Average customer rating:
- I thought this book would be thought provoking
- Brilliant memoir of father/son relationship by brother of Tobias Wolff
- Forgive, But Don't Forget
- an overall success!
- Serving A Duke
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Duke of Deception
Geoffrey Wolff
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Old School
ASIN: 0679727523
Release Date: 1990-02-19 |
Book Description
Duke Wolff was a flawless specimen of the American clubman -- a product of Yale and the OSS, a one-time fighter pilot turned aviation engineer. Duke Wolff was a failure who flunked out of a series of undistinguished schools, was passed up for military service, and supported himself with desperately improvised scams, exploiting employers, wives, and, finally, his own son.
In The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff unravels the enigma of this Gatsbyesque figure, a bad man who somehow was also a very good father, an inveterate liar who falsified everything but love.
Customer Reviews:
I thought this book would be thought provoking.......2007-08-29
It wasn't at all what I expected. I read the first one or two chapters and I thought to myself this book is pretty good--but the memoir fell apart after that.
Brilliant memoir of father/son relationship by brother of Tobias Wolff.......2007-02-12
I don't know how I initially ran into this book, but my son was assigned This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff in prep school - twice. This is a memoir by Tobias' brother, Geoffrey Wolff, of life with their father - a Jew who went to extreme measures to pass as not Jewish. The real story though is not the fathers' life, but the author's incredible insight into a father/son relationship. I bought this copy to give to my son's prep school - I thought it made, at least in excerpt, critical reading if they were going to thoughtlessly keep assigning This Boy's Life. Brilliant writing. It would be a shame for this to be the lost "twin" as it's so rare to get two angles on a life, so well fitted for adolescent dialog in school.
Forgive, But Don't Forget.......2005-12-07
For those who have read Tobias Wolff's memoir This Boy's Life, Geoffrey Wolff's The Duke of Deception fills in many gaps. Where This Boy's Life focuses on a rather short period of a couple years in Tobias Wolff's life, The Duke of Deception covers the life of their father, Arthur. The writing style is much more formal than Toby's book. When he describes his often rocky relationship with his mother, it sounds almost like a psychologist's file than a son talking about his mother. "My mother is not cold, and she is not stiff. She has been infailingly warm and loving with my boys, and with my wife. She laughs a lot, teases, likes to be teased. But neither of us, I think, trusted the other's love" (48). The formality adds greatly to the older and wiser narrator, creating a sense of distance. It takes some getting used to, but as the book progresses, it became clearer that this formality is a way of distancing Geoffrey from some of the more painful memories.
The further you get into the book, the further you want to read on. As Geoffrey gets older and older, he begins to understand his father's cons and note them more carefully. The reader is entrapped, anxious to see when Arthur will finally exploit everyone who cares about him, and even more anxious to see how Geoffrey could possibly forgive his father. Even as Geoffrey despises his father's cons, he finds himself falling into Arthur's ways. "As I liked him less and less I became more and more like him. I felt trapped" (197).
The story's a little slow at first, filled with family history, "My father Arthur was delivered by his father Arthur at home on Spring Street in Hartford, November 22, 1907" (13). This history becomes important as Geoffrey begins to untangle his father's life. Wolff keeps the reader's attention by injecting vivid scenes from his childhood into the narration of dry facts. Overall, this book was a fantastic story of a son coming to terms with his father's crimes and then having the ability to forgive him for it.
an overall success!.......2005-12-05
I chose to read this book just after finishing This Boy's Life, a memoir written by the author's brother, Tobias Wolff. I hoped The Duke of Deception, by Geoffrey Wolff, would be just as interesting, creative, and captivating as Tobias' work. In some aspects, it failed to meet my expectations, but in most of the others, it was a pleasure to read.
The beginning of the book, for me, was the only part that was very hard to get into, hard to immerse myself in. I found the sudden, rapid descriptions of overlapping events and characters to be overwhelming and it was hard for me to become a part of the story. Before the reader reaches the end of the first page of the text, for example, s/he has already been introduced to over five characters. One passage even reads, "
She spent her summers in Narrangansett surrounded by the houses of her five children and by numberless cousins and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of these, my son Nicholas, not quite four, had just left for a ride with her...Nicholas' little brother Justin was with his mother at the beach. I was with my wife's brother-in-law on a friend's shaded terrace. Kay's house was old and shingled...
I was so lost even by that point that it was hard to finish the first chapter.
As the book progressed, however, I was surprised to eventually find myself sitting for hours and flying through the text. Once the scene was set and I was familiar (for the most part...) with all of the characters, the book became truly enjoyable. It was great that Wolff was able to tell his entire story in an interesting and not entirely chronological way; it was nice to have explanations of events he was describing as told by other events...even if the story grew a little out of order. In using this technique, the author retold his astounding child-to-adulthood in a way that was creative yet not impossible to follow.
