Munich

 

Munich – Robert Harris

Robert Harris’s first novel, ‘Fatherland’, had a very interesting hypothetical. The novel took place during the 1960s and was told as if Germany had been the victors of the second world war.  I’m not sure if Harris has attempted such a premise with any of his future works, yet most of his novels that I have read have followed a different sort of pattern, and all of them in my opinion have been excellent.  He tells many stories of events that have happened throughout history, and focuses on fictional incidents that may have happened behind the scenes.  So whereas there’s no indication that the events that Harris presents in his novels actually happened, it’s fun to imagine that they have possibly occurred in some fashion.

He’s written several novels around Nazi Germany (in addition to the above-mentioned ‘Fatherland’) and this story uses Hitler and his dreams of the Third Reich as his background. As the title implies, the main character here is actually a place.  Those who may not be astute when it comes to history may not be familiar with the events that Harris uses for this novel.  Essentially, Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles less than two decades after the first world war and decided to rebuild Germany into the ‘great’ nation that it once was.  World leaders were suspicious and frightened, yet they were also cautious. Although he was definitely perceived as a lunatic by many,  no one wanted a great war so soon after the first one had ended.

England’s Prime Minister at the time, Neville Chamberlin, did all he could to avert another war, yet history shows us that he was basically duped and lied to by Hitler.  The film footage of Chamberlin waving Hitler’s signature declaring “Peace for Our Time” is now looked at with infamy and sadness of a reminder of just what a deceitful cretin Hitler was.

Anyway, history aside, the premise of this book is a “what if”.  It focuses on two major fictional figures – one English, one German – who were close to Chamberlin and Hitler respectfully.  Even in 1938, many on the inside within Germany didn’t like nor trust Hitler, and arranging a coup where this madman would be put to death wasn’t too far-fetched of an idea.  The German (Hartman) and Englishman (Legat) are actually old acquaintances, so they can clandestinely work together at the Munich conference to pull this caper off and prevent, what they both know, is an inevitable repeat of a disastrous world war.

The surroundings and events that happen within the pages that support this fictitious story are in fact real and historically accurate.  Part of the joy of reading Robert Harris isn’t necessarily the story, yet the real-life surroundings that accompany it.  It might be a made-up tale, but even if the reader finds the story not to their liking, they still come away with a sense of realism, and they feel as though they’re actually a part of the history.

I wouldn’t necessarily call this story “great” but I would say it was “very good”, and the aesthetics of the real-life Germany-Czechoslovakia incident that happened in 1938, one year before the war started makes the book a wonderful read.

A great book, but the better someone is familiar with history, the more enjoyable.

North Dallas Forty

 

North Dallas Forty – Peter Gent

It might be hard for any sports fan under the age of 50 to believe, but there was a time in professional sports when athletes didn’t make a lot of money.  Even today, traditionalists scream that all star athletes shouldn’t be making millions and they should be playing for “the love of the game”.  Reading Peter Gent’s semi-autobiographical take of the life of a member of the Dallas Cowboy football team during the late 1960s, these traditionalists just might change their tune.

The story here is supposedly fictional, but anyone other than the most highly gullible can read between the lines. Phil Elliot is a wide receiver of the Dallas “professional football team” and author Gent leaves little to the imagination that this story is based on his real-life episodes and travails of being a professional football player.  The story here takes place over a one-week period – from the end of one game to the end of the next game the next week.  We’re exposed to what the ball players go through during any given grueling week as a professional football player, and it simply isn’t pretty.

A lot of what this story focuses on – too much really – is the goings on outside of the football field, the locker room, and the intense practice sessions.  A lot of it is repetitive and after a while, simply isn’t that interesting. The first episode we’re exposed to is one of those high-profile parties where the players gather the evening after a hard fought game to let off steam.  There is plenty of dope smoking, womanizing, smashing up of things, dope smoking, infighting among the players, dope smoking, alcohol imbibing, and even more dope smoking.  This pretty much sets the tone for the whole book, each and every evening. It gets to be a bit much, and it simply isn’t that entertaining to read about this behavior over and over again.

