Rex Stout. The League of Frightened Men (1935)

     Rex Stout. The League of Frightened Men (1935) This is a very early Nero Wolfe tale. Stout is still developing the characters. Archie doesn’t yet have a steady woman friend as in later novels, Wolfe is more a collection of tics than a person, the rest of the household are mere animated scenery, and Inspector Cramer is not yet the frequently enraged opponent and rival of Wolfe. The plot is simple enough: a hazing accident leaves one of the freshmen with a bones that heal crookedly, and a permanent grudge against his classmates. Two die, and a threatening letter appears in the remaining men’s letterboxes. They hire Wolfe to remove what they perceive as a threat to their lives. Wolfe delivers, but not before a real murder occurs and one of the group is unmasked as fraud and killer. Good stuff, nicely handled. Many of the later Nero Wolfe tales seem perfunctory by comparison to this one. ***

Ronald Lewin. Hitler’s Mistakes (1984)

   

  Ronald Lewin. Hitler’s Mistakes (1984) Consider how well Hitler worked towards achieving his goals, without considering their moral and ethical dimensions. That’s Lewin’s stance, and he shows that Hitler failed miserably. Hitler’s primary mistake was that he would not or could not understand that governance was more important than vision. His vision of a Thousand Year Reich might have been achieved, if he had studied how previous empires succeeded: by utilising the plodding and unglamourous skills of the bureaucrat and functionary. His secondary mistake was in the vision itself, that of a Herrenvolk lording it over a vast class of serfs. And his third major mistake was setting his underlings and colleagues against each other so that there was no stable structure of government to maintain the state after his death. Even if he had gotten out of the war with his skin and his nation more or less intact, the Thousand Year Reich could not have survived his death.
     In short, he was not only a psychopath, he was a stupid psychopath. Unfortunately, too many Germans followed him despite all their misgivings, despite their realisation that his vision was unsustainable, despite his blatant incompetence. That’s what needs to be explained, because there’s plenty of evidence that the more analytical (and cynical) of Hitler’s compatriots could see through his flim-flam. Why did no one call his bluff?
     His Party comrades, like him, did not look beyond their immediate concerns. Power and self-gratification motivated the ruling Party elites, and those motivations make it difficult if not impossible to think about or imagine anything beyond one’s own life. Corruption of all kinds was endemic. Everyone was trying to secure some power base for the time when Hitler died. Trying to unseat Hitler or cross him would have eliminated any chance of creating the kind of fiefdom that they craved. So they went along, most of them to the bitter end.
     The military caste was conflicted. On the one hand, they had sworn an oath to Hitler, and saw their duty as protecting the State as well as they could. On the other hand, they soon saw through his pretensions to military competence, but the habits of hierarchy prevented them from doing what a looser social structure would have enabled them to do, to mutiny and take power from him.
     The ordinary German was seduced by a vision, by images of German power and influence, by what amounted to a religion of the Volk. Most of them, like most people anywhere, didn’t engage in politics as a method of governance. Politics is either something to be left to other people, or a quasi-religion adopted to validate one’s sense of being an important player on the world stage.
     Hitler was in all respects a pathetic human being.  It’s thoroughly depressing that his charismatic gifts misled so many Germans into following him.
     Lewin makes a good case. He’s a true historian, basing his narrative on primary sources as much as possible. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the Nazi era better. ***

Pendon Museum

     Most railway modellers and many model railroaders know of Pendon, the vision of Roye England, an Australian who came to England in 1924 and was appalled at the rapid modernisation of the countryside.  He conceived of a museum that would show rural England of the 1930s in model form. He chose the Vale of the White Horse as his inspiration. The models would be of actual buildings, and the landscape would recreate typical views and villages, with scenes showing the daily lives of the inhabitants. The result is a wonderful layout on two levels, with just enough railway traffic to keep the railway modellers interested, and more than enough models of buildings, fields, road junctions, village greens, ponds, bridges and trees, as well as dozens of figures and vehicles, to please anyone who likes to see miniatures. For some reason, that includes almost all of humankind.
  

