Book Beginnings: The War on the West

 Linking up with Rose City Reader's weekly Book Beginnings

The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason by Douglas Murray (2022)

"In recent years it has become clear that there is a war going on: a war on the West. This is not like earlier wars, where armies clash and victors are declared. It is a cultural war, and it is being waged remorselessly against all the roots of the Western tradition and against everything good that the Western tradition has produced.''

Murray, a British author and journalist, describes “Western” societies as European countries or countries descended from European civilization. He wrote this book to address the one-sided view of the West that has come from ‘politicians, academics, historians, and activists who are saying things that are not simply incorrect or injudicious but flat-out false.’

''In order to be able to judge the West, you would have to know at least some of the history of the rest. The only thing modern western populations are more ignorant about than their own history is the history of other people outside the West. Yet such knowledge is surely a prerequisite to being able to arrive at any moral judgements.”

The author sites a poll of young British people carried out in 2016 that found that 50% had never heard of Lenin and 70% had no idea who Mao was. 41% of 16- to 24-year-olds who had grown up after the fall of the Berlin Wall had positive feelings about socialism, while 28% felt the same sentiments about capitalism:

“One possible reason for this is that 68 percent said they had never learned anything in school about the Russian Revolution.’’

From the back cover:

“If the history of humankind is one of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it?’’

I'm about a third of the way through this book and although the subject matter is heavy at times, the author is articulate and thoughtful. His thoughts on the dearth of historical knowledge, although not surprising, is alarming. 

Book Beginnings

 Each week Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings:

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

I've just started a book I've had for a while: The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman, which was published in 1962. Tuchman was a superb writer, and for this work she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. The book concentrates on the first month of World War I and opens with this paragraph:

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

In the Foreword of my copy of the book, Robert K. Massie said that the paragraph above took her eight hours to complete.

Barbara Tuchman had a sardonic sense of humour which she used to describe some of William II, the German Emperor (Kaiser)'s antics. He hated his uncle and had come to England to 'bury Edward his bane; Edward the arch plotter, as William conceived it, of Germany's encirclement...'

He flew into one of his rages and scolded (King Leopold) for putting respect for Parliament and Ministers above respect for the finger of God (with which William sometimes confused himself).

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey (1929)

This is the first in Tey’s Inspector Grant series of which there are only six, which is unfortunate because Alan Grant one of the most likeable detectives in fiction. 

The Man in the Queue is a mystery surrounding the stabbing murder of a man who was lined up outside a London theatre waiting to be admitted to the last performance of a popular musical. No one had witnessed his murder and the press of people around him kept him upright until the doors to the theatre opened and he fell forwards.
He had nothing upon his person to reveal his identity and a loaded revolver was found in his pocket.
Inspector Grant is brought in to cover the investigation and by a painstaking process and some good luck, he manages to identify the victim and from there, the prime suspect.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the exploration of circumstantial evidence: how facts, evidence, and motives come together to pinpoint a suspect. In Grant’s mind there was a clear case to incriminate his suspect, but something felt wrong. What if all this was merely a series of accidents that were completely unrelated? What if he had arrested the wrong man?

‘Was the man by any remotest possibility telling the truth? If not, he was the most cold-blooded wretch Grant had ever had the unhappy lot to meet. But the man appeared unconscious of Grant’s scrutiny; he seemed wholly absorbed in his story. If this was acting, it was the best Grant had ever seen, and he deemed himself a connoisseur.’

Josephine Tey’s books are always satisfying reads and I enjoyed this one as much as her others. Being the first book in the series I thought it would lack some finesse but she didn’t disappoint.
The only quibble I have, if you could really call it that, is that her description of Detective Alan Grant in her first book didn’t match another description that stayed in my mind after reading The Daughter of Time. In The Daughter of Time Grant is confined to a hospital bed after an accident on the job and was wincing at the indignity of being thrown around by a small nurse he nicknamed the midget.

‘…she dealt with his six-feet-odd with an off-hand ease that Grant found humiliating.’

