Book Description
Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye first gives a met- iculously researched overview of the period, from foreign affairs to social ranks, from fashion to sanitation. She goes on to consider each novel individually, explaining in detail its action, its setting, the reaction of public and critics and Jane's own feeling about it.
Customer Reviews:
My favorite Austen introduction.......2007-05-29
As a longtime student of Jane, this book absolutely riveted me. you learn so much about her life, her times, her works, and her influences, and the style of this beautiful book is enchanting. LeFaye skillfully weaves together pieces of biography, history, and plot to create a fascinating Austen portrait. It is also lavishly illustrated and printed on lovely paper, which helps make it one of my favorite books, period. A must have for any Jane lover.
The Fascinating World of Jane Austen.......2007-05-07
Jane Austen's novels are endlessly layered and this book does a fascinating job of peeling the onion so we have full understanding of her world.
More plot than we need!.......2007-03-22
On the one hand, this book is very useful because the writer is a top expert on Austen. But while she gives a lot of information on Austen's culture, she spends too many pages givng long plot summaries. I recommend JANE AUSTEN FOR DUMMIES as a great alternative: the author of that gives a great sense of the culture, characters, and Austen, herself, in a witty, clear style.
A bit on the disappointing side.......2005-02-20
Being a bit of a Jane Austen magpie and already owning other books by Le Faye, I looked forward to gaining more background to the time period with this book. While there was much of interest, I'd have to say that overall I wouldn't recommend it. There were some inaccuracies in the plot summaries (minor, but there all the same), but the biggest problem for readers who may be new to Jane Austen was the lack of delineation between the real people (family members, friends) mentioned and characters from the books. I could see this becoming fairly confusing for someone who hasn't already read other biographical material. Still, it's a decent read and the information presented may stimulate a person's interest enough to want to find out more.
Delightful glimpse into Jane Austen's world.......2003-08-22
Such a nice book! This is a cozy volume, filled with background information on Jane's life, her novels, and the Regency era. Excellent pictures, interesting and well-written text. A perfect book to peruse while you drink a cup of tea on a winter's night. Would make a great gift for any Jane Austen lover.
Book Description
For every frustrated reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels of Austen, Trollope, Dickens, or the Brontës who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell "Tally Ho!" at a fox hunt, or how one landed in "debtor's prison," here is a "delightful reader's companion that lights up the literary dark" (The New York Times).
This fascinating, lively guide clarifies the sometimes bizarre maze of rules, regulations, and customs that governed everyday life in Victorian England. Author Daniel Pool provides countless intriguing details (did you know that the "plums" in Christmas plum pudding were actually raisins?) on the Church of England, sex, Parliament, dinner parties, country house visiting, and a host of other aspects of nineteenth-century English life -- both "upstairs" and "downstairs."
An illuminating glossary gives at a glance the meaning and significance of terms ranging from "ague" to "wainscoting," the specifics of the currency system, and a lively host of other details and curiosities of the day.
Customer Reviews:
An Easy to Read and Interesting Reference.......2007-09-30
If you read Regency or Victorian literature this is a reference you will want close at hand. Both Interesting and fun to read, the author says he wanted to "answer some of the questions that nag any half-curious reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels." He does just that. This book is meant as an overview, or introduction, to the period not an in-depth reference. You will not find lengthy discussions of what Jane Austen might have eaten, but there are several sections on foods and dinner parties.
The book includes a large glossary of terms peculiar to the period. I have found it handy when I've come across an unfamiliar word in a novel and didn't want to stop reading and go research it.
While I feel the book does cover both the Regency and Victorian era fairly well, I believe it can be criticized for spanning too great of a period. Imagine a book attempting to give insight into the entire twentieth century, a period that would include the Wright Brothers and the moon landings and corsets and miniskirts, and many more contrasts. The nineteenth century had many similar contrasts making it difficult to write a single volume cover the entire period.
I recommend two other books for anyone reading Victorian literature, Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England and To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace
Recommendation: Anyone starting down the road of enjoying Regency or Victorian literature should find this a handy reference.
Kyle Pratt
Fun and Interesting.......2007-06-11
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England, by Daniel Pool, is a nice book that is full of fun facts and answers to questions that come about from the reading of some of the great English writers. The book needs to be taken for what it is... entertainment, rather than relied upon as a historical textbook of any kind. I find the book an interesting diversion occasionally, and fun for picking up a bit of the Victorian period. Enjoy. Three stars.