 

In other words, this is not simply a model railway. It’s a carefully imagined and constructed vision of England in the 1930s.  Th trains are authentic. The slate-layer repairing a roof, the hay wagon, the kitchen garden, the village pump, the bus stopping at a road junction, the oldsters sitting outside a pub, these and many other details tell the story of a time past. Many of the models (and the field notes about the prototypes) form a valuable historical record, an aspect of the layout that may not be fully appreciated by many visitors.
     England’s vision of accurate models of existing buildings and accurate impressions of typical landscapes necessitated new modelling techniques and materials. Many of the modellers who helped him build Pendon wrote articles which have influenced and improved modelling of all kinds. More importantly, Pendon raised expectations, so that commercial railway models these days are built to a far higher standard of accuracy and precision than 80 years ago.

     If anything, there is too much to see. Pendon requires several visits, the first two or three to get a good overall sense of the landscape, and subsequent ones to study the models and scenes. I’ve seen it three times now, and recall earlier versions when the upper vale scene consisted mostly of bare plywood with a few village scenes here and there. I hope I’ll get to see it again in a couple or three years. Highly recommended, especially for anyone who likes history. ****

Meissen Museum, Schloss Weyer, Upper Austria

Meissen Museum in Schloss Weyer

     We visited this on 27th August, 2014, after a hike along the Vorchdorfer Lokalbahn (Gmunden to Vorchdorf) and locations of the first railway in the Hapsburg Empire, a horse drawn railway from Budweis to Gmunden. Not that this anything to do with the Meissen Museum, but it helps to set the ambience. That, and the rain, which came down in torrents while we walked to Schloss Weyer.
     The Meissen Museum was certainly impressive. Apparently around 1700 August The Strong, King of Poland (among other things), kept a Johann Boettger locked up when Johann pretended he could make gold. Eventually, under the supervision of another chemist, Boettger figured out how to make hard paste porcelain, which turned out to be “white gold”, ie, very expensive, and a source of much cash. The famous Meissen porcelain works were founded on this trickster’s discoveries. The technology of porcelain is fascinating. As with  any ceramic, consistency of glazing, colouring, and strength is paramount, and over the centuries Meissen has solved these puzzles and mastered the processes. They have over 10,000 recipes or formulas for glazes and colours. These used to be called trade secrets; now they are intellectual property.

     Artistically, Meissen, like all ceramics factories or traditions I’ve ever seen, is a mix of inspired skill, artistic feeling, and a kind of showing off of craft that I find amusing at best. There’s no question that the figures take enormous skill and craft to produce, not only in the sculpting, but even more so in the firing and glazing. Fire is a fickle tool. I wonder how many of the complicated pieces blew to bits in the kiln before a successful firing resulted. Certainly the technical difficulties of firing large complex figure groups guaranteed there would not be very many of them.
     The best pieces were and are the utilitarian ones. Sets of dishes decorated and made for royalty and other aristocracy were often overdone, but there is persistent strain of elegant and simple decoration that is in my opinion the main reason Meissen crockery is still sought after. Many of the pure white, undecorated designs show a purity of line and shape that raises them to the level of art. Such a versatile medium as fired clay enables the artists to imagine any shape whatsoever, without having to worry whether, for example, the grain of the material will co-operate. This freedom is both a blessing and curse. The designers at Meissen have solved the problem of excessive freedom more often than most.
    I found the museum interesting, and well worth a visit. ***

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

      The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) [D: John Madden. Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith et al] A sweet feel-good movie about some elderly Brits looking for a cheap place to live out their years and perhaps fulfill a few dreams or fantasies. They land in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, run by an enthusiastic but somewhat gormless lad whose mother wants him to sell the dump and marry a respectable girl. And so on. The stories intersect nicely, and everyone get more or less what they wish for and maybe even deserve. The theme is self-validation: what makes life worth living, if you can’t live with yourself? A heavy question, but dealt with lightly.
     A good script, it helps you over the humps of implausibility. Well acted by experienced pros, if you like Britcoms and British drama and movies, you’ve seen them all before. They know what they’re doing, and so does the director, who uses their strengths to woo us into that blissful state of believing the preposterous plot and recognising the wisdom in the many one-liners.
     The photography, music, and editing support the story, and don’t intrude on it. It’s based on a novel, which I suspect is summer beach reading. That’s what this movie is, too, a summer evening entertainment, pleasant, innocuous, and like all such apparently slight fluff containing depths that you don’t see until scenes pop into your present at odd moments. Well done professional entertainment. ***

