Charles Williams Books

This book is an amazing tour through cultural, legal and philosophical ideas in America from the Civil War through the First World War. It does so in narrative and (mostly) chronological order, making it much more compelling than a textbook. The narrative form also helps expose the conditions that allowed certain ideas to flourish, rather than presenting a simplistic view of x followed by y followed by z. As a bonus, the reader gets to enjoy a well-painted picture of the elite intelligentsia and some window into daily life in America at large during these time periods.
My only complaint is that it occasionally wandered or backtracked and I was never sure whether newly introduced ideas and people would remain important or central as we moved forward.

While the title of this book might grab your attention, it is it's subtitle, "a history of ideas in America," that really embodies the subject of the book. Louis Menand's "The Metaphysical Club" is a well researched and thoroughly engrossing history of America's vangard of intellectual activity from right before to right after the American Civil War.

Following the lives primarily of the James', Holmes', Louis Agassiz, the Pierces, and John Dewey, Menand explores the root of 19th century American philosophy and science, with touches of law, math, psychology, and every other subject one can think of, within the context of Civil War influence in a way that can be described only as masterful.

My only criticism is Menand's seeming devotion to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and John Dewey, whom I believe sometimes unnecessarily overshadow Willliam James and Charles Pierce.

Regardless, it is an entertaining and truly educational read.

I bought this book looking for a description of the philosophy of the American pragmatists - William James in particular, but John Dewey as well. This book includes both those figures, as well as Oliver Wendell Holmes and others. The book goes into a lot of detail on the era in which they lived (which the author believes is necessary to understand their philosophies - fair enough) as well as considerable detail about their personal lives. Also relevant.

I liked a lot of the information contained in the book, and thought it was worth reading to get that information. What I didn't like was the organization of the book - the author introduces a new character, then goes off on multiple tangential histories. By the time he gets back to "the point", I was often lost and had forgotten where he started.

Overall I felt this book was worth reading, but I didn't get as much out of it as I think I could have if the structure had been a little more straightforward.

Louis Menand's "The Metaphysical Club" poses a somewhat interesting quandry: is it a biography of C.S. Peirce, William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Dewey? Is it a biography of the philosophy of Pragmatism? "The Metaphysical Club" can best be understood as an account of how the cluster of ideas that came to be called pragmatism was forged from the searing experiences of its progenitors' lives.

Menand, whose prior work includes Pragmatism: A Reader rightfully begins his inquiry into the "birth" of pragmatism with Ralph Waldo Emerson. The driving force behind transcendentalism, Emerson can also be thought of as a progenitor of pragmatism. Menand does well to depict not only the intellectual connections between Emerson, Perice, James, Holmes and Dewey but also the personal connections between them. I do object though to the use of "The Metaphysical Club" as the fulcrum of this connection as it gives this "club" (which existed for about 3 months and of which Emerson and Dewey were not members) undue significance. Menand provides also linkages between the personal lives of the progenitors and the evolutions of their ideas as a way of depicting that ideas are not forged in a vacuum.

The unabridged edition would get 4 stars from me with the major drawback being the undue significance Menand places on "The Metaphysical Club."

The abridged audio edition on the other hand is a confused disconnected mess. I found myself cringing mightily when the narrator, Henry Leyva, repeatedly mispronounced the name of C.S. Peirce - repeatedly mispronouncing it as "Pierce." If "The Metaphysical Club" were a mere work of fiction, perhaps this mistake could be shrugged off, but in a purported work of intellectual history, it is inexcusable. The text itself fluctuates between fluidity and disorganized and a reader without a great deal of background in pragmatism would find himself utterly lost in the inelegant transitions the abridged edition makes.

Though I would recommend "The Metaphysical Club," I cannot, in good conscience recommend the abridged audio edition.

The Metaphysical Club is a brilliant, ambitious book - the chronicle of pragmatism's rise as a governing philosophy in the decades following the Civil War. But for all its virtues, I'm surprised this book won the Pulitzer Prize. This is pretty dense stuff. Despite Louis Menand's engaging writing style, I had trouble keeping up with his exploration of emerging philosophies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But I think I got the gist of it: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James, John Dewey, Charles Peirce and others were struggling to come up with a guiding philosophy to a deal with a world that (as Darwinism showed) is all the time changing right under our feet. They realized that hewing to rigid principles and old certitudes was futile, even dangerous. Together, they created pragmatism, in which keeping the public debate and political process open to dissenting views trumps any underlying theoretical framework, which, after all, might be proven wrong by the next round of scientific research. Today's heresy is tomorrow's truism. I realize that I might be making this book sound like drudgery; it's not. Menand is a great storyteller in love with the stories he's telling. The Metaphysical Club is filled with long-forgotten incidents and thinkers, many of them cranks and weirdoes who were always interesting and often brilliant even when they were dead wrong. Little gems are scattered throughout. Did you know, for example, that we owe the notion of academic freedom partly to a racist professor who wanted to expound his noxious views denigrating Asians and other immigrants? Reading this book, I came to realize how much I owe my own evolving worldview - a clumsy attempt to figure out how to live decently in a world where almost nothing is certain -- to Dewey, James and Holmes.

I'm astonished by the one star comments! These people should at least read a story about the way human language emerged and evolved to writing and reading. Maybe "How Writing Came About" by Denise Schmandt-Besserat and perhaps they would start understanding the unimaginable effort done by Helen and the uniqueness of her testimony, as so well expounded by Konrad Lorentz.
Some time ago I had the great opportunity to exchange some emails about this subject with prof. Harold Bloom. Prof. Bloom, who knows very well the story of Helen, suggest that we have not only an internal ear but even an internal eye that allowed Helen to deeply understand the classics she read: her comments are short but so deep. One last remark, a recent book " Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain" by Maryanne Wolf could be very useful to better understand the key role of Helen Keller (and Anne Sullivan!).