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.......2007-05-13
That's a perfect book. If you want to know anything interesting about the 19th century in England, you should read it.I teach English as the second language and it's sometimes too difficult to draw students' attention through the whole lesson. There are many interesting and unknown things, that help students to imagine this time in England. On the other hand, the book is written by clear and easy English so I could not stop reading till I finished.
Cute but glib--and wrong!.......2007-03-30
This is an error-ridden, foolish little book that is just fine for casual consumption but is a terrible place for anyone serious about history to try to learn anything. I write Victorian-set novels, and I really think that books like these are a major problem with my genre as they fool would-be writers into believing that they actually have actually done "research."
*sighs*
Read through George Eliot, Trollope, Austen, Dickens, the Eyres, and Thackeray. Then read articles from popular newspapers and real histories of the period. And then collect fashion plate images and discriptions. Buy copies of Mrs. Beeton and Mayhew. THEN you will have done some research about the 19th c.
that's what they meant.......2007-03-16
i am a dickens, austen, bronte, hardy, wharton, etc. reader. this book relates the conditions of the times and the reasons things were done as they were. eye-opening, fun to read, very informative. even a glossary at the end of the book.
Book Description
In this fast-paced information age, how can Americans know what's really important and what's just a passing fashion? Now more than ever, we need a source that concisely sums up the knowledge that matters to Americans -- the people, places, ideas, and events that shape our cultural conversation. With more than six thousand entries,The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is that invaluable source. Wireless technology. Gene therapy. NAFTA. In addition to the thousands of terms described in the original Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, here are more than five hundred new entries to bring Americans' bank of essential knowledge up to date. The original entries have been fully revised to reflect recent changes in world history and politics, American literature, and, especially, science and technology. Cultural icons that have stood the test of time (Odysseus, Leaves of Grass, Cleopatra, the Taj Mahal, D-Day) appear alongside entries on such varied concerns as cryptography, the digital divide, the European Union, Kwanzaa, pheromones, SPAM, Type A and Type B personalities, Web browsers, and much, much more. As our world becomes more global and interconnected, it grows smaller through the terms and touchstones that unite us. As E. D. Hirsch writes in the preface, "Community is built up of shared knowledge and values -- the same shared knowledge that is taken for granted when we read a book or newspaper, and that is also taken for granted as part of the fabric that connects us to one another." A delicious concoction of information for anyone who wants to be in the know, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy brilliantly confirms once again that it is "an excellent piece of work . . . stimulating and enlightening" (New York Times) -- the most definitive and comprehensive family sourcebook of its kind.
Customer Reviews:
4 1/2 stars........2007-03-12
i am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what i mean. this book is just the ticket for a palooka like me. i've been dipping into the thing here and there for a couple of months now, and it's been a tremendous amount of fun. i was amazed by how much i had forgetten from my school days (i am 45). this compendium of learning covers a lot of ground, with a text that is clear and concise and enjoyable to read. the bible, mythology and folklore, literature, philosophy, religion, the english language, the fine arts, american history and world history, geography, psychology, sociolgy, business and economics, science, medicine, health, and technology, all get a going over. the format is easy and perfect for dipping into anywhere whenever you have the time to do so. a perfect coffee table book. a great bedside book. i highly recommend this to anyone who wishes to expand their knowledge or bone up on their facts in a wide variety of human endeavor.
Something for Everyone.......2007-01-20
This is one book eveybody who wishes to be a well rounded, educated reader should own. It gives you a general knowledge of most subjects from art & culture, to science, social issues, history, famous names and a whole lot more. It is an excellent source book.
Comprehensive but necessary?.......2007-01-10
I have strongly mixed feelings about Hirsch's idea of cultural literacy. Regardless, this text is exactly what Hirsch promises it to be: a dictionary of cultural references. The one thing that Hirsch fails to state (and perhaps it's implicit within his tome) is that the cultural dictionary is developed from a fairly WASP-like perspective. He disclaims that it is what "every American" needs to know, but fails to recognize his operating stance. There is a heavy American, Judeo-Christian, masculine influence in his book. This is by no means an unbiased cultural dictionary.
A great way to understand the history of our country.......2006-08-21
This book will help you to comprehend the background of our country a little more as well as give a high-level overview of where the foundations of our nation came from. Covering literature to common everyday sayings as well as the scientific side of things from an origin perspective, you will begin to have an appreciation for what our forefathers went through as they strove to build a society in the grand ol' USA.
