Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

Destiny of the Republic is a narrative history of the assassination of President James A. Garfield published in 2011 by Random House. Candice Millard is a former editor and writer for National Geographic and wrote a book called River of Doubt about Teddy Roosevelt on the Amazon, that Dad and I both enjoyed.



ALLISON:

A month ago, were you to ask me about Garfield, I would have unfortunately said, “Who? The cat?” I had a vague idea he was president, but not during which era, and I had even less inkling that he was assassinated.  Were you to tell me he was assassinated, I would think, “huh, why isn’t that more of a big deal?” Turns out it was a big deal, as traumatizing to the nation as the more notorious presidential murders, namely Lincoln and Kennedy.  I never learned a smidge about Garfield in high school, or college. I had no idea he was nominated for the office of presidency without running, in fact he even expressed sincere despair at the prospect. I had no idea he was inaugurated only four months before he was shot, surviving another three desperately infirmed, until succumbing to septicemia. Garfield is a most tragic figure. His story, heart wrenching. With little to no presidential aspirations, it was the presidency that inevitably killed him. The notoriety of such an important position drew the attention of a fame-seeking madman, who inexpertly shot Garfield, but it was the desperation to save the most important man in the country that inflicted his demise. A single doctor, practicing the very best and modern medicine he trusted at the time, turned a non-mortal wound into an agonizing and slow death sentence. Garfield survived numerous humble plagues of the Industrial Revolution: crippling poverty as a child, accidents of labor conditions, and the Civil War, which remains the most devastating war-time casualty seen by Americans. He survived, when many did not, only to be cut-down by his own significance. What I gleaned from reading Millard’s Destiny, is that Garfield, while surely not faultless, was potentially the greatest president I’d never even known.  

I implore you, read Millard’s book to get to know Garfield. He undeniably merits the attention and serves as an inspiration for what the most ambitious position could look like if worn by the humblest, and most deserving of men. There are plenty of other useful reminders. Most obvious is that the medical field is an inabsolute, in need of constant revision, ingenuity and skeptical inquiry. I felt a little bad for Dr. Bliss, the man who took over Garfield’s care after the shooting and usurped any attempts to second guess his opinion by other doctors, including Garfield’s own family doctors. Bliss also manipulated the public’s perception of Garfield’s affliction, by sending rosy updates that everything was steadily improving to the news outlets. Having just completed Pre-Healthcare requirements for Nursing School, and studying medical anthropology for my degree, I have done a fair amount of research into turn of the century medicine. In the late 1800s “germ theory” was just developing as an idea that disease is caused by unseen specks (microbes) that are spread and multiply within our bodies. Koch’s Postulates, a set of rules that link disease to specific bacteria, was not published until 1890, nine years after Garfield’s death. So, Dr. Bliss was working with what he, as an experienced ballistics physician who had plenty of practice working in military infirmaries during the Civil War, knew to be true. Regardless, after autopsy, Bliss was unanimously blamed for the death, so much so that even Garfield’s assassin, Guiteau felt confident claiming: “The doctors who mistreated him ought to bear the odium of his death, and not his assailant. They out to be indicted for murdering James A. Garfield, and not me” (276). There were no “doctors” caring for him, as Bliss had so pompously or fearfully denied all outside input. In the end, Bliss suffered not only professionally, but ultimately with his life, as he himself never recovered from the grueling labor of trying to save the president, and died less than a decade later.

Hindsight tells us (and some science that was very new at the time) that Bliss got it so horrendously wrong with Garfield, and it is excruciating to read about the torturous death suffered in Bliss’ care. All without anesthetic stronger than whiskey, and never a complaint did our hero make. It’s enough to take your breath away.

Despite his best efforts, Bliss was not the only man devoted to saving Garfield. Alexander Graham Bell takes a supporting role in this narrative, as he frantically tries to develop and perfect the first metal detector he intends to use to find the afflicting bullet buried in Garfield. Bell’s obsessive work ethic and his own fascinating history generated much suspense in this book, and made me want to find an equally amazing history of his life (should one, unlikely exist). Many other heroes and villains pepper the story with intrigue, as well as the detailing of political posturing and scientific discovery that was burgeoning in this era. It is entertaining to compare what has changed versus what has remained the same; to imagine a world in which just surviving was so brutal and messy and violent. One’s child making it through infancy was short of miraculous. The White House was a literal cesspit (can you imagine!), deemed unlivable due to disrepair. Anyone at all, could sit and chat with the president of the United States, as long as they arrived at his office before noon. It was a time when a man born into the most dire of straits could pay for college with janitorial work. Boy howdy, have times changed.  

I work at a bookstore. I recommend books to people on a daily basis. I love my job, but recommending a book is tricky business. When you ask me what you should spend your dollars on, what you should spend hours and hours of your time immersed in, I don’t take this task lightly. I want to give you something that will be completely satisfying, something that suits your tastes and won’t disappoint. That part's kinda easy. I know all the books, what they are about, how they were reviewed, who likes them, etc. But, sometimes I’ll get a special customer. By special, I mean vulnerable. And by vulnerable, I mean one who is open to a little risk, who when asking for a recommendation does so a little desperately, that I, the bookseller, will know exactly the book that they need. Over fifteen years of bookselling, I’ve compiled a list of quietly outstanding books that I offer to this customer, the one that trusts me. There is something very personal about passing on a book I truly love to a stranger. I get goosebumps, sometimes my voice cracks while I am describing it, and I often run off hoping not to notice if they do indeed buy it, because having just handed a little piece of my love to them, if it were rejected, I could not help but feel hurt.

