Collected Miscellany

I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend and enjoying the day off today if they have one. I thought this might be a good time to note a couple of books I have come across that seem relevant to today. They both deal with World War II but have implications beyond their respective historic events.

The subtitle of Herman J. Obermayer’s Soldiering for Freedom is A GI’s Account of World War II. And that is exactly what it is. Obermayer – a retired journalist, editor-publisher, and former Pulitzer Prize juror – sent hundreds of letters home to his parents chronicling his experiences at Dartmouth, his begin drafted, basic training, and his time service in Europe during World War Two. Using these remarkable letters as a foundation Obermayer has created a fascinating first person history of some of the most significant events of the twentieth century. He chronicles what it was like to be drafted and sent to small towns in Virginia to be trained by the Army; to submit to what he calls its “caste system.” What it was like to see your friends sent off to war never to return. The frightening experience of crossing the ocean in a troopship knowing that the German U-boats were searching for them. What it was like to be part of what was seen as an unwelcome occupation army while seeing yourself as part of a liberating army in a just cause. What it was like to have seen Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and other Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials.

Mr. Obermayer also uses these experiences to shed light on many of the political and social issues we still struggle with today. The result is fascinating history, insightful analysis, and thought provoking commentary. Military and history buffs will want to check out this unique work, but so will citizens interested in how the past can shed light on the present. For more information check out the web site.

Another book along these lines, Boy Soldier: Coming of Age During World War II, was brought to my attention by my family. Author Russell E. McLogan lives in Hillsdale, Michigan where I have relatives from both side of the family and where my wife lived for a short time growing up.

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From the very beginning of my life I never doubted that words were my metier. There was nothing else I ever wanted to do except use them; no other accomplishment or achievement I ever had the slightest regard for, or desire to emulate. . . .

So, as a child, a writer was in my eyes a kind of god; any writer, no matter how obscure, or even bogus, he might be. To compare a writer with some famous soldier or administrator or scientist or politician or actor was, in my estimation, quite ludicrous. There was no basis for comparison; any more than between, say, Francis of Assisi and Dr. Spock. Perhaps more aware of this passion than I realised, when I was still a schoolboy my father took me to a dinner at a Soho restaurant at which G.K. Chesterton was being entertained. I remember that the proprietor of the restaurant presented me with a box of crystallised fruits which turned out to be bad. As far as I was concerned, it was an occasion of inconceivable glory. I observed with fascination the enormous bulk of the guest of honour, his great stomach and plump hands; how his pince-nez on a black ribbon were almost lost in the vast expannse of his face, and how when he delivered himself of what he considered to be a good remark he had a way of blowing into his moustache with a sound like an expiring balloon. His speech, if he made one, was lost on me, but I vividly recall how I persuaded my father to wait outside the restaurant while we watched the great man make his way down the street in a billowing black cloak and old-style bohemian hat with a large brim.

quoted from Chronicles of Wasted Time, an autobiography by Malcolm Muggeridge.

This comes from a post on Christian bookstore chains, but it probably applies to booksellers accross the board.

If the customer’s chief concern is going to be price, the store’s chief concern is going to be cost. It’s a horrendous cycle, really. Customers want cheap books but stores can’t provide cheap books if they’re specializing in the books only a minority of people want, and publishers are only producing fluff because consumers have demonstrated they only want fluff but they can’t demonstrate they don’t want fluff if publishers and stores aren’t cooperating to provide them non-fluff. It’s complicated. Certainly more complicated than “The Corporations Want You Dumb.” Some of these conspiracy theories about what Christian publishers are doing remind me of the marionette Tim Robbins’s unfocused speech in Team America — “See, um, the corporations, they just sit up in their big corporations buildings, and they’re all, um, corporation-y.”

I was thinking about summer reading this evening when I came across this press release. “Experts Agree, The Difference Between Good Students and Great Students is What They Read.” The Great Books Summer Reading Program at Amherst and Stanford report that reading challenging literature at a young age improves your mind and test scores. “Read more challenging books, more hours a week, starting when you’re younger — and you’ll develop the kind of mental muscles that will help you rise to the top. That’s the basis of real education and real success,” said the president of the organization that developed the 2005 SAT. By reading and discussing well-written books which deal with the big questions–“What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor?”–a teenager’s mind and heart can gain the strength his circumstances may restricted.

Evan came to the Summer Reading Program as a 14-year old from Mississippi and from one of the lowest-rated schools in the nation. Evan’s teacher, Annette, described him as a very curious child but discouraged from his disadvantaged circumstances and no one believing in him except his teacher. Evan speaks of his “life changing experience” at Great Books Summer Program. “Evan will never be the same again,” gleams Annette.

What would you think if a publisher, say Penguin Classics, promoted classic literature as great summer reads? Maybe they would offer special editions with new or at least sound essays on the work in question. I would pass on Kafka for something like this, but I would be tempted by Hawthorne or Ralph Ellison, Thoreau or Langston Hughes. I suppose publishers think these works are promoted enough through schools and attention to literary awards. But what do you think? A good idea?

Edward Champion conducted an interesting survey yesterday in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center. He asked 19 people whether they had heard of 11 authors and to name a book by the ones they recognized. Here’s his report. Margaret Atwood was the most recognized name, followed by David Gardner, Philip Roth, and James Robison.

You thought I was done with the links to intereviews didn’t you? You thought: “Jeez, how many NRO links is this guy going to throw up?” Well, I have on more for you. Heading into Memorial Day Weekend National Review Online has an interview with Stephan Mansfield, author of The Faith of the American Soldiers. It is an interesting Q&A. I found this particularly interesting:

NRO: Is Abu Ghraib a symptom of a non-faith-based warrior code?

Mansfield: The Abu Ghraib scandal has a faith backstory. The chaplain who was at Abu Ghraib during the scandals was told not to be in the way but to let the soldiers come to her. There was no moral presence and little spiritual influence during the time of the scandals. Chapel attendance was low and many soldiers later said they did not even know who the chaplain was. When that unit was replaced, the chaplains of the new unit were told to be present at prisoner interrogations, at shift changes and in the daily lives of the soldiers. The entire atmosphere changed. Chapel attendance reached into the hundreds and the prison became a model operation. This makes the case for continuous moral influence upon soldiers at war and for a faith based warrior code as a hedge against future abuses.