World War II

Spy Garbo (3/6/11)

brittany — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

New York, New York

Sheila Schwartz’s Spy Garbo, an innovative multi-media production, takes place in history’s limbo, the eternal resting place of three prominent twentieth century political players. The first is Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde, played by Steven Rattazzi with a perfect mix of pomp, arrogance, and affability. The fascist leader of Spain from 1939 to 1975, Franco is displeased by his now-tarnished image and presents himself as the eternal victim, a peacemaker who did everything in his power to remain neutral during the war, a misunderstood genius who should be lionized rather than condemned.

His quest for adulation brings him into contact with two additional attention seekers. The first is Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, enacted by Steven Hauck with the stiff upper lip and rigid bearing often associated with the Third Reich. At one time, Canaris served as Hitler’s Military Intelligence Chief, but his ultimate betrayal of the Fuhrer led the Gestapo to execute him in 1945.

Franco’s second competitor is Harold Adrian Russell, aka Kim Philby—played by the excellent Chad Hoeppner with brash charm that slowly dissolves as he descends into alcoholism—another double agent who ultimately defected to the former Soviet Union where he penned the 1968 bestseller, My Secret War.

Hovering over the three is the never seen but frequently referenced Spy Garbo, a real-life Spanish double agent—identified post war as Juan Pujol Garcia—whose espionage served both Britain and Germany.

There’s much to recommend Spy Garbo, not the least being the 130-foot video screen that surrounds the audience. Throughout the production, archival footage weaves images of Hitler, Franco, and 1940’s film stars into a seamless background that is simultaneously eerie and intriguing.

“Film makes history immortal,” Franco muses as he turns toward the screen and it is clear that that he longs for the adoration that seems exclusive to movie icons. As Philby and Canaris join Franco’s lament, a horrifying truth is revealed: while most of us will recall the names of film legends decades after their passing, few will recall the spies or military strategists who orchestrate our theaters of war.

And that’s the problem with Spy Garbo. Although audiences without deep knowledge of World War II can certainly understand the overall thrust of the play, those lacking a thorough grasp of the period will miss the nuances of the production and will likely find the dialogue—sequential monologues by each actor—overly diffuse. Indeed, while it is fascinating to see the three men vie for a spot on history’s top ten list, the play would have been more successful had it framed the action with hard facts about the war.

A short narration at the beginning, for example, might have offered an overview, explaining a bit about the era. In addition, a narrator might also have linked the global conflict of sixty years ago to contemporary warfare, bridging the distance between then and now.

That said, Spy Garbo is a provocative look at the male ego and a well-directed, beautifully acted, and well-staged production. And, since the historical record is typically written by the victor, Spy Garbo underscores the subjectivity of truth, reminding us that who does the telling is as important as what we’re told about the when, where, and how of life’s ongoing dramas.

Spy Garbo will run through April 11, 2011 at 3-LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich Street, New York, NY. Tickets are $30 and can be ordered by calling the box office at 212.352.3101.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 20th 2011

Amandine

gita — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Marlena de Blasi

Ballantine Books

Set in 1930s and ‘40s in France and Poland, Amandine is Marlena de Blasi’s first work of fiction. The title character is a girl without a history. Or, at least, a history she knows. When she was just five months old, a mysterious woman deposited her in a French convent with Solange, a lay sister. Mater Paul, the head nun there, was given directions never to tell anyone claiming to be from the child’s past anything about the child, or to tell the child anything about her past or heritage, even what little that she knew. When the mysterious woman left her at the convent, the child didn’t even have a name.

Solange names the child Amandine. Although Amandine has a defective heart and is not expected to live very long, she survives, and Solange virtually never leaves her side. They live in the convent in France until Amandine is almost ten. Mater Paul has been barely hospitable during this time and, after one of the other nuns starves Amandine almost to death in a misguided attempt to protect Mater Paul, Solange and her young charge decide to leave the convent and travel to Solange’s mother’s farm in northern France. Just before they board the first train, they find out France has offered a complete surrender to Nazi Germany. Amandine spends the rest of the novel trying to reach Solange’s family.

In the meantime, Amandine’s mother finds out that her daughter, who she thought had died as an infant, is still alive. The major subplot of the story, then, is her search for her daughter amidst the chaos that was ensuing in Europe during World War II.

In reading Amandine, I found a few things distracting. First, it’s written in present tense, which is extremely difficult to write well. In this case, unfortunately, it’s more irritating than anything else.