Destiny of the Republic is now on that list. As this is my pick, I have already recommended this book to Dad, so I’m risking disappointment if he didn’t love it like I did, but I am entering this conversation blind of his commentary and there is still you, dear reader, to sell to. I hope you’ve bought into my pitch. Here’s a link to my bookstore. I will personally ship it to your door.

mcnallyjackson.com

I rate this book a 2 on Dad's scale of 1-10 (1 is best, although I am unsure of his parameters)

WES:

Destiny of the Republic, under its subtitle is a “Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of the President” but I see it as more than that. To me it seems more a tale of naivety or self-delusion surrounded by brutal reality. The characters are living in a strange world that they little understand, a world that seems to have moved beyond their grasp. As a result, their actions end up foiled by events totally alien to that they expected. They then failed to take necessary precautions toward the fate that barreled down unmercifully upon them. As such, the book is almost a tragic tale of misguided fate and as the common Irish saying of their day went, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft gang aglee.” 

President James A. Garfield, our 20^th President of the United States, is the central character in the book with his fate the most tragic and painful of all. An innocent in that he never sought any office, instead had greatness thrust upon him; first as preacher, college president, general in the Civil War, congressman, then the highest office in the land. Rising in the Republican Convention of 1880 to put Senator John Sherman’s name (Sherman was from Mansfield, Ohio) into nomination, he rhetorically asked the crowd who they wanted for President, expecting the crowd to answer “Sherman”, instead a single voice yelled out, “We want Garfield!” He waved that off but when the ballots reached the 34^th iteration and delegates could not decide between Grant, Blaine, Sherman, and various favorite sons, Garfield suddenly became a compromise candidate. So he embarked on a candidacy he didn’t really want and worked minimally for it but yet won and became President. Though he naively recognized the love of the masses and learning nothing from Lincoln’s murder only 15 years earlier, he moved about with no security protections with no thought for potential dangers and insanities lurking about. Only three months into office he was gunned down in a railroad station in the middle of the day in front of two of his young sons.

Charles Guiteau, the assassin, wrote the book on self-delusion. Moving from hotel to hotel without paying his bills while stiffing everyone for many years, he felt God’s favor on his every ambition while he repeatedly failed in every endeavor. Looking for and somehow thinking he deserved a political appointment as consul to Paris, he came every day and sent many letters to the White House and the State Department presenting his so-called credentials for a patronage appointment. He was the type of guy who continually was shunted to the side politely without realizing that people were ignoring him and he was going nowhere. Garfield called Guiteau’s first letter, “..an illustration of unparalleled audacity and impudence.” Garfield’s secretary probably never passed another one on to him. Finally, Guiteau believed after Garfield crossed Roscoe Conkling that the president was a rogue to the Stalwart faction so he decided he would do the nation a favor and kill him. Observing Garfield’s well known Christianity, he thought it a minor thing to send him on to heaven where life would be better. Meanwhile, Chester Arthur, the new President, would be happy to appoint Guiteau to his consulship and everyone would come out on top. To the last moment, Guiteau never thought he would die but that someone would come save him and he could marry, publish his book, and live out his life a hero. Ugly reality finally butted in on him with only a small favor granted by his being allowed to give his own signal for the executioner to trip the gallows’ lever.    

D. Willard Bliss, the doctor in charge of Garfield’s treatment, was called to assist by Robert Lincoln, Abe’s son, mainly because he was the doctor in charge when Lincoln was shot. Equally unsuccessful in saving the President this time, somehow this fellow successfully shunted all the other doctors off to the side, completely dominating every aspect of his treatment. Unfortunately, he botched it and probably caused his death by completely unsanitary and ceaseless probing of the wound looking for the bullet. If he had done nothing, Garfield probably would have survived as many Civil War soldiers lived for years with bullets in their bodies. He refused to employ Joseph Lister ‘s anti-septic methods while disregarding recent discoveries that unseen germs caused wound infection. He also kept insisting the bullet was on the left side, the same side as the entrance wound where it should have been obvious the bullet could be anywhere because Garfield’s paralysis meant his spinal cord must have been hit likely deflecting the bullet. His incompetence drastically affected the President’s fate while he continually remained optimistic, passing inaccurate and incomplete bulletins to the press and to the President’s wife and staff. He seemed completely clueless that Garfield was dying until the last crisis revealed that the President was suffering a hopeless condition where only 15 years later Garfield would have completely recovered.

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, had met Garfield during the 1876 Centennial Exposition where he displayed his invention to the Congressman. Hearing of the assassination attempt and problems locating the bullet, he thought he could make a device using the electrical induction technique that might detect its exact location in the President’s body. He worked tirelessly to the detriment of his own family and came up with a workable prototype but when he finally convinced Bliss and the other key doctors to let him try it, his own doubts allowed him to succumb to their arbitrary limitations on using the device. He deluded himself that the doctors knew better than he on what his machine would do to the patient so he used his device on the left side of his back when the bullet turned out to be on the right side. It is incredible to me that he had to operate under such stupid restrictions but it was clear that the doctors did not know what they were doing and; hence, cruel reality burst in upon Bell’s attempt to apply science to the then dubious “art” of healing.   

