There are books that exist that are reads and then there are books that exist that are experiences. The Splendid and The Vile is most assuredly the latter. It is not simply history one is reading, but a moment in time brought to life by an author who has spent a long time performing the research to understand the work. Indeed, it appears that from the idea of the book–that is to say the first decision that such a book needed to be written to publication according to the author’s statement–was an interval of 20 years. He mentions that moving to New York and experiencing 9-11 was his impetus. It was a decision well-made.
Churchill’s England in the dawn of WWII is usually told from America’s entry into the war forward. It therefore misses much of what Britain was undergoing previous to the entry of America. Much of the text indicates Churchill’s firm conviction that America would have to enter the war one way or another in order for a military victory to be possible. Though Churchill must bolster the strength of his own nation so as to make it not appear needy, it is clear that behind the scenes there was a desperation as the casualties and consequences of the bombing of London began to mount. Clearly, the pride of the historical relations between America and England had to be submitted to a greater threat in order to find unity and cooperation against a danger to both nations.
What makes Larson’s writing pop off the page are the little bits of details he has unearthed. In one instance where are thrust into a nightclub where some of the London’s upper class are trying to escape from the realities of the war only in the next instance to finding their entire escape a scene of horror and destruction as a bomb crashes through the roof and kills those who were seconds before out for a good night on the town. We learn that those left are in some way unfazed by this or shocked such that they simply go somewhere else to continue to the party assuming that those who died wanted them to do so. One of the patrons even remarks how “bizarre” this course of action feels in hindsight.
We also learn about other people who are trying to live life in London that are caught up in the middle of the war with a variety of everyday responses–from resolve to victimization. We learn about coping strategies which evidently included a whole lot of sex in the face of immense amounts of destruction. We learn about the struggles with Churchill’s own family and children, and strangely we also learn how Churchill seems to be animated by the backdrop of all these factors–like his unique destiny was to manage this crisis which would disturb anyone else to the point of being nonfunctional. The way he manages his own self during this time is with alcohol, baths, and cigars.
In the meantime, there are car wrecks and explosions and destruction and yet when Churchill comes to view the scenes the people seem to love him despite all terrible hardships. Perhaps this is because Churchill frankly states that the only thing he has to offer from the onset is “blood, sweat, toil and tears”. He certainly delivered on that promise, although he tried to mitigate it to the best of his ability. Like many leaders before a crisis, he is prevented from solving the issue in part by the parties and politicians around him. We see that it does in fact, wear on him, and that he does love the people who are being blown to bits.
He “beams like a young boy” when he gets to test fire new military weapons, and he presses forward on various military strategy and weapons he believes will help Britain win the war. He is a huge fan of technology and innovation, and creates some ideas of his own about how to more effectively kill the enemy he faces. Our modern sensibilities may find this macabre, but from the perspective of winning a war, one does what one must.
Though not featured on thebooklight, the reading of this work came with a familiarity of Larson’s previous work. Though those works were good, this is, undoubtedly, the best of his work to date. Because this book was published by such a large publisher, there are plenty of cheap copies floating around out there. Do not, however, let you think that this book is therefore somehow “not quality”. Indeed, there are a million ways to spend around five dollars that will not enrich one’s life and understanding nearly as much.
Perhaps one of the last sentences of the book where Churchill is found to discover one of the children in his retinue to have been given a gift of a model train best sums up the entirety of the read. He tells the child to finish putting his tracks together. Then, he instructs him to place one of the train engines on the track. Noticing he has another train engine, he then tells the child to put that engine also on the track. Then, setting down next to the child, he says simply “Now, let’s have a crash!” Destruction, on some level, was Churchill’s play. It was a good thing he was who he was, when he was, or else, the world in which we live would be quite different indeed.
Remember about six years ago or so when suddenly everyone seemed to be an expert on Alexander Hamilton due to the release of the musical Hamilton? America seems to lag when it comes to reading history, but if someone makes a catchy, annoying musical that is quasi-historical, everyone is suddenly invested. My Dear Mr. Hamilton came out during this period. As a work of historical fiction, one expects it to be partly true, and partly contrived. On these points, there is nothing especially surprising about the work.
The problem, as noted in other reviews here at The Book Light, with historical fiction about this era of history is that the modern lens simply cannot resist interpreting what was written then through a modern mindset. Hence, Eliza Schuyler, the person whose perspective this book is written from, is actually the brains behind Hamilton and Mr. Hamilton just does not heed her advice, and so she has to deal with her “brilliant but not as smart as she is” husband. If this sounds to you like the plot of just about any sitcom from the last 20 years or so I suspect that you will discover that the overlap owes more to the modern convention than the historical fact.
Just to add another layer of modern pretense, we also get to play the “Which-founding-fathers-of-America-were-also-actually-Sodomites” take-home party game. It certainly is not the case that people were abstaining from practicing sodomy in any given time period (they simply kept it secret)–the issue however is the modern obsession with anytime one sees the word “love” written in a letter between two men of other eras the automatic conclusion is that they must have been engaged in a steamy, secret, forbidden, homosexual affair. That Hamilton was in an extra-marital affair and was blackmailed for it is factual. That this affair damaged Elizabeth Schuyler’s estimation of her husband is clear because she left him to go to her parents for some time. She eventually returned, however, and their marriage produced two more children for a total of something like eight complete children. This is not a marriage where a lack of intimacy was the norm.