Great book about a great lady who was blind and deaf. She had many struggles but became a speaker and a writter. I received the book right away without any problem, and it great condition.

Most moving and inspiring book I have ever read. It should be required reading in all elementary schools throughout the world. I could go on and on, but that should suffice.

James Donovan
Del Mar, CA

A deaf dumb and blind girl, but no pinball. Helen Keller, bereft of the senses that your average person is able to utilise, has to learn other ways to communicate. She is instrumental in forming systems that will lay the foundation to enable other people so afflicted to do the same, with the work she does herself, and with her tutors.

Well worth a look.

Helen Keller gives a sweetly innocent rundown of her life in this brief book. It's just enough to get a glimpse into her well publicized transformation into a girl lost in her own inability to communicate to a wonderfully prolific soul; a person who changed the world. She is disarming and self aware and isn't afraid to gloss over a little bit of the struggle to paint a journey of searching that led to many rivers of experience. It's a charming book and if one is curious about Helen Keller it is best to 'hear' the words from the author than another source.

In some ways this book misses the point. While it repeats stories of Diana's professional manner and her caring ways, it I felt missed the whole point behind some of Diana's petulant behavior. Charles hurt Diana very deeply. That is obvious. Due to this she did not trust people (but who can blame her). Anything that showed friendliness or respect to Charles sent the message: "Ok! Charles how you treated Diana is acceptable conduct.
This spelled betrayal to Diana. In Ken's book he often stated how likable Charles could be. To Diana, liking someone who caused her so much pain was a breach of trust.
Also, while loyalty was often questioned by Diana and she was branded as paranoid because of it -- the truth was Ken Wharfe was reporting Diana's every action to Prince Charles' protection officer and naturally every nuance got back to Charles. No wonder she did not trust her protection officer.
The same with Patrick Jephsen, the moment Diana announced to him that she was going to do something, he was on the phone to either the Prince's staff or the Queen's staff telling everything and giving them advanced warning. I do not consider that to be a mark of a loyal employee.
Also, there were inconsistencies in this book. One moment Ken is nothing more than a silent protection officer there to ensure Diana's safety and yet he was frequently given to handing her stern advice and speaking his mind concerning her opinions and decisions. Something that probably kept Diana off balance. She also seemed to resent him pointing out her shortcoming and disagreeing with her decisions.
The message Diana wanted to send to the world was that she was an innocent girl who married the Charles, Prince of Wales and despite the best PR Buckingham could conjure up Charles' cruel and selfish behavior toward his wife and his ongoing relationship with a married woman came to the surface. Even without the Andrew Morton book, telling all that Diana had been through, there was still rumors and connotations of Camilla being more than a "friend" of the prince.
A husband having an ongoing affair with a married woman gave Diana the high road. She reacted in a manner common with most women. The bottom line was that Diana WAS done wrong. All the books in the world stating she was paranoid, unforgiving and unstable cannot change the fact that she was done wrong by her husband, her in-laws, staff of various royal households and her own employees.

I found this book a believable and honest account of Diana's
bodyguard's relationship with her. Enjoyed reading about the
great times and not so great times she shared with this bodyguard
and the difficult job he was required to do. His loyalty is
evident in the book and also his sadness at the end of their
working friendship. Great book!

I have read many of the books written about Princess Diana since her death. This book, written by her bodyguard seems to be honest and balanced in comparison to others that I have read. This book is well written and gives us more insight to what Princess Diana was like in her private life as well as her personal life. I would recommend this book to anyone that has followed the life of Princess Diana, whether it was before her death, or after her death.

This book is an excellent, balanced, well-written account of Diana's life and a heartwarming glimpse into Diana's personality. The author has no axe to grind nor is he trying to make a buck by using the most shocking stories he knows. Instead, he has produced a very readable, fun book on Diana. I would not say this is THE one book to buy on the Princess of Wales but if you like to read about Diana, this is probably one of the Top 10. There is plenty of interesting new information to make it worth your time.

I found this book to be very entertaining and informative from the point of view of one of Lady Di's bodyguards. I'm glad I bought it and read it.
However,I feel very strongly that Ken should not have included the last chapter
"Postscript to the paperback edition". He comes across as a very jealous man when he attacks Paul Burrell, her butler whom she came to trust and confide in on levels of which I'm sure Ken was unaware ( read Paul Burrell's Books to see what I mean) With the exception of the last chapter This read is very worthwhile.

Certainly one of the strangest books I've read in quite sometime, I can agree wholeheartedly with the reviewer who felt rather underwhelmed by the book in general. This was my first read of Williams, and while I was delighted early on by certain aspects of his style, I soon became equally irritated and frustrated by how difficult it was to get through long passages of his book. A lot of what he was trying to get at remained rather vague to me, but the one thing that did get through was his insight into those things that draw us to God (Pauline's experience) and those things that move us to reject His grace (Wentworth's experience). Ultimately, all of the time I put into the reading of this novel was worth it when it came down to the last few pages. Williams' rendering of his Wentworth character's descent into hell was pure brilliance. The meaninglesness of our lives apart from God and the slipping away into eternal separation are described with such vividness that at the close of the curtain I was left feeling wonderfully horrible, and I suspect that's exactly what the author wanted.

