Thoughts on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

A week ago today I stayed up until 2 a.m. finishing William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I was determined to not let the sun rise on February without finishing that book. I needed it to be over. You can really only spend so much time immersed in Nazi Germany without beginning to go a little crazy, or get at least a little depressed.

It was a huge personal accomplishment to finish this 1500 page tome. Growing up, it always sat on my dad’s bookshelf and intimidated the hell out of me with it’s dark, imposing presence and swastika-bearing cover. I was convinced I wasn’t brave enough to read it for so long that reading it became like a rite of passage, an act (however small) of courage. A little slap in the face of Hitler: You have no power over me.

What finally got me to read it (aside from the fact that Sean gave it to me for Christmas)? Well, it’s just a small tidbit, but I think it’s important. An acquaintance on Facebook posted one day that she had just finished reading it. This acquaintance planted the idea in my head that I could read it too. Two things about this are meaningful to me:

1. I had always thought of this book as a “man’s book”. The more I read history, the more I realize that in many ways it is a male dominated genre. That doesn’t necessarily bother me, I just don’t want to be excluded—or exclude myself from it—because I am a woman. The acquaintance who read this book and then posted about it, is someone who I consider to be infinitely sweet and kind and feminine, and yet: she read this book. That must mean I can too, I thought to myself. I can and will be a part of this world. Interestingly enough, I just read a fascinating article about, among other things, a woman trying to write in another male-dominated genre, and the effort and frustration that go into that. With regards to history, I can’t help but think of Adrienne Rich’s line, “Time is male.”  There is a lot to think about here, especially as I continue to devour history books.

2. Do you guys realize the hugeness of the fact that somebody else simply did something, wrote about it, and that was enough to plant the seed of belief in my mind that I could do it too? Now I know this is a very small example, but I think it illustrates a wildly important truth: what we do affects other people. It’s very basic, but we often seem to forget that we don’t operate in a vacuum. Even our smallest actions influence and affect the way other people inhabit the world, think about themselves, and dare to dream and act. Katherine Center says, “You have to be brave with your life so that others can be brave with theirs.” If that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is. It can be something as small as showing girls that it’s okay to love history—that they have a place here too.

As for the book itself, it was an incredibly well written, fascinating tale of evil and horror. Reading it felt like living inside a game of Risk/dystopian novel/Darwin and Nietzsche brought to life.

In the midst of all the atrocities and evils, there were two things whose presence surprised me as companions along the way, and gave me comfort as I journeyed through the Valley of the Shadow:

1. Humor

This may be controversial and offensive, but I do not mean it to be. Humor is not the only response to Hitler/Evil; nor is it always appropriate, but sometimes it can help. I found it made me braver and brought me comfort at times to laugh at the absurdity and insanity of Hitler and the Nazis. I couldn’t help but laugh at Hitler when he called himself the savior of Germany, or said he would long be remembered as the greatest ruler that Germany ever had. Sometimes people are so stupid/evil/insane that derogatory humor towards them is appropriate. (I’m thinking of Flannery O’Connor here, too). Laughter can give power. There’s a way in which Hitler was infinitely stronger than me, or any individual like me. He could have, and did, destroy millions of powerless people like me with barely a word—and yet, we retain the power to laugh at him. It’s not enough to completely defeat him, of course, but if humor can add even an ounce of bravery to our spirits or a feeling of defiance toward evil, then I think it matters.

Shirer illustrates this point, of humor as a weapon, throughout the text as he continually refers to Hitler as “the Austrian corporal” or “the Viennese tramp” or “the failed artist”. He calls Goering, “the fat Reich Marshall”. It has a way of bringing these monsters back down to earth and reminding the reader that however atrocious and horrific these men were, there’s a sense in which they were just men and not invincible.

Obviously, the world could not defeat Nazism through humor alone—men braver than I will ever be still had to storm the beaches of Normandy, and fight and die—but why not claim humor and laughter as a valuable armament in the all out war against it evil?