Roscoe Conkling, a New York senator and boss of the Stalwarts, tried to control Garfield when he was first elected but the President refused to bow completely to his demands. The last straw came when the President appointed an enemy of Conkling’s to the biggest patronage post – collector of the Port of New York. Conkling decided to take a truly amazing course of action by resigning his seat in the Senate, confident that the state assembly would reappoint him.  He was totally self-deluded in his plan as the state assembly, secretly jealous and squirming under his self-centered power wielding, refused to reappoint him. Conkling was left without his power base and soon lost all his influence and suffered an early death. Not seeing the complete picture of where he really stood amongst his fellow power brokers, he did not miss when shooting himself in the foot.    

This book was a good read and covers a period of history little known today. Garfield was an extremely fascinating character whose Presidency might have been one of the greatest. Asking many today, they probably never heard of him as he was cut down so early without a substantial legacy. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting his farm in Mentor, Ohio, near Cleveland. His house and library are fascinating and it is a very pleasant place to visit. As noted in the book, all prayers for his recovery over the long 79 days he suffered were to no avail. It is disheartening that God did not move to heal him but let him suffer so through to the end. I guess that is the moral of the tale – God can give people the knowledge and skills to help people but if other men don’t allow the scientific progress known to man to work, then tragedy will ensue. Overall, I rate this book as a 4 on my scale of 1-10 (1 as best).

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

The Mystery of Edwin Drood was scheduled to be published in twelve monthly installments between 1870 and 1871. Charles Dickens died after only six, leaving the last half unfinished. 


WES:

 

            The Mystery of Edwin Drood is one heck of a mystery, in fact, rather a mystery within a mystery. The last novel of Charles Dickens, it is comprised of only six parts of a scheduled 12 part series completed when he passed away. He intended it to be his most intriguing plot in a self-imposed competition with Wilkie Collins, (ala The Moonstone) a contemporary mystery writer, to step up his plot lines in a mystery genre. What we end up with is an intense tale with wonderful characters and a half finished plot. As Vincent Starrett describes in an introduction to my edition:

"And yet….it is as an unfinished detective story that most of us would have the book. Edwin Drood is its author’s most fascinating work and the greatest detective-story in the world; and principally because it is unfinished and never can be finished. Because we may play with it for the rest of our lives - and others after us - in complete happiness and innocence - away from any faintest whisper of contemporaneous reality."   

The fact that Dickens could develop only half the plot and knowing his tendency to wrap up all the loose plot details in the last 2-3 chapters of his books, it is daunting to speculate where he intended this plot to go. We only have his characters and their action clues to proceed. While the clues and characters are some of the richest he ever produced, one can only guess where he was going with the plot. Even though Dickens often gets caught up in elaborate character development, this time I think everything there is a clue or a distraction designed to build suspense for the inevitable surprise at the end. Four key aspects got my attention: 1) Is there really a murder here? 2) If so, who is the killer? 3) How was the killer to be entrapped? 4) What is the likely meaning of the various indirect characters introduced?

            It’s possible that Drood could have simply disappeared, perhaps heading off to Egypt as planned after Rosa and he made the decision not to marry. This is unlikely for two reasons. One, a full six months elapsed after his disappearance, yet no reports came as to his whereabouts nor did he give the ring back to Mr. Grewgious. However, since Jasper is the most likely person to get correspondence from him after a long voyage, Dickens may have delayed such correspondence until later. The missing ring diminishes that possibility. The second reason for murder is that Dickens told his agent this book was to be a murder mystery, so evidently someone was supposed to be murdered. Only Drood and Mr. Bazzard, the latter a minor character heretofore, seem to be missing at the end. The most likely situation is that Drood has been murdered and his body hidden in the crypts.

            Based on the evidence, six killers of Drood seem possible: Jasper, Neville, Chrisparkle, Tartar, Grewgious, or Helena, likelihood probably in that order. Jasper’s actions and reactions throughout certainly make him the most likely suspect but perhaps he is too obvious based on his reactions to Drood followed by the revelation of his love for Rosa. Neville could have done the crime but had no way of disposing of the body save the river and that negates all the time spent by the author describing the cathedral crypts. Chrisparkle’s main clue is his unlikely discovery of Drood’s watch and hatpin near the river weir. He probably also has access to the cathedral keys. Tartar and his row boat make him a potential suspect – he could have disposed of the body far downriver. He also is a strong swimmer, having taught Chrisparkle how to swim.  Remember also that Rosa’s mother drowned, a crime for which her father was hung. That earlier crime could have involved Chrisparkle, Tartar, or both with something coming up that made Drood a threat. Mr. Grewgious seems a suspect chiefly because his knowledge of everything is nearly complete. He knows the people and their histories; he knows the details of the wills, and is making all the arrangements behind the scenes. Dickens may have been poised to draw him more in later, although I think it will be more likely be as the detective that solves the case. Helena has some interesting motive possibilities and the fact that she has often dressed up as men may figure later. The obviousness of Jasper’s primary suspicion makes me wonder if it is too obvious. His obsession with “finding the killer” might really be valid.

            Given all of the above and the fact that Dickens had a lot of book to go, it is hard to figure how the killer was to be exposed. If Jasper is the killer, I think Datchery actually would turn out to be Bazzard in disguise working as a detective through direction of Grewgious. He will try to entrap Jasper using some kind of acting ruse – the clue of his rejected play, The Thorn of Anxiety, just seems so prominent. Somehow he already figures the crypts are involved and plans to visit the tombs with Durdles at some future stage. The quicklime pile surely is important as a means of disposing of a body. Why the pile is in the church courtyard is weird. The ring on a decomposed corpse is the obvious clue that will probably reveal the Drood’s identity. I also think that there is something yet to be revealed in Drood’s and Rosa’s wills that might enrich and give a motive to Grewgious if he disposes of or frames any potential heirs. This may be a real possibility as Dickens often seems to have it in for the rich and powerful and rarely are lawyers presented in good light. It is possible that Tartar and Helena could be the same person as Rosa seems to have affection for both stemming from physical similarities.