Even with the rocky beginning, I was, in a short time, able to enjoy and appreciate this book. The author writes with a style and certain clarity that have yet to come across elsewhere. I would highly suggest reading This Boy's Life either before or after reading The Duke of Deception; the two make a great pair and individually tend to fill in whatever holes might appear in the other work. Overall, The Duke of Deception is definitely a recommended read.
Serving A Duke.......2005-12-05
Geoffrey Wolff's memoir The Duke of Deception is a carefully written account of his lying, deceiving father and the effects his actions had on his son's life. Separated from his mother and younger brother at age 12, he moved from place to place, lie to lie with his dad for 25 years.
The narrator's voice in this piece is reminiscent, and very critical of his father. It is not writing that lets you get into character, live in the moment like that of Tobias Wolff in his memoir This Boy's Life. Rather, Geoffrey Wolff uses interviews with his mother and trips back to places he lived to help recount his own memory of what growing up with the Duke was like. At times this causes it to seem more like a story of the life of the Duke, rather than a story of the author's life. Wolff by looking back to when his father was young was able to identify that some of his problems began early, such as his ability to scam people into borrowing him money and then never paying them back. In a letter from the headmaster of one of the many boarding schools the Duke was kicked out of he ended with "The carelessness of Arthur in incurring debt is perhaps his worst fault." (p 37) This technique of starting at the beginning allows the reader to get a broad picture of what Geoffrey Wolff was dealing with.
By adding an older, wiser narrator voice the author is able to comment on all the happenings of his life, and recall what he thought about his father. "My father said nothing, and I understood that I had asked the wrong question. I searched this experience to unriddle what I had said wrong, but couldn't puzzle it out. It never occurred to me that my father lied." (p 94) It is this kind of narration that lets us see how easy it was not only for acquaintances and shop owners, but even the Duke's own son to fall into the web of lies the Duke had begun to live.
Average customer rating:
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The Duke of deception: Memories of my father
Geoffrey Wolff
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: 0394410521 |
Customer Reviews:
The Sins of the Fathers.......2006-08-18
Some time ago, the American poet Robert Frost remarked in a "Paris Review" interview with Richard Poirier that "you don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's. He's more particular. One's a Republican, one's a Democrat. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother's always a Democrat." Yet it cannot always be so. Consider "The Duke of Deception", a fine, gritty memoir by Geoffrey Wolff that has proven to have great staying power. In Wolff's book, we have a father who seems to have been a true Democrat of the heart, although-- or perhaps because-- his "sustaining line of work til shortly before he died was as a confidence man." And we have a mother who appears Republican in her affections.
So we have here an unusually frank family memoir. It opens on Wolff's declaration that though he loved his father , he responded to news of his death with "Thank God." He had, he said, watched his wife's brother-in-law cross the room toward him, sure that the phone call just taken concerned the death of one of his own two sons. He'd already decided which boy was lost. "I heard someone behind me gasp," Wolff wrote, after his shocking exclamation of relief. "The words did not then strike a blow above my heart," but later they did, and there was no calling them back, there is no calling them back now. All I can do is try to tell what they meant."
Wolff, former book review editor of "The Washington Post," and "Newsweek,"has created a remarkable book from this effort to tell what those words meant. Of the love:"I had this from him always: compassion, care, generosity,endurance." And the pain: his father is a floater of bad checks, a wrecker of good cars. He charges $1,000 worth of clothes to his son's accounts when the boy is an undergraduate at Princeton University.
The family moves from a small tract house in Southern California, to a mansion in Birmingham, Alabama, to a luxurious honeymoon suite in Niagara Falls, to a cold-water walkup on Manhattan's East Side.
Duke keeps the balls spinning for many years, but toward the end he loses energy. He buys a watch he doesn't need with a check for $248.70 on an account closed more than four years. He goes to jail for the third time. By then" my father looked twenty yeaars older than when I had last seen him on Nassau Street (in Princeton, N.J.) two years back. He had flabby jowls and liver spots on his bare skull. He had lost mass, taken on a pot. He moved awkwardly now, uncertainly. He wore thick-framed eyeglasses like Barry Goldwater's and his clothes-- I couldn't believe this --were on the flashy side... He seemed to have lost more than his youth. He was distracted, coarse, not very bright"....
Duke will jump bail after his son, sadly expecting that he would, refused to make it. "And he was punished," Wolff writes, when the law caught up with him. "They paid him back with interest for the space he had occupied, the airs he had put on, the fictions he had enacted. He had told me he hoped I'd never be a reviewer, a critic. I understand. Out in the real world the critics have teeth, and use them."
Perhaps Wolff kept a diary in his youth, the portraits he paints are so true and detailed. He writes with admirable crispness, and great honesty as he throws light on some of the darker corners of family life. He creates a complex picture of his father, a man difficult to grasp, by design.