Down-and-Dirty Info.......2006-08-20
This book is excellent if you want to know concise bits of info about a particular topic (and it covers A LOT of topics, grouped nicely into categories in the Table of Contents). Then, if you want to delve further into an item, you can always hop on the Web. I gave the book to my 21-year-old son to help him start his own book collection, so I recently purchased another for myself.
Book Description
Raymond Williams ' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society is justly renowned for its role in providing a whole generation of students and intellectuals with trusty and cogent distillations of the language of cultural studies. First published in 1976, the text played a pivotal role in both academic and public understandings of culture and society and the relations between them. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society updates Williams 's classic text by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last quarter century.New Keywords includes many of Williams 's original entries, but with new discussions of their history and use over the last 25 years. Several other entries encapsulate the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society. The editors have assembled an international team of scholars to write from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields - cultural and media studies, feminism, post-colonial and subaltern studies, the history of science, sociology, gay and lesbian studies. The result is a state-of-the art reference for students, teachers and public intellectuals everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
Excellents Resource for Students of Cultural and Media Studies.......2005-09-14
The editors, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris are well known academics and scholars in cultural studies. The New Keywords is a comprehensive resource for everyone furthering their studies in cultural and literary theory. In addition, students involved in anthropology, sociology and philosophy may find it very useful.
Another model for Taxonomy and Classification of Information.......2005-05-18
View the Contents of this book to see how it fits as a re-newed model:
Acknowledgements Abbreviations
Introduction
Aesthetics, Alternative, Art, Audience
Behaviour, Biology, Body, Bureaucracy,
Canon, Capitalism, Celebrity, Citizenship, City, Civilization, Class, Colonialism, Commodity, Communication, Community, Conservatism, Consumption, Copy, Country, Culture
Deconstruction, Democracy, Desire, Development, Diaspora, Difference, Disability, Discipline, Discourse,
Economy, Education, Elite, Emotion, Empirical, Environment / ecology, Equality, Ethnicity, Everyday, Evolution, Experience
Family, Fashion, Feminism, Fetish, Freedom, Fundamentalism,
Gay and Lesbian, Gender, Generation, Gene/genetic, Globalization, Government
Heritage, History, Holocaust, Home, Human, Human Rights
Ideology, Identity, Image, Indigenous, Individual, Industry, Information, Intellectual
Justice, Knowledge, Liberalism
Management, Marginal, Market, Mass, Materialism, Media, Memory
Mobility, Modern, Movements, Multiculturalism
Narrative, Nation, Nature, Network, Normal
Objectivity, Orientalism, Other
Participation, Person, Place, Policy, Political correctness Popular, Pornography, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Poverty
Power, Pragmatism, Private, Public, Queer,
Race, Radical, Reason, Reform/revolution, Relativism Representation, Resistance, Risk,
Science, Self, Sexuality, Sign, Socialism, Society, Sovereignty,
Space, Spectacle, State,
Taste, Technology, Text, Theory, Therapy, Time, Tolerance, Tourism, Unconscious, Utopia, Value, Virtual, Welfare, West, the
Work, Writing, Youth,
About the Book:
Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams' classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere.
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Everyday English 1500-1700: A Reader
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
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A Book of Middle English
ASIN: 0472066862 |
Book Description
What kind of language did ordinary men and women use in the seventeenth century? Everyday English 1500-1700 addresses this question by bringing together and explaining more than sixty nonliterary texts from the early modern period, ranging from witnesses' depositions to church wardens' accounts, and from letters and journals to constables' presentments and scurrilous abuse shouted in the marketplace.
This unique source book of essential documents designed for courses on Early Modern English is designed as a teaching text with full guidance to each text, including glossary, explanatory and background notes, and suggested topics for linguistic evaluation. Everyday English takes an up-to-the-minute approach by focusing on language as it was used and spoken at the time.
This wide-ranging collection for the first time makes available to students a corpus of examples of the ordinary, nonstandard language of the man and woman in the street, coming from areas as diverse as England, Scotland, and America. The emphasis throughout is on providing as much assistance as possible to the reader to aid understanding and appreciation of both the linguistic features and the everyday lifestyles of the time.
"The only book a really conscientious teacher of the history and structure of Early Modern English would use for source texts." --Roger Lass, University of Cape Town
Bridget Cusack was lecturer in English Language, University of Edinburgh.