For years I pictured Grant as a tall, solid, garrulous type of fellow and then I read this in The Man in the Queue, which didn’t sit with the picture I had in my mind after reading The Daughter of Time:

‘If Grant had an asset beyond the usual ones of devotion to duty and a good supply of brains and courage, it was that the last thing he looked like was a police officer. He was of medium height and slight in build, and he was – now, if I say dapper, of course you will immediately think of something like a tailor’s dummy, something perfected out of all individuality, and Grant is most certainly not that; but if you can visualize a dapperness that is not of the tailor’s dummy type, then that is Grant.’

The resolution of this mystery came out of the blue and was as unpredictable as it was clever. Once again Tey has Grant romping around the Scottish Highlands which is always a treat.

Death Makes a Prophet by John Bude (1947)

The British Library has been reprinting some neglected old British Crime Classics. I counted 99 in my last check. The last time I looked there were about seventy-four books by a variety of authors including Freeman Wills Croft, George Bellairs, E.C.R. Lorac, John Bude and others. They're rather expensive to buy here but I have found a couple secondhand and picked up some more when I was in the U.K .a couple of years ago.

I've enjoyed a few by John Bude and thought this one looked promising so I bought a new copy. I didn’t regret my pick and thoroughly enjoyed this droll, and at times a little dark, crime novel.

The Children of Osiris was a cult created and led by the High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann, a widower with an only son, Terence, who was twenty-one years of age at the time of this story.

The cult, adopting the initials of their full title, referred to their doctrine as the Cult of Coo, or Cooism. Their dogmas included a mixture of Ancient Egyptian beliefs and bits and pieces of lesser-known religions with a modern twist.

The Cult of Coo believed in ‘magic numbers, astrology, auras, astral bodies, humility, meditation, vegetarianism, immortality, hand-woven tweeds and brotherly love.’ Mildmann was a sincere, dreamy man who believed Cooism was the key to all life’s mysteries.

‘His best ideas had always come to him when sunk in a self-imposed trance, or, as he pithily expressed it, “during a phase of Yogi-like non-being.” (“Non-being” figured as a very important factor in the Cult of Coo, though nobody seemed able to define its exact significance.)’

When he moved to the trendy Welworth Garden City in the 1940’s he found the right soil for his ideas and before long a group of intellectuals ripe for the picking. When the Hon. Mrs. Hagge-Smith came on the scene she totally embraced Cooism and became Mildmann’s patron and financial backer.

The author spends the first half of the book building the scene for a murder by introducing the various characters associated with the cult; their backgrounds, quirks, ambitions and petty jealousies. The second half of the book is more serious, although it still has some sparks of humour, and it’s here that Inspector Meredith makes his first appearance.

There are some bizarre and baffling circumstances for Meredith to untangle. This book was quite different to The Lakes District Murder, mostly because of the humorous aspects that Bude scattered throughout, but also because the plot didn’t go into intricate details about things that I knew nothing about.

Some of my favourite parts are those that deal with Terence. Here was an athletic, practical young man with the appetite of a horse and the physique of a boxer. He was the very antithesis of his father who ‘had done everything to undermine his normality.’ From clamping down on his tremendous appetite with a strict vegetarian diet, giving him a very small allowance of sixpence a week, requiring him to wear ‘rational clothing’ which included shorts in the middle of winter, and making him a Symbol-bearer in the Temple.

One day Terence met Denise, Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s secretary and immediately fell in love with her. She didn’t mind him either.

‘Terence…shot a quick glance at the miracle in his midst and asked abruptly:

“I say, don’t think this is rude of me, but do you have manifestations?”

“Manifestations?”

It sounded as if he were referring to insects or pimples.

“Yes, you know – astral visions and all that sort of thing. Spirit shapes.”

“No – I can’t say that I do. I dream rather a lot after a late supper. But I’m not at all psychic, if that’s what you mean.”

“I am,” announced Terence, to Denise’s surprise. “I’m always having astral manifestations. I get quite a kick out of it.” His eyes assumed a dreamy expression and then suddenly narrowed, as if he were trying, there and then, to penetrate the Veil. “It’s marvellous sometimes how clearly I see things. They’re so terribly realistic.”

“Things?” enquired Denise. “What things?”