"My father was a Jew," Wolff mused." This did not seem to him a good idea, and so it was his notion to disassemble his history, begin at zero, and re-create himself....If I now find his authentic history more surprising, more interesting, than his counterfeit history, he did not.He would not make peace with his actualities, and so he was the author of his own circumstances...."
The family used occasionally to visit a beach on which Duke's family had summered throughout his boyhood, but he chose not to tell his son of this. "We must have been alone on that beach twenty times, perhaps forty. And we walked each time past the house where my father spent every summer of his life, happily, until he thought he would rather be elsewhere, and was old enough to drive himself away from Crescent Beach. And never did my father tell me that we were together near a sacred family place, or point to the house...that had given his father such pleasure and pride. Of my father's serial repudiations I find this the most perverse and sad."
Average customer rating:
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The Duke of Deception
Geoffrey Wolff
Manufacturer: Books on Tape
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
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ASIN: 5557108653 |
Average customer rating:
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Island Deception
Elizabeth Duke
Manufacturer: Ulverscroft Large Print
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 075051132X |
Book Description
Frederick the Great was not renowned as a great artillery enthusiast, however he did recognise the importance of artillery and greatly expanded the arm. Frederick was also aware of the value of strong fortifications as barriers against the manoeuvres of enemy armies, and as places of security for troops and magazines; some of these were of vital significance in the survival of Prussia during the Seven Years' War. This fascinating volume by Philip Haythornwaite examines the artillery, engineers and others specialist troops of Frederick the Great's army.
Book Description
This book examines the uniforms, equipment, history and organisation of the men who served in the army of Frederick the Great. Major engagements in the First and Second Silesian Wars and The Seven Years’ War are all covered. Uniforms are shown in full illustrated detail.
Book Description
The Prussian army of King Frederick II, 'the Great', became so renowned as a result of its campaigns, principally during the Seven Years' War, that it was regarded as a model for many of the other armies of Europe. In this first of two volumes exploring Frederick the Great's splendid army, Philip Haythornwaite examines the organisatin, tactics and uniform of his cavalry troops, in a text backed by numerous illustrations including eight full page colour plates by Bryan Fosten.
Customer Reviews:
Prussia's beginnings.......2006-04-20
The books of this series provide a rich well researched and superbly illustrated quick source of information for those interested in the Prussian troops of this period.
Excellent Illustrations, a good reference source.......1999-07-22
An excellent source of reference material, either for general knowledge or foruse in the world of military modelling. I will try the other titles in the range when money allows
Customer Reviews:
great book of a not so great man's army.......2006-04-20
Though I do certainly agree with the other reviews of this book I still believe it has its virtues in detailing the mighty Prussian army in its organization, in its recruiting and its battles.
The author provides not so flattering insights into the man who headed it, lead it into battle and came pretty close to being the cause of its destruction. Like Napoleon, he must rank as a great tactician but also a Butcher in regards to the men under his command.
An Excellent Overview Ruined by Poor Editing.......2001-02-24
Poor editing, with numerous typos and spelling/syntax errors mars this work. There is excellent detail on the organization, training and equipment of the Prussian army, 1740-86. Good individual chapters on Prussian infantry, cavalry, artillery and support services. Frederick does not appear so "great" here; an able tactician and aggressive soldier-king, but marred by pique and an ignorant perspective. He despised his artillerymen and engineers and consequently, his efforts at siege warfare were failures. While the Prussian infantry and cavalry were superb, he under-utilized artillery and most of his "oblique attacks" were merely cleverly-executed frontal attacks. There is an appendix with unit summaries on all Prussian regiments. This could have been a superb work, but it is marred by inadequate maps, which are difficult to understand and don't depict battles well. Incredibly, there are no campaign maps. Additionally, there should have been a biographical chapter on Prussian leaders, as well as line and block charts on organization and a better campaign summary.
A moderating opinion.......2000-06-04
I agree with the above reader on the issue of typos, but these should not take away from the excellence of Duffy's work on Frederick the Great. The typos aside, this is an excellent and accessible book, which gives a good overview of the Prussian military from 1740-1763 (mainly) without forcing the reader to go through Duffy's more comprehensive biography of the Prussian King if they don't want to.
Typos, typos, and more typos!.......1999-12-15
Owning the first edition of Duffy's work, I could not wait to see the believed-to-be improved second edition. While some new information exists, there are so many typographical errors permeating the text, that the shoddy work by this publisher substantially distracts the reader from Duffy's prose. What's more, the publisher/editor of this second edition omitted from the listing/battle histories one of the Prussian regiments that was detailed in the original edition. Duffy is a fine historian, but it is too bad that the publisher's efforts were not up to the same standards. In conclusion, I will continue to use the original edition in favor of this second edition.
Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1849 edition by Richard Bentley, London.
Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1849 edition by Richard Bentley, London.
Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1849 edition by Richard Bentley, London.
Product Description
This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1862 edition by Parker & Son, London.
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