"If a man seems to himself to endure the horrors of shipwreck,though he walks on dry land and breathes clear air, the business of his friend is more likely to be to accept those horrors as he feels them,carrying the burden, than to explain that the burden cannot,as a matter of fact, exist." (P. 101)

This is the new standard of friendship and spiritual aid that Williams laid down in his novel, DESCENT INTO HELL.... whether the book is read at all now, or not, or ever was, the standard remains. All bogus New Age psychotherapies, not to mention Freud, were from this point of view, and from this time forth, rendered simply less than acceptable, and I say be damned with them ...don't tell your friend his problems are all a product of his mind, just help him....even at the cost of your own sanity or even your life. And, by the way, Williams WOULD have damned them. For the real spiritual McCoy, read this book.

I finally decided to check out `the other guy' from The Inkling and picked up a copy of Charles Williams' Descent into Hell in which he seems to explore the idea of `the terrible good' a relatively fruitful line of thought. The characters are layered and the descriptions rich with subtle observations about connection, human nature, art and scholarship. Williams is poetic without seeming self important. His dream and fantasy sequences however, can be ponderous and difficult.

Descent into Hell's protagonist Pauline, is a poetic soul haunted by apparitions. I was engaged in her story as it interwove with that of an eccentric poet and the dead of generations past on her way to apprehending the vaguely name omnipotent. It is the secondary (counterpoint) narrative of Wentworth, however, that makes this little novel truly memorable. A historical scholar's objectification of a woman takes a mystical and corporeal turn providing a jarring metaphor for the costs of maintaining an alternate reality. William's description of Wentworth's complicit delusion was horrifying in its familiarity. Wentworth's preference for a controlled unreality to an uncertain actuality and its associated madness was a creative and memorable centerpiece for a generally pleasant and intriguing story.

Just the first page is an example of some of the worst writing I have ever read. The prose is convoluted and unreadable. He uses the word "stairs" when he means "stares". How basicly illiterate can you get?If this man can get published, there is real hope for all those neophyte writers out there. Keep throwing your manuscripts over the transoms --somebody's going to give you a chance.

W. H. Auden and T. S. Elliot admired this eccentric author and found his novels great reading. My small voice echoes "Darn Right!" Gently invite anyone still laboring under the illusion that you "make your own reality" or that "by following your heart you'll never go astray" to a good slow read of this mystical horror. Laurence Whitworth is as good a cautionary protagonist for which one could hope. Two parallel themes, the lightness of love's burden and the burdened suicide's call to light are both deeply moving. After my third reading I'm glimpsing what Williams' tried to reveal, but hope subsequent rereads will take me even deeper. Don't give up! this book's worth every minute you spend in it.

I looked at this for a long time, picked it up off and on, and kept dismissing it as looking way too girly or frilly. I was wrong. This is good. The use of myth and story is excellent, and the hero group in the city is hilarious, as can be the ex-Prometheas.

I'm up to Promethea Part IV by now so I should back up and rein in my thoughts on Volume 1 (which collects the first 6 comics from back in 1999 it looks like). Anyway hats off to Alan Moore for serving up another variation on his "superwoman" ideal, as if Mina Harker from LXG wasn't enough. Well she isn't enough of course. PROMETHEA wouldn't be as interesting as it is (and in fact it's captivated me for the past three days) without its back story, New York in the last days of the last century, but a different New York with far more elaborate architecture and a set of new technologies that makes it seem like something HG Wells prophesized. On top of this strange, baroque background, seeing Stacia and Sophie act like regular co-eds at a place like NYU is what gives it its special, endearing brand of gotcha.

It's a daring, risky book where many lesser talents would have come undone, and as a matter of fact Moore's storytelling here is not exactly his finest, and his allegorical sense isn't altogether on point. OK, so Sophie encounters Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf in her past-our-bourne travels into the underworld... Little Red is snarky and snippy, and the wolf is super terrifying, but isn't this a story Angela Carter did already like, a zillion times, not to mention the Stephen Sondheim of INTO THE WOODS? I feel like I'm missing the point from time to time... Also the "5 Swell Guys," five science heroes who swank around the skies of New York at night in their bubble car. Moore fans help me, did they appear in some other comic and so all of you know about them already? Lord love a duck, I haven't been able to distinguish them any better than my fingerprints, except for "Kenneth," the psychic one, who must be named after "Kenneth what's my frequency?"

Will evil and all seeing Marto Neptura be back later on in the saga? He's the one who scares me the most, him and his army of alligator men, they will haunt my nightmares forever! Or is he a false bogey, already vanquished, the way the great Wizard of Oz dwindles to insignificance once one goes beyond the screen? For myself, I used the anagram trick to take my mind away from the paralyzing fear. "Marto Neptura?" asked Alice. "Why, he's only "Our Apartment" spelled backwards, that's all!"

If you like Alan Moore's metatextual explorations of fiction, you'll love his creation of Promethea, a female archetype of power and imagination who exists primarily as a story, reflected in other artists and writers over the centuries.

My main quibble of this story is that Moore seems to get tired of Promethea after her newest incarnation appears and switch the focus to hermeticism and magickal philosophy. The development of the character gets lost in a horde of Goetic demons and otherworldly realms.

One thing that puzzles me is the idea that somehow Promethea is a more authentically female superhero than those who have gone before, instead of being a "man in a woman's body" like Roger of the 5 Swell Guys. How is Promethea/Sophie (created by two men) more a real woman than Wonder Woman (created by William Moulton and Charles Gaines) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (created by Joss Whedon)? At least the Bride of "Kill Bill" was created by a man and a woman.

However, Moore on a bad day is still levels above plenty of other writers, so this is worth checking out.

