anonymous, circa. 1100, translated by John O’Hagan around 1885, read as an e-book from BlackMask.com.

There are three kinds of war reporting: the first, by journalists who are independent of any side in the conflict, who wander around in harm’s way to report what’s going on; the second, by so-called “embedded” reporters, who are essentially information officers of one of the sides in the conflict; and the third, by the historians and tale-tellers who were not present and who recast any events according to their own studies, prejudices, and opinions. The Song of Roland falls beyond this last sort, and forces us to concede a fourth type of war reporter, viz, the mythologist.

The Song of Roland is a medieval propaganda piece designed to show the nobility of dying for your monarch, especially if it involves taking a few hundred thousand infidels along with you. As is to be expected from a mythic retelling, the noble are absolutely noble, and the base are absolutely base. Interestingly, though, there is a certain nobility amongst the royalty of the infidel enemy (an “Emir of Balaguet” is honored with the statement “were he Christian, nobler baron none,” shortly before meeting his demise).

But the noble Frankish chavaliers are a pretty bad-ass bunch. When slaying this or that infidel knight, they were not content to merely hew them with swords or pierce them with lances, oh no, we are given almost pornographic gleeful descriptions of swords passing through helmets and heads, down through armor and chest, down through the saddle, and splitting the spines of the unfortunate steeds. In case we don’t pick up on the fact that the noble Frankish chevaliers are tough, we get this scene repeated with minor variations nearly a dozen times.

Reading this made me realize that popular narrative hasn’t changed a great deal in the last thousand years. Sure, there have been some localized shifts in values here and there, but The Song of Roland was not unlike the Rambo of its day. The good guys win because they’re Good (and God is on their side), and the bad guys, for the most part, are lance fodder. The spoils of victory have changed somewhat; while Rambo emerges unscathed from the conflict, anxious for his sequel, Roland’s victory is a noble death, the praise of his monarch, and guaranteed entrance to heaven.

It also pointed out how much religion has changed. Christianity seems far less concerned with the glory of martyrdom today, and shies away from the forced conversions for which The Song lauds Charlemagne. The ignorance of the beliefs of the “infidels” certainly remains (witness statements by various Evangelical leaders in the U.S.).

Johann Cristoph Friedrich von Schiller (Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison), c. 1793, as published in an e-book at BlackMask.com

The Holy Roman Empire in the early 1600s comprised the Austro-Hungarian hegemony, and, to a varying extents, the numerous small princely holdings that make up what is now Germany and parts of Eastern Europe. The Reformation had been stirring things up for a little over a hundred years, and the religious makeup of the Empire was also quite heterogeneous (although individual states were not). This is the tinder which was consumed by the Thirty Years War, which, by some accounts, resulted in the reduction of Germany’s population by nearly 70%.

I am the first to admit ignorance of history. I was, for example, completely unaware of the Swedish conquest of Europe. I knew that the Thirty Years war had been a bad thing, but was ignorant of the extent to which it devastated the German states. Schiller tells how armies were raised by princes and generals who could not afford to pay the troops, expressly so the armies would plunder and terrorize the population in enemy lands. Yet any land occupied by an enemy army became enemy land, so peasants would bear the brunt of “friend” and foe alike. In many cases, friendly armies had to defend against the citizenry for whom they ostensibly fought. Furthermore, warfare was getting “modern,” with artillery and firearms. A battle between two armies could result in 15,000 deaths in a single day. Coupled with conscription of peasants, sieges against cities, and intentionaly laying waste to fields in order to starve an area and make it impassible to armies for want of supplies, it is a wonder that such brutal warfare could be sustained for as long as it was.