2. The Weakness of Evil

This is a strange concept in the face of the power that Hitler accrued and the damage that he inflicted. As I read through the book, I spent a lot of time becoming increasingly afraid of Hitler and, in a sense, feeling terrified and paralyzed by the Nazis’ might. And then something very interesting began to happen: the Third Reich began to fall apart. It started to gradually disintegrate. You know why? Because they were evil. Literally, their wickedness destroyed them—and it was like an epiphany for me: oh, that’s right! Evil destroys itself! Evil cannot survive, in the long run. It’s self-destructive! Did I learn nothing from Harry Potter?!?!?!

I had become so shortsighted for a while that I began to think that evil could actually win. And I know it’s nuanced—I know the Nazis really did win for a while, and rampaged and pillaged and murdered in ways that can never be recovered from in this life. I don’t want to make light of that. But I read once that in many ways the “punishment” for our sins is often just the natural consequence of our behavior. For instance, if I am rude or unloving to Sean, I’ll probably reap a time of disharmony in our marriage. If I am selfish with my money, I won’t get to experience the joy that comes from being generous and giving freely.

In the same way, Hitler experienced the natural consequences of his behavior. Vast armies rose up to end his wicked ways. He destroyed himself physically, becoming weak and ill and completely incapable of using his mind to think rationally. People will roll their eyes at the Harry Potter reference, I’m sure, but Voldemort sowed the seeds of his own destruction by destroying his soul and blinding himself to the truth. Hitler did the same. By his own evil he made it impossible for himself to survive. And that is something to take comfort in. Though evil may outlive us, it is not stronger or more sustainable than what it right and true and good.  

Anyway, those are my initial ramblings on this vast and overwhelming book. Make of them what you will, and correct me where I’m wrong.

Numbers

I wish that I didn’t have to write this. I wish I could just sit at home on this peaceful Tuesday evening in January, and watch Parks and Recreation and laugh at Amy Poehler’s brilliance. But 70 years ago today the Red Army liberated a place called Auschwitz, and so I have to write.

I’ve spent the past two months reading William Shirer’s 1500 page definitive history of Nazi Germany: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It’s eerie to me that today I reached the chapter entitled The New Order, in which life in the Third Reich, life for the POW’s, the conquered peoples, and most of all the Jews is described in words that are too utterly horrific to bear. I have read a lot and I have never read anything so awful and evil and perverse in my life.

 History books are important, necessary, informative, and often wildly interesting. But there is something troubling about all their numbers. On page after page I read numbers that are overwhelming and incomprehensible to me:

“In Lithuania, alone, the map showed, 136,421 Jews had been slain.” (Shirer, 1254)

“Some 55,000 more Jews were exterminated in White Russia by July 1…” (Shirer, 1254)

“Mauthausen listed 35,318 deaths from January 1939 to April 1945…” (Shirer, 1259)

“Hoess himself in his affidavit gave an estimate of 2,500,000 victims executed and exterminated by gassing and burning…” (Shirer, 1267)

I don’t know what to do with numbers like this. They are too big. Too unfathomable. Too broad. What does it mean for six million people to be exterminated? What does it mean to massacre 30,000 people in a day, or gas 6,000 in an afternoon? How can I let the weight of these numbers into my heart? How can these numbers mean something to me?

Throughout the course of reading this book, I have had Elie Wiesel’s Night beside my bed, to remind me that the numbers are real—to remind me what the numbers mean. The numbers I read aren’t statistics or facts or information—they’re people. And to kill one person is a great evil. To lose one loved one brings almost unbearable pain.

Wiesel keeps me from getting lost in the numbers—because when my eyes begin to glaze over, I come back to his story:

“Men to the left! Women to the right!”

Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father’s hand press against mine: we were alone. In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother’s hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sister’s blond hair, as if to protect her.” (Wiesel, 29)

These words make me cry. I cannot imagine six million, but I can imagine a family of six. I can feel that, and I can weep for them, and weep for what, God forgive me, I cannot comprehend.

2014: A Year in Books

Every year my youngest sister Camie and I have a competition over who can read the most books. She always seems to beat me, and though I half-heartedly try to console myself with the fact that I work full time and read longer books, I’m mostly just an adoring big sister who is fiercely proud of her voracious reading and inquisitive mind.