First, I own every GN/collection from Moore. When he's on, he's the best story-teller, period. And this book held so much promise--an interesting idea, unique setting combining science and the fantistical, and intriguing support characters. All told, I'm forced to characterize it as a slippery slope, however, because the series just gets more and more abstract and unappealing.

An "action" comic this is not. Moore is a phenomenal writer--one of only a few that superbly combines heroics/action and complex myth-building. In this case, though, too much emphasis is on myth-building and not enough on storyline. The series ulitmately morphs into an surreal expose on tantric sex (Promoethia and a magical old man), the Tarrot, black magic, and the afterlife. It just gets too surreal (it's like reading Ursula LeGuin when you are accustomed to Tolkien). There are some interesting ideas, but all told, it just goes on and on, and on. This book is 4 stars--I'd buy it again--but then quit while I'm ahead. Unfortunately, I bought all 5 at the same time. First time I've ever felt I made a mistake on a Moore collection.

The plot: Promethea is an idea - the goddess myth that changes depending on who sees her and how. "If she didn't exist we would have to make her." Yes this plot is tenuous and mystic and intends to be deep. We follow the story of college student Sophie, who is doing a term paper on the Promethea character, who reemerges in literature, pulp fiction and comics. Strangely many of the people involved in creating the art that shows Promethea also claimed to have met her. Sophie soon finds an idea that can enter our world (or at least her world - a very technologically advanced 1999 in which cars fly through a world of neon billboards).

The plot and story here were surprisingly coherent. First of course Sophie meets Promethea and begins to understand how an idea can enter the realworld and become physically real. Interspersed are back stories on how Promethea originally came to be and on the artists she has touched in past manifestations.

The graphics: The artistic style is the normal comic booky style done very well. However the layouts are spectacular. Often there is a border surrounding the frames on a spread - and in that border part of the scene is taking place. Almost any spread of two pages hangs together as one coherent whole. Anyone interested in graphic design and comics should check this one out.

Overall Promethea was a good comic book. The graphics were spectacular. Even though the plot is a bit artsy and pretentious, by about half way through I was hooked. There is enough action and "good parts" to keep things flowing well.

Ghosts of Vesuvius
by Charles Pellegrino.
Harper. 496 pages.

I picked up this book after listening to the author on a talk radio show. He impressed me, holding forth on the universe in a distinct Long Island accent, so I thought why not? What I got was an incredibly ambitious work that takes the reader back, literally, to the non-time before the universe was born, then barrels forward faster than the speed of light to the non-time post-omega of the universe, and then drops the reader on the edge of the pit left behind after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center after lengthy disquisitions on Pompeii, Herculaneum--the incredible forces unleashed there--and how they were repeated at various intervals of volcanism through the eons. Not content with this, Pellegrino dove-tails these dynamics with the collapse of the Twin Towers and shows how various fire fighters and rescue workers met or survived their fates through the phenomenon of "shock cocoons"--the uncanny interventions that appear in the midst of disasters and which allowed paper documents to survive the searing heat in Herculaneum as well as one fire-fighter to glide on his back for hundreds of feet through the closest equivalent to hell on earth this side of the atomic bomb. A less capacious mind would be content to call it quits after these feats of mental gymnastics, but Pellegrino plows on, Diderot-fashion, to consider, simultaneously, rustcicles, the sinking of the Titanic, the Book of Thomas, Josephus and the early Christian church, the Stoics, the history of Rome, Roman technology and hundreds of other subjects. This man Pellegrino, if he ran a pizza parlor, would most probably offer the Pellegrino Special, which would be the very embodiment of abundanza!--all conceivable toppings, plus a sprinkling of star dust--and all for a reasonable $15.95, U.S.D.! (And, by the way, it appears that the folks of Herculaneum and Pompeii actually had a pizza-like dish, as well as their own hamburgers, hotdogs and a great-tasting fish topping--facts I learned from the author in question.) In addition Pellegrino succeeds in putting a human face on these tragedies--both natural and man-made. We are taken through the last nano-seconds of the life of a beautiful Asian-European slave girl of 14--16 years of age, who was lying on her side with her mistress' baby in her arms trying to comfort it when the searing gasses from Vesuvius caused her brains to boil and explode. We stand on the deck of the Titanic watching an officer with a pistol in his hand holding off the surging crowds of desperate passengers as women and children find seats on the final life boats, the freezing water lapping around their ankles. We are taken into the private hell of a man buried with his dog under tons of volcanic dust, who managed to live for weeks after Pompeii's extinction, yet still died far from the picks and shovels of potential rescuers.

With any such massive undertaking there will be of course some problems. Even War and Peace has arid passages that one would like to tear out and feed to the swine--especially when Tolstoy the philosopher begins to lecture us about history. With the Ghosts of Vesuvius the problems involve structure and editing. Towards the end of the book Pellegrino seems to be writing under the old rule of so many cents a page. We've seen the results in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi when what begins as an excellent book is buried, in part two, under so much filler. I believe that the author simply had a space requirement that was assigned to him by his agent and by hook or crook, he managed to fill it. In addition, Mr. Pellegrino sometimes needs a fact-checker. However, having said these things, I recommend both the author and his book. Obviously the man is brilliant in the best possible sense of the word, and the book is the near-barbaric yawp of an American original.

I embraced this book. It is informative, sensitive and superbly written. The paralell Mr. Pellegrino draws between the tragedies of Vesuvius and the Towers in unique, and there is so much information contained on the pages, that at times I had to slow down my reading, in order to fully absorb all the details. I read this book while in Europe, in a Hungarian translation, and it lost nothing through this process; the language is still powerful, even as translated into a language that is not related to any other modern language. As soon as I returned to the USA, I bought his other books.