Book Description
For anyone challenged by the changes and controversies in the world's most widely used language: Standard American English.
Right, Wrong, and Risky provides simple, direct answers to questions about word choice, spelling, grammar, and punctuation—in straightforward alphabetical order. The answers are supported by thousands of up-to-date published usage examples. And the reader is told not just that particular usages are right or wrong, but why.
In addition, Right, Wrong, and Risky warns the reader about risky words like cleave and suspicious, and the many risky situations in which usage authorities disagree about what is and is not acceptable in Standard American English. For every such quandary, this book provides a risk-free solution.Browsers will learn why we tell stage performers to break a leg, why it's not really an insult to call someone a philistine or even a Neanderthal, and why it's wise never to use the word fortuitous or say the word forte aloud.
Customer Reviews:
Who Can Do Without?.......2007-01-27
I can't think of anyone who uses the spoken or written word who wouldn't be intrigued by this book. Oh, how we misuse our English language with word useage that we are unsure of or mangle. Although not meant as such, I bought this book as a reference gift for my Crossword Puzzle obsessed son. It is amazing the amount of research and scholarship that is invested in this book. Look up the definition of the word "peruse." My guess is you haven't been using it correctly. Welcome to the club.
A must for anyone who writes...anything!.......2006-12-08
If you write letters, books, emails or just quick notes to the kids, you need this book. I have been honing my writing skills for years and found a plethora of information that I can use everyday. This book showed me how far I still have to go.
I'm buying four copies for Christmas gifts, I'm sure they'll be well received.
Brillant Yet Flawed.......2005-12-04
I just bought this book today and was absolutley delighted to see such an up-to-date reference book on American usage. I have been waiting for a comphrensive yet readable book on this subject, and Mr. Davidson's book fills the bill fairly well. The entries are alphabetically arranged, with very entertaining and informative prescriptions on what's right and incorrect. On the more controversial entries he even suggests a "risk-free" alternative to keep the prospective writer/editor out of possible hot water. A nice touch! Most aspects of usage and style are covered. From the usual collection of confusing and misspelled words, to excellent discussions about fused gerunds, redundant phrases, and other matters likely to trip up people who want to write clearly and correctly for their readers. The excellent bibliography is exhasutive and lists all the books that have been published on this topic since the early 90s (and earlier!).
On the negative side, I was very disapppointed that there was no index for the individual entries. This proved to be especially troubling, since not all entries are listed where they should be. For example, in looking up the word "yet", I found it not under the y's, but under the b's with the entry "but, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, still, still and all, or yet?" An index would have been helpful to point me directly to the page on which this item was discussed.
Lastly, I was surprised there was no reference to the recent Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004) by Pam Peters who is also at Macquarie University. The two books together should answer any usage question for years to come.
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- Beautifully Haunting ...
- A different Holocaust story
- A son's voyage of discovery of his parents' nightmarish past
- A Very Moving Book
- Wow
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The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany
Martin Goldsmith
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Running Through Fire: How I Survived the Holocaust (Nea Heritage & Preservation Series, 3)
ASIN: 0471350974 |
Amazon.com
Writing this book must have required enormous courage; reading it is overwhelming, especially for anyone personally connected to the events it describes. Martin Goldsmith, best known as the host of NPR's Performance Today, is the American-born son of two German-Jewish musicians who escaped the Holocaust. He anchors the Holocaust to the story of his own family, whom he never knew because most of them perished in Hitler's death camps. Goldsmith accompanies them through their lives in Nazi Germany, with its ever-tightening persecution and repression of the Jews, and on their nightmarish journey to the gas chambers. He follows his parents through their early musical training, their blossoming love, courtship, and marriage--making them seem like a normal, happy young couple--to their miraculous rescue and escape to America.
The book's linchpin is the Jewish Culture Association ("Jüdische Kulturbund"), in whose Berlin orchestra his parents met. Established by prominent Jewish leaders in 1933, after a "purge" of all Jewish Civil Servants, the Kulturbund flourished for eight years, with the permission and under the constant, increasingly repressive surveillance of the Nazis, who exploited it as a propaganda tool. Spreading from Berlin to other cities, its musical and theatrical presentations, lectures, and films offered employment to thousands of Jewish artists and the only cultural oasis to its Jewish audiences. In 1941, Germany's preoccupation with the war and the "Final Solution" rendered it superfluous, and it was dissolved.
