The Life of Greece

The Life of Greece – The Story of Civilization Volume 2 – by Will Durant

Wow.  Just wow.  This book gets a five star rating, if anything, for its volume.  I checked this book out from my local library with the intent of finishing it within the two week time frame.  I needed to do a recheck for another two weeks.  I’m only saying this because I would recommend that you take about two months to digest a work such as this.  This thing is a thick, detailed, monster.  But a kind monster.

This book was simply an incredible experience to read.  The author (along with his wife Ariel) started the “Story of Civilization” series in the mid 1930s (this one was written in 1939).  They got up to volume 11, detailing the Napoleonic Empire, before Mr. Durant passed away.  It took him about four or five years to complete each volume.  That in itself is extraordinary.  I don’t think I could have written a book such as this if I would have had 50 years.

We are fortunate to know much about the Greek civilization.  Sadly, much of it has been left to speculation since the origins began several thousand years before Christ.  What we do know, you’ll find in this book.  Will Durant does an exhaustive research on everything related to the Greek Empire.  This book isn’t simply history.  Had it been, that would have been just fine.  He tackles everything, though, in very meticulous detail.  Imagine walking into a high school and reading every text book that every class has to offer – History, Science, Art, Mathematics, even Physical Education, and you’ll have an idea of just how encompassing this piece of work is.  I confess that there were portions of this book that I did not find as captivating as I found others.  When the author was describing, pottery, for example, I kind of just skimmed the pages (yes, that’s “pages”) where he describes in detail every nuance of the particular art.

This sort of thing can also be a drawback since there are so many people and places involved through the history of Greece.  Oh sure, most of us have heard names such as Euripides, Sophocles, Socrates, Homer, and Alexander, but there are a bazillion other characters as well.  Unless you have an uncanny knack for mastering alliteration, it can be quite a chore to digest names such as Achaeus, Acheron, Aeolus, Adrastus, Adonis, Arctonnesus, Aristomenes, and Aristophanes.  Sometimes many of these names are all on the same page.   Keep in mind, I’m only listing some of the “A’s”. 

As the book progresses in time, it became a bit easier to follow.  We have a lot more information handy of events that happened in 300 B.C as opposed to 3000 B.C.  Still, though, this is a book that must be read slowly to get the full effect – preferable with a notepad handy.

It’s really fascinating to see just how advanced the civilization was so many moons ago.  Equally absorbing is the fact that much of our modern day society resembles this era as well.  One can only hope our ending will be happier.  It’s also fascinating to see just how much of what we now know and use today, we can attribute to the Greeks.  Whether Geometry, Drama, Religion, Morals, or Philosophy – so much originated from Ancient Greece.

This book is highly recommended, but it’s definitely not for everyone.  This is an incredible reference, and reads as such as opposed to a more concise history book.  Definitely the text book sort.  Will Durant is also quite easy to follow.  He makes many wonderful observations within the book, and I found myself wishing that I owned the book (as opposed to it being borrowed from the library), so I could get a highlighter and mark it up.

I’ve already procured a few other of his works, and intend one day to read the entire 11 volumes.  Hopefully I’ll live that long.

Zero Day

Zero Day - by David Baldacci

There are many authors that base their literary career around a particular character.  Think of James Patterson’s Alex Cross or Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone.  David Baldacci, however, has several different books that feature several different sets of recurring characters.  His most famous ones are the King and Maxwell books, and the Camel Club books.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone, when he keeps introducing new recurring characters into the fold.  This book was his first to feature John Puller.

Who is John Puller?  He’s an ex-military “special agent”.  I would guess he’s in his mid 30s.  Tough guy, yet quiet.  Rarely smiles, but an overall good guy.  Sleeps very little, and drinks a lot of coffee.  Single, mainly because he really doesn’t have time for romance.  And very good at what he does – both from the physical perspective and the mental.