Schiller biases are reasonably clear, he he attempts to give an even-handed presentation. He’ll tell of an individual like Wallenstein or Frederick, and fill the retelling with harsh judgements and criticism, but will always have a short summary of their characters, where he will be full of mitigated praise (e.g., “The virtues of the ruler and of the hero, prudence, justice, firmness, and courage are strikingly prominent features in his character; but he wanted the gentler virtues of the man, which adorn the hero and make the ruler beloved.”) Schiller shows that religion and state were the excuses for the war, but greed, arrogance, ambition, and strategy were its true motivators.

Reading this book left me even more thankful to be living when and where I am, while being keenly aware that this is a very small and privileged bubble in time and region. World-wide, not enough has changed since the Thirty Years War.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920, read as an e-Book from BlackMask.com

This collection of short stories deals with the bored daughters of the super-wealthy, jaded society girls, lucky ne’erdowells, fallen philosophers, and other (perhaps less expected) characters. The stories vary in tone, in how convincing they are, and general depth:

• “The Offshore Pirate” was somewhat weak and predictable; the best part of this story was its early descriptions of the spoiled, bratty Ardita, the Paris Hilton of her set.
• “The Ice Palace” is one of the best of the collection, which deals with regionalism, relationships, and the lies we tell ourselves when we think we’re following a dream.
• “Head and Shoulders,” while contrived, told a good story of the twists of fate and changes to plans that love can bring.
• “The Cut Glass Bowl” was a second rate story, but did get in some digs at society mores.
• “Bernice Bobs her Hair” is an interesting exploration of the battle for status in the leisure class. Direct and brutal, it’s one of those stories I’d had to read in high school, and therefore didn’t properly appreciate. It really highlights Fitzgerald’s understanding of human interaction, and the ways people establish social hierarchies.
• “Benediction” is the most subtle of set, and has more complicated characters than the others.
• “Dalyrimple Goes Wrong” is a simple tale of the downtrodden worker being turned to crime, and thus to politics. Amusing, but forgettable.
• “The Four Fists” is a fun conceit about an ordinary fellow who gets punched into moral behavior, and thus great success.

Fitzgerald’s greatest strength seems to be exploring the inner dialogues of the desperate and disaffected, although he also excels at a sort of insider critique of upper class American culture and the mythology it creates for itself.

Oliver Sacks, Vintage, 2004.

These are less a memoir than the story of a boy’s recapitulation of the discoveries of pre-Quantum chemistry. Sacks tells the story of his love affair with chemistry, as fostered by his Uncles (including the eponymously apellated Uncle Tungsten). His enthusiasm is contagious, and his highs of discovery made me want to rush out and buy a chemistry kit … although, as he points out, today’s chemistry sets are sadly hamstrung by the removal of anything that could be dangerous — which is to say, anything interesting. His interweaving of stories of stinkbombs and metallic sodium explosions with the history of how these same chemical processes became understood makes the history accessible — not to mention more impressive.
It made me think about the knowledge that is today taken for granted (e.g., the air we breathe is a mixture of gases, and different kinds of “air” can be emitted from various chemical reactions), and the profundity of these discoveries.
Perhaps I learned less about the chemical properties of various elements than I could have from this book, but I certainly did take away a sense of the history of chemistry, a sense of the magic, and a sense of the enormously exciting environment of discovery that took place through the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

F. Scott Fizgerald, 1922, read as an e-book from BlackMask.com

There is little to say about Fitzgerald that has not been said (with copious references and footnotes) by my betters. So I will merely say that this book has little to recommend it if you’re looking for sympathetic characters, an engaging plot, or even a rollicking good story. It’s a long book for the events it describes. The main characters are frustratingly shallow, misguided, and objectionable on virtually every level.
But don’t take any of this as a recommendation to avoid the book.
The Beautiful and the Damned has an astonishing collection of descriptions of people in circumstances that are so evocative that you could swear you’d been there. It features goosebump-inducing descriptions of people’s internal dialogue that ring frighteningly true. Fitzgerald makes their despair and desperation palpable. You’ll find yourself sharing the characters’ frequent need for a drink. And some of their less-shallow moments of self-reflection are nothing short of beautiful.