But Goldsmith also furnishes the proper historical context for his uniquely individual, human account of the 20th century's most inhuman period. After a chillingly detailed description of the grass-roots rise of Nazism, he focuses on particularly horrifying events: the infamous 1935 Nuremberg Laws and the devastating 1938 pogrom, "Kristallnacht." The tragedy of the 937 refugees, including Goldsmith's grandfather and uncle, who were refused disembarkation first in Cuba, then in Miami, illustrates the world's customary indifference to "other" people's misfortunes. Nobody paid attention when, as early as 1922, Hitler declared that his first priority on coming to power would be the extermination of the Jews.
Goldsmith's factual, reportorial style increases the sickening horror, and he reminds us frequently that he is writing about his own family. Though his story's outcome is never in doubt, he generates real suspense--a measure of his skill, despite his unfortunate habit of hinting at the future. The Kulturbund has been accused of encouraging the Jews to ignore the desperate circumstances outside the theater, and therefore the imminence of their danger. Goldsmith refutes this. For most of them, emigration was impossible because, apart from the natural fear of pulling up roots, leaving everything behind, and starting a new life, they had nowhere to go. Moreover, how could anyone foresee the depth of the impending horror? It was, and still is, beyond the human imagination.
Goldsmith writes with insight and aching honesty about the survivors' guilt and its numbing effect even upon the next generation. But his parents also taught him to love music and appreciate its meaning in people's lives, and he talks about it with real knowledge and understanding. (However, someone should have corrected his opening reference to Siegmund's sword in Die Walküre, which is made of steel, not gold.) This is a brilliantly written, important, unforgettable book. --Edith Eisler
Book Description
Advance Praise for the Inextinguishable Symphony "A Fascinating Insight into a Virtually Unknown Chapter of Nazi Rule in Germany, Made all the More Engaging through a Son's Discovery of His Own Remarkable Parents." -Ted Koppel, ABC News "An Immensely Moving and Powerful Description of those Evil Times. I couldn't Put the Book Down." -James Galway "Martin Goldsmith has Written a Moving and Personal Account of a Search for Identity. His is a Story that will Touch All Readers with Its Integrity. This is not about Exorcising Ghosts, but Rather Awakening Passions that no One Ever Knew Existed. This is a Journey Everyone should Take." -Leonard Slatkin, Music Director National Symphony Orchestra "For Years I've been Familiar with Martin Goldsmith's Musical Expertise. This Book Explains the Source of His Knowledge and His Passion for the Subject. In Tracking the Extraordinary Story of His Parents and the Jewish Kulturbund, Martin Unfolds a Little-Known Piece of Holocaust History, and Finds Depths in His Own Heart that Warm the Hearts of Readers." -Susan Stamberg, Special Correspondent National Public Radio "[A] Strong and Painful Book, Well-Written, Well-Researched, Moving, and Very Instructive." -Ned Rorem, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer
Customer Reviews:
Beautifully Haunting ... .......2007-09-28
My bookclub is entering into its Holocaust Month. Someone recommended this book to me last year and I thought, it sounded interesting enough to read. Interesting just barely describes this book. Haunting is more the word that I think of when I finished this book. Incredibly lucky are two more words.
There are so many books out there about the Holocaust that it can be confusing sometimes to read what. This book definitely should be read simply because it's beautifully moving, tragically sad and not only that, it provides a different viewpoint of what happened during the early years of Nazihood in Germany and before the "Final Solution" was proposed to exterminate the Jews. This happened and I don't recall hearing much about any of this till I read this book. Before Hitler and Goring proposed the death camps and just while trying to get rid of Germany of the non-Aryan blood, they came up with a solution that provides entertainment and music/art/theater productions just for the Jews. This is a place for the Jews to retreat to. They were only allowed to play Jewish pieces written by Jewish artists/musicans. And they were left alone in the 30s and early 40s. Well, not quite completely left alone as they still had to follow the Nazi rules. But it was a place of refuge for the Jews, especially in Berlin.
This book, while devoting a huge portion to the Kulturbund and its orgins, the author writes of his personal family history. His mother and father were musicans in the Kulturbund. And they suffered horrible tragedies as the war progressed over the years. However, they were young, in love and naive like a lot of people were. They did manage to escape Germany but they also managed to leave behind family members which have haunted them and their children even to this day. It is very intense reading at times and with hindsight on the reader's part, it is very hard to fathom their optimism that things will work out ok in the end. Not only that, this book brings up the question of whether or not the Kulturbund was good for the Jews or kept them compliant enough to keep them in Germany instead of escaping to other countries, so the Nazis could gas them too. This book is haunting and disturbing. The questions that the author may have unknowingly stirred are now raised in my mind ... and the answers are not easy to figure out.
