(no subject)
60 pages into In the Garden of Beasts and I can already feel the difference in the feel of the narrative.
I do appreciate that Larson has a flexible writing style in this regard.
In Devil in the White City, there was a lot of energy and passion and flippancy and a sense of frivolity coupled with the sharp sense of a predator praying on all those things. It was very wonderfully balanced and juxapositioned in the way the story was weaved.
Garden of Beasts is altogether different. Mostly because we're starting with a family of simple Americans--a father of a Jeffersonian sense of propriety and a daughter who questions and speaks her mind--but so kind of painfully naive of the world around them... and they end up in Nazi Germany. The very start of it.
Just reading it is kind of painful. Because, of course, we all know what happens. History tells us what happens. But I am reading quotations of what people have said--in memoirs, in letters, in books, in newspapers--about their views of what's going on during that time period. America wanted nothing to do with Europe's troubles. Certainly all the reports of the brutality in Germany was nothing more than sensationalism of yellow journalism which was made solely to get a profit. There's certainly no need to start IMMIGRATING people out of Germany and into America--during the worst of economic disasters, even! And what's Roosevelt have to say on the matter of all of this? Nothing! He's busy trying to get support for these bills to help stimulate the economy and damn it, the Jews they'd immigrate into America would just take all of their jobs! They have no want for them!
... there's a horrific amount of antisemitism everywhere I look in this book. And I mean by the words of people from that day and age, not Larson's words. And Roosevelt just wisely kept quiet on the matter. One side of the American-Jewish population wanted to loudly denounce Germany for its actions, boycott and tariff and continue to tear it down financially. The other side of the American-Jewish population wanted a more subtle approach on the whole thing, because something HAD to be done. There was something WRONG with that regime that had come into power when the Chancellor took his seat.
And Roosevelt simply kept silent and kept an ear out while working to try to fix the economic depression.
People these days seem to think that this antisemitism was only in Germany--no, it was everywhere. Literally. Personally, I can't really understand it. I don't think I want to, really. But it's. Mind-boggling.
It's a very limited scope, really, the way Larson's gone about things. But in some ways, it's an eye-opener about some of the things going on in the world today. The world today isn't like the world back then. We're more connected than ever before to other nations. News travels at the click of a button.
But you know? There's always been a pattern to the American people. There are times when we insist getting involved is the best thing we can do for our nation. There are times when we decry that previous statement and insist that we keep to our borders and other countries should respect those wishes. A thing which is just plain IMPOSSIBLE these days.
It's actually something I've found rather interesting about the American people and their behavioral patterns. You can actually see the ups and downs in history, and it's FASCINATING to study.
On the other end, because this book is focused on the viewpoints of two American citizens, it feels like a lot about Germany and the German culture is not being stated. Or that's what it feels like so far--they haven't really had much chance to settle into Berlin from where I'm at in the book. But in the letters and memoirs of Dodd, so far there's been large mentionings of Germany's militaristic nature, apparently something that made Dodd uncomfortable but. Well. Also fascinated him, apparently. And he was truly against the Treaty of Versailles. He would say he agreed that it went too far against Germany (his daughter said he LOATHED the idea of it. haha). And fff. This Dodd was a pretty level-headed fellow...
BUT THEY ARE SO NAIVE.
I'm reading the night where they first walked around the Tiergarten and how splendid and wonderful and there was no sign of all this news of violence and abuse of power. And this, largely, is the reason why the daughter wouldn't believe anyone who told her the truth of what was going on in the country. Of course, the fact that the German people THEMSELVES would try to carry on as if everything was normal, even when knowing it wasn't, helped support that belief (and yet how could she miss all the finger-pointing and how friends and neighbors would turn each other to the Gestapo over the most frivolous of things to the point that even those authority figures had to tell them to be a bit more selective?).
Reading on... there's this part where it mentions one of the men at the Embassy didn't like to salute. He did not like the Heiling of Hitler. And so he would just stand at attention when everyone else would do it (which would make the people around him suspicious and antagonistic at him). Foreigners were encouraged to do the salute, apparently. And this man did not like it when Dodd mock-saluted him once on the occasion.
And just. Ffffff.
It's very much... one of those starts off innocent and in a not-safe (Great Depression, remember?) but comfortable (since Dodd HAD a job during that time period as a university professor) lifestyle and then... well. I'm waiting for it to start feeling like Dodd bit off more than he could chew and then got thrown into a den of wolves without realizing that they had been the sheep he was following along with.
Idk. It's just. Really sort of terrible. Like a trainwreck.
... and I am avidly reading this.
Orz. I continue to be a terrible person fascinated by these sorts of things.
Ah well...
ETA: ... the one line throughout this book that makes me cringe a bit is "_____ believed Hitler and his regime would do itself in". It. ... almost EVERYONE believed it wouldn't last. And. Oh wow 8( this is very sobering...
