![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Nonfiction
Posting this frequently counts as spam from me, I'm sure. Anyway, ever since I read the highly amusing "Troy in Fifteen Minutes," I've felt a strange desire for an Odysseus icon that says "Hi, Boromir!" despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of either LoTR or Troy. I don't know why this should be true, but it is.
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Keegan is a great military historian, but this book is merely good. Z. suggests that he's now writing to pay college tuition for his descendants. As usual, Keegan's writing is elegant: Intelligence leaked from the French to the British about Napoleon's plans when academics connected to the expedition to Egypt began to boast, "a notorious failing of clever men leading unimportant lives." (Or, perhaps, not all that unimportant, if only for their loose-lippedness. In the event, Britain had a difficult time getting that intelligence to the people who mattered, the naval commanders, so it's hard to say that the academics changed history.) Anyhow, the idea is to review "intelligence," defined as acquisition of information about the enemy's intentions and capabilities in wartime, and its role in warfare, beginning with Admiral Nelson and ending with Iraq in 2003. Intelligence, he argues, may be necessary but cannot be sufficient, illustrating the argument particularly with the Allies' inability to defend Crete despite detailed advanced knowledge of German plans and with the battle of Midway, which was nearly a Japanese rather than American victory except for the sheer luck of one pilot seeing a trail in the water from one lagging Japanese ship. Five previous squadrons had attacked the Japanese ships and been slaughtered, but when that pilot – at the limit of his fuel and about to turn back – saw the trail and followed it back to the carrier groups, their fighter escorts, fresh from destroying the other squadrons, weren't in position to fend off this last attack, and the carriers were awash with spilled fuel and refueling planes which turned into bombs. Given Keegan's persuasive thesis that force and will are more important than foreknowledge, it's no surprise that he can't help himself when it comes to describing the key battles: they're not about his stated topic, which is the information that brings armies to battle, but he goes on and tells you how each one went anyway, because that's his first love and what he does best. I would only recommend this for people with a serious interest in military history, whereas I would promote The Mask of Command and Six Armies in Normandy for anyone who reads books of general interest.
David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: As usual, Sedaris's subject is the minutiae of daily life, specifically his, including the tribulations of a "sensitive" gay boy growing up in the South. When he discusses a friend whose friendship dissipated when cooler pastures beckoned, he dismisses his mother's claim that they just grew apart: "She made it sound as if we'd veered off in different directions, though in fact we had the exact same destination. I just never made it." What makes Sedaris tolerable is that he has the same empathy for the other people he encounters; their cruelties to him came because they were just as scared and confused as he was, as we all are. Even when he's telling a story from his apartment-cleaning days, when a client made an advance and then proceeded to masturbate while Sedaris was trying to clean, he makes it almost wistful rather than mocking, understanding the shame of rejection. One of my favorite pieces of feedback ever said something like, "I can't understand how a story so full of blood and pain could be so kind." When I read it, I thought, "Yes. That's exactly what I wanted to do, even though I didn't know it." Sedaris's work shows that "kind" doesn't need to be soft-focus.
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Keegan is a great military historian, but this book is merely good. Z. suggests that he's now writing to pay college tuition for his descendants. As usual, Keegan's writing is elegant: Intelligence leaked from the French to the British about Napoleon's plans when academics connected to the expedition to Egypt began to boast, "a notorious failing of clever men leading unimportant lives." (Or, perhaps, not all that unimportant, if only for their loose-lippedness. In the event, Britain had a difficult time getting that intelligence to the people who mattered, the naval commanders, so it's hard to say that the academics changed history.) Anyhow, the idea is to review "intelligence," defined as acquisition of information about the enemy's intentions and capabilities in wartime, and its role in warfare, beginning with Admiral Nelson and ending with Iraq in 2003. Intelligence, he argues, may be necessary but cannot be sufficient, illustrating the argument particularly with the Allies' inability to defend Crete despite detailed advanced knowledge of German plans and with the battle of Midway, which was nearly a Japanese rather than American victory except for the sheer luck of one pilot seeing a trail in the water from one lagging Japanese ship. Five previous squadrons had attacked the Japanese ships and been slaughtered, but when that pilot – at the limit of his fuel and about to turn back – saw the trail and followed it back to the carrier groups, their fighter escorts, fresh from destroying the other squadrons, weren't in position to fend off this last attack, and the carriers were awash with spilled fuel and refueling planes which turned into bombs. Given Keegan's persuasive thesis that force and will are more important than foreknowledge, it's no surprise that he can't help himself when it comes to describing the key battles: they're not about his stated topic, which is the information that brings armies to battle, but he goes on and tells you how each one went anyway, because that's his first love and what he does best. I would only recommend this for people with a serious interest in military history, whereas I would promote The Mask of Command and Six Armies in Normandy for anyone who reads books of general interest.
David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: As usual, Sedaris's subject is the minutiae of daily life, specifically his, including the tribulations of a "sensitive" gay boy growing up in the South. When he discusses a friend whose friendship dissipated when cooler pastures beckoned, he dismisses his mother's claim that they just grew apart: "She made it sound as if we'd veered off in different directions, though in fact we had the exact same destination. I just never made it." What makes Sedaris tolerable is that he has the same empathy for the other people he encounters; their cruelties to him came because they were just as scared and confused as he was, as we all are. Even when he's telling a story from his apartment-cleaning days, when a client made an advance and then proceeded to masturbate while Sedaris was trying to clean, he makes it almost wistful rather than mocking, understanding the shame of rejection. One of my favorite pieces of feedback ever said something like, "I can't understand how a story so full of blood and pain could be so kind." When I read it, I thought, "Yes. That's exactly what I wanted to do, even though I didn't know it." Sedaris's work shows that "kind" doesn't need to be soft-focus.
no subject
I have a hard time reading a lot of people others find funny because of the underlying meanness I read into their work. I'll have to try Sedaris, now, if he's different. Thanks. :)
no subject