Second, it is mostly in third person, but switches to first person perspective inexplicably two-thirds of the way into the story and switches back to third person less than thirty pages later. When I got to that part, I had to go back to make sure the perspective really had changed, and this took me out of the narrative.

Third, entire sections of many of the chapters are a single character's thoughts. While I don’t mind reading a main character’s internal dialog every now and then, especially when the character is the one narrating the story, reading pages upon pages of italics (which indicate thoughts) is a huge turn off for me. Not only that, the various thoughts are not just from one character but many characters, which makes it more difficult to keep straight without rereading earlier chapters.

Honestly, this was an okay novel; it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, either. After I got past the three major detractors, Amandine kept my attention well. There’s just enough background on the war to ground the novel, but not so much that the reader is overwhelmed, with only one exception: at one point—a few SS soldiers kill one of the major characters, though there’s barely any foreshadowing to speak of. On one page, the character is alive, and on the next, dead. This speaks to the seriousness of war even for people who have not been directly affected by it.

Written by: Viannah Duncan, October 8th 2010

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Belle Yang

W.W. Norton

I jumped at the chance to review Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, an unconventional graphic memoir from writer/artist Belle Yang. While I am no expert on graphic literature, I did devour Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series. With this medium, I enjoy (and envy) the way an artist can show emotions through inked illustrations, and use words more sparingly. Further, there is an intimacy created on the page, because the typeface and conversational style evoke a personal journal lying on a nightstand.

Yang is a Chinese-American woman, and her story, in part, tells of the identity struggles she experiences in separating from the Chinese traditions of her immigrant parents. When she travels to Beijing for art school, Yang has a chance to learn cultural history while not being bound to it.

At the outset of her tale, we see the source of Yang’s title: her Chinese name, Xuan, means “Forget Sorrow.” When Yang was thirty years old, she sought shelter from a violent boyfriend by moving back to her parents’ home. While there, she began to give shape to her father’s childhood stories in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, World War II, and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Yang writes, “I have a voice in America. I won’t waste it.”

The art in Forget Sorrow is tender, powerful, and moving. One ink illustration that stands out is Yang’s nightmare about her abuser, which captures a feeling of stark terror. In contrast, Yang’s illustrations also evoke tenderness between father and daughter, a feeling of comfort for him as he shares painful memories.

Yang’s story demonstrates ways in which strength comes from relationships. Her father’s tales are painful at times. Under communism, family relationships were made subordinate to party affiliation. Important aspects of tradition, such as honoring elders, did not apply if those elders were deemed to be landlords or capitalists. The political side of Yang’s family story makes it very clear that social change should not come at the cost of human life or dignity.

Through telling her family’s story as well as exercising her voice and her artistic vision in Forget Sorrow, Yang found new freedom. As a writer, artist, and woman, she shapes her own future.

Written by: Lisa Rand, August 23rd 2010

Atomic Mom

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by M.T. Silvia

Smartgirl Productions

I was born in 1952 and, although I don't remember public service announcements about the atom bomb like the ones M.T. Silvia includes in her feature-length documentary Atomic Mom, I do remember "bomb drills" when I was in elementary school. At least we didn't just crawl under our desks like some PSAs recommended; we went down to the sub-basement and hunkered down in the dark. I don't remember being scared, but then I don't think I had a very good idea of what the hell we were doing.

I'm not sure anyone did. One thing Atomic Mom makes clear is how little anyone really knew about the atomic bomb before and after it was dropped on Japan and effectively ended World War II. Everything associated with the bomb was top secret; there was even a United States-dictated "gag order" on the Japanese from the time the bombs were dropped until 1953. Doctors had no idea what they were dealing with, as they were not allowed to conduct research or to trade information about radiation sickness.

Even those who studied the effects of radiation didn't know exactly why they were doing it or what would be done with the information they collected. M.T. Silvia's mother, Pauline Silvia, was one of those researchers. She was assigned to the Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco during her stint in the Navy from 1952-53, where she conducted research on the effects of radiation on mice and thermal injury on dogs. She was also on site to witness five of the eleven detonations that took place in Nevada during Operation Upshot-Knothole in 1953.

Pauline Silvia compartmentalized her experiences and refused to associate her research with the development of the atomic bomb for forty years. When M.T. herself became involved in the anti-nuclear movement when she was older, her mother became furious and asked her to stop. They didn't talk about the issue for almost fifteen years. Atomic Mom is about Pauline Silvia's journey from denial to acceptance—and ultimately forgiveness.