Several characters were introduced that obviously were to be prominent in the book. Tartar surfaced as a new love interest for Rosa. Bazzard must somehow figure in as well as Mrs. Billickin with her disputes with Miss Twinkleton. The description of the old opium lady as the “Royal Princess” has a tremendous potential for mystery, especially as she is seen shaking her fists at Jasper while he leads the choir. One can envision Durdles and Deputy in some additional roles in future, especially given the hint that Deputy might have seen Jasper when he took the drunken Durdles’ keys as he slept. Sapsea, the “jackass” auctioneer, must have a role beyond his hapless investigation of the disappearance of Drood. Mr. Honeythunder (what a name – Dickens loves these weird names) is my favorite character who must have a greater role in the story but what on earth would involve a hypocritical philanthropy panderer? I am sorry Dickens never got around to deliciously destroying him.

            This book was a good read and one of the last ones I have to go in my read through of Dickens’ works. I enjoyed his characterizations as usual and liked to ponder all his potential clues wondering how each might fit into the whole. We will never know how they were intended to fit so all one can say is what Mr. Starrett said up front – that it will always be unfinished and one can read into it whatever one desires knowing you’ll never be wrong! Overall, I rate this book as a 3 on my scale of 1-10 (1 as best). 

ALLISON:

         Donna Tartt, who won the Pulitzer last year for her novel The Goldfinch, when asked about the influence of Dickens said (I shall paraphrase) that Dickens is a wonderful writing teacher. Not only is he a brilliant storyteller: “there’s no technical task that Dickens doesn’t do well” but he’s a “generous writer... he sort of beckons you behind the scenes and says ‘Hey kid, let me show you how I do this’…he leaves the wires and rigging behind the stage, and lets you see it.’” I was thrilled when I saw Dickens on Dad’s suggested reading list because recently I’ve been reading so much anti-Dickens, with the specific intent of improving my own writing. Modern short fiction, in particular, I’ve been looking at flash stories under 300 words, to which, I’ve attended masterful contemporaries like Lydia Davis. Lydia Davis does not provide any skeletal blueprints to her work. For example, let’s together read a story called “Her Geography: Illinois.”  The following is the entire text:

           “She knows she is in Chicago.

But she does not yet realize that she is in Illinois” (Can’t and Won’t, 2014:139)

This story is infuriating, if you ask me. I hate it. I simply do. I think this “her” character a moron and am offended to be introduced to her by a third person narration that gives me only enough to ignite repulsion. Who is this voice telling me this thing I wish I could unknow? I had to read those words, there were so few that I couldn’t not read them, and once read, I was angry. Worse, I unintentionally memorized them, and they will likely accost me the next time I visit Chicago. I can’t fathom why this was written, except as some sort of high literary joke that swoops far over my inadequate intellect. Nevertheless, I could try to imitate Lydia Davis in my own writing, much like that adage where a preschooler reconstructs modern art.

Like so: “She notices her left hand is wider than her right. Maybe it needs more exercise.”

You are likely angry with me now too.

Or maybe you love both Davis and Dickens, and are wondering why I would even attempt to compare the two. The reason is that it took me a long time to get into The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I read the first hundred pages and had zero retention. I began to panic that I had failed at the bookclub on only book three and that if Dickens is so brilliant a writer, I must be so pedestrian a reader as to not be able to understand him. I wanted to see the scaffolding Donna Tartt talked about, and all I saw was a foreign language. For a couple weeks, I dreaded opening it, because I felt so ill-prepared. But, then I talked to Mom, who said she loved Dickens. Once she finishes one Dickens, she wants to read another immediately after. She becomes so immersed in his world that she’s reluctant to come out. It occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t read Dickens on the train, surrounded by New York soundbytes and commotion. I could read Lydia Davis anywhere. I could read Davis on my cellphone while texting and walking and eating and chatting with my neighbor and STILL I’d absorb enough to be irritated. But Dickens, I had to allow myself to soak in the language. So I started over, reading at home, in silence, and indeed Drood opened up like a tulip in midday sunshine and I was irrevocably hooked. Reading Dickens I was reminded of what kind of reader I’ve always been. I grew up on L. Frank Baum, Lucy Maude Montgomery, Laura Ingles Wilder, and Alcott. Rich language, often looney and fantastic, deeply funny and never, ever pandering. Longwinded, not pithy, and never vacuous. There’s nothing to “get” with these authors. Like Dickens, the reader is offered every pertinent morsel, every flourishing detail of what there is to know.

It’s a debate about style. And I will sum it as such: Children reading Roald Dahl are adults ready for Dickens. Children reading Captain Underpants are likely to appreciate the irreverence of Lydia Davis. And we readers can be both things, surely. It just took this reader a manual gear shift of my brain to move from one to the other.

