Paul Johnson's biography in the "Penguin Lives" series of Napoleon Bonaparte was my fourth (and by far shortest) Johnson book and it proved every bit as enjoyable as his earlier histories and lives...the same dry wit, contentiousness, and ability to size up a human being and try to tell the cold hard truth about them (from a conservative's POV, of course). The Emperor, it seems, was inspired by Boswell's book on Corsica, taking the depiction of Paoli as a guide for how a leader should act. HOWEVER...big however...Johnson takes an overall dim view of his subject (no surprise from a man who could slam Tolstoy and Marx mercilessly and hail Calvin Coolidge as one of America's greatest presidents). While admitting Bonaparte's greatness as a military leader...although he was a bit unimaginative in overall tactics, using speed and cannonade over grand strategy...as a leader he was dangerous. An inability to understand the needs of the people, a belief he knew everything about everything, no sense of diplomacy or economic policy (Continental System, anyone?), incompetent government, and a style of command which was used over a century later as the basis for the totalitarian state.
Johnson is most distressed that people still see Napoleon as a paragon of the species, and not as an ignorant, incompetent, power-hungry egotist who laid waste to a continent. One of his recurring themes is our capacity to hero-worship the unworthy, as seen by future intellectual extolling of Stalin and Mao while their regimes were oppressing and murdering millions of their own citizens. Napoleon's deeds can be admired for their grand scope, but the man and his methods, Johnson argues, should be classed closer to Hitler than Churchill.
Interestingly enough, I also picked up a brief history of Nazi Germany which brought to light a fact I'd never been aware of before: Winston Churchill, maybe the most virulent non-Jewish anti-Nazi of them all, actually saw Hitler's behavior before World War I, including the Sudetenland seizure which provoked Munich, as in accordance with justice! The Versailles Treaty gave the nations rights to self-determination, and Churchill felt that Germany gaining control of territories which were already predominantly German and wished to be reunited with the country was only fair. His problem was with Hitler and the Nazi leadership, whom he had the foresight to see would not be satisfied with mere gains like that. Poland, which had a low, low German minority and no wish for incorporation, would thankfully prove to be a different story.
Lesson of the day? A person and an act should never be judged in tandem, but both considered on their own moral merits. How many of us have committed wrongs out of ill-judged desire or desperation?
I reread Charlie Gillet's extraordinary The Sound of the City just for fun...no more comprehensive chronicle of rock 'n' roll's first two decades has ever been written, and Gillet, following my number-one rule for non-fiction, makes his love for the music shine through in every page. I take umbrage with his dismissal of most of the Beatles' post-1964 output, but great minds, as the Genie reminds us, think for themselves.
Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane will be opening on Broadway next year. His first play set in America. Hopefully he'll do to us what he did to the English/Irish/Belgian contingents in In Bruges.
One thing I meant to put on the blog lately but forgot, a memory recalled by my completion of Jane Eyre. Listened to the Cliff Richard cycle last month and again heard the songs from Sir Cliff's Wuthering Heights musical Heathcliff...lyrics by fellow knight Tim Rice. "Be With Me Always," a song whose lines I shall quote at post's end, is one of his most chilling performances. Never mind that Richard was 56 when he played Heathcliff, he merges the terrifying lines with the deceptively quiet melody, and his controlled voice chokes back rage and passion. Find this recording!
Not much else today, getting ready to read Three Essays on Sexuality tomorrow and thus resting my brain. Why do people like my dentist suggest I wear lip gloss to keep a dried, ex-pimpled spot in my corner lubricated? Proper words people! And Spiegel has a fascinating report on the new universal income experiement in Namibia: every citizen gets 100 Namibian dollars a month, no questions asked. It was once an Onion joke about Iraq, now it's a working reality. I have found in my own life that when given responsibility, I rise to the occasion. A little more faith in human nature is always welcome...makes the world a better place.
Lastly...I did realize last night why I prefer books to movies in the end. Film is a group of people interpreting FOR YOU a text, a screenplay. Almost nothing is left to the imagination. The book is a one-on-one dialogue between you and the writer. It requires YOU to THINK, to interpret. And quite frankly, I enjoy thinking!
"Be With Me Always"
(John Farrar/Tim Rice)
May she wake in torment
Never to find
Any kind of comfort
In death
May her lies satanic
That corrupt even now
Bring her back to confront
Me again
These are words of hatred
Words of contempt
Only one who suffered
At the hands and the heart
Of a woman who stole
Both his life and soul
Be with me always
Possess me and haunt me
Take any form
Or take none
Be with me always
In flesh or as a ghost
And youll learn as the ages run
Learn what your sin has done
Who is my protector?
Whence comes my help?
Who is there to calm me
But she
God shall be my witness
That I pray she will know
Not one moment of rest
In the cold cold ground
Be with me always
Consume and invade me
Take any shape or disguise
Be with me always
To share all my despair
And to learn nothing justifies
Reckless inhuman lies
Here comes the night
The abyss unrelenting
Casting all reason aside
And I see in myself
All the things I see in you
Hear the savage I am crying
Be with me always...
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