This is not your typical Holocaust book nor is it like the other books about the camps ~~ this book simply tells a tale of two musicans who were unfortunate to be caught up in the times that stirred Germany (and the world) ~~ but yet, their love of music has sustained them through the years before they left Germany. Are they heros? Not in the sense that we associate it with. They are more like survivors and like all survivors, they carry a burden of guilt that resounded through the years. But it is a book that honors the memory of those who were left behind in a time of turmoil that even today, still vibrates through the years.
9-28-07
A different Holocaust story.......2005-10-26
MG's story of his family during the early Nazi era is an unusual glimpse into the lives of German Jews during the period from 1933-1941. He writes about the Kulturbund, an organization created by the Nazis to (1) rid Germany of Jewish influence in the arts and (2) provide propaganda coverage of the maltreatment of Jews by the Third Reich.
In my opinion the book is generally well written and seems to be the result of careful research. My one complaint is that MG frequently quotes conversations which I doubt have been recorded in any way. I don't like that in historical writing, but in this case I was willing to overlook it, because of my interest in the story.
A son's voyage of discovery of his parents' nightmarish past.......2004-01-06
What do we really know about our parents' life before we were born? That depends largely, I guess, on how much of an interest we show - and on how much they are willing to reveal. Because in the life of every person there are instances and times they rather wish to forget, and not revive time and again by discussion, even if only among their nearest and dearest.
Such, in the lives of author Martin Goldsmith's parents, were the years from 1933 through 1941; so much so, in fact, that Goldsmith likens that time to the massive ash tree in the house of Germanic warlord Hunding, the setting of the first scene of Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walkuere:" Something looming large, yet never openly acknowledged. Because before George Gunther Goldsmith, furniture and home decorating salesman of Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife Rosemary, a violinist with the St. Louis Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, became American citizens in 1947, they had lived a whole other life - the hunted life of Jews in Adolf Hitler's Germany. And only years after his mother's death, on a trip to his father's home town of Oldenburg, did Goldsmith catch the first glimpses of what was hidden behind that massive ash tree, and George Goldsmith began to talk about the events which his, the Goldschmidt family had witnessed there; as well as the early life of Rosemarie nee Gumpert in Duesseldorf, the couple's first meeting in Frankfurt, and their later life in Berlin until their lucky escape to the United States. Beginning with this visit, Martin Goldsmith retraced his family's path to the early years of the 20th century, when his paternal grandfather Alex Goldschmidt took residence in Oldenburg, and his maternal grandfather Julian Gumpert settled in Duesseldorf.
How intensely personal this voyage into the past must have been becomes clear in the account of Goldsmith's visit to Oldenburg prison, as a participant in a march retracing the path taken by the Jews - among them the author's grandfather - driven through the streets of Oldenburg in 1938 by Nazi thugs, to later be shipped off (at least temporarily) to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. But although he writes about his very own family, and now in full knowledge of their fate, Goldsmith's narrative is in no way sentimental. With a journalist's detachment he talks about Guenther and Rosemarie, Alex, Julian and their wives and other children; turning a nonfiction account whose outcome is clear from the very start into a heartstopping tale few would be able to believe if presented with it under colors other than that of the plain historic truth.
Prominently featured in Goldsmith's account is the Jewish Culture Association, or Juedischer Kulturbund; as of 1933 the German Jews' only permitted artistic organization, in whose orchestra Guenther and Rosemarie had met and which had formed the center of their life until they finally left the country. One of the most controversial institutions of Nazi Germany, it reunited what was left of the country's Jewish musicians, artists, writers and composers - providing a modicum of shelter in an increasingly hostile environment, but also a convenient tool in the Nazi propaganda machine. Were the members of the Kulturbund instrumentalized to deceive public opinion, at home and abroad, about the true intentions of Hitler's government? By giving their Jewish audience a sense of comfort and "belonging," did they also prevent some of them from rescuing themselves when there still would have been time? The surviving members of the "Kubu" and their families, interviewed by Goldsmith, come down on both sides of the issue; and the fate of the survivors is probably as symptomatic as that of the many who ultimately did perish in Nazi concentration camps - chiefly among those the Kulturbund's charismatic founder Dr. Singer, who not only let himself deceive into returning to Germany after already having reached the safe shores of the U.S. but saw a mark of distinction even in his deportation to the "model" concentration camp of Theresienstadt.
