Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is a strangely poetic book that weaves subjects as diverse as the development of the atom bomb, incest, the Gulf War, and the philosophy of German education into a tapestry telling us something new and utterly compelling about the human roots of war.
Let’s move on to your next book, A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War by Susan Griffin.
This book is much more philosophical, meditative, personal. Gary Kinder never really injects himself into the narrative in Ship of Gold and, frankly, I appreciate that. For too many authors it is just the easy way out. But Susan Griffin succeeds here and writes with purpose, humility and conviction, making exceptionally sophisticated links between subjects as diverse as the psychology of war, legacies of abuse, the history of a German education, the development of the atom bomb, the Gulf War, and the rise of military cultures. It makes war intimate. In some ways, it makes war understandable on an almost cellular level. Having covered various wars and spent much time considering the legacies of abuse and abusive structures, I found it absolutely revelatory. To my mind, it is one of the best books I have read in terms of moving between disparate subjects, times and places. In addition, her prose in this work is seamless, and often deeply poetic.
This is a very disturbing book. But, by its close, Griffin pulls the material together in a way that profoundly shifts the reader’s perspective. I’m not sure it ever sold very well but I think her twining of different subjects makes this a masterpiece.
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C S Manegold was a reporter for The New York Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Inquirer before turning her attention to longer works. Winner of numerous national awards, Manegold was part of The New York Times staff recognised with a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the first World Trade Center attack, an event which, shocking as it was, would pale in comparison with the tragedy that followed on September 11. Upon resigning from the Times in 1999, Manegold committed herself to longer-form non-fiction and historical research, work she has successfully combined with teaching positions at Emory University and Mount Holyoke College.