When a military colonel and his family are killed in rural West Virginia, Puller is called into investigate.  The town in West Virginia is right out of a John Grisham novel.  The main industry there is the coal industry.  So the only jobs there are mining coal, so everyone is poor, destitute and dying from some sort of coal “disease” (so it seems).  Puller teams up with the head of the police department, Samantha Cole, to investigate these killings.  Of course, during the investigation, many more things go wrong.  It seems as though someone is trying to put a stop to Puller’s investigation, and they obviously have quite a bit of muscle to accomplish some of the things that they implement to try to get rid of the guy.

I really enjoyed this book.  Baldacci has been hit or miss with me throughout his career.  He rivals Stephen King as someone that can write a brilliant book, and then follow it up with one that is absolutely dreadful.  Like King, this cycle goes back and forth, so you never really know if you’ll be safe when you pick up a new book.  So I was relieved that this book was so entertaining.  You could make the argument that it got a bit unrealistic about halfway through, but I was never bored, and I found the whole story to make sense despite all of the twists and turns.  Baldacci is also famous for writing “short” chapters.  I seem to remember the average chapter length to be about four pages in length.  Some don’t like this, but I enjoy it as it’s easy to come to a stopping point when you’re ready to stop reading for a while.  A lot of his chapter endings could be considered as minor “cliffhangers” as well.

Looking forward to the next John Puller story.

No True Glory - A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah

No True Glory – A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West

As I write this review, the United States of America is still shell shocked by the brutal terrorist killings that occurred in San Bernardino, California in November 2015.  Sadly, the country doesn’t appear to be united.  President Obama and the far left think that stricter gun laws can prevent such atrocities whereas those on the far right, including presidential candidate Donald Trump, are essentially wanting to ban all Muslims from the United States.  War is hell.

I only say this because the whole Iraq mess seemed to culminate from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  We went to war believing Saddam Hussein was hoarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Since most agree that we had faulty intelligence and no weapons were found, what could we do now that we’ve committed ourselves?  Well, the good news is that Hussein was toppled from power, and forced to flee (he was eventually found, and systematically executed).  The Iraqi people rejoiced, and our 24 hour news coverage showed a jubilant population celebrating in the streets while ransacking his ubiquitous palaces and statues that wallpapered Baghdad.

The problem was, what happens next?  Here’s where most people, excluding the political astute, simply were clueless.  Many believed that we could “destroy” Iraq and then somehow rebuild the backwards country to resemble the state of Vermont.  Those who know better knew better.

This book puts us right in the middle of the nastiest place in Iraq, the ugly grime-filled city of Fallujah.  This is the last place where anyone would want to be during a war.  A bit like the Siberian Front in World War II.  What author Bing West manages to do is tell a very thorough account of the frontlines during this calamity that begin in April 2003.  He spends equal time talking about the battles with several of the key players on the ground, as well as many involved in the military and political leadership.  The author shows us that there’s a very big disconnect going on here.

Fortunately, this is not a “Pro War” nor an “Anti-War” book.  The author manages to focus on war, and any war is extremely unpleasant.  While reading, I couldn’t help draw many parallels to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  A big criticism of that war is that it seemed as though the U.S. wanted the South Vietnamese to win the war more than the South Vietnamese did.  Such seems to be the case here.  Even with Saddam Hussein gone, you can’t expect a nation that has been embroiled in a set way of living to suddenly throw all the shackles off and embrace democracy.  Even after Saddam is gone, there are rife political sides, and most still hate America.  A sad analogy: If you adopt a five-year-old dog that has been abused and tormented its whole life, that dog will never be “normal”, no matter how much love you shower upon it.

So America really wants to help.  Money is spent.  Money is given to Fallujah and Iraq.  Lots of money.  That will inspire them.  Right?  Nope.  So we give more money.  More decisions are made, more disagreements between leaders, more frustrated marines on the battlefield.  etc. etc.  You have to admire the marines for wanting to get the job done.  They know they have the manpower to obliterate this hell-hole, and they’re highly motivated after seeing all of the injustice and nastiness firsthand.  But we can’t fight wars that way anymore.  Not with CNN reporting every move we make.  Sadly, casualties in a war always expand beyond the enemy on the frontlines.  Buildings get bombed containing innocent civilians, and the 24 news networks are quick to make these the lead stories, which then drives up animosity for any conflict.  So President Bush knows he has to be careful.  One needs to only remember the Abu Gharib prison story that made headlines during all of the Fallujah crap.  Most Americans can probably tell you more about that incident than they can the whole Fallujah episode because, let’s face it, a story about prisoners being unjustly tortured makes sensational headlines.