Now, being that these guys are professional athletes, they have to stay employed. To stay employed means to play through the pain.  So we see a lot of episodes where, in addition to being numbed by ingesting cannabis, there are plenty of hard core, illegally obtained pain medications ingested as well.  Throughout the whole week.  Throughout the whole week.  Over and over and over again. I couldn’t help but wonder, how can these guys survive being so highly medicated with so much controlled substances? Oh sure, it’s well known that these players are breaking into the medicine cabinet in the trainer’s room during practice, but it’s best for all involved to look the other way.

This seems to be the overall theme of the book.  Sure, these guys are slowly dying on the field and they’re not doing their bodies any favors by filling up their bodies with various pain medications, but business is business. If a guy can’t play on the field, someone else who’s willing to numb his body with plenty of narcotics will be glad to fill their place.  And when athletes aren’t being paid much, the professional players are very easily interchangeable.

This is where most of the book is focused, the drugs, the pain, and the fact that drugs will hopefully kill the insistent pain.  If they can’t, well, just double your intake, smoke a few more joints, and don’t think about the consequences the next day.  It’s sad that this is where so much of the focus is, because other areas of the game and the lives of athletes aren’t really exposed in as much detail as possible.  One example: when Elliot is “demoted” to the bench, he sits watching the game hoping that his team will start to lose and play poorly.  Why? Because that’s the only way he’ll get into the game.  And if he doesn’t get into the game, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be around next week at all.

It was fun to see so many of the characters on the team who were very obviously lifted from real personalities. The team’s quarterback (and Elliot’s best friend on the team) Seth Maxwell is such an obvious replication of Cowboy quarterback Don Meredith, that you wonder why Dandy Don never sued.   Let’s say that his squeaky-clean all-American image was somewhat tainted, but such is the life of a professional athlete.  The Head Coach of the team, B.A., has quite a few similarities to real life leader Tom Landry, and it leads the reader to believe that as “holy” as Landry was, he also looked at his players as submissive pieces of meat whose job was to play until they dropped – regardless of the physical or emotional consequences. It’s football folks.

I should also add that I watched the movie shortly after reading the book and this was one of those cases where the movie was much better than the book.  The story, message, and characters were the same. The main difference is that the movie focused much more on the on-the-field activities.  I would say it was about 50-50 on-the-field vs. off-the-field whereas the book was more 20-80 with too much focus on the repetitive partying, weed smoking, taking pain killers, etc.  So if you’re curious, start with the movie. 

A grim reminder that a life as a professional athlete isn’t all glitz and glamour.  Especially when the players never made any real money.

Peter the Great: His Life and World

 

Peter the Great: His Life and World – Robert K. Massie

Note to self: Anytime I browse emails advertising Kindle Books at a discount (usually $2 or less), when in doubt, buy it. Take a chance.  When I came across this one, I wavered.  A quick check of the book on Amazon made me even more skeptical. It was over 800 pages.  Did I really feel up to the challenge to read a biography of a 17^th century tsar that was that lengthy?  Fate was smiling as I took a chance and purchased it.  It ended up being one of the best biography/history books I’ve ever read.  Top 10 for sure.  And I read a lot of histories and biographies. Oh what a pleasurable experience it was reading this! 

There are many times when I come across a great book, I think that someone (if they haven’t already) should make this into a movie.   If the book is particularly detailed, perhaps a 3-5 part series on a provider such as Netflix.   Well, this particular endeavor would warrant about five seasons, each season having 12-15 episodes.  Yes, it was that detailed.  Of course, “detailed” means nothing if the book isn’t well written.  In fact, it is often a very heavy strike against. Too many authors tend to get weighted down by their own words. Fortunately this wasn’t the case here.