Interwoven throughout Pauline Silvia's story is the story of Emiko Okada, a survivor of the atom bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. While Pauline Silvia was fifteen at the time and only thought of the bomb in terms of it ending the war, Emiko Okada was only five and lived through its horrendous effects. (Her twelve-year-old sister was never found and her mother died soon after.) Today, she is a peace activist.

M.T. Silvia was introduced to Okada when she was sent to Japan for her "day job" (Manager of Media Sytems for Pixar Animation Studios). Her interviews with Okada and her daughter add depth to the film by contrasting the experiences of the two "atomic moms."

Atomic Mom is about many things: the excesses and irrationality of war, the peace movement, and the legacies that one generation leaves another. But most of all, it is about reconciliation, not only between former enemies, but between mother and daughter. It is obvious that the film is more than an intellectual exercise; it was meant to be a way for M.T. Silvia to learn more about her mother. In the process, they became closer and the world became a little smaller.

Written by: Ellen Keim, August 12th 2010

Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:19:00 +0000

By Jennifer Anne Boittin

University of Nebraska Press

Interwar Paris conjures up images of romance and renewal. From the ashes and rubble of the First World War, families reunite and rebuild under what seemed to be the end of the most dire of circumstances. Unfortunately, Colonial Metropolis fails to capture this magic, and yet it is an extremely thoughtful and methodical review of the local primary source material available, and would serve as a very strong academic referral source.

The author, Jennifer Anne Boittin, has a clear passion for the subject matter and conveys this well through her enthusiastic descriptions of the characters of the period who populated the anti-colonialism and feminist movements. The problem, for me, stems from the fact that we never feel the interaction between these players. These characters never seem to weave together into the larger story of feminist and anti-colonial activism, the tale that Boittin is seemed so hopeful to tell at the outset of the book.

Boittin lifts directly from the historical record to bring a multitude of characters from this period to life, but none so well as that as Josephine Baker. Pages and pages are dedicated to bringing her tantalizing and mischievous performances to life. Imagine the dedication and zeal of Marina Abramović crossed with the free wheeling sexual spirit of Isadora Duncan. Who wouldn’t want to be warped back to the front row for that show of an old theater in Paris?

With these high sensory moments scattered throughout, readers catch glimpses of the time gone by that was advertised to them, but even the best of these moments failed to sustain me from page to page. Clearly, Boittin’s integrity to the historical record speaks to her virtues as an academic; it just doesn’t make for a particularly interesting read.

Written by: Nicole Levitz, August 2nd 2010

Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Susan Zeiger

New York University Press

When men are shipped out to foreign locations to engage in wartime activities, it seems inevitable that they will become romantically and sexually involved with foreign women. In Entangling Alliances, Susan Zeiger explores this phenomenon, examining governmental, military, and societal responses to American soldiers’ desires for sex, companionship, and marriage while engaged in combat overseas. She argues that the changing ways Americans treated war brides over the course of the twentieth century demonstrates shifting American sensibilities regarding foreign policy, race, and gender. More than anything, because war brides involved an exchange of women across cultural and national boundaries, American discourse about war brides was ultimately about what constituted American manhood, men’s relationships with women, and the role of the nation in its relationship to other countries.

During World War I, the military preached sexual abstinence while devising methods to keep American soldiers and local women apart, in particular African-American soldiers and white European women. The army’s response to marriage requests vacillated until an official policy was handed down that marriage was a personal, not military, question. Meanwhile, domestic policy concerns in the U.S. triumphed over an internationally-oriented political outlook; xenophobia for newcomers was inevitable and Americans wondered if these foreign women could become good American wives. Though many predicted the demise of these marriages, evidence reveals that the majority made it.

In World War II, military policy differed depending on location. It encouraged marriage in Great Britain and Australia, both Allied countries with similar cultural backgrounds to white middle-class America. Likewise, American society welcomed these brides, suggesting that American women should emulate their domesticity and loyalty to husbands. Alternatively, the military encouraged prostitution, rather than marriage, in both Italy and the Philippines, while American society viewed these war brides as less desirable immigrants. Zeiger argues that both policies—encouraging prostitution or marriage—“shared... the intention to preserve and extend male control over women.” She also points out that though many of these local women showed independence and an assertion of personal freedom by going out with American men, sometimes against their family’s wishes, their stories “end with marriage and dependence.”

Race played a huge role in war bride stories post-WWII and throughout the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Congressional policy actively limited brides from Asian countries, outright barring Japanese spouses for several years, while all interracial couples faced social discrimination and, occasionally, found that their marriages were not legal when they moved from one state to another.