To be clear, it is not to say the Elizabeth Hamilton is “less smart” than her husband. If anything, she is probably “as smart” in some other complementary way. It also is not the case that Hamilton could not have had a homosexual relationship. It is the case, however, that what commonly happened in the “old days” where marriages were concerned was that mistakes were made and most puzzling to the modern mindset actually also forgiven and moved beyond. My Dear Hamilton would have us believe that Eliza “Betsy” was simply a woman who was hurt and harbored longstanding grudges and eventually wound up rather poor after the death of Hamilton in a duel though she also started one of the first orphanages. In addition, she also started a “free school” to offer free education as well. Her main reason for doing these things was because she believed that all children should be literate enough such that they could read the Bible and study it. This is not a “bitter woman” response but rather a woman committed to Biblical values including marriage and her husband’s–imperfect though he might be–legacy. Likewise, when two men say the word “love” in the early history of America, it most often meant “brotherly”–something largely forgotten and not practiced here in contemporary times.
Modern literature with “feminist leans” and sneaky agendas completely miss these very obvious Judeo-Christian underpinnings and can only interpret in light of modern, unrestrained desires. No wonder terrible musicals have become the norm. When a people only want to relate to history as some kind of entertaining joke, it can only mean those people have themselves become jokes.
Sometimes, one can listen to a piece of music they have never heard and realize that something is discordant with the composition. Whether it be a new work, or an old re-interpretation, something just feels “off”–like the thumbprint of the original author is indelibly stamped on what should have been and the “mortal instrument” that does the rendering is lacking in properly conveying the intent. This feeling, which probably is best characterized as malaise, is present for the entire reading of this work. For one thing, the character of the work is about Eleanor of Aquitaine’s own malaise toward her marriage and duties. However, on a more immediate level there is a malaise that sometimes “Historical Fiction” induces in those who are familiar with the period and characters present in a given work. This “malaise” concerns itself with a certain noxious leakage of what would be termed a “rabid, modern liberalism” that tries to pass itself off as feminism.
While it is doubtless the case that many women did not have “great lives” concerning men and how they interacted with them in the Middle Ages–it does a disservice to women who also had ambition and drive as well as intellect that existed in those times to try to douse a given work with pagan feminist ideals from a modern vantage point. This is admixed with some more traditional “conservative” views of women who, at the core, want to find loving relationships–Queen or no.
This novel would have Eleanor have an affair with the Emperor of Constantinople, who, surprise, is serving the pagan God of Eros. Keep in mind that Eleanor of Aquitaine is the very same Queen, who with her husband Louis VII, went on a disastrous crusade to the Holy Land in an attempt to once again drive out the “infidels”.
The novel is billed as a romance, and so one suspects that most of the target audience will likely be women who are University educated–perhaps professors–and so maybe in order to help sell the book to these “smart-modern-women” the publisher leaned on the author and suggested large doses of modern heathenism to help pander to this market segment.
If anything, the Middle Ages, particularly those going on Crusades therein, were marked by a quest for piety. While infidelities and other unpleasantness surely happened, it is almost certainly not the case that those who went to the Holy Land were occupied with pagan Gods. If anything, they were saturated with an almost Messianic zeal for the land and the kingdom of Jerusalem as they saw and understood it. To convince a number of people to go into a land of “barbarians” requires some other belief than that of pagan Gods. One could do that and stay at home and as long as one was quiet about it–risking neither life nor limb.
This work then makes Eleanor feel like some kind of robot that the author decides to stick words into to make for good reading. Yes, there are facts in here. No, I doubt that Eleanor and Louis divorced on any other grounds than the lack of having any male offspring. Bad marriages, even royal ones, more often ended in death than divorces during the period. Rather, some key mojo was not working between Eleanor and Louis, and more than likely combined with the consanguinity argument there was a divine one as well–it seemed that God was not smiling on their relationship for the good not only of themselves but for the Kingdom itself. Therefore, their marriage was annulled.
Sure, historically here were rumors about Eleanor and her uncle, but almost any court had rumors and scandals and gossip–most of which proves to be untrue and hides the intrigues of someone else within the court who–having spent little coin to start such a rumor–lose little in the making of the wretched piece of mischief and gain seeing a King or Queen have to bow under the untruth of their words. The small in stature have done this to those in power for quite some time, and it therefore is not unusual to see it present in Eleanor’s time.
It was hard to read this work, since one must mute a small, silent voice in their head the entire time that suggests “most of this is untrue of this person”. Rather, one is reading about an idea that someone has concerning the ideas another person thought interpreted through a time quite distant with an immense amount of modernism brimming in the prose to try to ultimately sell copies of a book. It does little to hide these agendas, or check these impulses. Really, by the end we are almost as relieved as Eleanor that they have her off marrying Henry the II if for no other reason than that is where this book ends.
