Patrick Sean Barry's Blog: Rewarding Reads and Lessons Learned As a Writer, page 2

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Eric Larson (448 pp)

This was an electrifying book for me. Take a history professor, whose ideals and ethics are noble, yet old-fashioned and out-of-date, making him something of an outsider in the Washington political world, make the man a friend of President Franklin Roosevelt, who feels he owes him a political favor, and offer him the job no one else in their right mind wants: the ambassador post in Berlin just as Hitler has taken power. In the Garden of Beasts is Ambassador William E. Dodd’s story. Top that with having a rebellious and flamboyant daughter, Martha, who loves the parties and pomp of the Third Reich, and you have the makings of entertaining fiction, but it’s all a true story, and a page-turner.

Beginning with his quiet academic life at the University of Chicago, where he is working on completing his life’s work, a history of the American Civil War, Dodd is apparently the last candidate under consideration for the post no one else wants. And when offered it, he dutifully accepts, citing his PhD studies in Leipzig some 40 years before hopefully being a credential that will have some impact on the new German Nazi regime that has taken power, and for which hope still glimmers that Washington diplomacy might be able to be influence or control the brash and often charming Nazis. It’s 1933, and the glimmers of horror are only being experienced in certain quarters, but for those who occupy the privileged halls of the elite international diplomatic community in Berlin, you don’t see it if you don’t want to. A man of modest income, Dodd has pledged to live on his small salary in Berlin, where all his predecessors came from elite and wealthy blue blood families who funded considerable financial support to their advantaged society hermetically sealed off from the lives of everyday Germans. And it is into this world that the history professor, now ambassador, Dodd arrives with his wife and two adult children, a son and daughter.

Separated from her husband and in the process of divorce, Martha quickly became caught up in the glamor and excitement of Berlin's social scene and had a series of liaisons, likely sexual, including Gestapo head Rudolf Diels and then later Soviet attaché and secret agent Boris Vinogradov. As she proceeds to deny the emerging Nazi horror, actually witnessing some of it in the streets herself, her meanwhile father commits himself to try to lecture the Germans on the proper path of conduct for this emerging power. Populated vivid iconic characters and direct interactions with such historic figures as President Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, SS Generals Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Röhm, Franz von Papen - Vice Chancellor under Hindenburg, and lesser known figures, In the Garden of Beasts is a riveting and informative read. Early reports say that Tom Hanks and Natalie Portman have been cast in the film project which is currently in development.

The Night Manager, by John le Carré (214 pp)

I’ve just finished reading all of John le Carré’s twenty-three novels (including the somewhat obscure Naïve and Sentimental Lover). I’m a fan and student of le Carré’s his writing, and a devotee of the spy novel genre. Wikipedia notes that in a BBC interview with John le Carré (a pen name for David John Moore Cornwell), the author was asked to name his Best of le Carré list, to which the novelist answered: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tailor of Panama and The Constant Gardener. I, of course, love these novels, with a special fondness for Tinker Tailor Solder Spy and all of the George Smiley books. I find myself, however, reflecting back on The Night Manager as a notable member of my personal top four list for this author.

Wikipedia places the book in this context: “With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, le Carré's writing shifted to portrayal of the new multilateral world. For example, The Night Manager, his first completely post-Cold-War novel, deals with drug and arms smuggling in the murky world of Latin America drug lords, shady Caribbean banking entities, and look-the-other-way western officials.”

Unlike a majority of le Carré’s which involve people already in the spy trade–or who are at least ingrained within the government and its secret agendas and find themselves more deeply and involuntarily entangled in it–The Night Manager depicts Jonathan Pine, a British soldier turned luxurious hotel night auditor . Pine experiences a series of events that compel him to take an action which drives him straight into the heart a precarious situation, to offer his services to a secret British agency, to balance the scales of justice. There’s a clarity and directness to the novelist’s story and character moves, that are less moody and equivocal than le Carré’s others, and in turn deliver a more traditional and satisfying (to this American reader’s palate) denouement. While there are rich shadings on to all the character’s sense of moral compass, as is traditional in le Carré’s stories, this book gave me someone to root for more emphatically, rather than bear witness to actions and sometimes tragic consequences as they unfold in many of le Carré’s story worlds. And there’s a nice love story. A number of le Carré’s books have been made into movies, and I see that this is now being prepared as a six part television series for BBC television (for 2016 release). I think it will translate well into that medium.

