it seems, and 30-odd are gathered in this collection. The overwhelming impression is that of a man with a clear sense of his own taste, and a rarely disguised contempt for those who disagree with him. Amis is also given to gratuitous insult of people he doesn’t like, such a sociologists. Much of this rudeness adds nothing to his argument or explication, but appears in the form of well-turned epigrams or similes, which must have cost him some effort to produce, hence his inability to leave them out. That being said, the essays are entertaining enough, and I do happen to agree with his (late) recognition of the pernicious influence of the Leavises. The title essay attacks Austen on the grounds that Mansfield Park fails in its moral judgments. Not having read that book, I can’t comment; but his throw-away comments on Pride and Prejudice indicate that Amis prides himself on enjoying a contrarian taste.
     The couple of personal pieces that round out the collection, especially his memoir of his father, make him appear somewhat more amiable, which suggests that his curmudgeonliness was largely a pose, a judgment that he would no doubt strenuously deny. An entertaining collection, which makes me think that I should read a couple of his novels. * to ***

Evanescence

Evanescence
2013-05-08
     This evening, we watched a documentary about Yousuf Karsh, portrait photographer. Towards the end, the curator of his estate mentioned that printing his negatives is becoming ever more difficult, because there is less and less paper and chemistry being produced. A historian wondered how much of the mass of digital images being made would be available for historians 20, 30, 100 years from now. He didn’t answer, but we can surmise it will be a very small, and randomly biased, sample. There were a few shots of people working with digitised imagery.
     I’m digitising my collection of negatives and slides, an interesting, frustrating, sometimes heartbreaking, and often tedious job. Tonight’s session was interrupted by getting the garbage ready for tomorrow: I threw out several of Jon’s floppy diskettes that were no longer readable. I’d used my best utilities to scavenge what I could from them, but most of the data was gone. Jon may have copied some of the data to his hard drives, but it will be almost impossible to tell. He also left some notebooks, most of the notes recording data for games he played, but here and there he wrote poems and bits of prose. These will be digitised, too, but we will keep the paper copies: paper will last longer than floppy disks or hard drives or DVDs.
     All data eventually vanishes. We have records from certain periods of the past only because the bureaucratic mind desires records, hoards facts and data. At one time, most data was created by bureaucrats. Then printing drove a demand for new content, and writers and poets left records of their works in progress, notebooks and diaries and drafts of essays and stories. Now, most content is created by digital media, and most of it is of no more (or less) permanent interest than casual conversation. Very little of this will be kept for any length of time, and even less will ever be examined. Automated data searches will no doubt flag what’s worth keeping, or worth using for whatever nefarious purposes the State has in its bureaucratic mind. But most information has very short-lived value. As it is, the scraps of paper that survive the decades and centuries do so as much by accident as by design. Later generations have different notions of what’s important to know or understand. What we wish to be remembered by may not matter to our descendants.
     Evanescence is the fate of all information. Electronic information will vanish more quickly than anything our ancestors produced: information that requires electricity to be read is doomed to obsolescence. Only an obsessive regimen of repeated conversion to new media will preserve it for more than a decade or two. For ourselves, we can at best hope for being recorded in some living memories and some randomly surviving hard copies of photographs or text, and perhaps a few artifacts that mattered to us, or that we created.

Carola Dunn. Murder on the Flying Scotsman (1997)

     Carola Dunn. Murder on the Flying Scotsman (1997) I bought this because of its setting (I collect fiction with a railway motif or setting), which Dunn describes quite convincingly, even for people like me who have direct experience of steam trains in England. To create the 1923 social milieu Dunn relies too much on cliche, that is, she’s writing to her presumed audience’s expectations. She also imports a good deal of late C20 political and social values. It’s unlikely that a Detective Inspector, his sergeant, and his detective constable have no racist attitudes whatever, for example. But apart from such (very American) flaws, the pastiche works very nicely, and afforded a few hours of pleasure. The heroine, Daisy Dalrymple (who’s a Hon), is charming, if a little too demure when it comes to pursuing her love interest, the dashing Inspector Fletcher, a widower whose daughter Belinda has stowed away on the train that Daisy is taking to Edinburgh (where else?). There’s a murder on the train, a mess of family members that all want what they believe will be a sizeable inheritance, a sinister threat or two, and so forth. Plot complications abound, characters are agreeably two-dimensional, and much fun is had by all. Would make a nice little TV series of the less demanding sort. **½ (2004)

Charles M. Schulz. It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1975)

      Charles M. Schulz. It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown (1975) A picture book based on a TV special. The panels have rounded corners like a TV screen, and are displayed against a green background on which the text is printed. A slight work, it will keep youngsters occupied for a half hour or so; but it’s not up to the classic Charlie Brown videos or books. Snoopy plays Sherlock Holmes, and finds Woodstock’s nest, which has gone missing because Susie needs an object for show-n-tell. ** (2004)

Sue Grafton. “J” is for Judgment (1993)

     Sue Grafton. “J” is for Judgment (1993) Millhome is hired to confirm that a man who apparently suicided some seven years earlier is still alive. She finds him; he is murdered; and she discovers the truth even though most of it is now irrelevant. She also discovers that she has remnants of a family, but this subplot doesn’t go anywhere, and seems introduced merely to add to the back story (Kinsey Millhome fans must have wanted more details about her.) Well enough plotted, characters thin, setting OK, pacing OK, but there’s the feeling that Grafton is getting tired; this is number 10 in the series, after all. Since then she has managed to move on to “Q”. The books are a good read, but not particularly memorable. ** (2004)

Peter Medawar. Pluto’s Republic (1982)

      Peter Medawar. Pluto’s Republic (1982) Medawar belongs to that small group of scientists who can make their arcane arts intelligible to the general reader. He simplifies, but never too much. He can coin the pithy phrase, and has a nice sense of irony, as well as the courtesy to assume a similar sense in his readers. Pretty well all these essays are occasional pieces, written as lectures or addresses or for publication in reviews and other journals. Thus, there is repetition not only of theme but of language, which makes reading the book in one go tedious at times. But on the whole, his essays are a pleasure to read, and his themes need repeating: that science depends as much on imagination and inspiration as on logic and reason; that any speculation must be tested by against observation and experiment; that much nonsense clothes itself in the garments of science; and that science is too important to be left to scientists. He clearly thinks that the ordinary citizen not only needs but deserves to have broad understanding of how science works, of what science has achieved, and of science’s benefits and dangers. His book helps achieve that end. *** to **** (2004)