London

London – by Edward Rutherford

It’s impossible to even look at the cover of this book, without ever reading it, and not think of the author  James Michener. Michener was the master of titling many of his epic novels with a geographic location, and then tell the story of that location with a wide array of characters that would usually span thousands of years. The purpose of this type of novel is to tell a great story, but to also make the characters somewhat secondary so the author can focus on the many events that shaped the particular location where the stories take place.

And, yes, this book does just that.  It begins many years before Christ and ends around 1940 when Hitler unsuccessfully tried to bomb the city of London into submission.  Throughout the two thousand years or so, we focus on the same few ‘families’, so each time we arrive in a new century with a new story, we’re meeting the ancestors of characters we’ve already met.   However, I was left with the impression that Edward Rutherford doesn’t quite do as good of a job as James Michener normally did; at least not in this book.

First, Rutherford covers way too much ground and it feels like, as a reader, I scarcely had time to catch my breath. Every time I would start to settle into another ‘time’, I would quickly be jarred 5, 10, 20 years in the future, and I had to unscramble my brain to keep up with the progression of all of the characters, their new surroundings, their new children, their different predicaments, and so on and so on.  To the author’s credit, he tries to keep his reader grounded by pointing out the obvious similarities between the family members over the generations.  The main family in this book, for example, are always distinguished because it seems like they all have a ‘white patch of hair’ in the center of their forehead, along with webbed fingers.  This is the authors way of telling you that you’re reading about a descendant of some of the characters you’ve already read about earlier in the book. It helps somewhat, but I kid you not, it seemed like this book contained about two or three dozen characters over its 2000 years that have this physical peculiarity.   I simply couldn’t keep up.

I also wish that he would have focused a tad bit more on the last couple hundred years.  Whenever I think of ‘historic’ London, I think of the 1800s when people like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Florence Nightingale and Alexander Graham Bell roamed the streets.  Sadly, this doesn’t really happen. If I’m not mistaken, by the time we get to page 800 or so (out of an 1100-page book), we’re still stuck in the 17^th or 18^th century.  This book was a tad too weighted on ‘The Middle Ages’ for my tastes. I was hoping for more latter-day stuff; at least when the horse and buggy was predominant.

Then, the author also seems to feel obligated to inundate his reader with ALL of the history of London.  Each time we read a new section, we have to read about the architecture, the politics, the key political figures, the royalty, the achievements, the origins of the nomenclature and on and on. It was oh so easy to just lose interest and tune out.   I must admit, it’s kind of cool to read about the (tragic) history of ‘Ring around the Rosie’ and the origins of things like ‘Greenwich Time’, but again, it simply seemed like too much.

The good news is that when Edward Rutherford is actually telling a story, he tells a really good story. This leads me to conclude that had he not tried to put SO much here, I might have enjoyed the book a bit better. I confess there were times near the end when I simply wanted to finish the thing, and I didn’t really care too much about what happened in many of the latter chapters.  In fact, I must admit there were a few chapters near the end that I just skimmed through much of the minutia hoping to come across some story. Sometimes I was successful, other times not so much. 

More good news is that the sentiment of many of the Amazon reviewers seems to be in agreement with me, and most state that, of all of Rutherford’s works, this one isn’t as good as many of his others. Since this was my first book by this author, this means I’ll definitely pick up one of his other books and try him again. As I said, he does know how to tell a good story when he’s not trying to give his readers a detailed, mundane history lesson.   

I would conclude by saying that I felt that this book could have been twice as good if it were only about half as long.

Captain Fantastic: Elton John’s Stellar Trip Through the ‘70s

Captain Fantastic: Elton John’s Stellar Trip Through the ‘70s by Tom Doyle

Reading readers’ reviews on Amazon of this book, I discovered many stated that “this was a SURPRISINGLY good book….”.  I couldn’t help wondering: why were so many people ‘surprised’?  Was it because Elton is so popular that there are already a plethora of biographies about him and this was perceived as ‘yet another one’? Was it because Elton, now a septuagenarian, is on a giant farewell tour with a movie about to be released about him, and many thought this was exploitation?  Was it because the cheesiness of the front cover?  All of the above?