Roy Huggins on Verisimilitude

I’d first met Roy Huggins when he was producing The Rockford Files. It was a favor to my dad, who had gone to college with Roy. I’d written a spec script for Rockford, but the competition was stiff for and assignment with this popular NBC show, and it was not till years later that I actually got to work with him.

For a young writer in television, Roy Huggins was a legend. He created and produced The Fugitive, Maverick, and 77 Sunset Strip. He had co-created The Rockford Files with Stephen Cannell, and it was for Stephen J. Cannell Productions that I first came to work with Roy. His bright red hair had turned snow white in the meanwhile, and he was now the Executive Producer for NBC’s hit cop drama Hunter. I was fortunate to be writing one of the first episodes of the season two, and Roy took extra time with me, not just giving me notes on my script, but also going into great detail sharing some of his wisdom from his long tenure in the screenwriting trade. I recorded these notes on a series of audio cassettes, and still listen to them on occasion. There was one writing note he made in those meetings, however, that stood out as a defining point in refining my writing. There was a piece of action I had written in a chase scene to which he called special critical attention.

At that time Cannell’s shows were well known for The A-Team and Hardcastle and McCormick, popular primetime series that had their share of action which stretched plausibility. Unconsciously following that mold, I’d written the Hunter action scene with moves that, while could have happened, simply did not make logical sense in the real world. And it was at this juncture that Roy spoke about the difference between ‘fictive’ versus ‘fiction’ in writing. He said while the preceding season of Hunter indeed had elements that were quite fictive, which were moments that were larger than life, meant to entertain, but in the final analysis did not feel real, the new Hunter was going for gritty realism. Under a different Executive Producer, the first season of Hunter was basically a ‘Crazy Guy of the Week’ story model, which Roy hated and was determined to change. He also talked about how in literature and quality film, it was those artists who were able to create something that felt real, were the ones who had achieved something of substance in their craft and in their careers. All the rest was something more like cartoons in his view, and not worthy of serious consideration.

In dialog, this sensibility also translated into avoiding those witty quips one might hear from the hero when they are under fire from the bad guys. This show strove to sweat the details of achieving what made a moment real and powerful, rather than a light fluffy distraction. I was thankful to have Roy’s tutorship at this time when the series was undergoing a fundamental philosophical and architectural change and to have the reasoning behind it narrated to me in an intimate one-one-one setting.

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215, By David Levering Lewis (476 pp)

David Levering Lewis, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and many other awards, offers a book that provides an insightful and invaluable depiction of the land of Islam before its rise, and the movement of Islam through its expansion from Mecca, north into Asia Minor and Persia, and west across northern Africa, to finally cross the Straits of Gibraltar to spread across the Iberian Peninsula and with an attempt to conquer France. Indeed the mandate for each successive Muslim caliphate (the main Islamic central government, led by the caliph) was jihad (to spread Islam in any way needed), which meant in practice to expand the existing Islamic empire through war and conquest. Long before the European Christians launched the Crusades into the Holy Land, Muslims had been striving to expand into Europe and conquer it, and Islamic military history has its share of slaughter and mayhem. And contrary to the Crusaders goal of controlling the Holy Land so that Christian pilgrims could worship in peace, the Muslims were engaged in a centuries-long strategy of continual expansion of the caliphate, with the ultimate goal of establishing their faith as the one and only faith of the world.

In the vacuum of unified central power left after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Islamic expansionism reached Europe in 711 and was not ultimately turned back till 1492. Indeed Europe was under constant threat from Islam for over three hundred years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade. The historic Battle of Poitiers was a critical contest that would decide the very fate of Europe, where the Islamic expansionism was ultimately stopped and turned back. It was in contemporary accounts of this battle that the first reference to the term ‘Europeans’ is found. We also learn about Charles the Great—Charlemagne—and his critical role in uniting Europe, as well as the history of his grandfather Charles Martel—Charles the Hammer—who was also a critical figure in stemming the aggressive Muslim tide in Europe.

