Category Archives: book review

Eisenhower

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I am midway through a journey begun in 2008 to understand the 20th century.  The Great War took a year (of my time!); WWII about 15 months. Life circumstances slowed me down, but I’m cheerfully working through the post-war period and the Korean War.  One approach to history that I appreciate is studying the lives of key people. Voila, la bibliographie! [That is a private joke that only I understand: the first sentence I ever learned in French was “Chttt! Voila, la biblioteque!” translated: Be QUIET! There is the librarian! It was on a filmstrip (with accompanying vinyl album that had a bell signal to go to the next slide) we watched in French I.]

I wanted to know Eisenhower better. Stephen Ambrose admires his subject.  He begins, “Dwight Eisenhower was a great and a good man. He was one of the outstanding leaders of the Western World in this century.”  This is the first volume of a two-volume biography of Eisenhower. Anyone interested in leadership would benefit from reading Ike’s story.

Everyone brings a personal “grid” to their reading.  I was very interested in Eisenhower’s religious background. Much has been made of the fact that one of the world’s greatest generals was raised in a pacifist home. David and Ida Eisenhower were devout members of Brethren in Christ.  David’s nighttime reading was the Bible in Greek; Ida memorized 1325 Bible verses. And yet…

Nightly Bible reads, Milton said, were “a good way to get us to read the Bible mechanically.” They never discussed what they had read, never asked “Why?,” never explored the deep subtlety or rich symbolism of the Bible. It was the word of God, sufficient unto itself. The duty of mortals was not to explore it, investigate it, question it, think about it, but rather to accept it. 24

Two traits, ever helpful in his life, were manifest in young Ike’s life: intense curiosity and a remarkable ability to concentrate.  As an adult he had another remarkable ability: to shake a depression. Ambrose writes about his vitality:

That quality showed in his speech, in his mannerisms, his physical movements, most of all in his eyes. They were astonishingly expressive. As he listened to his deputies discuss future operations, his eyes moved quickly and inquisitively from face to face. His concentration was intense, almost a physical embrace. His eyes always showed his mood—they were icy blue when he was angry, warmly blue what he was pleased, sharp and demanding when he was concerned, glazed when he was bored. 272

As a general, Ike comprehended the sacrifice that both the soldiers and their families made.

Eisenhower wanted to let as many men as possible see him. He made certain that every soldier who was to go ashore on D-Day had the opportunity to at least look at the man who was sending him into battle. 294

He was the man who had to total up all the casualties. 293

…only Eisenhower had such a keen sense of family, of the way in which each casualty meant a grieving family back home. Eisenhower’s concern was of such depth and so genuine that it never left him. 293

It wasn’t until he was in his fifties, that Eisenhower received acclaim and notoriety, primarily as the Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord.  Eisenhower was also the NATO commander, president of Columbia University and president of the United States.  This volume ends with Eisenhower as President-Elect of the United States.

I found Ambrose’s book engaging and helpful. At no time did my interest lag. I was inspired by Eisenhower’s discipline, organizational skills and perception.

A fun coda: I have a habit of immersing myself in books on (relatively) obscure topics. I find myself wanting to discuss the ideas and events I have read about, but coming up short on conversation partners. Honestly, what would dampen a dinner party faster than, “I know, let’s talk about Truman and Eisenhower!”?  I discovered recently that among my acquaintances are a couple who were friends with Ike and Mamie Eisenhower during their retirement years in Gettysburg.  They were full of stories about the Eisenhowers. I lent them this book; Ray read it through in three days.  I’m looking forward to some great discussions.  An unexpected gift!

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Swooning Over This Book, I Am

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Safe Passage has shanghaied me.  The minute I finished, I was ready for a second reading.  I want to send it to friends who live life with ferocious passion.  Or passionate ferocity.  The ones who dream, who wonder, who say, “what if?”  Visionaries who can execute a plan.  Friends for whom zest is more than a lemon.

Forget Thelma and Louise.  Ida and Louise will bowl you over.

The book covers three periods in the life of British spinster sisters.  Each one, alone, would make a dazzling book. The first period (1923-1936) paints their love of opera and initial friendships with opera celebrities.  The second season (1937-1939) narrates their travels to Germany almost every weekend under the guise of going to the opera in order to facilitate emigration for desperate refugees.  The third act (1939 -1950) gives a remarkable account of life in London during the Blitz and post-war operatic adventures.

Listen to me.

You don’t have to know, understand or even like opera to enjoy this book. Because the remarkable thing is how two typical office workers making £2 – £3 a week saved £100 each to travel to New York to see an opera.

It never occurred to Louise and me to suppose we might get someone
else to provide us with what we wanted, or to waste time envying
those who…could do with ease what we must accomplish with difficulty
and sacrifice. All our thoughts were concentrated on how we could do it.

First Louise bought a gramophone and ten records. When Amelita Galli-Curci made her English debut, Ida and Louise skipped lunches, scrimped to buy tickets.  They discovered opera.  Galli-Curci, their favorite soprano, only sang opera in America.  It was simple: if they wanted to hear her in an opera, they must travel to New York.  (I get this: I flew to Chicago to hear Yo-Yo Ma play the cello; our family and friends drove six hours through an epic snowstorm to hear blues singer-songwriter Eric Bibb.) Without telling anyone, the Cook sisters sketched a budget and systematically saved £1/week.    They continued to attend operas, queuing on camp stools for up to 24 hours in order to get cheap seats in the gallery. Rarely are such exacting frugality and such exuberant extravagance found in one personality.

But let no one suppose we were not happy. Going without things is
neither enjoyable nor necessarily uplifting in itself. But the things you
achieve by your own effort and your own sacrifice do have a special flavour.