Yet, for Guenther and Rosemarie the years with the Kulturbund were dominated, above all, by the musical companionship they experienced. What does seem to have haunted them most for the rest of their lives, however, was their very escape to America, while their remaining family members were stuck in Europe and, one way or another, died in Hitler's concentration camps - and the feeling that with a little effort they just *might* have saved at least some of them. The letters of Alex Goldschmidt and his younger son Helmut, written to Guenther from captivity in France after their own unsuccessful attempt to flee to Cuba, are among the most chilling testimonials contained in this book; and the decision to translate and include them conceivably cannot have been an easy one for Goldsmith. Indeed, it apparently was the knowledge of his family's fate that, all talent and love of music aside, eventually compelled George Goldsmith to forever retire the flute which, in his life as Guenther Goldschmidt, had been the only item of true importance besides his beloved wife Rosemarie; thus punishing himself in a way no outsider could have done. Yet, the couple's gift for music lives on in their son, who in his own way has brought many hours of joy to radio listeners all over the U.S.
Martin Goldsmith's "Inextinguishable Symphony" - named for Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, which sets music, as a parable for life itself, against war, terror and destruction - is as much a personal journey of discovery as a journalist's account of historic facts; seeking to understand rather than to judge. It deals with a time in which morality was thoroughly upset by a profoundly immoral regime, which cannot possibly have remained without effect on anybody who witnessed those events. In applying our own values to those facts, I think we would all do well in being careful to, likewise, make a thorough effort to understand before we judge. Goldsmith's insightful account is a great place to begin such a process.
A Very Moving Book.......2003-09-01
This story was impossible to put down and when you finish, it stays with you for a very long time. Its hard to believe that Gunther and Rosemary didn't make every effort to help their parents emigrate to U. S. What really bothers me most is, not being Jewish, what would I have done in Germany in the late thirties and early forties when I saw these atrocities happening?
Wow.......2003-06-09
I listened to Martin Goldsmith on "Performance Today" (and still listen to his successor, Fred Child) for many years. This man who for years described classical music on the radio -- composers and their life story, pieces and their histories, in accessible, engaging, and lightly humorous ways, and even sometimes tied it in to his love of baseball -- he also has an extraordinary family story. It's moving and well-written, and makes me think about the extraordinary stories that must dwell in the depths of my own geneological past.
Book Description
Following in the tradition of the critically acclaimed All Things Shakespeare (Greenwood, 2002), this similarly formatted encyclopedia takes readers from the works of Jane Austen into her world. More than 150 alphabetically arranged entries provide rich and fascinating historical details on the form and function of everyday and obscure objects that are mentioned in Austen's novels. Numerous illustrations accompany the lively and often humorous essays that bring these works of fiction to life. Students and devotees of Jane Austen will become familiar with what her characters ate, wore, and did for recreation. Well-researched information is presented about domestic items, the social scene, the workplace, the church, special events and rituals, and everyday customs that constituted life in Jane Austen's England. Included are entries on:
Bathing
Carriages and Coaches
Clergy
Food
Franking
French Revolution
Gypsies
Navy
Pocket Books and Reticules
Tea
Teeth
West Indies
And much more. Readers can find citations of specific works by Austen, or they can look up terms or concepts. A bibliography arranged according to broad subjects lists major works for further reading. Teachers and students will find myriad uses for this reference, while the lively writing will appeal to general readers who want to gaze into Austen's world.
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Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture
Terry Eagleton
Manufacturer: Verso
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Potato Famine
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ASIN: 1859849326 |
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Aestheticism and Sexual Parody 18401940 (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)
Dennis Denisoff
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
Parodies
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ASIN: 0521800390 |
Book Description
Aestheticism and Sexual Parody adds a new and important dimension to the concept of parody as a combative strategy by which sexually marginalized groups undermine the status quo. From W. S. Gilbert's drama, and Vernon Lee and Christopher Isherwood's prose to George Du Maurier's cartoons and Max Beerbohm's caricatures, Dennis Denisoff explores the interactions of late nineteenth and twentieth century parody and aestheticism with the texts of canonical authors such as Alfred Tennyson, Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde.
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