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The years go by and one after another source of precious joy in this life becomes troublesome for a body past its sell-by date (which seems to be somewhere around 23).

Meanwhile, read a few books in May; one year since these reviews began.

War Like the Thunderbolt, Russell S. Bonds. I’ve reviewed this in detail elsewhere, already. In brief, a decent and very readable account of the Battle of Atlanta, though not quite the riveting narrative which was Bonds’ earlier Stealing the General.

Go Down Together, Jeff Guinn. A recent biography of Clyde Barrow and his paramour, Bonnie Parker, better known as the legendary Bonnie & Clyde. An absolutely fantastic work, rich in absorbing detail. Definitely the best of the month.

I’m far from being an expert on Bonnie & Clyde, so I can’t evaluate this against any other works on the pair. But it certainly seems like Guinn did a lot of research, and used it to very good effect. Unsurprisingly, there’s no Hollywood glamour in the story; yet for a tale of two largely inept, ineffective small-time criminals, it’s a remarkably dramatic and even moving story.

The element of inevitable doom in Bonnie & Clyde’s tale probably contributes a lot to this, and while Guinn makes it a very real presence, he hardly had to invent it; throughout much of their brief criminal careers, B&C knew there was only one possible ending to their story, and were often completely frank and casual about it.

Perhaps the most effective and surprising ramification of this, though, is how Guinn convincingly calls into question just how much Barrow and Parker ever really had a better alternative. The story of their dead-end world in Dust-Bowl Texas, and particularly of the Barrows’ utterly dispiriting poverty, comes across as just unremittingly bleak. Unless the prospects for a young person in Depression-era Dallas slums were significantly brighter than Guinn’s account suggests, one has difficulty seeing any reason Bonnie & Clyde would have particularly preferred lives of impoverished drudgery to brief careers as famous criminals, even allowing for the deglamorized reality of the latter.

In all honesty, though written as a biography of two celebrated bandits, Go Down Together is one of the most effective works of social criticism I’ve read in a long while. (more…)

Quite a few books to cover this month, including a few which I completed during the last bit of December when the Christmas-to-New-Year’s stretch finally left me some time to sit and read.

Blake, Peter Ackroyd. I can say with some confidence that this is a well-written biography; it’s more difficult to evaluate its subject. Even describing William Blake, and why he might be considered significant, is a challenge. I became aware of Blake through my extensive and probably somewhat idiosyncratic exposure to British culture and history… Blake seems a particular favorite of a few British comic creators I like. I really have no idea how well the man is known or regarded in more mainstream circles, though.

Personally, I find the label of “genius,” applied by some, goes a bit too far. Einstein was a genius. I’d call Hayao Miyazaki and Alan Moore geniuses. I can’t quite see Blake as a genius, though. Perhaps it’s just because his work doesn’t greatly appeal to me; his art is interesting but seems kind of limited, and his poetry does little for me at all (to be fair, so does most poetry). I would unhesitatingly call Blake a visionary, but I suppose I just don’t find that much to admire in his visions.

In many ways, Blake’s thoughts and ideas are very foreign to me, even allowing for his living in the 18th century. Blake was original and inventive, constructing a remarkable mythology of his own, parallel to traditional Christian beliefs and values of his time. But unlike, say, the mythology of Tolkein, Blake’s was not really meant to entertain (nor does it, so far as I’ve noticed); honestly I’m not fully sure what it was meant for. If Blake was a “prophet,” I see little to commend his prophecies; superstitious mumbo jumbo is still superstitious mumbo jumbo, whether it’s official doctrine or the invention of a creative and earnest lone crackpot.

And yet, the story of Blake was not only interesting, but thought-provoking on a personal level. (more…)

Because I love you. Or because I really just love the “sound” of my own writing “voice.” Or because I’m just OCD. In any event, in the past month I read the following books:

The Incredible Detective, by Gene Caesar. This was the fascinating story of William Burns, one of those figures who was apparently very well known 100 years ago but is essentially forgotten today. The William Burns Agency is still a large security corporation, though I wonder how many, even among those who know of the company, are familiar with its founder. His story literally is incredible; Burns’ ability to identify tiny but important clues and unravel crimes with deduction may have been the closest any real-life figure has ever gotten to that of great fictional detectives. There should be a movie or perhaps an entire television series about his career. If I ever decide that I need a rejected screenplay to carry through life as a badge of my “writer” status, I could do a lot worse.
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