Charles Pellegrino's stream-of-consciousness ramblings about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the collapse of the Twin Towers offer excellent descriptions of just how such catastrophes play out, but little else of interest. Reading the book is an exercise in frustration; just when the author throws out juicy tidbits regarding Pompeii or Herculaneum, he veers off into discussions of conditions on Earth in 1,000,000 B.C. or Gnostic philosophy. Pellegrino clearly possesses an active, imaginative mind but, just as clearly, has difficulty focusing it on something as mundane as maintaining focus. In this manner he reminds one of Tim Robbins' baseball pitcher Nuke LaLoush in "Field of Dreams," who possessed a phenonomenal fastball but was just as apt to hit the team mascot as the strike zone. In "Ghosts of Vesuvius," Pellegrino throws a few strikes. Unfortunately, these are overshadowed by his spectacular wild pitches. Mascots, and readers, beware.

[Review of Hardcover edition]

This is a tremendously interesting and engrossing book, on many different levels. "GoV", contrary to what the title might lead one to suspect, is NOT just a book about Mt. Vesuvius - it's a tour de force exploration of the effect of volcanic forces on people, on civilizations, on religion(s), on species and evolution in general, on the landscape, and even on the very formation of life itself ... and the author draws upon a wide array of scientific disciplines in order to tell the tale effectively.

In similar fashion to Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", the book opens with a bang ... or more specifically, with the origins of the universe, the formation of heavier elements in the hearts of stars, the evolution of solid matter (planets, asteroids and dark matter), the formation of volcanoes on those planets, and the role that volcanic forces play in the formation of life. From there, the author gives the reader an introductory taste of some of the possible connective threads between volcanic calamities of recent millennia, their appearances in (and possible influence on) religious accounts & beliefs, and how the tripartite aspects of creation, destruction, and preservation directly mimic the aspects of certain deities recurring throughout human history in various different religions ... a theme touched on indirectly by Fritjof Capra's Hindu-slanted poetic paradigm for viewing physical reality "The Tao of Physics".

From there, the authors pauses (in Chapter 3, "The Time Gate") to neatly tie together a broad range of different fields of human study into a single and innovatively coherent view of time. In it, the author telescopes backwards, in accelerating fashion, as he zooms further and further outwards - from recent history, through archeology (deep history), past paleontology (biological history), past geology (planetary history), and onward into astrophysics (stellar history) ... with major volcanic events as the connective thread every step of the way. A larger and more robust treatment of this material is also covered in a stand-alone novel entitled "Time Gate".

Next, the author reels the reader's time focus back in closer to home again, and delves into the heart of the book, and the author's chief love: archeology. In this case, the primary focus are the twin cities destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD: Pompeii and Herculaneum. The author treats us to a veritable smorgasbord of some of the written accounts dating near, relating to, or directly affected by the eruption:

* Historical accounts (ex: the Plinys, Democritus, Josephus, Spartacus the Gladiator, etc),
* Biblical references (ex: the Council of Nicea that originally collated, edited and winnowed down the scattered accounts of the time into "The Bible" as we know it today),
* Legal records (ex: the legal case of the ex-slave Justa who was suing to retain her freedom at the time of the eruption) recovered from the carbonized remains of a large cache of library scrolls.

Reading those accounts drives home in dramatic fashion the terrible and lasting impact Vesuvius had on both the personal lives of the people nearby, on the surrounding nations and empires, and on the bible itself ... effects that are being felt even today, in ways that we're only just now beginning to understand.

From classic archeology, the author then re-focuses closer still into the subtle nuances and intimate details offered by forensic science, and the oh-so-human stories that the latter is allowing to emerge from the archeological strata. The bones can literally speak to us now ... telling us their exact age & gender, their most likely profession and social status, their dietary habits, wounds and diseases they suffered from, and so much more ... details that truly reinforce that archeology is not just about biology or dead civilizations - it's also about individuals.

It was shortly after the author finished writing the draft of this book that history and fate played a cruel joke ... on September 11th, 2001, hijackers crashed two passenger jets into the Word Trade Center in New York City. The buildings subsequently imploded and down blasted into the Manhattan Bedrock, and massive debris clouds radiated throughout southern Manhattan, burying, damaging and destroying much in it's path. The resemblance to Pompeii and Herculaneum was uncanny ... and that brings us to Chapter 10, the final chapter of GoV, in which several archeologists (including the author) converge on NYC to study the still-fresh archeological record.

Central to Chapter 10 is the story of NYFD Ladder 4 that emerged from the archeological evidence, and subsequent attempts (by certain unscrupulous people) to censor/delay/suppress the publication of this very book for daring to tell the truth ... a truth that exposed an earlier journalistic claim (of looting) as a slanderous hoax. For the details on that matter, I refer interested readers to the author's official discussion forum, which contains a thread on that subject, with additional information by the author.

To conclude, GOV is a must-read for anyone who's interested in the sciences in general, in history (both real and biblical), and in the ongoing efforts by determined researchers to carry forward the bright torch of knowledge & truth across the dark wastelands of time, superstition, ignorance ... and sometimes across the barbed wire boundaries of 'accepted theory', through toxic pools of opportunistic lies, and through suffocating clouds of censorship.

To quote Dr. Pellegrino: "History [and Truth] will eventually have it's way ... it always does."

I enjoyed it immensely, and I was engrossed throughout, from cover to cover.

I'd also like to compliment the author for his steadfast commitment to "Keep faith with the dead", regardless of the risk to his career as a published author. I've seen some of the consequences of that decision, first hand.