At the end of the year, we have a recap—we reveal how many books and pages we read, and answer some questions that Camie created back in 2011 when we first started this. Since this a blog mostly devoted to reading, I thought I would post my 2014 recap on here.

Total books read in 2014: 51

Printed books: 21

Audiobooks: 30

Total pages read: 6,634*

Total discs listened to: 319*

*I only counted books that I finished in 2014, so there are some books that I was reading in 2014, but won’t finish until 2015.

Now, for the questions:

1. What was the longest book you read?

The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser; 785 pages and Bleak House by Charles Dickens; 29 discs

2. What was the shortest book you read?

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck; 164 pages

3. What was the most well-written book?

I told Camie that it was Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. I can’t find my copy of the book right now, or I would treat you to some examples of his magnificent sentences. I knew practically from the minute I cracked the cover of the book that I was in the presence of an author who knew how to create sentences that are works of art.

Honorable Mentions:

Unbroken and Seabiscuit, both by Laura Hillenbrand. The depth and thoroughness of her research and her ability to craft it into a compelling narrative are, in my opinion, currently unmatched. I don’t really give a fig about horse racing, yet somehow she had me sitting on the edge of my seat, fists clenched, tears in my eyes, needing to know if Seabiscuit would win his next race!

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: I didn’t know people could write like this. If I ever write a book, it will be in large part because I read this book.

4. What was the dullest book you read?

The Book of Common Prayer: a Biography by Alan Jacobs. It saddens me that this was the dullest book I read because I adore The Book of Common Prayer and can think of few books that have been as influential to me spiritually, but I just wasn’t a big fan of the style of this book. It might’ve been too short, and not detailed enough for me. It could also be that my lack of knowledge regarding English history made it a bit confusing.

5. What was the most informational book you read?

To End All Wars: a Story of Loyalty and Rebellion 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild. First of all I’ve never been very familiar with World War I—I’ve always sort of avoided it, having a vague sense that it was quite a depressing affair. Well, I was indeed correct and reading this book confirmed that the way to be hopelessly depressed for days is to study World War I. However, this book was still incredibly interesting (though I had to watch copious amounts of cheerful sitcoms in order to counterbalance the bleakness) as it explored the war through the lens of Great Britain and both the military and government leaders who pursued the war as well the anti-war movement that fought staunchly for their beliefs and suffered in many ways. I learned quite a lot, but perhaps the biggest lesson was that I don’t like learning about World War I—it’s so sad and unnecessary and was in many ways such a waste.

6. What was the longest series you read?

Gregor the Overlander

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane

Gregor and the Curse of the Warm-bloods

Gregor and the Marks of Secret

Gregor and the Code of Claw

 Camie recommended this series to me by Suzanne Collins, of Hunger Games fame. I was quite impressed by the depth and quality of this series. As with The Hunger Games, the books are pretty heavy and serious, and quite literally dark as they take place underground of New York City. I found the books honest and grave, dealing with subjects like death, war, racism, friendship, and sacrifice in a realistic but compassionate way. 

7. What was the best series you read?

All the books by James Herriot, which I wrote about here. These books brought me an immeasurable amount of joy, warmth, and laughter this year, and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

8. What was the saddest book you read?

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell was really hard for me to read. I think part of it had to do with my misguided expectations going into the book. I read the back of the book and thought it was going to be a light-hearted love story of two high school sweethearts. It was a love story, but quite heavy as it explored the less than stellar home life of the teenagers involved, and it made me want to adopt as many hurting kids as I can and give them a home in which they are loved and treated properly. As sad as the book was, I do think it is well-written and the author does a pretty excellent job of describing what it feels like to fall in love in high school. 

9. What book inspired you the most?

Hands down it was definitely Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. If you haven’t read the book yet, make that a resolution for 2015!

10. What book had the best illustrations?

Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green. The author is one of my favorite illustrators and this is her first graphic novel which explains her struggle with and eventual healing from an eating disorder. While I don’t personally battle an eating disorder, I do know what it’s like to be plagued with perfectionism, self-loathing, and guilt, and the way Katie actually illustrated the feelings of perfectionism and guilt was, in my opinion, quite profound and helpful for beginning to work through them.