“Steaks mostly. But sometimes its mutton-chops or steak and kidney pudding. I just have to close my eyes, relax my mind and body, and there they are…You think it’s blasphemous of me to see things like that, don’t you? I know it’s not very high-minded, but -”

“I don’t think anything of the sort. I think it’s very clever of you to see anything at all.”

Terence just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for peanut cutlets and raw cabbage and he confessed to his new-found friend that he went on the binge the week before and spent ten-weeks pocket money on a good feed.

Inspector Meredith always considered this investigation involving the Children of Osiris to be one of the most interesting, bizarre and exacting of all his cases. I thought it was an unusual mix for a murder mystery but very enjoyable.

Learning with Literature

 During March, Kylie at The Sweet Spot Society is hosting a series of live events on her private off-Facebook community. These will be free, but you will need to register to attend. Sign up at the Sweet Spot link above.

In my session on the 14th of March, we'll be looking at how to instill the love of reading into our children, reading instruction in the early years, investing in our own intellectual lives (known as “Mother Culture’’ in the Charlotte Mason community) and its importance not only for us, but in particular, for our children as they head into the teen years. If we have time, I'll also talk about university entry for home educators in Australia.

Hope to see you there!

We Love L. M. Montgomery Week!

 This week is a celebration of all things L.M. Montgomery. Hamlette is hosting a blog party and you are invited to join in. There are games and prizes to be won or you may just read one of her stories, her poetry, or a biography about the author herself. 

A couple of books by Montgomery that I've enjoyed and written about are:

Anne of Avonlea

Rilla of Ingleside

Places of Interest:

L.M. Montgomery Online

Order of L.M. Montgomery Books

Canadian Encyclopedia

From My Commonplace Book - Elizabeth Goudge

 

📚 Elizabeth Goudge’s book, ‘The Child From the Sea,’ first published in 1970, is set around the time of the English Civil War. Lucy Walters, the main character, is devastated when her mother leaves her father. Lucy and her brothers are torn between their loyalty to them both…the tangled threads. This passage where her grandmother on her mother’s side is speaking to Dr. Cosin, a Royalist and high churchman, explains why Lucy decides to go with her father:

“…inborn loyalty has a fearsome strength and can cloud our thinking more than any other emotion.”

“Why do you say a fearful strength?” asked Mrs. Gwinne. “Is loyalty not admirable?”

“Certainly. Do we not suspect turncoats? and rightly. They are not usually good men. But very occasionally they may be. The threads of the web are tangled, madam. That is the tragedy of a world riddled by sin.”

“And you?” asked Mrs. Gwinne.

A smile softened Dr. Cosin’s rugged face. “Madam, I have thought deeply about these things, but I am a hot-tempered man and like all such men deeply committed. I love the King, whose chaplain I am, and the Church of England is my firstborn. That last sentence, madam, is one that could be written on my tombstone.”

It had been a dialogue between the two of them, for Mrs. Gwinnes thoughts had wandered to the book beside his plate, and Lucy could not understand all they said. But she knew about the tangled threads for she had discovered them at home in Wales, and she understood what loyalty was. There was disagreement in her home, forcing her to decision, and day by day for months past her heart had been like a ball tossed backwards and forwards between father and mother. Now, looking at Dr. Cosin’s sternly resolved face, it seemed that her heart was at rest as she thought of her father. “He is my firstborn,” she said to herself. 

Later on in the book... 

'...the dilatory reluctance of the law had as yet brought no settlement between William and Elizabeth, only increasing bitterness that shamed their children, but Lucy was learning to live both with the longing and the shame, to love her father as her firstborn and her mother as much as she could, and to pay no attention to what they said about each other. She was like a mother with two quarrelling children confined in different rooms, and went from one to the other with tolerant tenderness.'

