Hi everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. This month I finished 3 books. Here is what I think about them:
1. NONFICTION AND HISTORY: The Coming Of The Third Reich by Richard J. Evans
This is the first book of The History Of The Third Reich trilogy by Richard J. Evans, and it describes the events both in world and German history that led to the Nazis assuming power in 1933. These include, for example, the economic disaster of hyperinflation in Germany after WWI, the antagonism of Germany’s population towards the Weimar Republic, the country’s new democratic government instituted after Germany was defeated in 1918, the payment of reparations for the war to the victorious Allies and the Great Depression in the 1920s.
The German Empire, led by the Kaiser, fell after WWI. Created in 1871 by Otto Bismarck, one of the most famous generals and politicians of Germany, the German empire was one of four empires that collapsed after WWI. The other three were the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. 1918, however, marked the end of the Second Reich. And this is something I didn’t know. Germany’s history is typically divided into three Reichs: the First Reich, founded by Charlemagne in 800 and which lasted until 1806, an impressive one thousand and six years, the Second Reich, founded in 1871 by Bismarck and defeated in 1918 after WWI and finally, the Third Reich, the empire that the Nazis sought to set up and which they intended to last as long as Charlemagne’s.
The Nazis road to power and the reasons why it happened, Richard J. Evans says, must be studied with history in mind. The politics of Bismarckian Germany possibly played a big part, he says, and that is where this history of the Third Reich starts. Last year, I read two biographies on Hitler (Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 and Hitler: Downfall 1939-1945 by Volker Ullrich as well as The Hitler Years 1933-1939 and The Hitler Years 1940-1945 by Frank McDonough) and like it is expected from biographies, the narrative focuses solely on Hitler as leader of the Third Reich, once he attains power in 1933, the eruption of WWII in 1939, and his defeat in 1945. The history of Germany and the politics of the country prior to Hitler’s birth in 1889 are not talked about much. Born during the early years of Kaiser Wilheim II’s reign, Hitler lived through a lot of political upheaval in his country. And yes, Ullrich’s biography touches upon Hitler’s disdain for the Weimar Republic and his desire to overthrow it, why he hated it so much, and his intent on making Germany a superpower again. But was Hitler influenced by great figures of Germany history as Charlemagne and Otto Bismarck? Possibly. And Richard J. Evans makes a compelling argument. Events such as the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic and later The Great Depression also helped Hitler’s cause; they allowed him to sow discontent among the masses for those in charge.
This book is not a biography of Hitler. Instead it is a study of the history of Germany in an attempt to answer the question why and how the Nazis attained power in 1933. What events of Germany’s past made it possible? Could’ve Nazism been avoided otherwise? Or was the occurrence of all of these events in world history serendipitous? I Liked this book And Will Probably Read It Again.
2. NONFICTION AND HISTORY: The Third Reich In Power by Richard J. Evans
This book is the second volume of the History Of The Third Reich by Richard J. Evans and it focuses on the years 1933-1939. This book talks specifically about life in Germany during the first six years of the Third Reich. Whatever Hitler and his followers did during this time was consumed by hatred and ambition, the author says, and his intent was to prepare Germany and its people for a major war. That war erupted in 1939, but events such as The Night of the Long Knives, which propagated terror and murder throughout different cities of Germany, to The Night of Broken Glass, where thousands and thousands of Jews were killed or sent to concentration camps, was just one of many ways Hitler exercised control and dominion over the population of Germany. Propaganda, religion and education, the economy, racial policy and antisemitism, foreign policy, and even society and everyday life were also ways in which Hitler excised control.
Richard J. Evans talks about each one of these aspects of the Third Reich throughout the book, starting with how organizations such as the SA and SS policed the streets of Germany and repressed the citizens to how Hitler led the country to war in 1939. The invasion of Poland occurred on September 1st, 1939, but before that Hitler annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia to German territory. His purpose was to obtain more living space for the German race and the German empire he was building, Germania, and while he was able to do so without any loss of life the first two times, bloodshed was inevitable the third time.
This book took me longer to read than the previous one, I’ll be honest, because I wasn’t as interested in what it was talking about in some chapters. So I lagged a bit somewhere in the middle…Will I ever read it again? Maybe, if I feel like it in the future. But I know that I won’t if I don’t. And that might be a while. The beginning and end were interesting, but topics such as religion, education and social life in Germany during the Third Reich just don’t seem as interesting to me as foreign policy, policing, and antisemitism.
3. CLASSIC AND POETRY: Inferno by Dante
If you’ve been with me for a while you know that my favorite epic poem is The Iliad by Homer. The second epic poem that I love is Paradise Lost by John Milton and I’ve done so ever since I first read it more than 20 years ago in college. The one epic poem that I did not read back then is The Divine Comedy by Dante, and I kinda get why I didn’t. This is my sister’s favorite book, just like The Iliad is mine and they teach entire undergraduate (and graduate) classes solely focused on this book for a reason. It is epic. Not that I want to diminish the importance of classes on Homer and Milton, because there are some of these too, but for some reason courses on Dante just seem more prevalent.