Onward to the Mystery! Drood is the last work of Dickens and is unfinished. The mystery unsolved. I was worried about reading an unfinished posthumous work. It makes me feel a little dirty to know I am reading something the author has not approved fully to completion. But, Dickens, like most of his work, was publishing and writing Drood in real time, serialized. What we read of Drood is what he approved, and indeed published, for our discernment. But, with six installments totaling over 200 pages, Drood only reaches halfway to its twelve installment allotment. That leaves so much room for Dickens to write a whole different book, to essentially craft an ending we’re probably not even be capable of imaging. I didn’t know this while reading—I avoided the introduction by Matthew Pearl in my Modern Library edition, and I even failed to look at the jacket copy, until I was done, and surprisingly Drood feels nearly complete. I could read this, not knowing its unfinished state and feel satisfied (fake spoiler, because of course I don’t know) John Jasper did it. It actually ends, moderately abruptly with Jasper revealing himself to be a threatening and rather scary fellow. For fun, I want to imagine Jasper not killing Edwin Drood, because until the last fifty pages, I was half-charmed by Jasper’s darkness, his Heathcliff swagger, his Rochester menace. I thought Rosa’s terror of Jasper was actually some romantic magnetism, like every silly young girl in 19^th century novels must be secretly attracted to the brutish, rude hero she simultaneously despises. This idea would be a disservice to Dickens though, because his characters resist expectation. Much like the flesh and blood around us, Dickens peoples his novel with idiosyncratic individuals, whose choices and motivations move the plot, and not the other way around.

These motivations are interpreted into very weird actions. For example, the charming Rosa spends her introductory scene talking to her betrothed Edwin with an apron draped over her head, inexplicably covering her face. Edwin thinks it’s weird, I think it’s weird, and Rose undoubtedly does it because it’s a brattish way to greet her unwanted suitor. Jasper has a psychotic fit before Mr. Grewgious where he quite literally falls face first onto the ground. Grewgious carries on warming his hands while observing a grown man disintegrate to “nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor” offering no assistance, or empathy. And most preposterously, Durdles, the cryptkeeper, employs a wily street urchin named Deputy, to appear after nightfall singing a gadawful tune and throwing rocks at him until he drunkenly finds his way home. (This is hands down my favorite part of the book!) These things occur and they are not unremarkably precious, not weird for weird's sake (again thumbing back to Lydia Davis). In fact, they are much remarked by the omniscient third person narrative as oddities, yet motivated strategies propelling these people through their environment. It’s a beautiful orchestration. Modern literary writers don’t really write in omniscient third person perspective anymore because it is exceptionally hard. How do you illustrate the needs of all these characters (and there are many) without revealing the interior self-conscious narrative of a single one? Read Dickens, that’s how. Tartt was right in that Dickens is a generous writer, but I don’t think it’s just for fledgling authors that he gifts his mastery. There is so much to be gained as a reader when you sink into his vibrant, thoroughly saturated, meaty world. Careful though. Like Mom, you just might not want to read anything else.  

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Dead Wake was published in March of 2015 by Crown Publishers. Erik Larson has written six other non-fiction historical narratives, most notably Devil in the White City about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Allison:

It should be known, I am reluctantly fond of Erik Larson. I have eagerly anticipated all of his books, yet just before cracking the spine of each one I have struggled with wanting to read him. I think, “Eh, do I really want to read about (insert historical event here)?” The answer, immediate from the first page, is always a resounding “YES!” Dead Wake proved no different. The book details the sinking of the British passenger liner, the Lusitania, by a German submarine during World War I. Due to the deaths of 123 Americans on board, the tragedy is often considered the final impetus igniting the US against Germany. Larson’s book corrects this misconception, the US did not declare war with Germany for another two years, but stops short of considering why or how Americans were eventually engaged. It could be argued that America in WWI is not the story Larson is telling, but by the end of the book, I was left with an aching “and then what happened…” knowing there was so much more that followed.

But as a fan of Larson, I know better than to expect a thorough history. Rather he is a fine curator of detail. He carefully selects each piece of minutiae to architect a world, without an academic’s concern for accuracy, but with a storyteller’s aesthetic for marvel.  Some of my favorite snippets of world-building came appropriately at the beginning of the book, and somewhat inappropriately, have little to do with the Lusitania. For example, Larson gives us a peek at the week before the Lusitania’s departure, including newspaper reports like the following: “A Bridgeport, Connecticut, man presented his girlfriend with an engagement ring and handed her one end of a ribbon; the other end disappeared into his pocket. ‘A surprise,’ he said, and urged her to pull it. She obliged. The ribbon was attached to the trigger of a revolver. The man died instantly” (43). These details don’t contribute to movement of plot, but they provide rich atmosphere. So many strange and wonderful tidbits are offered to pique the reader's attention.

This strategy of novel, yet incongruent detailing works well with the multitude of characters Larson introduces as travelers on the Lusitania. We feel personally connected to many of the passengers because they are resurrected, fleshed with nuanced beauty and I was happiest in this book when riding on-deck with his selected cast. But, the quirk of this technique fell flat when dealing with the heavy hitters of the book. A narrow depiction of President Wilson in love-struck ineptitude and Churchill as a bullish conspirator were uncomfortably two-dimensional. Wilson’s grief over the death of his wife, and his subsequent courtship of Edith Boling Galt is fascinating, sure, but as this is all we are offered of his role in WWI, the telling is manipulative. We are to believe that Wilson was stifled with romantic distraction while thousands of French and English were dying daily in trenches. The book also suggests Churchill may have denied the Lusitania appropriate aide, or ignored warning, with the intent that if sunk by Germans, the loss of Americans might slap Wilson to reaction. Maybe there’s truth muddled into this story Larson’s woven with swooning excerpts from love letters and callous posturing by Churchill, but it certainly is not the full picture. It is an interpretation of history for the purpose of suspense.