For the Family's Sake - Thoughts on each chapter

 

• Preface & Chapter 1: Who Needs a Home?
• Chapter 2: Home – the best Growing Ground for Children
• Chapter 3: The Road of Life
• Chapter 4: This is Where I Put my Feet up and Thank God
• Chapter 5: The Home’s Weight-Bearing Beams
• Chapter 6: Taking Time & Care to Create the Home’s Atmosphere
• Chapter 7: The Glory of the Usual or Jack of All Trades
• Chapter 8: The Infrastructure of Routine
• Chapter 9: Of Beds, Balance, & Books
• Chapter 10: Contentment, Thanks & Enjoyment
• Chapter 11: Choose Wisely and Leave Time for the Daily Rhythms.
• Chapter 12: Early Days, Vital Days
• Chapter 13: Homes & Life in Community
• Chapter 14: A Look at the Everyday All Around Us – All Year Long

A Read Along

 

For details please see: Read Along | journey & destination (journeydestination.org)

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (1922)

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini is an exciting adventure story which begins around 1685 when King James II was on the throne of England.

Peter Blood was a thirty-two year old Irish physician who had taken service with the Dutch under the great admiral de Ruyter and fought against France. He spent two years in a Spanish prison and later served with the French in their wars against the Spanish Netherlands.
As the story opens, he was in England working as a doctor, when an attempt was made by the Duke of Monmouth (the illegitimate son of Charles II and Lucy Walter) to overthrow James II after Charles’ death.
Blood watched the men of the town as they rallied under Monmouth’s banner head off to what he knew would be ignominious defeat. It was no concern to him and that night he went to bed early and didn’t wake until 4 a.m. with the sound of hammering on his door.
Blood was called urgently to treat a young nobleman wounded in the rebellion during the night; a man who had been a friendly and generous patron to him and to whom he felt indebted.
This act of mercy was to change his life.

Two months later Blood was brought to trial on a charge of high treason before the infamous Judge Jeffreys. Narrowly escaping the gallows, Blood was sentenced to ten years of slavery in Barbados.
At the first opportunity that presented itself, he devised a means of escaping with a group of slaves. This made a life of piracy their only option.
What follows is a colourful, high spirited tale involving romance, piracy and a good dose of historical detail.

Captain Blood engaged me from the very first page and never let up with its twists and knife edge escapades. He is a very likeable character, who, despite being involved in piracy, is a man of moral character - you’ll have to read the book to understand this paradox.
Swashbuckling it definitely is. Sabatini was an exceptional writer and it is not surprising that this book quickly became a best-seller after it was published and is still in print.

I was looking through the ‘Old Favourites’ section of a Lifeline book-sale a couple of years ago and an elderly man asked me if I’d seen any books by Rafael Sabatini and explained how wonderful they were. I’d only read Scaramouche so I’ve kept a lookout ever afterwards and picked up a few of his books.
Captain Blood has been reprinted by Dover Publications; they price their books well but they’re not really robust which is a problem when you have a book like this that demands to be read by everyone in the family.
Highly recommended for teen readers or anyone who likes a ripper of an adventure story based on historical events.
Fortunately, Sabatini was a prolific author and his books are available on Kindle quite cheaply.

‘…in the Caribbean, the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel de Espinosa might be said - to use a term not yet invented in his day - to have run amok. The disgrace into which he had fallen as a result of the disasters suffered at the hands of Captain Blood had driven the Admiral all but mad. It is impossible, if we impose our minds impartially, to withhold a certain sympathy from Don Miguel. Hate was now this unfortunate man’s daily bread, and the hope of vengeance an obsession to his mind. As a madman he went raging up and down the Caribbean seeking his enemy, and in the meantime, as an hors-d’oeuvre to his vindictive appetite, he fell upon any ship of England or of France that loomed above his horizon.’

Goodbye Blogspot - a final post

 After 9 years on Blogger I have decided to move to WordPress. I've spent too much time fiddling around with technology in the last little while and will be happy just to get back to writing!

My new address is: JOURNEYDESTINATION.ORG 

Come and check it out and tell me what you think. And try out the comment section (hopefully an improvement on the Blogger experience) & follow via email! 

Thanks to the blogging friends who helped me and gave up their time to chat and email. Much appreciated!

Cheerio!

Update: All the content from this blog has been transferred over to journey & destination @ Wordpress; AmblesideOnline posts & Australian substitutes have been updated and are listed here.

I have 9 years worth of links from Pinterest & other blogs linked to this blog so I've re-opened it so those aren't lost completely but new content will be posted on the other blog. Sign up over there if you'd like to keep following.