Zeiger argues that the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam saw the “demise” of the war bride as a phenomenon considered and debated by the American public. The military did not provide transport to war brides the way they did in WWI and WWII, and it actively encouraged prostitution rather than marriage, extending its WWII policy of creating red-light districts where prostitutes were regularly examined by medical officials and given “safe” ratings to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Korean and Vietnamese wives were not written about widely in the American press and they have not written about their post-war experiences in America, the way war brides from earlier eras have done. They have been, Zeiger writes, “all but invisible in American culture.”

Demographic information suggests that these Asian war brides tend to be isolated, even in comparison to other Asian immigrants though they have sponsored family members to come to the U.S., unlike earlier war brides. Though Asian war brides were an untold story, there was a lot of media attention paid to the mixed-race children left behind in Vietnam and, sometimes airlifted out and brought to the U.S. Zeiger argues that the story of Amerasian children, and the efforts to bring them to the U.S. allowed Americans to re-conceptualize the war, seeing both Amerasian children and American soldiers as victims in the story. “The American nation becomes father and, also, paradoxically, child. Vietnam, the mother, the war bride, is not part of this reconciliation.”

Entangling Alliances is a compelling read, illuminating twentieth century social struggles encountered by men and women on both domestic and foreign soil over questions of gender, race, and nationality. Though Zeiger argues that the war bride phenomenon died out with the Korean and Vietnam wars, clearly, soldiers still took wives and fathered children with Korean and Vietnamese women. More recently, stories of male American soldiers marrying Iraqi women have been exploited in the media. Because Zeiger only covers the period from WWI up through the Vietnam War, she leaves a perplexing question unexplored: What has happened with female soldiers and local men in the conflicts that the U.S. has engaged in the last twenty years? Have female soldiers, like male soldiers, engaged in romantic and sexual conquests with non-U.S. citizens? I suspect their experience has been radically different than their male counterparts.

Written by: Jessica Powers, June 5th 2010

Love Goes to Press: A Comedy in Three Acts

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Edited by Sandra Spanier

Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press

It's impossible to dislike a female protagonist who opines, fifteen miles south of the Italian front in the second-to-last year of World War II, "If there's anything I really loathe, it's a woman protector." Delivered by Annabelle Jones, war correspondent for the San Francisco World, in conversation with Jane Mason, war correspondent for the New York Bulletin, this line refers to one of the many well-meaning men who are the butts of the jokes in the play Love Goes to Press.

Longtime friends as well as colleagues, Jones and Mason are globetrotting journalists chasing after war stories when both improbably show up in the same tiny press camp in Italy. There, amid refrains of, "No, I am not a nurse," any time one of them places an intra-military call, each of the two women pursue dangerously-won exclusive stories and navigate surprise romantic encounters, the latter portrayed as considerably more perilous than the former.

The mostly-journalist ensemble draws an easy comparison to His Girl Friday, released six years before Love Goes to Press first appeared on stage. By contrast, the play's pacing and gender commentary read as tersely contemporary, and its production history as relatively dismal. First performed in the summer of 1946, audiences in London packed theaters to see it, taking advantage of the small luxury of cheap tickets, and in co-author Martha Gellhorn's estimation, eager to laugh amid grief, rationing, wide-spread destruction, and exhaustion in the first year of peace after the war.

American audiences, however, did not crave such levity. After only four performances in New York in the first week of 1947 (where, Gellhorn further recounts, the cast was ecstatic to shop and eat as much as they could), the play folded then disappeared. American reviews from the time reflect a limited range of emotions running from irked boredom to disgust: either the veteran lady war reporters who authored the play couldn't get war quite "right," for all of their experience, or they simply had the bad taste to profane such a sacred subject in a three-act comedy. From the distance of sixty-three years—perhaps as cushy as the distance between New York drama critics of the '40s and the European theatre of war—this self-important response seems a bit comical.

Editor Sandra Spanier does a fine job, in this expanded edition of Love Goes to Press, of providing historical and literary context for the play, which did not see a first printing until 1995. Her biographical focus remains overwhelmingly on Gellhorn, whose sixty-year career was comprised of relentless war correspondence, as well as fiction and travel writing. Co-author Virginia Cowles is comparatively unknown, despite being an experienced war correspondent and prolific nonfiction writer herself. (Gellhorn and Cowles met when both women were reporting on the Spanish Civil War—Annabelle Jones and Jane Mason are based on them, respectively.)