Apocalypse: World War One (2013)

   
  Apocalypse: World War One (2013) A series of one hour documentaries made by cobbling together contemporary movie footage to illustrate the story of the Great War. The footage has been digitally enhanced as much as possible, including adding colour and sound. The result is a pretty good account of the war as it unfolded, with emphasis on the mistakes that guaranteed both horrifically stupid slaughter and a continuation of the conflicts in another Great War a generation later, as well as the many local and not so local horrors that still bedevil international politics in our own time. A good introduction to the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, in other words. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it in a middle- or high-school history class.
     The story overall is depressing: 8 million civilians and 4 million soldiers died, as best as can be estimated. Worse, it’s clear that the war began and was continued because a bunch of mostly old men thought they could realise their dreams of empire. Or more accurately, so that they could validate the illusions of their own importance. When people justified their actions by referring to their country's “legitimate” interests, or its “rightful” place among the nations, they were really talking about their egos. Schoolyard politics is all it really was: boys play these games and grow out of them, but the emperors and others of their class did not.
     Worst of these was Kaiser Wilhelm II, a classic example of the Paranoid Ineffectual Male, who believes that everyone is out to diss him, and compensates by trying blow them all up. The glory and honour that these wimps were pursuing was at bottom their fear that others in their circle of idjits would not “respect” them, ie, acknowledge that they were superior. Which of course they weren’t, and they knew it, so they tried to prove their superiority by going to war. The same insane value set underlies calling murderous Alexander of Macedonia “the Great”.

      It’s significant that these people were either incapable of doing real productive work, or unwilling to do it. So they had no real purpose in life. If you neither make stuff that other people want, nor provide services that other people need, you are useless. Many are unable, and suffer terribly. But too many of the so-called ruling class were and are unwilling, and glory in their importantly non-productive life. That whole class of bully boys were useless.
     Unfortunately, too many of the rest of us buy into their insanity and agree to go kill each other to prop up those fragile egos. We also have fragile egos, a terrible need to validate our self image by seeing it reflected back to us in the fear and loathing of those whom we would oppress. It’s also significant that these people need to have fancy uniforms and “decorations” to prove that they are important. Anyone who needs that kind of crap needs psychiatric help.
     A good series, useful as a reminder of what humans are capable of when they surrender to a delusion. **½

Ian Stewart. Nature’s Numbers (1995)

     Ian Stewart. Nature’s Numbers (1995) A guide into the uses of mathematics, and a glance at how mathematics has changed as our understanding of the world around us has changed. Stewart doesn’t like the divide between applied and pure math, he points out that each prods the other into ever new insights. His exemplar is the calculus, a mathematics invented in order to deal with rates of change of rates of change, prompted by Newton’s insights into how things move. Newton’s model of motion was a new way of thinking about it. To formalise that he needed more math than was available to him, so he invented it. Leibniz invented it, too, using a different notation. Newton’s notation has won out, barely, because it’s somewhat easier to use.
     We now can’t get along without the calculus, which informs all our technology. I learned how to integrate and differentiate years ago, and can’t do it any more, But the way of thinking it taught me is with me still. That’s the enduring legacy of learning math that you won’t use: it changes the way you think, more precisely, it increases the ways you can think about the world. Since then, more new math has been developed.
     The book is also an attempt to change the average person’s notion that math is calculation, but that it’s about patterns. The kinds of patterns that math can deal with now may be called patterns of patterns. We can’t calculate the weather accurately beyond a few days, but we can say a good deal about what kind of patterns to expect. These patterns are the climate (Stewart doesn’t say this, I’m building on his insights). It’s the changing patterns of the weather that’s meant by “climate change”. And although we experience only weather, we also have an uneasy sense that the patterns of weather are changing. The climate models put numbers to these changes, telling us that while we may not have more rain, for example, the rain will fall less frequently and in smaller areas, so we will see more flooding. Thinking in terms of patterns of patterns is a way of dealing with many more variables than we can handle by thinking merely about patterns.
     A good book, but it lacks pictures. Stewart is a poet, he thinks in images, but many people (most?) need actual pictures to understand metaphors. Like some other popular science books, this requires some background. You have to be able to think mathematically, not merely arithmetically, in order to fully get Stewart’s theses. Nevertheless, I recommend it. **½