The Splendid and the Vile

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this book on my cell phone in Japan using an interlibrary loan in my home state of New Hampshire, in the US. Interestingly, the book's main resolving chord was the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, which lead a tit for tat set of war declarations culminating in Roosevelt declaring war on Germany. This was the act which Churchill had been muttering about, making impassioned speeches for, and lobbying various American visitors dining at his country houses for, for the bulk of the book. I originally thought 'Splendid and Vile' would mean that we would read about Churchill at his best and worst in the book, but this was not the case. THere is nothing vile to see in anything about Churchill, only splendiferousness. The reference is to a journal entry where another character looks out on gleaming airplanes in the beautiful moonlit night lit below by bombs and fires and declares the scene to be splendidly beautiful, and yet at the same time evidence of the degree of vileness to which humans can fall. I was reminded a bit of the contrast between the beautiful and artistic rendition of evil flying war machines in Studio Gibli movies. The book draws mostly on journals and portrays the real life vicissitudes of the characters that wrote them, during one of the most splendid, and indeed vile, moments in human history, during the blitzkrieg from 1939-41 in London.



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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I saw the movie on an airplane. At the time, I had no idea it was a book - just thought the title looked interesting so I watched it. Of course, watching a Hollywood rendition in advance of reading a book is always a mistake. In this case, for example, I knew the eventual happy hollywood ending right from the get go. I don't think I've ever read a fully epistolary novel before (eg. I have not yet read Les Liaisons Dangereuses). Some of these letters were absurdly short (eg a single sentence, or even a single word), which made them seem like they might be telegrams. But later in the book some telegrams did appear and were indicated by 'stop' where periods go, so maybe not? To bring about the hollywood ending the author did switch to someone's journal rather than letters, just at the very end. Mechanics aside, the setting was very interesting (Guernsey) and the characters were nicely developed. A nicely constructed and appealing window into small town dynamics rent asunder by wartime atrocities.



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