In addition to Spanier's description of rescuing perhaps the only extant copy of the play, and her recovery and reprinting of deleted sections of Gellhorn's war reporting from the Collier's archives, Gellhorn's original introduction to the 1995 edition may be the most enjoyable historical work here. Good-humored but pitiless, Gellhorn's recounting of the more hapless accomplishments of the play's authors, which included fleeing stunned from cries of "Author! Author!" at the close of the play's premier, is like an authorial bow on behalf of both herself and Cowles, albeit regrettably late.

Written by: Kaja Katamay, April 3rd 2010

Science on the Home Front: American Women Scientists in World War II

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Jordynn Jack

University of Illinois Press

Science on the Home Front is an introduction to the lives and tasks of specific women scientists involved in the war effort, from Marie Curie to Margaret Mead. These women come from a variety of backgrounds and pursuits in science. A professor, Jack focuses on the fields of psychology, anthropology, physics and nutrition to elaborate on the women involved who played a specific role in the war. By delineating aspects of these scientists, the author demonstrates the subordination of the women who performed important roles in the war. The range of responsibility spans years and experiences. Jack's main objective in developing this book holds true to be a study of the rhetoric involved regarding feminist rhetoric as well as scientific rhetoric, and she argues that the culture of science is what held women back in their roles played in the war.

To appreciate this book, one must be willing to make time to read it; its academic sense assumes the reader is both interested in science and in the concept of rhetoric as it pertains to both the science field and the feminist field. As a book, Science on the Home Front requires a decent amount of science; however, the author takes the time to elaborate on definition and overall goal of her book. In her introduction, she clarifies each chapter for the reader; each chapter focuses on one or two female scientists in that specific field. To create an overall sense of that specific scientist in several ways, Jack examines studies of that scientist, tracks certain exchanges with superiors, details journal entries, and surmises what that scientist brought to the public through writings and other research. In presenting this information, Jack demonstrates an overall image of each scientist. Taking her research another step further, Jack discusses the rhetoric of each field, and places this into each chapter to prove her point that the regendering of science is clearly necessary for women in all fields of science.

Utterly straightforward, Science on the Home Front explores the rhetorical factors of subordination with a smattering of women who made a difference in the science world, specifically during WWII. Language remains a very large obstacle to women "getting ahead" in the sciences. Ongoing questions exist: How do we reorganize and strategize around the feminism in the sciences as well as the gender of scientific language? By investigating the rhetoric about women in science, we come up with some answers; in conclusion, Jack makes steps toward "'regendering' scientific institutions" to make these scientific institutions more acceptable toward women, and overall, in any scientific field. Including notes on each chapter and over ten pages of bibliography, Jack gives a nice amount of substance to further research. Present and future studies must continue in order to make a concrete step toward the integration of women into the sciences at a more equal pace.

With this book in hand, further research may be done to pursue individual female scientists' work; however, this volume offers a great starting point to introduce the many women who impacted World War II in the scientific field.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, January 28th 2010

The Piano Teacher

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Janice Y. K. Lee

Penguin Books

Janice Y. K. Lee's debut novel, The Piano Teacher, takes the reader inside the upper social circles of Hong Kong during and ten years after World War II. The book opens in 1950s Hong Kong with Claire Pendleton, a young British wife who is bored and takes a job teaching piano to the daughter of a wealthy Hong Kong couple. “It started as an accident. The small Herend rabbit had fallen into Claire's purse.” In these first two lines of the novel, Claire is stealing an expensive figurine from her employer. This act of theft is a crucial revelation of character. Claire will also soon begin an affair with an Englishman who is her employers' chauffeur. The affair is a kind of emotional theft that seems devoid of passion or purpose, as does the physical theft of the figurine.

In the second section of the novel, Lee moves back in time to war-time Hong Kong. It's here that we meet Will Truesdale, Claire's soon-to-be lover. He is new in Hong Kong, and falling in love with Trudy Liang, a young woman he meets at a party. “She is famous, born of a well-known couple, the mother a Portuguese beauty, the father a Shanghai millionaire with fortunes in trading and money lending.” Trudy is spoiled and self-absorbed, and Will seems to be long suffering in his loyal pursuit of her. But the thing we come to learn about Hong Kong and the people who live there is that nothing is quite as it seems.

I was reminded a bit of The Great Gatsby as I read the war-time sections. Lee has created a group of privileged people who live a life of decadence, partying and dining out and lounging about, while their servants feed and groom them and they grow ever more bored with the routine of their privilege. The post-war sections, on the other hand, are redolent with a sense of the decay that has settled over the leisure class. The war seems to have affected everyone, but no one wants to talk about it. Both representations of Hong Kong are vivid and evocative.