Speaking of suspense, how does one generate suspense over a historical event in which we all know the ending? The boat sinks. Anyone could glean as much from the title Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. Larson fantastically builds to this moment. First we learn of all the warnings, all the premonitions the major characters either heeded or did not—most obviously, the ads taken out by the German navy in many major American newspapers, promising commercial passengers sailed at their own risk. We are introduced in vivid detail to so many of the fated passengers, we anxiously speculate which ones will make it from the ominous or hopeful clues provided. The passengers’ near misses and naïve conversing of “What if” does get tiresome, if only because as we traverse the crossing, the inevitability of the Lusitania’s demise takes on a grimness that eclipses the deck-frivolity—the  oblivious, almost cheerful, “submarine fever.” I found most fascinating the depiction of the U-boat and its captain, Schwieger, who fires the fateful torpedo. I caught myself forgetting whose side I was on, often charmed by, and even rooting for the affable crew. That my emotions were drawn to the supposed villains of the book was a surprise to me, and a real credit to Larson’s suspenseful rendering.

Overall, the book was certainly flawed, maybe more so than his others, but I relished nearly every page. Like most books, I read the bulk of it on my commute in the subway. I was reading along, absorbed in the novelty of turn of the century ocean travel—week-long and celebratory, essentially a cruise, like a vacation before the real vacation of destination—but in this era, it was also a commute. The most widely accessible commute between continents, on a massive ship populated by so many strangers and friends, and families alike, and it occurred to me that I commute daily with hundreds of strangers in a potentially vulnerable vessel. I pay no heed to news and board the train, but sometimes I benignly “What if” a disaster, not unlike the passengers on the Lusitania. Sometimes I look around at the faces of the people sharing so intimate a space during rush hour and wonder who they are, who they might end up if tragedy struck us all. Which of us would be heroic? Which of us courageous, which simply ill-fated? An uneasy significance of the Lusitania became suddenly tangible to me 100 years later.

One line offered during the sinking, punched me straight in the gut, and I gasped aloud with tears on the subway. I was so shaken, I couldn't be embarrassed by the curious glances of my fellow travelers, who had no idea what I had just experienced. I just had to close the book for a moment and come up for air. In the end, to me, that is good storytelling.

           

 Wes:

Dead Wake presents the true story of the last voyage of the Cunard liner, Lusitania, as it sails from America to Liverpool, England, in the early stages of World War I. Larson presents virtually every key aspect of the 1915 saga based on his research of existing records. The narrative has four basic perspectives: the voyage of the ship itself; the patrol of the attacking submarine; the political aspects and ramifications of ocean going submarines against unarmed merchant vessels; and, the British intelligence efforts in tracking and combatting the U-Boat menace. The book ends giving some aftermath details of the personal tragedies and the political outcomes of the disaster.

            The captain, William Turner, in his third separate stint on this same ship, made several decisions that seemed to lead directly to the torpedoing, many of which, if any variance occurred other than what did, the event would have been avoided. The First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, Winston Churchill, afterwards fixed the blame on Turner but the Royal Navy certainly was not innocent in the affair. The Lusitania arrived off the SE coast of Ireland without escort, with vague orders, lacking detailed threat intelligence, moving on three engines instead of 4 to save fuel, and not zigzagging in order to meet its schedule. Turner’s only reported failure was not sailing in the center of the St. George Channel as directed but the ship was approaching the channel several miles off the coast. Many “acts of God” seemed to conspire to put the Lusitania right in front of the U-20 at the critical moment. Turner even turned the ship at the last second to allow his Exec to line up four coastal bearings as a means for determining his exact position relative to the middle of the upcoming channel and exact time and distance to the Mersey (Liverpool) sand bar.

            Proud that he was able to secure the U-20’s actual patrol log, Larson details virtually every aspect of the submariner’s life aboard an early submersible. He reports the key events in the entire voyage out and lists the attacks Captain Schwieger made in the Irish Sea, threat aspects of which were never passed to the Lusitania. Nor were 23 ships sunk near Britain in the previous week reported to Turner. Schwieger in fact was about to give up on the fast 4-stacker he saw but couldn’t catch despite perfect weather until it suddenly made a starboard turn right into his line of fire. The Germans, who could not communicate with the subs out on patrol, left attack discretion entirely up to their sub commanders. Schwieger made the choice to send his last “good” torpedo into the Lusitania and considered it a valid and lucrative target.  

Larson spends a lot of ink describing the entire course of the war and highlights the importance of submarine operations to the Germans. One gets a sense of helplessness for the British, who without depth charges or sonar (asdic to the Brits), could seldom effectively attack the submariners unless they stumbled upon one while it was surfaced. The activities of President Wilson, Bryant, and House depict the ambiguity of the American reactions to the war. Churchill’s clear goal was to get the US into the war. Based on his recorded comments, he apparently was willing to risk important shipping to German attack to make that happen. Whether the Lusitania was bait for that was hinted at by Larson from the lack of escort, vague communications, and the failure to divert the Lusitania to the then-secure northern route. In the end, Wilson, the self-proclaimed progressive, took two more years to bring the U.S. into the war.