NYU Professor Lewis expels many preconceptions of the history of Islam, especially with its chapter of European control. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and found it easy for the lay person to read. It is rich in maps, and a timeline for helpful reference. I think with the current cultural debate of ‘what is Islam, and how does it fit in today’s world culture?’ that it is important for people of inform themselves, and understand the critical historical points of reference on this charged subject. I found God’s Crucible to be written from a neutral perspective, encouraging informed discussion on my part when I find myself in a conversation about this subject. I especially found the story of Mohammed compelling reading, and how the two branches of Islam split—the Sunni and the Shia—and how much that division has impacted world events today. You also learn interesting tidbits, such as the origin of the word Saracen, the medieval term Europeans used for Muslims: saraceni is Latin for ‘people of the tents.’

Napoleon’s Pyramids, by William Dietrich (376 pp)

This is one of those book encounters where you see a novel (and an author’s name) for the first time at Barnes & Noble, and it catches your eye. The graphics of the hard back sleeve compelled me to check it out, then the description of the story pushed me on to purchase. There you have it: a classic case of judging a book by its cover. The subject matter of the Napoleon’s Pyramids struck a chord for me since it dealt with subject matter I’m interested in, and the time and place of the story preceded and slightly overlapped the setting of my second book Sub Rosa – The Lost Formula. Napoleon’s Pyramids takes place about sixteen years earlier than my novel, and I was interested to see how the author treated the time, the genre and the elements of the story. I wasn’t disappointed, but I was a little surprised.

I thought the cover graphics spoke more of a serious-toned historical thriller, with a hint of an esoteric theme, but the read ended up being a bit irreverent and wise-cracking. Written from the first person perspective, Napoleon’s Pyramids follows the adventures of Ethan Gage, Ben Franklin’s assistant at one time, an expatriate American adventurer, and a man on the run. He must scramble out of Paris, with the local gendarmerie in pursuit, and finds himself on his way to join Napoleon’s army on the Egyptian campaign. Gage is something of an impertinent bad boy of an adventurer, a gambler and womanizer, who loves to see what’s over the next hill. And it’s the result of one of his gambling wins that sent him hurtling out of the city to see what fate might offer him next. His prize from the gambling table, however, is a mysterious ancient artifact (pictured on the cover) which others seek zealously and ruthlessly, and the relic ties directly into an esoteric secret whose key is in Egypt, the very place Gage is headed.

I enjoyed the read, and came to appreciate Gage’s cheeky style in the midst of a fast-moving historical thriller with supernatural touches. Think Indiana Jones meets Napoleon. William Dietrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, historian and naturalist had written five novels before this, as well as three non-fiction titles. Following Napoleon’s Pyramids, the first of the Ethan Gage novels, Dietrich went on to write six more at the time of this writing (The Rosetta Key, The Dakota Cipher, The Barbary Pirates, The Emerald Storm and Three Emperors). I’ve read the first four. I recommend this book as a light, quick read that provides interesting historical insights. It’s a fast-paced entertaining tale. The Rosetta Key, the following episode in the Gage series, is equally satisfying.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman

I began to read this book over twenty-five years ago. It had been recommended by a classmate from Amherst College; I recall I could not get beyond page 80. Since then, I’ve done a lot more historical reading, and a growing curiosity about this era in history has evolved. When I considered it again, the book caught me like wild fire. It was the first of what was to be a number of this author’s impressive collection of work I would read. As a layperson, her insightful and highly readable historical work stands as a remarkable achievement in scholarship. In my view, she is a giant in the world of mankind's knowledge of history.

