A gripping narrative about a flawed, but ultimately pitiable, king.
A biography of Wilhelm II, who oversaw the collapse of the German empire.
MacDonogh’s (Frederick the Great, 2001, etc.) Wilhelm runs hot and cold. Sometimes full of bluster, his saber-rattling contributed to the outbreak of the Great War, but at other times the last Kaiser was given to compromise in international disputes. The central figure of Wilhelm’s childhood was his mother, Vicky, daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. Vicky dominated his father, Frederick III, who died only a few months after assuming the throne. Once Wilhelm took over, he invigorated the government, bypassing the legendary Bismarck and establishing liberal policies in the conservative Prussian-centered empire. His choice of archaeology as a hobby signified his modern state of mind, which was put to good use in the development of German schools and infrastructure. From his mother, Wilhelm inherited a love-hate relationship with the English, whom he felt treated Germany like a second-class state, and much of his foreign policy (such as his rapid buildup of the navy) was designed to earn the respect of the British—who responded by identifying Germany as their enemy. The author shifts the focus of his account away from WWI once the fighting begins, however, and concentrates instead on how Wilhelm vacillated at crucial moments, losing the confidence of his advisers. Initially, the Kaiser worked hard to avoid catastrophe, especially in his diplomacy with Russia and his cousin Czar Nicholas, but eventually the entangling alliances of the period, as well as a bellicose German public, overwhelmed him. In the end, Wilhelm’s standing fell with Germany’s fortunes on the battlefield. By 1917, the army had taken over government, relegating Wilhelm to a purely ceremonial role. The last hundred pages of the biography detail Wilhelm’s eclipse and exile in Holland—painful reading compared to the earlier parts of the story (which show him as a sometimes heroic, if reckless, character). His ambivalence towards the Nazis—he supported their nationalism but was disturbed by Hitler’s tactics—was all the more tragic because it was irrelevant.
A gripping narrative about a flawed, but ultimately pitiable, king.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-27673-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he...
The latest from French writer/filmmaker Carrère (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) is an awkward but intermittently touching hybrid of novel and autobiography.
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he describes powerfully. Carrère and his partner, Hélène, then return to Paris—and do so with a mutual devotion that's been renewed and deepened by all they've witnessed. Back in France, Hélène's sister Juliette, a magistrate and mother of three small daughters, has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that crippled her in adolescence. After her death, Carrère decides to write an oblique tribute and an investigation into the ravages of grief. He focuses first on Juliette's colleague and intimate friend Étienne, himself an amputee and survivor of childhood cancer, and a man in whose talkativeness and strength Carrère sees parallels to himself ("He liked to talk about himself. It's my way, he said, of talking to and about others, and he remarked astutely that it was my way, too”). Étienne is a perceptive, dignified person and a loyal, loving friend, and Carrère's portrait of him—including an unexpectedly fascinating foray into Étienne and Juliette's chief professional accomplishment, which was to tap the new European courts for help in overturning longtime French precedents that advantaged credit-card companies over small borrowers—is impressive. Less successful is Carrère's account of Juliette's widower, Patrice, an unworldly cartoonist whom he admires for his fortitude but seems to consider something of a simpleton. Now and again, especially in the Étienne sections, Carrère's meditations pay off in fresh, pungent insights, and his account of Juliette's last days and of the aftermath (especially for her daughters) is quietly harrowing.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9261-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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