Regardless, I must agree. It’s a very good book, and I was pleasantly surprised.  Now, I consider myself a HUGE fan of Elton John; not only do I own all his CDs, but also host my own ‘Elton’ website, so at the risk of sounding arrogant, I feel I’m a pretty good judge.  This book pays careful attention not to just gloss over events, yet at the same time doesn’t try to immerse itself too deep in the weeds.  I felt this book devoted just the right amount of time and focus on things that a true fan wants to read about when perusing through a biography.

As the title suggests, the book focuses on the 70s, and most would argue that Elton was undoubtedly THE most popular musician of the 1970s.  So we read a lot of high profile celebrity-ism.  That’s not to say that this was a pleasant time for Elton. Sadly, Elton has always suffered from horrible mood swings and, as popular as he was (and still is), the poor chap was simply miserable most of the time. When one looks deep into his character and personality, it sadly isn’t too shocking. As a young man, Elton was a rather shy introvert; chubby, near-sighted, pre-mature baldness, and he was also forced to keep his homosexuality buried pretty deep within his closet because of the times.  In fact, the fact that he dressed so exorbitantly during the decade was his strange way of coping with his many insecurities.

The author does a great job of telling a chronological account. He doesn’t spend too much time on Elton pre Elton (his Christian name is Reginald Dwight) probably because he knows his readers really don’t care much.  As soon as the 1970s arrive, we read about his incredible climb to the top in a manner of about 5 years and about 10 albums.  We read a bit about each of the albums, and although the public quickly gobbled them up at queues in record stores, the author gives a fair assessment of each of these releases and gives the honest perspective that all of them (such as ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player’ and ‘Caribou’) weren’t really THAT good, yet economics dictated a rushed product and keep the profits coming.

My only gripe about the book is it ended too early.  Although the decade of the 1970s is highlighted in the title, we actually read through about 1981.  Once we arrive at 1981-82, the author then briefly hits on the highlights of the last 35 years.  I wish he would have kept his same place instead of giving us a brief summary of the latter years.  Of course, this would have accounted for a much lengthier book.  Even though Elton was the most popular during the 1970s, there really was so much more story left to tell.

The good news about Elton John is that during some part of his life (most would argue when he became clean and sober – about 1992), Elton seemed to finally find peace with himself and, whereas the mood swings are still there to a point, he seems much more happy and content in his later life.  After reading about all of the turmoil that the man went through during the 1970s, it’s actually quite a miracle that he even survived.

I also want to point out, that as rabid as a fan I am, I also learned a few things that I never knew about Elton. For example, when he formed his new band in 1975, I didn’t know that there was a third guitarist, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, who was briefly added to the lineup.  I remember seeing a picture of the ‘new’ Elton John Band more than 40 years ago, and I always wondered who the ‘hairy’ guy in the picture was.  Now I know. 

I did, however, also find a few errors throughout the book as well, so I guess the reader needs to be somewhat cautious.  Example: The ‘Here and There’ album consists of two live performances from 1974, yet the author states that one of the concerts was from 1972.  A minor gripe.

I would love it if this author would one day release a ‘part two’ and pick up where he left off, but since the meat of Elton’s story, at least sales wise, takes place in the 1970s, I doubt we’ll ever see such an undertaking. 

The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House

The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John F. Harris

The title of this book is perfect. This is a book that focuses on the two-term Bill Clinton presidency from 1992-2000. Regardless of your opinion of the man, it seemed that there were always scandals, always investigations, always hints of unscrupulous behavior that occurred during his tenure.  We heard much more about these events than things that actually mattered when describing a President’s job description and accomplishments.  Much of these allegations were yellow-journalism speculation, but many were proven to be true. Yet through all of this, Bill Clinton survived. How will history remember him? Author John F. Harris tells us that we’ll just have to wait and see.

