ElectricEel rated this book 3 of 5 Stars.
I have read several of this author's henry VIII novels, and I liked them. They were historical novels, and some of them revolved around inherently interesting questions. They also played some interesting games with personalities.
I have now read a few of the same author's Cousins' War books, including this one. They are not novels; they are feminist tracts, and in general have about as much artistic and entertainment value as the tracts of the Temperance Society. The only redeeming features of this book are those passages which mention Melusina (not enough, and not deeply enough) and those which deal with spiritual questions.
Somebody should tell Philippa Gregory that the last time political propaganda succeeded as either art or entertainment was the Parthenon frieze.
by Louise-Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
ElectricEel rated this book 4 of 5 Stars.
First, two remarks: 1. This isn't the exact edition I read, though both are in the original French. 2. Since the book seems always to be published in three separate volumes, and the spirit of the three volumes really is rather different, I'm writing this remark to apply only to the third volume.
This volume describes Mme Vigee LeBrun's life from 1796 until the Restoration in France, or thereabouts. She includes vivid descriptions of society and government in the reigns of Paul I and Alexander I, and of society and government in France during the Empire and the Restoration. You will find descriptions of Louis XVIII and the Comte d'Artois/Charles X here very different from those which you will find anyplace else, and especially from those in the standard history books and the memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne.
The volume also includes a short article of practical advice for portrait painters which Mme Vigee LeBrun wrote for her niece. It has a lot more sense in it than most of what painters write about their profession. The main part of the volume also includes Mme Vigee LeBrun's description of the collapse of the late Baroque and the rise of Neo-Classicism in France, a passage well worth reading.
The whole book is very much worth reading, but it never moves fast. The lady who is perhaps the most exciting and emotional of our portrait painters tends to write like a Victorian schoolgirl doing landscapes in watercolor. It is only the content of the books and Mme Vigee LeBrun's own humanity which save it.
by Norman L, Ed Kleeblatt
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Although all of the articles in this collection are worth reading, the critics' enthusiasm for Linda Nochlin's article about Degas' antisemitism is unjustified. All that she has to say is that if you look very carefully at some of Degas' paintings, you can almost see some near-hints at antisemitic stereotypes. Indeed.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Catherine Cookson is a great writer. Not a great regional writer, or a great woman writer, just a great writer. This is the memoir of her childhood as the illegitimate daughter of the one-time "sinner" turned alcoholic. Even to be born the child of a sinner is a crime, as we all know.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
There is no doubt that Winston Churchill was a great stylist, and if you can only read one history of World War II, you should probably read this one. On the other hand, although I don't know if there are any outright lies in this book, he does deem occasionally filter the truth to suit his political convenience.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
One of the many books and articles written by Maillol's friends shortly after his death. Includes and interesting observation on Maillol's attitude towards his models as models. Prettily illustrated, as they all are.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
A lovely historical novel. The hero, like Maalouf - and like me - is someone forced by both circumstance and inclination to live in several very different cultures, and loves all of them.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
A very necessary book in this ago of self-righteous violence and the death of the melting pot. Maalouf claims that accepting and loving one's own culture does not require one to reject others.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Well written and - surprisingly - with no obvious political agenda, but Vita Sackville-West occasionally skydives to conclusions without a parachute. For example: V. S.-W. interprets one witness's testimony as meaning that they thought they had some mystical means of determining whether a girl was a virgin. Not necessarily. The testimony could just as well mean that the witness thought that she could tell from Joan's behavior that Joan was a virgin.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
As usual, Shaw works very hard at shocking the reader/viewer. He claims that the first trial, at which Joan was convicted, was more than fair, while the postumous trial, at which she was rehabilitated, was a kangaroo court. But maybe he's right. He also makes it clear that we're all willing to defend Joan now that she's been dead a few hundred years, but that if she were to reappear, we modern liberals would be the first to join the lynch mob.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Just what it sounds like: The translation of a biography of Joan built almost completely from quotations from the original documents. A good antidote to the hogwash on all sides of the political coin, for those who prefer the truth to getting their ax ground.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Anouilh seems to claim in the introduction that it's intended mainly as entertainment, but it does add historical insights unavailable elsewhere (as far as I know). For example: People like to talk about Joan as one of the inventors of nationalism, but was she also one of the inventors of humanism?