Dante is complex. That is the best word I can think about to describe it. Don’t let that deter you though. The Inferno is very much worth reading (I will only talk about this first part of the poem because I haven’t read Purgatorio and Paradiso yet). But I will say that while I was reading the Inferno, I couldn’t help comparing itto Paradise Lost. Milton’s poem is religious whereas Dante’s is both political and religious; political in the sense that it is very important to know the politics of Florence and Dante’s involvement in it during his lifetime in order to understand why Dante places the people he does in each circle of Hell, and the significance of him encountering them when he does. On the other hand, the Divine Comedy is religious in that it is the journey of Dante the Pilgrim to attain Heaven and be next to God (and Beatrice, who is his agent).
Paradise Lost, for its part, is an account of Lucifer’s fall and his war with God. Lucifer in Dante is nothing like the Lucifer in Milton and that is probably what struck me the most. Milton’s Lucifer is cunning, vengeful, deceitful, and very intelligent but, more importantly, he has the agency to do evil. Bulgakov’s Satan is also memorable. Dante’s Lucifer, on the other hand, doesn’t say a single word in the cantos ascribed to the inferno in the poem, is eternally frozen in Lake Cocytus and isn’t seen until Canto 34, the last canto of the Inferno. And I get why this is so because Lucifer, as the one who betrayed God and is thus furthest from the Light, is the one personage we are anticipating seeing during the entire journey through Hell, but still. In Milton, Lucifer and his army of fallen angels first appear in the prologue.
What I also found interesting is the heavy influence of Greek mythology in Dante’s Inferno. Charon, Cerberus, Minos, and other mythological beings of the Greek Underworld are the guardians of the entrances to different circles of hell; Dante and Virgil, for example, encounter the river of woe Acheron and Charon, the ferryman of the underworld shortly after they cross the Gate of Hell. But in Milton, all of these Greek mythological beings and monsters are members of Lucifer’s army simply because they don’t belong to the religion of Christ. Milton’s Hell is also drastically different, a place of fire that even Lucifer doesn’t like and this is the image that we have of Hell today. Hence, the phrase “burn in Hell”. Milton was so influential that he changed the way we see Hell in our minds. The Satan we think about when we think about the Lord of Hell is also more akin to Milton’s Lucifer than that of the Bible. Dante’s Hell, on the other hand, is shock full of symbolism and allegory and this is what makes it so complex. Allegory is common in medieval literature, and Dante is a master at it. The three beasts that Dante encounters in the first canto—a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf—for example, are an allegory for the three types of sin punished in Hell, each one worse than the one before: sins of incontinence, which include lust, greed, and wrath, sins of violence against others, yourself, and God, and sins of fraud, which include hypocrites, thieves, and the worst type of sinners in Dante’s world: traitors.
Three is an important number in Dante. It is found everywhere; from the three parts of The Divine Comedy, the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, the three types of sin punished in Hell: incontinence, violence and fraud, to the three giants of Hell—Ephialtes, Nimrod, and Anteus, who guides Dante and Virgil to the Ninth Circle of Hell—harbingers to Satan, who is chewing one of the three most important traitors of humankind in each one of his three mouths: Judas Isacriot in the center, and Brutus and Cassius on the sides.
I really liked the Inferno and plan to continue on with the Purgatorio and Paradiso at a later date. But I admit that I didn’t like it as much as I like The Iliad and Paradise Lost. The one thing that I didn’t care much about while I was reading The Inferno was how Dante arrives at a circle of Hell, any circle of Hell really, sees a couple of dead people there, talks to them briefly, describes their punishment, and then moves on. I didn’t like this because it made me feel like the description of Dante’s journey through the underworld lacked any depth; kinda like “he got there, saw this and this person, talked to them a little bit, and then left. Next circle, he got there, saw this and this person, talked to them, and then left.” I know that Dante is anything but superficial and shallow. I also know that what’s most important is the description of the journey itself, what Dante saw on his way to Heaven. He isn’t meant to stick around too much at every stop, like when you travel on a train or bus and it stops here and there to drop people off and pick others up. I get that. I just think that I would’ve enjoyed it more if this “get there, see this person or that one, talk to them, and then leave” routine hadn’t been so tedious. It bored me a bit, to be honest, and it took me several weeks to pick up the book after I finished reading Canto X.
Picking up the right translation for you is important on this one, guys. Yes, it took me a bit to pick up the book again after Canto X |but I did so because I liked the translation. If I hadn’t liked it, I probably wouldn’t have finished the book. And by the book, I mean this particular translation of the poem. And I would’ve set out to search for a better translation and start the poem anew. Which is what happened before, when I picked one translation and couldn’t get into the poem at all. Luckily, I found it and I was able to finish all the way through Canto 34 in two days.
I gave this book and I Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again rating.
That is everything. Thank you for reading.