If this book had a coherent topic I might have enjoyed it. It doesn't. It is supposedly about the explosion of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and the social and cultural disruptions that followed. For reasons that are quite obscure the author rambles on for the first 127 pages about the origins of the universe, the origins of life, evolution, the appearance of the Big Dipper, panspermia, and more or less everything in between. Why? Who knows? Not me, and I read the book. He then prattles on about the slave revolt of Spartacus, which is at best tangentially relevant - but I guess he has a sense of humor, this chapter is called "Then listen, Josephus, for I digress"- never a truer word. The sections on Vesuvius are gripping and follow a coherent narrative line, until Pellegrino wanders off into yet another massive digression in a disjointed discussion of Gnosticism in the early church. I think the point was that the apocalyptic vision of early Christianity owed its origins to the calamitous explosion of Vesuvius, which is ingenious but he doesn't get even close to proving it, if only because nowhere are his arguments stated, it is all implication, imprecation and hand waving. We are then hurled through time to the sinking of the Titanic, an event that has nothing to do with Vesuvius, the Roman Empire, or volcanoes. The single point of comparison is the loss of life, and nothing in the Titanic chapters serves this book in any way whatsoever; pointless verbiage. Pellegrino then sets off on a gratuitous discussion of the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York. The only link to Vesuvius that Pellegrino could muster was the shared physics of the collapse column in both a volcanic cloud and a falling building. I'd call that a stretch. Perhaps a more valid comparison would have been to talk to survivors of the atom bombs in Japan. Surprisingly, given that the book is about a volcanic explosion, there is no discussion of volcanic events in recent times- Krakatoa, Mount St. Helens, Etna. It is not even clear from the book that Vesuvius is still active, or that the Bay of Naples has been devastated by earthquakes in living memory. This is just lazy. There are errors of fact; a message in a bottle thrown into the Atlantic seems to have washed up in Surrey, England, which is not a small feat since Surrey is a landlocked county with not an inch of shoreline (perhaps it floated up the river Thames?). Pellegrino appears to place the fall of Constantinople to around 535, which is nonsense. This is in the middle of the reign of Justinian I (527-565), who expanded the Byzantine Empire to include all the Mediterranean including Southern Spain, and who between 532 and 537 oversaw the building of the Sancta Sophia- one of the greatest churches ever constructed. These are hardly the signs of a dieing civilization. With inevitable ups and downs Constantinople remained the centre of a major Christian civilization until it fell to the Turks in 1453, whereupon it became the centre of a major Muslim civilization. Finally, the style is clumsy with the same phrase frequently repeated in the same sentence, as in, (just one example of many) "her first officer had (in a manner of speaking) given me a promise to keep and pointed me (in a manner of speaking) toward..." It could have been a good book, it isn't.

I had heard so much hype about this supposedly fantastic author and was hugely disappointed. I had to force myself to finish the book, unnecessarily wordy, taking away from the story line or moral message he was trying to get across. This made what could have been an interesting story a very boring story. It was just steeped w/ very heavy spiritual symbolism that you'd have to be Dante to figure out. I was embarrassed that I had recommended it for our Halloween pick for my book club. Of what use is a spiritual message if you can't even bring yourself to read it?

This is one of the greatest novels I've ever been forced to read in school. I recommend to all of my friends after having read it in my upper-level undergraduate Literature class. Read this book!

A decent "purgatorial" novel about the redemption of a soul and what it takes. I often found myself thinking of Lewis's space trilogy during the read especially the last volume. I'd put this on a reading list of books about the theology of purgation; The Divine Comedy, The Great Divorce, etc.
At times I found Williams writing style a bit thick but I suspect that was intentional. I particularly enjoyed what seemed to be a slam on logical positivism and literary post-modernism in the character of the clerk.
Some classify this as horror and perhaps it is but it wasn't really scary to me. In fact, the clerk just winds up looking like a boob. Maybe the scariest thing about it is the choice one of the characters makes for hell.

Although Williams was a member of the Inklings group, the work of C.S. Lewis and Tolkein are worlds apart from Williams' writing. Finding any Christian reference takes work, but the occult is quite abundant. An understanding of his cult group (Knights of the Rose?--akin to the Masons) would have helped us decipher some of his meanings.

This is a ghost story, but not a horror story. You may get chills reading it, but not always from "the creeps". On the other hand, you may finish it wondering just what the heck you just read. I submit to you All Hallows' Eve-- definitely not for everybody.

All Hallows' Eve is Charles Williams' last novel, written and set in WW2 England. It starts shortly after the tragic deaths of two women friends, Evalyn and Lester, in a bizarre collision, and neither is aware at first that they have died. They wander a weirdly deserted London separately for a brief time before meeting up, which gives the author an opportunity to focus on Lester's inner spiritual journey as she slowly confronts some unattractive truths about herself and her important relationships with her husband and her friends. In a separate but intersecting storyarc, Lester's surviving husband and his artist friend cross paths with a popular cult leader, Simon Le Clerc. This disturbing figure has a hidden past that is revealed only to us, the readers, as the plot unfolds. He is shaping up to be something not unlike an antichrist of sorts who is conducting covert, occultic experiments on the artist's love interest, Betty Wallingford, who is the daughter of one of Le Clerc's most devoted followers.

