Many scrambled historical eggs conceal the Bacon. (32 b&w illustrations)
Did Roger Bacon (c. 1214–92) compose a mysterious manuscript featuring drawings of plants that don’t exist, some with naked women inside and symbols never satisfactorily explained by some very dedicated and imaginative cryptanalysts? Who knows?
Beginning with their subtitle, the Goldstones (Slightly Chipped, 1999, etc.) can’t resist the superlative whenever they offer an adjective or adverb. Lots of most’s and -est endings here: for example, “William and Elizabeth Friedman . . . generally considered the greatest cryptanalysts who ever lived.” It’s most annoying, particularly since the fascinating story does not need any additional hype from inflected modifiers. The so-called Voynich Manuscript, now housed at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, has defied translation for centuries, despite the efforts of the celebrated and the merely curious. The authors have several purposes: to burnish Bacon’s tarnished reputation (at the end they call him one of science’s “most significant and irreplaceable figures”), to describe this truly bizarre 200-plus-page manuscript, to chart its provenance and to outline its social and religious contexts. The latter goal, unfortunately, receives the most attention, as the Goldstones (Will and Ariel Durant Lite) take us through the histories of philosophy, religion and science. It seems that every person they mention merits a biographical detour in the narrative, to such an extent that readers may forget their original destination. Still, it’s interesting to follow the struggles of the early Christian church with the inconveniences of scientific reasoning and discovery. (Repression was the church’s default response.) And it’s illuminating to read about Roger Bacon (often confused with the later Francis), who did indeed try to reconcile reason and experimentation with revelation and faith. He emerges here as a subject worthy of a much more lengthy and comprehensive treatment. Compelling, too, are the Goldstones’ accounts of myriad but unfruitful attempts by some very bright people to break the code.
Many scrambled historical eggs conceal the Bacon. (32 b&w illustrations)Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2005
ISBN: 0-7679-1473-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
An intelligent and often witty collection of essays for pre-Baby Boomers and Boomers alike. Clausen (English/Penn State; The Moral Imagination, not reviewed) offers nine essays reflecting on the experiences of the '60s generation. In so doing, he attempts to explode some of the most cherished myths about that turbulent decade and the people it spawned. While members of his generation may have nothing more in common than do those of any other age cluster, Clausen notes that it was nevertheless shaped by political, economic, and historical forces very different from those at work when his father came of age. The title piece is a reflection on what President Kennedy meant to him and his peers. Clausen accurately depicts the ambiguity of JFK's record on issues such as Vietnam, Berlin, and civil rights, but he points out that for those who grew up in the early '60s, the idealistic promises of Camelot still grip the imagination. In ``A Decent Impersonality,'' he ruminates on the increase of informality and the use of first names for even casual acquaintances, arguing that it breeds disrespect for the person and the law. ``Reading the Supermarket Tabloids'' is a dead-on account of this growing phenomenon. In ``Dr. Smiles and Mrs. Beeton,'' Clausen reflects on manners, Victorian England, and the rise of the middle class. ``Jack-in-the-Pulpit'' considers changing tastes in vacation spots and activities. All the pieces are broadly autobiographical—some, such as ``Survivors,'' directly, and others only allusively. ``Grandfathers'' and ``Dialogues with the Dead'' are among the many dealing with changing, but still important, notions of family. Clausen's glib style may not be for everyone, and he often comes off, probably unintentionally, as a tad reactionary. But there's enough here to appeal to readers from a broad spectrum.
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1994
ISBN: 0-87745-472-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Univ. of Iowa
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
A book both educational and emotional.
A Vietnam War story about the mostly unreported role of military wives who ignored protocol to help free their husbands, held as prisoners of war, from torture by the North Vietnamese.
Relying on extensive personal interviews and previously unseen documents, Lee (Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, 2014) builds to February 1973, when 115 American POWs departed North Vietnam on U.S. military transport planes to receive health care, debriefings, and finally emergence into public view. Many of the American airmen never thought they would be shot from the sky, captured, and tortured—partly because of their ultraconfidence in their training, partly because they severely underestimated the fighting capabilities of the North Vietnamese military. Their wives back in the States, many with children, naturally felt desperate to learn the fates of their husbands. However, commanders in the American military services and diplomats in the U.S. State Department told them, often in condescending fashion, to remain quiet and docile so that negotiations with the enemy could proceed. Eventually, after years of excruciating worry, the wives of the prisoners—as well as fliers missing in action—began to actively discuss how to remedy the situation. As more years passed with no progress, wives on bases scattered around the country began organizing together. Lee’s cast of determined women is extensive and occasionally difficult to track as they enter and depart the narrative. Two of the most prominent are Sybil Stockdale (husband Jim) and Jane Denton (husband Jeremiah). (The renowned John McCain does not play a major role in the narrative.) In addition to the wrenching personal stories, the author handles context gracefully, especially regarding the wives and their ability to find their voices amid the continuing saga of an unjust war. “If these military wives hadn’t rejected the ‘keep quiet’ policy and spoken out,” she writes, “the POWs might have been left to languish in prison.”
A book both educational and emotional.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-16110-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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