Lee builds tension as she progresses through her story, unfolding the layers that will eventually reveal why it is that, ten years after the war and the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Will is a chauffeur and Trudy is no longer with him. There is an act of betrayal at the heart of the life Will is leading when Claire meets him. I couldn't put this book down while I was moving through the clues, the bits of character revelation that eventually lead to the story of that betrayal.

Unfortunately, once the act is exposed, the tension seems to vanish. The plot gets mired down in some extraneous intrigue regarding the Crown Collection, a group of Chinese artifacts that disappeared during the war, and the reason behind Will's current employment. The enthralling parts of the novel–the triangle of Will and his current and past lovers, and the ways in which the war and its aftermath affect these lovers–become murky in order to make room for tying up the ends of this intrigue. I much prefer the shadowy struggle between Will's lovers: “She came unbidden to his dreams too, battling with the other woman, the one who haunted him day and night. Claire, with her blond and familiar femininity, English rose to Trudy's scorpion.” The two women, perhaps representative of the battle between cultures that Will finds himself unable to avoid, are beautifully drawn and deserving of holding the stage through to the end of the novel, without the intrusion of this unnecessary Crown Collection detour.

Written by: Natasha Bauman, January 27th 2010

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Jennet Conant

Simon & Schuster

Conant, a former journalist, is a thorough researcher. In this book, she digs into the secret wartime propaganda work that Roald Dahl and his British colleagues were assigned to do to drum up American support for World War II. Many official documents about this secret ring of spies were only declassified in 1998, and many of them remain legally inaccessible—and the author notes the difficulty of having to distinguish who is telling tall tales about their actual work.

That said, her recreation of the events that happened during the last years of WWII and Franklin Delano Roosevelt seem to spring to life from the page. The book's colorful cast of characters reads like a “Who's Who” of the political and celebrity elite of the era, including FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, Ian Fleming, David Ogilvy, Clare Boothe Luce, and Lyndon Johnson, among others. Drawing from correspondence and interviews with dozens of people, Conant vividly recreates England's wartime tension, which coincided with Washington's reckless socializing and split political opinions on how much “help” to give to the British while they were fighting the Nazis.

In the midst of this serious situation are fun moments—tales of buildings that have floors without corresponding elevator buttons, and fake pens that can set off tear gas – where it seems like you're reading a James Bond novel. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that Fleming would go on to pen those world-famous books, which would later be made into movies.

Conant's attention to detail and brilliant reconstruction of events that happened more than sixty-five years ago make The Irregulars a quick and interesting read, but also a maddening one: as she herself points out, Dahl and his fellow spies were happy to work in an environment where women were mere accessories or means to an end. Each female in the book was blatantly used for her looks, her body, her money, her influence, or some combination thereof. If Dahl and his cohorts, married or not, also happened to pull them into the sack, well, that was just an extra perk.

It's said that you should never meet your heroes; I'd qualify that by adding that you should never read biographical works about them, either. I grew up loving Dahl's books, particularly because of the way the characters thumbed their noses at authority (which he himself did in real life, almost costing himself his wartime assignments on a number of occasions). As a child I assumed that Dahl was a person I'd like to meet; after reading The Irregulars, I have to say I was left with the idea that he was a skirt-chasing, adulterous, sexist pig. If you can get past that, hold your nose and read this book.

Written by: M.L. Madison, December 9th 2009

Now Silence: A Novel of World War II

admin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:02:00 +0000

By Tori Warner Shepard

Sun Stone Press

Usually novels about World War II occur in Nazi Germany, Poland, or some other place in Europe. Tori Warner Shepard, however, places her story in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many of the men from this area had to go through the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Soon after, they were transferred to a prison camp in Japan. Shepard's focus is on the women who wait for their men to return from war. Now Silence reveals their painful history to her readers.

Throughout the novel, Shepard impresses her readers with women’s stories. The first is Nicasia, a mother who lost both her husband and one of her sons and continues to wonder about her remaining son, Melo. Then there is the robust and voluminous LaBelle, betrothed to Melo. Anissa is a disciple of the “I AM” cult, a new age following who prays to end the war. She is also a widow. Her husband lived with Phyllis, who came to Santa Fe to return a shotgun to Anissa.

Phyllis is the most intriguing character in the novel and teaches the most to the readers through her actions. Originally from Scotland, she comes disgraced to an off-the-radar job in Canada. She meets Anise’s husband and runs away with him. When she is informed of his death, she jumps on a bicycle and rides to Texas to hand over the rifle. Readers know the roller coaster ride is just beginning.