Williams makes use of Betty's nighttime passages to scratch the surface of an alternate universe which Evelyn, Lester and (presumably) other newly-deceased inhabit. It is simply described as the City, and although it bears a surface resemblance to London, it is more of an infrastructure to London, or perhaps the Platonic Ideal of London...possibly something more. Many things in this realm tantalize us with glimpses of hidden spiritual truths, and time itself seems to have no linear requirement; past, present and future flashbacks occur without regard to conventional order. I was left with the sense that I would have liked to discover more about this City, and as this is my first Williams novel, who knows..he may indeed refer to it in his other stories.

I'm not sure what sort of person would be best prepared to read this final Charles Williams novel. The author (an Anglican, or so I've read) clearly gives his audience much credit, as he allows us to draw our own conclusions about either the allegorical or the literal truths he dallies with along the storyline; he never force-feeds or "preaches". Somebody moderately educated in various religious history and/or theology would recognize a lot of the hints and references Williams makes along the way to telling his story. I wouldn't say that you must be a Christian to appreciate it, but it might help. On the other hand, I would only recommend this book to a mature Christian who has some direct study of the bible under his belt and yet a non-legalistic attitude toward their christian fiction. Certainly the reader would benefit from an ability to appreciate mysticism.

All Hallows' Eve was recommended to me by A Reader's Delight, which appeals to readers who crave rare literary treasures from various genres. Williams' writing style is rich and many-layered, so that I may have to read All Hallows' Eve several times to extract everything I should from it in time. Take that under advisement, and if the shoe fits, do try.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

It gives essentially none of the story away to reveal that the plot of "War in Heaven" revolves around the Graal (per Williams's preferred spelling). Williams's first published novel is full of the blurring of reality that one finds in all of his fiction and, like "The da Vinci Code", involves a struggle between opposing groups drawn into conflict by the Graal. However, unlike "The da Vinci Code"'s ersatz, vapid spirituality--which, where it has flavor at all tastes merely of cheap sideshow spiritualism--"War in Heaven" depicts allies of darkness that are rank with evil even as its friends of light savor of ultimate goodness. In "War in Heaven" one gets a glimpse beyond the veil to see ultimate spiritual reality consisting of powers and principalities swarming in defiance of a holy throne even as the King of Light engages all according to his overarching plan and by his undeniable power. By contrast, in "The da Vinci Code" one finds that the ultimate reality beyond the veil is tantamount to a group of 7 year-olds playing with a Ouija board at a slumber party. So, if you're looking for a "spiritual thriller" of substance that involves the Holy Grail, "War in Heaven" trumps (perhaps greatly trumps?) "The da Vinci Code." 5 stars. An excellent book.

But perhaps it is because I am not a great mystery fan, or the classics. [I mean, did the question, "Heautontimoroumentos?" really make immediate sense to anyone else?]

In any case, I found by keeping a score card so that I could track all the players, and parsing several passages in order to figure out the nuances of the author's syntax, I could plug on into the last few chapters which, though possibly the most surreal, were, IMO, the most accessible.

I would recommend looking for a copy to borrow before buying if you were, like myself, considering reading it because of Williams' ties to the Inklings.

Like several previous reviewers, I read this book because of Charles Williams's connection with C.S Lewis and Tolkein. This book has not achieved the lasting fame and adulation of Lewis's Space Trilogy or The Lord of the Rings, and for good reasons. The plot is almost amateurish, and Williams simply could not write as well as Lewis or Tolkien.

BUT, Willims had gifts of another sort. Williams was able to write about spiritual experience in ways that Dan Brown (or pick some other thriller of-the-day writer) could never hope to equal. War In Heaven will challenge the reader to sweat through long stretches of unremarkable prose, that could easily have come from yesterdays advertisements, but perseverence will be rewarded with sweet draughts of unforgettable holiness.

The privilege of reading Chapter X titled The Second Attempt on the Graal, made up for all the book's low points. The internal reaction of Mornington and the Duke to the Graal, and the description of the united effort at prayer to resist the unholy assault on the Graal, represent one of the clearest articulations of faith as the "substance of things to be hoped for" that I have ever yet encountered . In the end, passages like this are the only reason I read fiction at all. Its the reason why War in Heaven must be read.

This is the first book I have read by Charles Williams, and if it is indicative of what the rest of his books are like, I think I shall be a fan of his. In War in Heaven, Williams depicts a struggle between the forces of evil (which call upon the powers of Hell), and the forces of good (which call upon the power of God), over the Holy Graal, which has turned up in contemporary England (or at least it was contemporary when Williams wrote it). In the course of the struggle, each side draws upon the power of their master, Gregory Persimmons upon Hell and the Arch-Bishop upon God through prayer. It is a very good story, and it reminded me greatly of C. S. Lewis' Interplanetary series, especially That Hideous Strength. Williams wrote this first, so I wonder if this book shaped the one that Lewis wrote. I know that they read each others works, so I find it hard to believe that the fact that they are so similar is a mere coincidence.

A few of Williams theological views were a bit questionable. For example, at one point he attributes evil to God, and claims that God wills evil. Near the very end of the book, it is also said that the church is one path among many to God. He seems to be advocating pluralism, but it was kind of vague, and possibly could have been saying that one can be saved without being a part of the visible church.

In conclusion, this is a very good book which I would recommend to those who like philosophical fiction. If you like the modern kind of mindless reading, where you don't really need to think, you will probably not like this book, for this book makes you think. It raises philosophical questions which it does not necessarily answer, so if you do not like being troubled of mind, this is probably not the story for you. A few previous reviewers have also implied that it is a frightening story, but I do not think you need be wary of reading this if you do not like reading of occult and the such, for there are no demons, only black magic, and I did not find them particularly scary at all. Personally, I think that a few scenes of Ransom and the devil in Perelandra were far more frightening that anything in this book.