            An interesting aspect of the story was the activity of “Room 40” which had copies of the German codebooks and codebreakers could actually look up the code groups needing only to decipher the coded key. Their task was far easier than the “Ultra” process was in World War II. They could quickly read every German radio message but leaders still had the problem of which messages to react to overtly, thereby revealing the knowledge that they could break the German cyphers. This aspect was new to me: the tragedy being that they could not pass all the known aspects to the Lusitania in the clear without potentially divulging their own capability.

Just as in my readings of the Titanic disaster which happened three years earlier, the heart of the book is the happenings after the torpedo (iceberg) hit. Larson mentions many of the passengers – some make it under incredible perils, others don’t. But the experiences of those who lived portray the scope of the disaster where 1,198 lives were lost, 764 survived, and over 600 bodies were never found. It was amazing that the ship went down in only 18 minutes while many other much smaller ships hit with one or multiple torpedoes lasted far longer. Only six of 21 lifeboats got away and none of the 26 collapsibles properly employed. The tragedy expanded greatly by the relatively warm 55° water but even then, people could survive only about two hours in the water. Ships could not reach them for 2 or more hours from Queenstown (now Cobh) as the one British warship of high speed was kept back because of the U-Boat threat. The long aftermath was sad, especially Larson’s view of the death photos and the stories of many of the lost washing up on shore weeks or months after the sinking.

This book was a good read but it had way too much info on irrelevant items. I could not figure out why Wilson’s love affair with Edith Galt was so prominent, or why so much detail on submarine technical operations was necessary. The title’s relevancy was also unclear. The issue of the second explosion was never effectively explained – to the end, it was reported that the ship was struck by two torpedoes. The results of the major investigations were also only cursively examined, an item which was of great interest to me in the Titanic case. It was interesting and coincidental to have Winston Churchill, the American author, mentioned as well as Henry James, now obscure authors of other books I have recently read. Overall, I rate this book as a 5 on my scale of 1-10. 

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Daisy Miller was first published as a magazine serial in 1878. During Henry James' lifetime, it remained his most popular work, outselling Portrait of a Lady twice over. 

Wes: 

           Daisy Miller is a short story by Henry James, an American expatriot writing in the late 19th century. A close observer of existing mores among the mid-to-high societies in Europe, James wrote this tale apparently as a precautionary story of what might happen if one adopted a care-free attitude in social dealings that disregards the accepted ways of doing things in then-current human society.

            The story opens in the vacation town of Vevey in Switzerland. The observer in the story is a 27 year-old bachelor, Frederick Winterbourne, an American who has lived in Europe for some time, who is vacationing from his studies in Lucerne, while visiting his aunt, Mrs. Costello, in a favorite lakeside hotel. He meets Ms. Annie P. Miller, ("Daisy") and is immediately smitten by her "direct and unshrinking glance", Paris dresses, fondness of society, and agreeable conversation. Winterbourne, who James notes likes older women, does his best to interest Daisy in the local scenery and takes an interest in Daisy's younger brother, Randolph. We meet the rest of the Miller family and Eugenio, the "courier" who consistently flunks his role as escort and/or baby-sitter. Daisy shockeningly invites Winterbourne to escort her alone to a local castle and even wanted to go for a boat ride with him in the early evening. Winterbourne, flattered as he is, sees a "laxity of deportment" or an "American flirt" even though he loves her company to the castle.

            When our hero has to get back to school, he is shocked when Daisy accuses him of deserting him and asks him to come to Rome during the American family's next stop. He agrees to come the following January and does make the trip though making his first Rome stop to Mrs. Wagner's home, another American expatriot, who turns out be friends with the Millers and Winterbourne. Winterbourne is trapped at the Wagner home by Daisy who arrives suddenly and complains of his failing to see her first even though he had just arrived. Things spin out of Winterbourne's control and he is shuttled into the background by Daisy's relentless need for society - especially the Roman courtier society. We meet Mr. Giovanelli, a playboy-like character, who ends up paying constant attention to Daisy to the exclusion of poor Winterbourne who constantly marvels at Daisy's complete lack of what is considered good responsible behavior.

             Daisy and her completely acquiescent mother are soon banished from the American and European social scene because of the heedless actions of Daisy and the ubiquitous Giovanelli. We see Daisy and Giovanelli all over Rome as Winterborne meets them in various odd places. The final odd place is the very bottom of the Roman Colosseum late at night at a place and time where a dangerous miasma is known to strike. Sure enough, Daisy catches a fever and soon dies, While this is tragic, the inescapable conclusion is that Daisy brought it upon herself through an "inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence."

            Never really committing to Giovanelli who clearly was looking for a rich heiress, Daisy's last word to Winterbourne were that she really wasn't engaged to him but Winterbourne could not escape agreeing with Mrs. Costello that it would be doubtful whether she would ever reciprocate anyone's affection.

            The subtitle of the story is "a Study". Obviously James' point is that this is a tragic story of the dangers of naivety, probably frequently observed by him in many of the Americans traveling in Europe with a lot of money but little discretion. The story clearly makes the point that there are penalties to social recklessness and flirtacious innocence. The ways of the Victorian era, i.e., escorts in mixed company, never walking abroad after hours, women wearing particular garments at particular times, etc., might be inhibiting but have a basis in good sense and are always observed by those with proper breeding. Mrs. Costello sensed this immediately, refusing to meet the Miller family back at Vevey, considering them "completely uncultivated", just a little better than Winterbourne's wry comment that they were certainly not "Comanche savages." The best term I think James used for her was Winterbourne's observation of her flitting about the terraces and verandas of the Vevey hotel like an "indolent sylph". Looking that strange word up gave me an impression of James' real outlook on some of the young American rich girls he apparently has observed in his wanderings around Europe at the time.