In A Distant Mirror – the winner of the U.S. National Book Award in History for 1980 – Barbara Tuchman draws from unpublished chronicles of the era, as well as more widely known sources, to depict the historical events of a cataclysmic time in European history. The lens of her writing is focused through the experience of one noble family, especially on one long-lived member of that clan, French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy, whose wife was the eldest daughter of King Edward the III of England. Vividly depicting the lives of nobles as well as the common folk, Tuchman’s book covers critical events that changed the landscape of France and Europe at large, including the Black Plague, the Hundred Years' War, the Papal Schism, pillaging mercenaries, popular revolts and peasant uprisings, as well as the conflicts arising as the Islamic Ottoman Empire's advanced into Europe.

Despite my false start decades before, I found the book quite readable for the layperson. It is rich in vivid details, includes informative maps (I do love maps), and possesses a sense of soul that gives this author’s works an abundant resonance on me. I’ve gone on to read a number of her other works (The Proud Tower, The Guns of August, The Zimmerman Telegram and March of Folly), with consistent satisfaction. Two of her books some remain on my reading list (and on my bookshelf, thanks to the Agoura Hills Library Book Cellar (in Southern California), with hardbacks for $1.00 each): Stilwell and the American Experience in China and The Bible and the Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour. Reading any book by Barbara Tuchman is guaranteed to enrich your life.

Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom

I am an avid fan of Bernard Cornwell. He is for me the master of historical fiction. Some say he is the next Patrick O’Brian of Master and Commander fame (who I have also read). In my view he has far surpassed O’Brian’s great body of work. At this writing, I’ve read fourteen of Mr. Cornwell’s more than fifty novels. I began with his Sharpes novels (set in Spain during Napoleon’s campaign), have read most of his Starbuck Chronicles from the Civil War, enjoyed the Grail Quest series set during the Hundred Years War, and more. They all depict different periods of history, with faithfully researched fast-moving stories, rich characters, heart, humor and always vividly described action with details that evoke the cinema in the mind’s eye. My favorite series is the Saxon Stories (aka The Warrior Chronicles) of which The Last Kingdom is the first book.

I read The Pale Rider first, knowing it was the second in the Saxon Stories series, because it was at the Agoura Hills Book Cellar (hardbacks for $1.00), and I, by policy, grab any Cornwell title I don’t already have. (I had the sixth book in the series already, but not the first.) I was interested in reading the second book in a series, before the first, to see if I somehow felt like it was an incomplete experience. I loved it as a standalone read. It gave me a rich insight into a piece of history of which I only had a general knowledge: the late ninth and early tenth century England, the era when the Viking hold on the region was tenacious, and one man had a vision of unification for the land: Alfred the Great.

The main character of The Last Kingdom—and Saxon Stories series—is Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg. He narrates his story in the first person, an old man, remembering his storied life as a witness and participant in the historic forming of England under the leadership of Alfred the Great. Alfred was the first king with the vision and the plan to bring England under one rule, and the only English king to be titled “the Great.” Born of an old Saxon family which had lived for years in the coastal fortified town of Bebbanburg in Northumbria—(what is now the part of England just south of Scotland on the English Channel)—Uhtred recounts his days as a boy, captured by the Vikings, and nurturing the old pagan ways of worship, only to find himself later, a seasoned young warrior, fighting on the side of Alfred. Not yet known as "The Great", Alfred was king of Wessex, the southernmost kingdom of the land. Uhtred’s struggle to maintain his personal integrity with the pagan gods, and balancing it against Alfred’s devout Christianity, is juxtaposed with the Saxon's undying dream to return to Bebbanburg and reclaim his title as Alfred maintains his dedicated, and sometimes desperate, struggle against the Vikings. Uhtred’s allegiances are conflicted. Feeling loyalty and warmth toward some Vikings lords, while harboring blood feud rivalries with others, Uhtred is Alfred’s most potent weapon against the Vikings. But Alfred also feels he can never truly trust Uhtred. The Last Kingdom was a rich entertaining, page-turner, and I was compelled to forge on through more of the riveting Saxon Stories. I then read the third through sixth books in the series: Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land and Death of Kings. I’ve got two more to go.

NOTE: Check out Bernard Cornwell's Reading Club, where my book Sub Rosa - Sanctuary's End is posted.