.
I do appreciate that Larson has a flexible writing style in this regard.
In Devil in the White City, there was a lot of energy and passion and flippancy and a sense of frivolity coupled with the sharp sense of a predator praying on all those things. It was very wonderfully balanced and juxapositioned in the way the story was weaved.
Garden of Beasts is altogether different. Mostly because we're starting with a family of simple Americans--a father of a Jeffersonian sense of propriety and a daughter who questions and speaks her mind--but so kind of painfully naive of the world around them... and they end up in Nazi Germany. The very start of it.
Just reading it is kind of painful. Because, of course, we all know what happens. History tells us what happens. But I am reading quotations of what people have said--in memoirs, in letters, in books, in newspapers--about their views of what's going on during that time period. America wanted nothing to do with Europe's troubles. Certainly all the reports of the brutality in Germany was nothing more than sensationalism of yellow journalism which was made solely to get a profit. There's certainly no need to start IMMIGRATING people out of Germany and into America--during the worst of economic disasters, even! And what's Roosevelt have to say on the matter of all of this? Nothing! He's busy trying to get support for these bills to help stimulate the economy and damn it, the Jews they'd immigrate into America would just take all of their jobs! They have no want for them!
... there's a horrific amount of antisemitism everywhere I look in this book. And I mean by the words of people from that day and age, not Larson's words. And Roosevelt just wisely kept quiet on the matter. One side of the American-Jewish population wanted to loudly denounce Germany for its actions, boycott and tariff and continue to tear it down financially. The other side of the American-Jewish population wanted a more subtle approach on the whole thing, because something HAD to be done. There was something WRONG with that regime that had come into power when the Chancellor took his seat.
And Roosevelt simply kept silent and kept an ear out while working to try to fix the economic depression.
People these days seem to think that this antisemitism was only in Germany--no, it was everywhere. Literally. Personally, I can't really understand it. I don't think I want to, really. But it's. Mind-boggling.
It's a very limited scope, really, the way Larson's gone about things. But in some ways, it's an eye-opener about some of the things going on in the world today. The world today isn't like the world back then. We're more connected than ever before to other nations. News travels at the click of a button.
But you know? There's always been a pattern to the American people. There are times when we insist getting involved is the best thing we can do for our nation. There are times when we decry that previous statement and insist that we keep to our borders and other countries should respect those wishes. A thing which is just plain IMPOSSIBLE these days.
It's actually something I've found rather interesting about the American people and their behavioral patterns. You can actually see the ups and downs in history, and it's FASCINATING to study.
On the other end, because this book is focused on the viewpoints of two American citizens, it feels like a lot about Germany and the German culture is not being stated. Or that's what it feels like so far--they haven't really had much chance to settle into Berlin from where I'm at in the book. But in the letters and memoirs of Dodd, so far there's been large mentionings of Germany's militaristic nature, apparently something that made Dodd uncomfortable but. Well. Also fascinated him, apparently. And he was truly against the Treaty of Versailles. He would say he agreed that it went too far against Germany (his daughter said he LOATHED the idea of it. haha). And fff. This Dodd was a pretty level-headed fellow...
BUT THEY ARE SO NAIVE.
I'm reading the night where they first walked around the Tiergarten and how splendid and wonderful and there was no sign of all this news of violence and abuse of power. And this, largely, is the reason why the daughter wouldn't believe anyone who told her the truth of what was going on in the country. Of course, the fact that the German people THEMSELVES would try to carry on as if everything was normal, even when knowing it wasn't, helped support that belief (and yet how could she miss all the finger-pointing and how friends and neighbors would turn each other to the Gestapo over the most frivolous of things to the point that even those authority figures had to tell them to be a bit more selective?).
Reading on... there's this part where it mentions one of the men at the Embassy didn't like to salute. He did not like the Heiling of Hitler. And so he would just stand at attention when everyone else would do it (which would make the people around him suspicious and antagonistic at him). Foreigners were encouraged to do the salute, apparently. And this man did not like it when Dodd mock-saluted him once on the occasion.
And just. Ffffff.
It's very much... one of those starts off innocent and in a not-safe (Great Depression, remember?) but comfortable (since Dodd HAD a job during that time period as a university professor) lifestyle and then... well. I'm waiting for it to start feeling like Dodd bit off more than he could chew and then got thrown into a den of wolves without realizing that they had been the sheep he was following along with.
Idk. It's just. Really sort of terrible. Like a trainwreck.
... and I am avidly reading this.
Orz. I continue to be a terrible person fascinated by these sorts of things.
Ah well...
ETA: ... the one line throughout this book that makes me cringe a bit is "_____ believed Hitler and his regime would do itself in". It. ... almost EVERYONE believed it wouldn't last. And. Oh wow 8( this is very sobering...
.