Stromata's Books

When Will They Ever Learn........................

2009-01-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

Mark Thompson's superbly researched account of this little known appendage to the wider 1914-18 war is a stark reminder of the impact of political ideology and the cost in human life, misery, suffering and deprivation caused by conflict. Starting from the blatant opportunist expansionist ideals of Italy's minority intellectual and political elite, double dealing and secret negotiations which finally brought Italy into the war on the side of the Allies, through to political ignominy in Paris in 1919, he paints a picture of a dysfunctional political Italy during the decades either side of the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, which laid the roots for fascism. The Italian military was in no better state, with its antiquated command structure cum strategy, an army under resourced in essential equipment and the inhuman treatment and knowing sacrifice of its own men. A side show this may have been, but one which had little support or understanding within the population at large and who paid with casualties comparable to the Allies on the western front for little or nothing to show in territorial or political gain.

Thompson leaves little doubt that the Austro-Hungarians are the aggrieved party in this conflict, with Italy the aggressor. Indeed Italy's claim to centuries' old Habsburg territory appears akin to German claims over the Sudetenland in 1939 and the Russian justification of their intervention in South Ossetia in 2008. There is also little doubt that the Habsburg's held what moral high ground there was in the conduct of the war and it is perhaps fortunate for Italy that she chose to be on the, ultimately, winning side in the larger 1914-18 war, for she was going nowhere on her own. However, with the subsequent rise of fascism under Mussolini it is questionable whether the rest of the world would agree.

Perhaps the lasting legacy of Thompson's account, however, will be the graphic and harrowing testimony of those participants caught up in a conflict they didn't understand or want and the wanton destruction and loss of life inflicted. Just one example, from many, illustrates the stark reality of the war, when in 1917, in a diversionary attack on Ortigara, `

The Italians have taken at least 25,000 casualties over the 19 days of the battle, on a front of three kilometres, for no gains whatsoever'.

Shorn of its basic facts this same attack is put more poignantly by Paolo Monelli, a captain in the Alpini, when the last enemy bombardment stopped, `... a vast silence spreads... Then groans from the wounded. Then silence once more. And the mountain is infinitely taciturn, like a dead world, with its snowfields soiled, the shell craters, the burnt pines. But the breath of battle wafts over all - a stench of excrement and dead bodies.'

Thompson's book is yet another lesson in the futility of war and should be mandatory reading for all political leaders and governments around the globe.

Our Horses in Egypt

2009-01-05T04:15:00.000-08:00

When thinking back over my 2008 reading list a number of books written by new-to-me authors were very much enjoyed. One of these was Rosalind Belben's book 'Our Horses in Egypt'. However, I almost didn't bother with this book - the storyline, horses going off to war etc was going to be either too sentimental or too harrowing for me - and the prose seemed a little strange from my quick glance in the bookshop. I am so glad that I did decide to keep it, once I got past page three or so, and therefore got used to Ms Belben's rather unusual style, I was absolutely hooked and couldn't put the book down.

Set during the harrowing years of 1914-18 , Griselda's horse, Philomena, is requisitioned by the army and is taken, along with many others, abroad. When war is over Griselda, her six year old daughter and the child's nanny go to look for the horse. Part of the story is told through the eyes of the horse, her experience in battle and beyond and the other half of the sometimes comic tale is of the trio in search of the beloved horse.

This story follows on from Ms Balben's earlier book 'Hound Music', which I have not read, and this was not a problem. However it is now firmly on my 'to be read' pile!

The Sound of Silence

2009-01-04T09:51:00.001-08:00

I have always thought of myself as a noisy person - I love loud music, the radio is on morning, noon and night, and I seem to talk incessantly. However over the past few years I have been drawn to the notion of living silently, or least as quietly as it is possible to be in the 21st century. It helps, of course, that I live in one of the least populated areas of the country, with no immediate neighbours and thus no banging car doors, little in the way of house/car alarms going off at all hours. I got rid of the TV last year and was pleased with the calming effect this had within the house, just how much I used it as 'background', whereas I do actually listen to programmes on the radio.

Someone who has made a serious search for a quiet life is the author Sara Maitland, she explores the reasons and charts her journey in her new book 'A Book of Silence', published in 2008 by Granta.

Sara Maitland confessed that this book took a long time to write and, in all the best possible ways, it shows. She manages to embrace a subject that has preoccupied humans across the world and throughout history and writes about it in an intellectually stimulating way that is at once thought provoking and joyous. She writes of her journey which started as a child in a large family, who, like her siblings,was brought up to be articulate and outgoing, through her eduction at Oxford, marriage to a clergyman and motherhood, divorce and the ultimate search for fulfilment and contentment - not necessarily good bedfellows. Those who are fortunate to read this book will never again think of 'the quiet life' as something rather dull and undesirable.

Reading like a long, loving letter from a good friend, I, for one, am deeply grateful that Sara Maitland shared her experiences with us. I loved it.

Books read in 2008 for pleasure

2009-01-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

* Denotes - excellent read# Denotes - did not finish

The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill
The Tenderness of Wolves - Steph Penney
At Large and At Small - Anne Fadiman
Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman
I Found My Horn - Jasper Rees
We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Gilgamesh
Captain Professor - Michael Howard
Our Horses in Egypt - Roslin Balsen
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
Utz - Bruce Chatwin
Oxford Letters - Veronica Stallwood#
The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies
Oxford Exit - Veronica Stallwood#
Evening in the Palace of Reason - James Gaines*
An Equal Music - Vikram Seth**
Quicksands - Sybille BedfordJigsaw - Sybille Bedford
Barcelona - the Great Enchantress - Robert Hughes
The Concert Pianist - Conrad Williams
The Boy Who Loved Books - John Sutherland
Diaries, 1971 - 1988, James Lees-Milne
Another Self - James Lees-Milne
Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Immortality - Milan Kundera
Publisher - Tom Maschler
The Untouchable - John Banville*
Shroud - John Banville
Diaries 1942 - 1954 - James Lees-Milne
The Assassins Cloak - Alan and Irene Taylor
Jane and Prudence - Barbera Pym
The Collector of Worlds - Iliya Troyanov
The Morville Hours - Kathrine Swift**
A Life's Music - Andrei Makine*
On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin *
The Book of Evidence - John Banville
Learning to Dance - Michael Mayne
Of Human Bondage - W Somerset Maugham*
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Oxford - Jan Morris
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones - Alexander McCall Smith
The Common Reader - Alan Bennett
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh*
Remember Me - Melvyn Bragg
A Man Like Any Other - Mary Cavanagh
The Savage Garden - Mark Mills
Sea Change - Mairi Hedderwick
The White War - Mark Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian - Yourcenar*
Following Hadrian - Elizabeth Speller
The Vows of Silence - Susan Hill
New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society -Mary Ann Shaffer
The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel*
G M Trevelyan, A Life in History - David Cannadine
The Birdman - Henry Douglas-Home
The Carlyles at Home - Thea Holme*
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Song of the Rolling Earth - John Lister-Kaye
Reading in Bed - Steven Gilbar*
A Book of Silence - Sara Maitland*
On Tour with Thomas Telford - Chris Morris
Sir John Vanbrugh - Vaughan Hart
A Winter Book - Tove Jansson
The Odyssey - Homer ~(annual read)
The Pleasure of the Past - David Cannadine
Reading in Bed - Steven Gilbar
Curiosities of Literature - John Sutherland
Lanterns Across the Snow - Susan Hill (annual read)*
A Time to Keep Silence - Patrick Leigh Fermor*