Peter Alekseyevich Romanov, better known as Peter I or Peter the Great, was first tsar of the eventual infamous Romanov dynasty that would reign roughly 200 years.  This book covers….well….everything.  It needs to be pointed out that the subtitle of this book “His Life and World” needs to be taken quite literally.  There’s a lot about his life, but maybe even more about his world.  One comes away after reading this with a very thorough understanding of everything that was occurring wherever Peter happened to be at the time.

Example: When Peter visits France in the early 1710s, the author takes a huge detour with an entire lengthy chapter about the country of France, its capital, its people, its history, its sights and its smells. Then, we get another chapter on the leader of France, King Louis XIV.  Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a book about Peter the Great?  Why so much about France? Such detail may seem unnecessary, but this author is so gifted that he proves this assumption wrong.  Not only does it help the reader fully understand the world and surroundings of Peter the Great, but Massie does such a masterful job with engaging the reader, we don’t mind the diversion. In fact, we welcome it.  As I said, this book would need several seasons with many episodes if it were converted for the visual arts.

So what was it that made Peter “great”? It should be pointed out that history tells us that it wasn’t sort of any reflection of the man’s character. No, 18^th century leaders were often rapacious and cruel. It came with the territory.  Still, even Peter comes across as better than most.  What makes him “great” was his ability to transform Russia from a backwards medieval country to a contemporary of its neighbors as is (finally) starts to embrace modern elements of the many adjacent European countries. A move that wasn’t necessarily welcome by the most obdurate high-ranking personalities of ancient Russia, but one that would prove necessary as time went on. 

Peter had an insatiable desire to learn as much as he could with what was going on in the world around him.  As geographically massive as Russia is, we must remember that it was always very isolated from other nations and took pride that it wasn’t influenced by modern neighbors with what was looked at by many as “evil” progress.  One particular amusing episode is when Peter realizes that many of his European neighbors don’t feel necessary to keep and maintain full length beards, so he lines up his high-ranking officials of his country and proceeds to personally barber them.  From their reaction, you would think he was torturing them on the rack.

His big love was shipbuilding and much of this book is devoted to his insatiable appetite of learning everything and anything he could about the craft and the world at sea.  Plus, learning about such an endeavor can actually help his fledgling country since they’re separated from many neighbors by massive bodies of water such as the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. The fact that Peter was the tsar of Russia didn’t stop him from literally working in the shipyards right next to the common laborer. He relished the experience.

Becoming a great leader meant that wars needed to be waged against neighboring countries to establish respect and credibility.  This wasn’t uncommon in the 18^th century.  If a nation wasn’t strong and willing to conquer others, it wouldn’t be long before they, themselves would be conquered.  Much of this book details the prolonged wars that Russia had with neighboring Sweeden in the North and the Ottoman Empire (what is now Turkey) in the South.  There are a lot of details here about these decades-long conflicts.  A lot of battles, a lot of leaders, a lot of strategy and suffering, but as mentioned it’s all told in a very engaging and informative method.  You never get overwhelmed or bored by such detail.

There are other episodes within the book that were so enthralling that they warranted their OWN book.  For all I know, this may be the case.  Example, Peter has a strained relationship with his son Alexei, and actually ends up having him killed.  Killing your own son?  Again, sadly not uncommon for the times when dealing with Kings and Queens and Tsars. While such an episode definitely was not as rare as one might think, it’s still tragic, and the many details help the reader immerse themselves in such a world.

There is so much more here.  I’m really only hitting a few highlights.  This thing sucked me in with unimaginable ferocity.  Related note: This book has 870 pages.  Now, normally when a history book advertises itself as that lengthy, the reader may heave a small sigh of relief knowing that the actual ‘reading’ portion is probably only, say, 600 pages and the last few hundred is devoted to sources, indices, bibliography, etc.  Not here.  Nope.  ALL 870 pages is the actual story of Peter and his life (and the times). As I said, well worth it.

In fact, upon conclusion of this book, I was THRILLED (Good Lord, am I a book geek or what?) to find out that this biography is actually part one of a tetralogy!   I really can’t emphasize how excited I am to read more about the ill-fated Romanov dynasty from this author.

Simply one of the best books I’ve ever read.