11. What was your least favorite book?

Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card. I know I’ll probably get a lot of pushback for this, and I’m sure the fault rests entirely with me. While I enjoyed getting a larger view of Ender’s world and learning more backstory in this sequel to Ender's Game, the darkness of this book--from the orphan gangs on the streets of Rotterdam to a child serial killer--was kind of hard for me to take. I know it’s very well-written, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it. I mostly just wanted to adopt orphans.

12.  What was your favorite book?

JUST ONE?!?!?! Here’s my top 5:

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

1776 by David McCullough

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

PSA: Read James Herriot!

I’ve put off writing this for quite awhile because it’s daunting to write about the books I love the most. A book that was merely so-so—that I can write about. You want to know what I thought of Eat, Pray, Love? No problem: mostly self-indulgent narcissism, albeit mildly entertaining and pleasantly written. But you want to know about a book that really moved me, stopped me in my tracks, and transformed the hours I spent with it from commonplace to beautiful? Well, how do I pull the words up out of my soul to explain the magic of a book like that? Whatever I say will never be good enough, so there’s a part of me that doesn’t even want to try. Still, Anne Lamott says: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.” So I will give it a go anyway. 

The man of the hour is James Herriot. And, to tell you the truth, I thought I had James Herriot all figured out. As a kid, I had a children’s collection of his stories that, for some reason, I was not overly fond of. I think it had to do with the fact that one of the stories was quite sad, and, being a sensitive child, I didn’t really like the way it made me feel. I also wasn’t an animal lover. So I always thought of James Herriot as the man who wrote pathetically sad animal stories that I didn’t want to read.

As I have found so often in life, I couldn’t have been more incorrect. In this case, I was mercifully rescued from my long-standing ignorance by none other than the Los Angeles freeway system and the Los Angeles County Public Library. The hours I spend commuting each week have forced me to plumb the depths of the library’s collection for audiobooks that might make the strain of traffic a bit more bearable. In this exploration, I came across an audio copy of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small, and, desperate for fresh listening material, decided to give it a try.

This was my golden ticket to a world of warmth, joy, humor, and beauty such as I have rarely found between the pages of a book. I could not believe my ears! Far from being a fuddy-duddy old veterinarian who wrote boring animal stories, I found an author full of wit, a stunning sense of humor, and keen insight into the human soul, who was charmingly self-deprecating, while knowing how to tell a story with a Muse-given talent for spinning a yarn. Brilliance came pouring out of the speakers in my car, leaving me breathless with laughter. Let me assure you, it is a rare book that makes a person not only not mind being stuck in traffic, but actually long for the traffic to last so one can just keep listening to the story!

Maya Angelou said that people will mostly likely forget the things you said and did, but not the way you made them feel. I find that to also be true of so many of the books I love, and especially true in the case of Mr. Herriot’s stories. He created a world which it was a solace to enter—a world of brightness, natural beauty, laughter, heartiness, hard work, quirky characters, and sincere, unaffected emotion. I like books that make me a better person. Some books do that by providing outstanding examples of people with unparalleled courage and conviction, who make me want to be like them. Some books, like James Herriot's, do it simply by being beautiful, and wholesome, and good--and thereby teaching one's soul to love and enjoy those things. 

I can’t recommend his books enough. However, he is a veterinary surgeon who writes vividly about his work so if blood and bodily organs make you feel squeamish, take this as a gentle word of caution . (I found that I must have read so many books on midwifery that not much of what he wrote seemed to phase me!) I would recommend listening to the audio version of the books done by Audio Renaissance and read by Christopher Timothy. I think half the joy I had from these books came from the reader who brought the books to life in a way that I can only compare to Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter series (which is pretty much the highest compliment I am capable of giving). If you can’t get your hands on the audio books, read the stories aloud with a loved one and enjoy laughing your heads off together over the antics of Tristan and Tricky Woo, among other marvelous characters.

The good news is that there are five fantastic books to read:

All Creatures Great and Small

All Things Bright and Beautiful

All Things Wise and Wonderful

The Lord God Made Them All

Every Living Thing

I’m still working my way through all the books myself, but I have yet to be disappointed by their excellence and have decided my current mission in life is to convince anyone who will listen to me to read them posthaste!