Hindsight tells us that even though we were finally “successful” in Fallujah, nothing has really changed.  Imagine turning on your kitchen lights at 2 a.m. and seeing 100 cockroaches.  If you’re lucky, you can kill about 5 of them, but the rest will scurry under the surface, multiply, and be back the next night.  And the cockroaches in Fallujah have guns and homemade bombs.  Like Vietnam, we may have dropped a lot of bombs and killed far more of the enemy than what we lost, but until you break the psyche of the enemy (as we did with Germany and Japan), you can never really say that you’ve “won” the war.  We were never able to accomplish that in Iraq, and Fallujah was where this was at its ugliest. 

A good, but depressing read.

Spartan Gold

Spartan Gold – by Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

This is the first book that I’ve read by Clive Cussler that he co-authored with Grant Blackwood.  I believe Cussler has “written” with about 7 or 8 different authors in the last 15 years or so.  This has led many, myself included, to believe that Cussler probably had very little to do with this book, other than grant his name to the title so the book could sell more copies.

The Cussler “formula” is definitely here.  These books with Blackwood are labeled “The Fargo Adventures” that focus on husband and wife explorers Sam and Remi Fargo.  Like other Cussler heroes, they usually encounter some long-lost ancient treasure only to cross paths some very sinister beings that are after the same plunder for far more dubious purposes.

In our story, the Fargos discover a German submarine from World War II in the marshes of the East Coast of the U.S.  One thing leads to another, and they end up searching for some lost wine bottles that belonged to none other than Napoleon himself.  Seems there are also some evil forces from the Middle East that are after the same treasure, and they’ll stop at nothing, including eliminating the Fargos by murder.  What’s so important about these wine bottles?  As I recall, they were “coded” with instructions as to where to find some kind of treasure.  It’s not like they were needed to save the planet, or prevent some sort of geothermal disaster or anything.  It seems as though Sam and Remi want to risk their lives for nothing other than the sake of adventure.

The plot itself really isn’t too bad.  Like most Cussler stories, it borders on the imaginative and the unbelievable. Our husband and wife protagonists are what you might expect – they seem to be quite knowledgeable about everything and have absolutely no fear of anything.  Because we have a husband and wife here, there’s no need for any romantic interludes, which commonly occur when Cussler has a “solo” hero.

What bothered me the most about the book is the seemingly ease of the linear progression of the story.  Since our characters are, in a sense, on a global treasure hunt, there are many clues that need to be discovered and many mysteries that need to be unlocked.  It seems they’re able to proceed through this labyrinth with unbelievable simplicity, and there’s not much imagination or creativity that go into the scenes.   We’ll see, for example, Sam and Remi show up at some “expert’s” door with lots of questions.  The expert, at first, can’t seem to help them, but then says something like “Oh Wait!  I think I DO know something that can help you!”  And they then manage to give our heroes a huge piece to the puzzle that allows them to easily transfer to the next location and the next conundrum.  And on and on and on.

Then there’s the fact that these wine bottles have some sort of ridiculous “code” embedded on them that is supposed to lead to a treasure.  So the reader has to read about the clues on the bottles, and then hear Sam and Remi “process” the solutions out loud within the pages that, again, just seemed incredibly unrealistic and detailed.

The book is very lightweight and does what it needs to move forward.  It might even make an interesting movie or television show if proper care went into it.  It just seemed as though it moved too briskly and was too frothy for me to really care that much.

If you’re “new” to Cussler, I would recommend his solo Dirk Pitt novels (up until about the year 2000).  I also enjoy his Numa Files series and his Isaac Bell adventures.   I’m not sure I would want to read another one of the Fargo escapades anytime soon unless I get really really bored.