Shepard does a great job with plot development, but leaves readers wanting to know more about the characters. Her writing style is quick-witted, vivid, and spicy especially when it comes to character description. While she gives pieces of all the women, Phyllis takes most of the novel, and readers may want to know more about the men, who are also a part of the story as well. Short chapters are enticing, but better organization would enhance her story even more. Overall, _Now Silence is an interesting read.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, August 4th 2009

Making Marriage Modern: Women’s Sexuality from the Progressive Era to World War II

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:09:00 +0000

By Christina Simmons

Oxford University Press

Making Marriage Modern by Christina Simmons explores the many changes to marriage, courtship, and women’s role in society that took place following the Victorian era until World War II. Using a variety of sources such as “marriage manuals” and popular fiction, Simmons follows the progressive efforts of social reformers during the period.

The evolution of marriage from the Victorian standard of “separate spheres” to the more equalitarian partnership model today was far from an organic process. Instead, women’s rights activists, doctors, and others deliberately set out to not only change mindsets about women’s role in the family and society, but to present actual marriage models for couples to adopt. The goal: to redefine marriage to fit the new, independent spirit of the 1920s.

Although many of the ideas espoused by so called “sex radicals” failed to fully catch on until the second wave of the women’s movement in the 1970s, their efforts were not in vain. Access to birth control, more freedom to chose a mate, a growing understanding about sexual health (including a widening of the language used to discuss the topic), loosening of anti-miscegenation laws, opening of the workforce to include more females, and increased equality between couples were all results of the "radical" efforts of the period, however antiquated they may seem to us today. Some of the concepts presented were simply too radical for the time. Furthermore, sex radicals found that while many were willing to accept changes to the status quo in theory, practical issues such as childcare and sharing domestic responsibilities—issues that still plague modern marriages—required too large an adjustment for immediate adaptation by society as a whole.

Simmons avoids a common mistake of women’s studies scholars of generalizing circumstances using the perspective of white, upper class women and families. Instead, she compares and contrasts the experiences of white and black couples giving special attention to the efforts of black activists and influential authors such as Nella Larsen. Simmons gives particular attention to the experiences of young black women using a variety of popular fiction as a tool for describing the psyche of such women during such a dynamic and transitional period. I was pleased that Simmons focused on authors such as Larsen and her book, Quicksand, which tells the story of a young mixed race woman attempting to “find herself” in a society that so fraught with oppressive stereotypes of young black women.

Making Marriage Modern is particularly relevant in an era when marriage is again in the process of being redefined. It is encouraging to think that those of us fighting the battle for gay rights are facing challenges similar to those from this era who fought for more privacy for couples, the right to marry across class lines, access to birth control, and the right to interracial marriage, complete with a mixture of victories and losses along the way.

Written by: Janice Formichella, June 18th 2009

The Clothes on Their Backs: A Novel

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:48:00 +0000

By Linda Grant

Scribner

To be particularly honest, I am partial to any and all texts set in Britain, and The Clothes On Their Backs is set in London. So I was already loving the book before I started reading. My love only grew as I went on.

The story is of Vivien Kovacs, daughter of Jewish Hungarian immigrants. Vivien grew up in Benson Court, with parents who much preferred staying home than going out. Her quiet and sheltered childhood is spent reading and imagining, interrupted by a brief visit by her uncle Sándor Kovacs. Her parents slam the door in Sándor’s face—for he is a notorious slumlord, vilified in the media.

Sándor becomes an integral figure in the book. Niece and uncle meet in a park after Vivien has gone to university, married, become a widow, and moved back in with her parents. He hires her to help him write his memoirs. The two pretend to not know they are related, though each really knows the truth. Vivien digs for information about her past and her family, trying to come to an understanding of why her parents are the way they are. She is also looking for information about why she is the way she is.

The theme of clothing runs throughout the book in subtle ways. The most obvious connection is that Vivien’s family fled Hungary with just the clothes on their backs. The idea moves from there. As a teen and young adult, Vivien wears vintage clothing as a way to define herself: someone slightly alternative, bohemian yet educated. She briefly dates a young man who dresses in a roughed-up leather jacket, showing that he is not from the same class background as she is. Her most vivid memory of the first meeting with her uncle is clothing. Her uncle wore an “electric-blue mohair suit, black hand-stitched suede shoes... And the black girl on his arm, in a nylon leopardskin coat with matching pillbox hat, carrying a plastic crocodile handbag with a gilt clasp.” Much can be inferred from one’s clothing.