They did something wonderfully naive: they told Galli-Curci their plan.  She was delighted, offered tickets and asked them to look her up in New York.  Thus began the first of many close friendships with the celebrities of the day. The Sisters Cook were commoners, plain British women (think Susan Boyle…before).  Yet their enthusiasm, their untrammeled joy must have been attractive, as evidenced by their host of friends.

Ida began writing romance novels to finance their opera habit.  A trip to Verona followed a trip to Florence; they traveled to Salzburg then to Amsterdam to see Strauss conduct.  Through their friendship with opera stars they became acquainted with Jews looking for an escape from the Nuremberg Laws.

And so, at the very moment when I was making big money for the first
time in my life, we were presented with this terrible need. It practically never
happens that way. It was much the most romantic thing that ever happened
to us. Usually one either has the money and doesn’t see the need, or one sees
the need and has not the money. If we had always had the money we might
not have thought we had anything to spare.
For an German adult to emigrate to the safety of England, a British citizen had to guarantee financial responsibility for life for the emigrant.  After Ida and Louise exhausted their resources, Ida took any public speaking invitation to inform people of the urgent need for sponsors.  Ida bought a flat in London for transitional housing for the refugees; the sisters continued to live with at home with their parents.  The sisters’ efforts secured safety for twenty-nine people.

When September 1939 arrived, their refugee work was over.  What follows is an extraordinary account of life during the Blitz.  An entire city worked during the day and slept in underground shelters at night.

One of my most vivid memories of that first night was the five minutes before
“Lights Out.” There were prayers for those who cared to join in, but no
compulsion on those who did not. Only a courteous request for quiet
for a few minutes. In the crowded, rather dimly lit shelter,
there was the murmur of a couple of hundred voices repeating
the ageless words of the Lord’s Prayer. And the not very distant crash
of a bomb lent a terrible point to the earnest petition, Deliver us from evil,
breathed from the farthest, shadowy corner.

Though Ida and Louise didn’t have the faith of Corrie ten Boom, there is a quote my husband has already used in a Sunday School class.  [When polio struck Marjorie Lawrence she had to give up opera and sing from a wheelchair.]

“What was it, Marjorie,” I asked at last, “that keeps you bright and courageous
in spite of everything? You must have some very clear and remarkable
philosophy to support you.” She smiled a little mischievously,
but replied without hesitation, “Well, you see, many people
believe in God and make themselves miserable.
We believe in God and have lots of fun. That’s all.”

Safe Passage is part Julia Child (if she took to opera like she did to cooking), part Oskar Schindler.
(Thanks to Frankie, reconnected friend from long ago and co-bibliophile; she lived through the war in London. I will always read the books you recommend.)

Motherless Daughters

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By 1996 I was certain sure I had made peace with grief.  Sorrow was a sealed file with the words RESOLVED stamped on the front.  I had been “moving on”, as they say, for decades.

Suddenly, with the stealth of a B-2 bomber, grief pounced and hijacked me.  While I was held hostage, facing my familiar adversary, I had the sense of confusion and disbelief: This cannot be happening to me.  It seemed surreal, disconnected, in short, unbelievable.

It was in that context of confused ongoing mourning that I first read Motherless Daughters.

My mother-in-law wanted to help; she gave me this book with the hesitant hope that it might give me something she herself couldn’t give.  I planted myself in the small bathroom at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night and started reading.  By 4:00 a.m. I had finished the book, exhausted, soggy,  numb, and emotionally done-in.

When Hope Edelman wrote about experiences, emotions and situations that I knew firsthand in my soul but had never spoken aloud, it could only be described as cathartic.  Edelman gave me words to articulate the sorrow and, more than anything, helped me to understand the nature of grief.  The first chapter, The Seasons of Grieving, is the best concise summary of grief that I have ever read.

I recently revisited Hope’s narrative.  I was surprised to see statements I’ve been saying so long that I thought they were my very own.  The words of the first chapter are still powerful and continue to resonate in my soul.  Back in 1996, they reassured me that I wasn’t some freak of nature who refused to “get over it.”

Having said that, I found the predominant value of this book much more in its diagnosis than in its therapy.

Quotes to copy:

Like most other families that lose a mother, mine coped as best it could, which meant, essentially, that we avoided all discussion of the loss and pretended to pick up exactly where we’d left off.

“My mother died when I was nineteen,” [Anna] Quindlen wrote. “For a long time, it was all you needed to know about me, a kind of vest-pocket description of my emotional complexion:  ‘Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes–I have long brown hair, am on the short side, have on a red coat, and my mother died when I was nineteen.'”

Ten years ago I was convinced I’d finished mourning my mother.  The truth was, I’d barely begun.

Edelman describes a random incident years after her mother’s death where she is balled up in physical pain, clutching her stomach.  She had thought she had sailed through the five stages of death and moved on.  I had a similar moment when, as if lightening from heaven, I was struck, pierced, skewered, with overwhelming grief.  I thought I was well-adjusted, “normal” and that everything was copacetic.  For no discernable reason (I mean the timing of the episode) I was brought to my knees, in tears, and incapable of articulating anything but deep, deep pain.  I ended up in a seldom-used restroom in our church, gasping for air, howling in anguish.  Someone got my husband and told him to go in and check on me.

Here’s what I’ve learned about grief since then: It’s not linear.  It’s not predictable.  It’s anything but smooth and self-contained.  Someone did us all a grave injustice by first implying that mourning has a distinct beginning, middle, and end.  That’s the stuff of short fiction.  It’s not real life.

Grief goes in cycles, like the seasons, like the moon.  No one is better created to understand this than a woman, whose bodily existence is marked by a monthly rhythm for more than half her life.