             I enjoyed this story as it has a lot of the descriptions of the Victorian authors of the era like Trollope, Austin, Thackeray, and others. A good story with a lot of interesting dialogue. It is my first story by James. I will probably tackle some more. 

Allison: 

             I don’t often read  books with a dictionary handy. Part of the adventure of reading is growing my vocabulary with words I only half-understand, and pronounce with abandon.  Kidding, of course, yet an inevitable truth.  Like most New Yorkers, I read in commute and even a pocket dictionary is too much to balance on a moving train. That said, I insisted on reading Henry James with a dictionary because from the very first page it was important to me that I know his precise meaning. I was so charmed by the descriptive cadence, I would leave nothing to my own fashioning. Take for example, this introduction to Miss Miller’s young brother Randolph:

"Presently a small boy came walking along the path – an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that he approached – the flower-beds, the garden-benches, the trains of the ladies’ dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes.

‘Will you give me a lump of sugar?’ he asked, in a sharp, hard little voice – a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. ‘Yes, you may take one,’ he answered; ‘but I don’t think sugar is good for little boys.’

This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place."

It would be impossible to read this and not want to know exactly what spindleshanks entails. Turns out the word simply means long, thin, legs, which could likely be extrapolated, but now that this definition is solidified, you can be sure I am confidently commenting on all the spindleshanks  around me.

                This isn’t a story about Randolph, although he is as crude and as gorgeous as a little boy should be. This is a story about Daisy Miller, his effervescent older sister. When I met Daisy, I thought of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. The MPDG was coined by AV Club film critic Nathan Rabin in a scathing review of Elizabethtown, and is described as such:  “TheManic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitivewriter-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and itsinfinite mysteries and adventures.” Daisy doesn’t fit perfectly into this mold, as her existence is not only about awakening our hero Winterbourne to the sparkly and shiny side of life—but she does maintain one very important feature of the MPDG: her availability to Winterbourne, and what his trepidating obsession with her ultimately reveals about him. Winterbourne has never met a girl like her, so pretty (indeed, I wish I had the patience to count how many “pretty”s we find in the slim work), and more importantly, literally unguarded. The young American woman roams various European resorts without the requisite older matronly-chaperone, enjoying immensely the company of “gentlemen’s society.” It is this very open accessibility, her freespiritedness that is so confounding and intoxicating to Winterbourne. He cannot resist the urge to partake in company with Daisy, alone, even though he knows this is frowned upon and potentially damaging to her reputation. In the first section, his intentions with Daisy are what we might expect. He is smitten and fantasizes about elopement. But, in the second half of the story, when Winterbourne discovers he is not the only (nor the most preferred) of gentlemen company Daisy is keeping, his mission becomes rescuing her dignity. Winterbourne, hardly short of stalking, and not without an interesting internal debate about the constraints of society, attempts to reform Daisy. To align her into a proper lady. Spoiler alert, I am about to tell you how this all works out.

                Daisy wants nothing of it. Of course she doesn’t, because if she did, wouldn’t she be another stuffy, highcollared ex-patriot, holding parities in rooms much too small for dancing, only large enough for gossip? All of her exotic, bald intrigue would dissipate. Manic Pixie Dream Girl turns Yates’ housewife. A tragedy, but not the one James gives us. Instead Daisy dies because she goes out walking with a Roman gentleman to the Colosseum past midnight. She catches the Italian ‘pernicious’ fever, which inexplicably, her suitor Mr. Giovanelli was never concerned about catching himself. Did he give it to her? Is this fever euphuism for something else? What should we, the reader, conclude about Daisy’s behavior and subsequent fate? For Winterbourne: “He asked himself whether Daisy’s defiance came from the consciousness of innocence or from her being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding oneself to a belief in Daisy’s ‘innocence’ came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry.”

                I read the Penguin Classics version of Daisy Miller which includes notes and an introduction by David Lodge. Lodge doesn’t give much attention to the ultimate death of Daisy. I think he was hesitant to give away the final blow of the story and maybe too classy to announce a Spoiler like myself. He does, however, give us some insight into the controversy that burgeoned with the publication of Daisy Miller. (Incidentally, much to his chagrin, Daisy Miller was James’ bestselling work in his lifetime. People were really arguing about this story, friendships were lost, angry letter were sent, etc). What sprung were two camps that fell on either side of the question Winterbourne poses of Daisy’s “innocence”—which earlier I implied as sexual, but in fact is not. Winterbourne means innocence as: Did Daisy know she was defying convention—was she ignorant, or was she simply not bothered by what others have to say about her? James answers this question in a letter to a friend, included in the Penguin edition. I won’t tell you what he said here, because I think that is the true suspense of the story.  Maybe we can get into it in the comments, if you really want to know. Regardless of the intention of James, despite the hurried tiding of Daisy’s reputation in the final pages, when he kills Daisy off, we gather that Daisy’s unabashed rejection of societal constraints confirms a common didactic message with which every woman is familiar, all the way up until modern day: Young pretty girls, if left untethered, are dangerous. Dangerous to themselves for their magnetic allure, and dangerous to men, who simply cannot ignore them.  Because all women know this—it’s as sure and as unambiguous as the nose on my face—I fall into the camp of “Daisy doesn’t give a damn”.