There are some moments that feel unresolved or unnecessary; Vivien’s abortion and her brief marriage to Alex don’t really seem to move the book forward. Other than that, the book reads quite well. Linda Grant writes artfully, and was deservedly on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize.

The book evokes feelings of melancholy and raises questions. In telling the history of Hungary before World War II, and the history of London during the post-war era, questions of immorality and goodness are raised. Vivien’s question of knowing how to live is also left up to the reader to answer for oneself.

Written by: Kristin Conard, February 27th 2009

Take Off: American All-Girl Bands During WWII

admin — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:01:00 +0000

By Tonya Bolden

Random House

To all naïve readers who still think Kathleen Hanna, Courtney Love or Liz Phair were doing anything new by boldly storming their way into previously male territory, may I suggest Tonya Bolden’s Take Off? A quick and easy read, complete with photos, newspaper clippings and an obsessive amount of research, Take Off chronicles the rise and eventual fall of “all-girl” big bands of the World War II era, proving once and for all that every female musician from Nancy Wilson to the Go-Go’s to any number of riot grrrls would still be just singing in the shower were it not for the brave and brilliant contribution of the swing musicians who fought sexual and racial discrimination in order to prove, in no uncertain terms, that “girl musicians…are as much the masters of their instruments as are male musicians.”

Take Off (which is slang for an improv solo) tells an abbreviated story, for sure, but nonetheless lays it out: 16 million American men served in World War II, and their absence created room for more than just Rosie the Riveter; it also allowed space for The Hour of Charm All Girl Orchestra, Ada Leonard (a former stripper) and her All-American Girl Orchestra, and The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, among others. And while _Take Off _will never be confused with a hard-hitting piece of feminist scholarship, Bolden does offer tentative critiques of the ways in which patriarchy forced the hands of the women she chronicles, explaining, for example, that as female musicians got bolder and player harder music, they compensated by dressing softer, trading in their simple skirts and blouses for strapless gowns with hem-to-hem ruffles the musicians had to iron on their travel suitcases. She also dedicates significant time detailing race relations of the time and the importance of single-race bands.

Bolden’s use of jazz-era slang throughout the book often feels a bit silly and heavy-handed, but Take Off _is still a commendable exploration of the women who worked to dismantle the myth that “only God can make a tree, and only men can play good jazz.” And perhaps best of all, the book comes with a CD of some of the most exciting swing music to come from the WWII era, reason enough to buy this book! While _Take Off is hardly definitive, it takes a necessary step in establishing that contrary to public opinion of the time, not all “women like violins.”

Written by: Lily-Rygh Glen, July 26th 2007

The Films of Su Friedrich, Vol. 1: The Ties That Bind

admin — Thu, 31 May 2007 12:22:00 +0000

Directed by Su Friedrich

Microcinema / Outcast Films

When I read what The Ties That Bind was about, I knew I had to see it. Su Friedrich interviews her mother, Lore, about what it was like living in Germany during World War II. It is a brilliantly woven film tapestry - a mixture of story-telling, historical film footage, current newspaper articles/titles, current war protests and dozens of modern “political mailings.” I recommend it to everyone. It is a story of a mother and daughter trying to connect; it is also a horror story that today’s shock-loving generation should see… because it really happened.

Lore was not a Nazi sympathizer, nor a freedom fighter. She resisted, but did not overtly fight against the evil that had taken over her country. She, like many other Germans from that time, were vilified, for not fighting against it. It is heart rendering to hear the agony in this woman’s voice as she talks about what her family had to endure, just to survive.

Su Friedrich shot this film in black and white, enhancing the emotional intent of this film. One of the photographic threads in this film storytelling is the construction of a miniature plastic German house. We see this house first removed from its package, then carefully laid out on the floor, piece by piece, and assembled. Finally, the person who built the house puts on Army Gestapo boots and stomps on the home, destroying it. Then the house is burned (this happens while Lore talks about the bombing of Stuttgart, and how she ended up wandering outside the city, hands out, in shock, not able to speak when the Red Cross picked her up). Finally, what remains of the small plastic house is picked up from the floor.

Since the late 1970s, New York-based Su Friedrich has articulated the slogan “the personal is political.” I think she makes this obvious in The Ties That Bind. She was the films' director, editor, writer and cinematographer. She currently teaches film and video production at Princeton University. There was a Bonus film on this DVD – The Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too. It is inspiring, a documentary on a courageous modern political movement that is effecting change. Check it out, as well.

Written by: Patricia Ethelwyn Lang, May 31st 2007