This was a very well written book.  I’ve tried to read bios of all U.S. presidents, yet the more recent the president, the more challenging it is to find such material.  As stated above, history really needs time to digest the leader’s achievements before fair assessments can be made. There are plenty of books out there about the U.S. Presidents’ tenure in office, and of the four I’ve read recently (Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, and Clinton), this one was by far the best. Harris is an esteemed journalist, so he knows how to write without losing the reader’s attention.  Although he covered the Clinton White House, he wisely keeps himself away from the action.  This is a very unbiased book. We read about what makes Clinton great, but also the things that make him lousy.  As lousy as things get, Clinton digs his heels in and keeps going. He’s truly a survivor.

When Clinton was elected, we must remember that he only received 43% of the popular vote. Had Independent Ross Perot not run, most historians conclude that George H.W. Bush would have easily been re-elected. That’s a bit scary since Bush ran an appalling re-election campaign.  So once Clinton gets elected, there’s a fair amount of the public that clearly thinks he doesn’t belong there.  It doesn’t help when you and your VP (along with the wives) look about 40 years younger than the Reagans and the Bushes.  This was definitely a new generation of new leaders, and there are many among the old guard that never handle change well.

Things get off to a very rocky start as the young president is trying to learn how to lasso Washington. It doesn’t help when the majority of his advisors are just as young, cocky, and inexperienced as he is. Plus, there’s an awful lot of squabbling going on between these folks that are supposed to be helping their boss succeed. Then you add Hillary in the mix.  I’m not saying adding Hillary to the decision-making process was a bad thing. Why shouldn’t a well-educated spouse help their mate?  It’s just that, well, there’s that word “change” again.  The country was used to First Ladies throwing tea parties on the White House lawn and speaking at Homemaker conferences.  FLOTUS’s personality and work ethic was something that many found simply too jarring.

Then the 1994 mid-term elections happen. If there was ever any doubt that the current Commander in Chief was struggling, one needs to simply remember the election results.  Pollster Dick Morris is quickly called in to make changes. Say what you want about the sleaziness of Dick Morris, the guy knows what he’s doing. He works with Clinton for the next two years around a topic known as ‘triangulation’, which simply means that Clinton (who, let’s be honest, was a VERY conservative Democrat) adopts many of the policies normally held by Republicans.  The unthinkable happens; Clinton wins re-election.  Of course, it helps when your primary adversaries on the Republican team are people like Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole.

Then, Monica Lewinsky.

She doesn’t necessarily appear out of the blue (was that a pun? If so, not intended). Author Harris lets us know throughout this retrospective that Clinton has a ‘problem’ being a womanizer.  In fact, we may have never heard of Lewinsky and it not been for Whitewater and Paula Jones.  I’m sure there are books out there that only detail Clinton’s sordid extra-marital affairs, yet Harris doesn’t overburden readers of this book with too many repugnant details.  Yet these details are very relevant to why Clinton needed to be a “survivor”, so we do read a fair amount of the clandestine Oval Office encounters, the awfully embarrassing videotaped testimony, and the eventual impeachment. Definitely a sad time for the country.

After all of that mess was over and the Senate failed to convict him, there really wasn’t much time left in the administration.  Those closest to Clinton (including his wife) seemed to forgive him and he plows through the remainder of his tenure in office.  Harris then makes the observation that Bill Clinton was one of the very few presidents that exited the Oval Office on a ‘high’ note.  That might be true, but things really couldn’t get much lower than they were during some of the years of his presidency.  Plus, the economy was doing quite well, and that always seems to be a huge factor at election time.

In fact, you can’t help but speculate “What if?”   What if the president simply learned to keep his pants zipped up?  Many believe Gore could have easily won the 2000 election had it not been for the stains (there’s another unintended pun) of his predecessor.  In fact, this book makes no secret that Al Gore was disgusted with his boss’s behavior, and preferred he stayed away from him during his presidential campaign of 2000.  Then we come to the fact that Hillary spent an awful lot of time defending her husband throughout many of his trysts. Talk about a Catch-22. What else was she to do?  Fast-forward to 2016, when SHE’S running for president, the cries of “Me too” and “Believe all Women” seemed to come back to bite her due to her complacent attitude towards her husband’s sins.  Again, what else could she do?  

Anyway, great book.  I even paid full price (something I rarely ever do) and felt it was worth every penny. This is essential if you want to understand the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and the overall atmosphere of the Bill Clinton presidency.