by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Although it's on a somewhat different subject, having taken place in the eye of the storm as far as the Wars of Religion go, it gives one a good idea of what those wars must have been like for the common people.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Aside from what we can extract from Pierre-Auguste Renoir's own works, this book and Vollard's short memoir are about the only organized contemporary works about Renoir as a man and a thinker. They are both myth. If you want to see just how far these hagiographies are intentionally distorted, compare Renoir's remarks on the Jews and antisemitism here with the full-length quotations and references in Phlip Nord's *Impressionists and Politics*.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
A snapshot of the anti-Dreyfus and anti-semitic hysteria, assembled from local archives from the year 1898. Birnbaum seems to take the rather original position that Drumont's variety of antisemitism was at least as much religious as racial. One of the more surprising lessons from this book is the degree of hatred against Zola.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
For people who expect to be entertained by history books, this is probably the best book on Jackson, the bank war, the petticoat affair, etc. It is surprisingly detailed and objective on the latter.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
A detailed biography of Simenon which does make some attempt at neutrality, but Bresler's apology for Simenon's anti-semitism is comical. I'm also unenthusiastic about Bresler's reaction to Simenon's attitude towards women, or more precisely, to his lack of a reaction. Bresler makes some worthwhile critical comments.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Fenton Bresler, in his biography of Simenon, expresses contempt for this book. He doesn't explain why, but I suspect that he considers it sentimental and unsubtle. I strongly disagree. This is one of the great non-Maigret books.
by Charity Cannon Willard Christine De Pisan
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Charity Cannon Willard's selections, commentaries, and general editing are all excellent. She doesn't seem to have an overriding feminist agenda which overrides her desire for the truth. If anything, she is a little too hard on Christine. Mrs. Willard judges Christine by the total of her oeuvre, instead of the best of it. Judged by that standard, how many would survive?
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Even for those of us who don't buy Rougemont's theories about Occitania as the source of everything, this book is important as an exploration of the various possibilities for serious relationships between men and women. It even ends, in effect, with a moral exhortation. Who would have the nerve to write something like this today?
by John Kenneth Galbraith
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Galbraith's non-fiction is always amusing, here as elsewhere. Among the high points - which also show Galbraith's ability to teach and explain while amusing - is Galbraith's account of his only near-contact with FDR, while the economist was working in the New Deal. It was a note which started out "Who was the idiot who...." Galbraith, of course, was the idiot.
by John Kenneth Galbraith
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
In effect, this is a history of central banking in the United States in the Twentieth Century. Could there possibly be a hotter topic today? Among the more interesting points is Galbraith's characterization of the Federal Reserve System as a stupid idea which is almost always implemented by stupid people.
by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
Of the three books by Ladurie which I have read so far, this one was by far the best. It is also the one which made him famous. It is a great book as an exemplar of a technique, as a story about human beings, and as a sort of introduction to Catharism made by tracing around the edges.
by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
ElectricEel rated this book 3 of 5 Stars.
Of the three books by Ladurie which I have read, this is the one with the greatest quantity of unsupported limb-sitting. Still, as a somewhat unfocused history of the witch phenomenon is southern rural France, it's not bad. "Jasmin"'s poem itself is in the not-as-bad-as-I-expected class, a pretty little story. (I have only read the English translation of the poem here, neither of the two originals.)
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
So much has been written about these poems - and about this book as a cycle - that the only further help on the subject which I can offer to my fellow readers is a quotation from one of my teachers: "The Twentieth Century began in 1857." He didn't explain, and he didn't have to.
by Claude; Ziegler, Jean Pichois
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
This is the classic factual biography of Baudelaire - as opposed to some important but narrow books by his contemporaries and some modern pastiches of hogwash. As is usual with Pichois, the book is full of detailed and therefore checkable references to primary sources, and carefully separates fact from conjecture.Among the things you'll find here are the known facts, such as they are, about Jeanne maybe-Duval and maybe-Sarah, the squint-eyed Jewish prostitute who may have been Baudelaire's first sweetheart.
ElectricEel rated this book 5 of 5 Stars.
This book is as important as its title suggests. Among the points which most interested me were Pissarro's attempt to set up his own print works so that he could make the entire print himself, from start to finish, and Pissarro's wild harangues whenever he has occasion to mention Gauguin.
