commentary by Michael L. Bromley
copyright 2005

Books Index

Notes on Recent Readings

Brief reviews and comments on recent readings,
entered here chronologically

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
by Studs Terkel (1970)

A collection of interviews of Great Depression figures, famous and unknown. It's a great resource to understand the era, although one must approach it carefully: Terkel is a story teller, and he's only interested in stories. What we get here, then, are the agitators, the victims, and the opponents of the New Deal and its reforms. Terkel is not interested in the great American normal, which, while not defining of the period, survived it intact, which is a story that goes untold in most histories of the 1930s. When we get the conservative, or the critic of the New Deal, it's like a circus act, interesting to Terkel for being grotesque, but not otherwise meaningful.

French Revolution
by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (translated by John Durand;1875)

Taine does not hold a favorable view towards the Revolution. I got into this book after reading A Tale of Two Cities (see below) for clarification of the history. I decided upon an older book (this is 1897) for a more enjoyable perspective than the blahs of modern "objectivity."

Like most 19th century histories, the language is flourish and the attitude is pure and plain -- which I love. No hiding behind objectivity. That's not to say that the history isn't good. Taine just doesn't hide his attitude, like the moderns in their pretensions of objectivity. History never was and never will be a science.

A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens (1859)
Univ. of Virginia e-text here

Had to get to this one, finally.

Brilliance is the ending thought, but the final emotion is disappointment. Maybe I'd have enjoyed it more had the ending been kept sad as originally intended. During the writing, which went on as he published it serially in a London journal, a friend convinced Dickens to make the end happy to better satisfy the audience.

Dickens is a story teller, and he's too good at it by half. I was frustrated by the constant set-ups of later scenes. As  craftsmanship, that's especially stunning artistry, as Dickens wrote the thing well-ahead of actually taking to pen. But it got almost obvious when little events didn't fit the present seen that it was the setup. While this is the standard literary technique, Dickens took it too far. I came away thinking that he was the first Hollywood screenwriter.

As for the writing, it's stunningly good, and one must read it if only for the words and descriptions. It's gorgeous.
 

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