Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914

The Pink Sugar on display inside the Hofburg Palace

By Frederic Morton, DaCapo Press, 2001

This is a companion volume to Morton's A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 and rounds out his history of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  His histories are compulsively readable and very enjoyable.  Sweeping, synthetic overviews like this are a good first step in learning about the past. 

Gulliver's Travels

In the country of the Houyhnhnms

By Jonathan Swift, WW Norton and Co., 2002

I haven't read this story in over twenty-five years.  A sharp satire and surprisingly physical.  There is, in terms that I connect with my new puppy, wee and poo everywhere.

Nightmare Abby, Crotchet Castle

Thomas Love Peacock in later life

By Thomas Love Peacock, New York, Penguin Books, 1986

I love satire and I love the Romantic British poets, so how could I fail to revel in these gems by Thomas Love Peacock?  He was good friends with Shelley and these novels are send-ups of Regency intellectual trends and cultural fads.  So far, so good, but I felt excluded.  I dutifully read all the textual notes that explain the various debates to the reader, yet I only felt a distant type of bemusement.  Not only is there Latin but plenty of Greek too!  This is a story about men for men.  I was reminded of the plays by Sheridan in the humor: characters sport names that indicate their personality or opinions (e.g., the Reverend Mr. Larynx, the Honourable Mr. Listless).  I'll try rereading this in the future.

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

Thomas Rowlandson, The Exhibition Staircase, ca. 1811

By Tobias Smollett, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009

My favorite 18th century novel.  Its a travelogue and the funniest book in the English language.

Robinson Crusoe

Francis Cotes, Edward Knowles, c. 1740

By Daniel Defoe, New York, The Modern Library, 2001

I really can't believe this is the same author that wrote Roxana and Moll Flanders.  Defoe's tone is sympathetic and humane here.  When Robinson Crusoe is marooned on the island, he behaves like an industrious, pragmatic member of the middle class and slowly recreates his world.  He builds shelter, hunts for food, domesticates animals, builds a ship, etc.  A very interesting comment on gender, class, empire and race.  What startled me is how this is a Protestant tale par execellence.

The Female Quixote

Allan Ramsay, Jean Abercomby, Mrs. Morison of Haddo, c.1767

Charlotte Lennox, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997

Arabella reads French novels and decides to act as a heroine in the drama of her own life.  She lives her life according to the manners and values of romances, and this makes her unfit for 18th century society.  A charming, funny book.  Jane Austen read this novel twice.

Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia

Galina Ulanova and friend watch a student perform

By Christina Ezrabi, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012

An academic text about the role of ballet in the early days of Soviet Russia.  The Mariinsky (later Kirov) and the Bolshoi troupes where the only ballet companies with imperial status, and after initial suspicion, the Soviets tried to co-opt the glory of pre-revolutionary culture to their own ends.  The Soviet regime worked to dispel Russian "backwardness" by promoting "kul'turnost," making bastions of high culture available to the common worker.  They argued that Soviet citizens read more books than any other people on the planet and had access to superb ballets.  This book helped me to understand the "Russianness" of  Mariinsky and Bolshoi dancers today: the emphasis on character dances, the history of the drambalet, their enduring mastery of ballet cannon such as Swan Lake, and the role of the Vaganova Ballet Academy.