I got sidetracked from my reading plan, found a Harry Turtledove book I hadn't read,
In the Presence of Mine Enemies. It was pretty good. Here is a blurb about it from Amazon.com
Quote:Another magisterial alternate-history novel from the master of the form features a modest, middle-class family in near-future Berlin: Heinrich Gimpel; his wife, Lise; and their daughters Alicia, Francesca, and Roxane. He is a middle-level, civilian bureaucrat at army headquarters, and the only wrong note to contemporary this-world ears is that Heinrich's Berlin is the capital of a world-spanning Third Reich. The Gimpels, however, are covert Jews. From this dissonance, Turtledove builds a complete symphony expressing how the Third Reich's remaining Jews hide in plain sight, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Heinrich's disguise nearly shatters when a coworker's impeccably Aryan wife tries to escape her troubled marriage by seducing him. Fortunately, the authorities soon not only lack evidence of his Jewishness but also have other fish to fry, one of them the new fuhrer, Heinz Buckliger, who remarkably resembles Mikhail Gorbachev. The countermeasures that the SS and the party hacks take against Buckliger resemble the efforts to overthrow the aforesaid Gorbachev, but even when one grasps the resemblance, the suspense of the confrontation of good and evil remains intense in Turtledove's hands. So does the impact of his handling of more cerebral matters such as the devolution of dictatorships and the survival of Jews and Jewish identity.
Gary
Yes, In the Presence of Mine Enemies was one of my favorites; and, like Ruled Brittania, it's a stand-alone book, rather than part of a series. If Lynne enjoys the Shakespeare book, she might give it a try!
I just read Ecclesiastes. Sam Gipp says that women need to read Ecclesiastes to make us less attached to this world and men need to read song of solomon to make them more emotional, I guess. I heard him say it a long time ago so I'm not quoting him exactly.
I definitely need to become less attached so that's why I read it. Does vanity become more apparent once you get older? I know the whole no matter how much you get you are never satisfied is true. Of carnal things of course. I think jesus says somewhere that if you drink of him you will never thirst again. What does that mean anyway? I know it's talking about salvation, but is that all it's talking about?
It says somewhere in the Bible that "she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." Has anyone wondered why it's a she and not a he? I'm not sure if it's talking about lost people or backslidden christians, but I just like that it's a she and not a he. I always feel like it's talking about me when I read it. that's prolly not a good thing. At the best it's a reminder to not get too attached, and at the worst it's a mirror image.
I think I'm posting in the wrong place again. Mostly though I'm just rambling. I started off by talking about what I was reading though.
So there.
(12-21-2009 12:04 AM)William Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, In the Presence of Mine Enemies was one of my favorites; and, like Ruled Brittania, it's a stand-alone book, rather than part of a series. If Lynne enjoys the Shakespeare book, she might give it a try!
I was wondering about that, but I have my doubts.
Quote:So does the impact of his handling of more cerebral matters such as the devolution of dictatorships and the survival of Jews and Jewish identity.
My husband is Jewish and I feel great unease about his safety. That's the reason I got interested in trying to follow the development of the NWO in the first place. I'm always scanning the zeitgeist for the state of collective antisemitism.
I won't watch movies like
Schindler's List or anything that depicts suffering in concentration camps. I don't think I'll ever recover from
Sophie's Choice. I don't even like
Fiddler on the Roof. I was a little nervous with Anne Rice's book I read a few weeks ago about medieval persecution of the Jews, although I can emotionally handle that era better because it didn't seem, to me, to have the mechanized, systematic horror of Hitler.
My beloved in-laws are here in this wonderful God blessed haven of safety and opportunity called the United States of America as a direct result of pogroms in Russia. The diamond in my wedding ring was sewn into the hem of clothing along with other jewels in order to smuggle belongings out of the country.* I hate reading about pogroms. My husband's great grandfather was an officer in the Czar's army, and we all know how that turned out.
I can't tell from the description of this book if it would upset me or not.
*As a side note, that was a Russian kind of thing to do. There's a theory that the reason it took so many bullets to kill the Romanovs was because the diamonds sewn in their clothing worked like armor.
I didn't know about your husband, Lynne. I can see why this would be a painful issue, to say the least! In The Presence of Mine Enemies doesn't contain any concentration camp or atrocity stuff that I remember; but maybe you should give it as pass just to be on the safe side.
I've often wondered if Turtledove might be Jewish himself. Nearly all his books, in every historical era, have major Jewish characters. Even The Guns of the South (his masterpiece, IMHO), has a wonderful portrayal of Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State.
But I can see how the Nazi stuff might be iffy for you. You'll be missing a good read, but not a great book.
(12-21-2009 09:07 AM)anneBiblestone Wrote: [ -> ]I think jesus says somewhere that if you drink of him you will never thirst again. What does that mean anyway? I know it's talking about salvation, but is that all it's talking about?
Anne, here's my take on that:
Quote:Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
John 4: 13-14
Jesus was talking to a woman at a water well who had had
five husbands and now she was living with a guy. I try to imagine the state of her broken heart. Many women endlessly search for that perfect man to complete them, but it never works out because men are fallen human beings. Jesus, our true beloved Husband, satisfies us for eternity.
(12-21-2009 12:45 PM)William Wrote: [ -> ]I've often wondered if Turtledove might be Jewish himself.
I wondered that too. In fact, I was going to try to find out. Please let me know if you do? Thanks!
Update:
Quote:Harry Turtledove: In Jeremy Bloom's Toastmaster interview with Harry Turtledove, Turtledove says: "It's funny. I've done Roman stuff and Greek stuff; I've studied Christian theology, as part of that historical context, much better than I've studied my own." After this, in brackets, are the words: [Jewish, although not particularly active].
Turtledove works with significant Jewish themes, history and characters include: The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump; "In the Presence of Mine Enemies"; "In This Season"; "The R-Strain"; Colonization: Second Contact; WorldWar series (In the Balance; Striking the Balance; Tilting the Balance; Upsetting the Balance). [Source: Chaim Mazo. "Jewish Science Fiction" web site.]
Source:
http://www.adherents.com/people/pt/Harry...edove.html
I'm not at all surprised. I know it's not your cup of tea, Lynne, but the Worldwar series, which I dearly love, concerns an alien invasion of earth at the height of World War II, and describes how the various nations and alliances dealt with the aliens (diplomatically and militarily). It features more historical characters than most of his books: everyone from Leslie Groves, who oversaw the Manhattan Project, to Churchill and Molotov and, eventually, even the Ayatollah Khomeini. But I mention it because a major sub-theme is the way the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto try to play off the aliens and the Nazis against each other, for their own survival. Turtledove does this in microcosm, as usual, just dealing with a few Jewish characters and families in detail.
He's an interesting author!
(12-21-2009 02:25 PM)William Wrote: [ -> ]He's an interesting author!
I'm getting the impression he might be a genius. I just finished chapter 5 and stopped by here to see what's up.
It may or may not be my cup of tea. It's tricky. I like some books about war, but not ones that describe relentless suffering and violence without much else. The part about Leslie Groves piques my interest. I've studied the Manhattan Project.