Williams' ability to craft a great story nearly escapes the reader because his style is so subtle, and the narrative flows so seamlessly. It is also brilliantly and creatively imagined. He weaves the deft mystery style of Chesterton and Doyle with his own religious background and spiritual experiences. Were it written today, this story might be mistakenly tossed into the same bland, agenda-driven genre of evangelical "spiritual" thrillers, but Williams avoids such a trap by giving his spiritual hero, the Archdeacon of Fardles, a sometimes wavering confidence in his chosen path, and a battle with his own desire to give up.
While the book is certainly not one for those who feel immediately alienated by religious context and setting, it does not require or expect conversion or spiritual agreement in order to be enjoyed. Williams is the forgotten member of the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others), but his writing, especially War In Heaven, stands toe-to-toe with the other great works to emerge from that group.

I have read everything that has been published about the British Royal Family, past and present, for years. I have read a load of Diana books but this is my favorite. It is almost like talking to someone who was there.

After having read at least 8 Diana books, which were starting to get repetitious with the same information, this one was refreshing with new information and more information on topics I read previously. After Diana......and what transpired was very interesting. I personally can't see how anyone would be disappointed in its details.

This is a gift which has not been given to the person yet. It would be premature to rate it until it has been viewed.

I found this book to offer an interesting perspective less on the death of Princess Diana and more on the way that this death has changed the Monarchy and the way the media has reported on it. The book also reports in some detail on the lives of the two princess and offers insights into how their behavior may have been different, or not, had the Princess not died so young.

Still the work is weak because it relies on too many third party news article sources as well as unnamed parties. This in turn makes this work one of the weaker ones as the London tabloids are well known for being exploited by palace intrigue to bash one member of the Royal family for benefit of another. Not a bad read but basically fluff and not even close to a good biography or journalism.

I am offended by the new term "Diana fanatics" to describe people around the world who believe Diana was treated poorly by her royal husband and royal in-laws as well as courtiers. We merely suppport her and feel she was abused by a cold unfeeling royal system. Naturally any woman who exposed her husband as a cheat would be described as "mean or a trouble-maker" by her husband, her in-laws and the other woman.
In this book I sensed the author is padding the truth so as not to offend the royal family. Like many authors, the writer of this book went to great links to recognize that Diana, Princess of Wales was no longer a member of the royal family and that the Spencers were her next of kin.
Yet I am puzzled why no author to date has explained why Diana's ex-mother-in-law and ex-husband were the first to be notified!
Diana was not a member of the royal family any more so any excuse that protocol demanded the Queen to notified first does not wash.
If it was because of the boys, the decision was to let them sleep. And they were minors and had no say in the decisions concerning Diana body or anything else.
The proper adults to notify would have been Diana's brother, sisters or mother.
After all this, the Windors decided Diana being a commoner again was the Spencers' responsibilty and she did not deserve a public funeral.
There has always been too many inconsistancies surrounding Diana. She gets a bad rap for being inconsistant with her life but she cannot hold a candle to the media or the royal family.

3 1/2 stars: Coming to this after lay oblate Carol Bonano's "The Abbey Up the Hill", I wanted to find out more about the insider's p-o-v to complement that of the passer-by looking in that any of us outside the monastery must be limited by when wondering what goes on--inside a monk's mind as well as on the outside--each day of decades spent in the same place. The routine, as Bro. Benet shows, forces the follower of the Rule into patience, while sanding down--a bit at least--the monk's rougher edges.

The appeal and the predictability of life at Blue Cloud Abbey makes its sameness sound quite alluring to those of us out in the noisy urban crunch; it's a credit to Bro. B. that he also reveals the tensions and the dangers that lurk in such a life lived so much according to discipline, sharing with others, and putting up with not a spouse's but a whole roomful of other people's eccentricities and annoyances--without any external escape.

He starts his series of ruminations with the Abbey marketed as a tourist attraction, and this collection, although oddly organized and confusingly arranged in a seemingly haphazard fashion--after the more coherent (and previously published) title essay--does show what life's like on the inside, after the visitors leave. I would have wished a tougher editor; although this is a small book indeed, it's rambling and although you feel that you're sharing a couple of well-spent hours with a monk going ovre his four decades, you do wish that some of the content was less lightweight and conscientiously cutesy. These anecdotes undoubtably sound better spoken in person than scrutinized in print, removed from their engagingly lively teller...

When Bro. B seems dumbfounded why a more traditional monastery in France is booming with young vocations while those like Blue Cloud are dwindling mightily since the 60s, he loses a perfect opportunity to confront the value and the drawbacks of adherence to a tradition 1500 years and more in the making. He also would have boosted the value of his essays if he had paused more and shown more clearly how the Divine Office is the work of the monks, and how its changes in the wake of Vatican II have or have not helped the monks in their contemplative quest.

Finally, he seems to skim over a crucial problem in monasticism the past four or five decades: why those who like him have modernized and relaxed their observance as they attempt to return to the spirit of the Founder have also diminished the other-worldly, determinedly austere and therefore challenging life lived under "a conversion of manners". We get, perhaps inevitably, only the plus side of the ledger. Bro. B argues convincgly (if too generally) that the medieval accretions prevented monks from getting closer to the dynamism of the Rule, but he needed to prove this by better chosen examples than pajama-wearing, card-playing, and the institution of later rising times and bed times. I don't mean to sound petty, but perhaps relaxing the rules in the name of the Rule has dimmed (for others on the outside looking in to see if they could make the switch to the Abbey) the long-fostered distinctiveness of the monastic life?

Yet this book has advantages, even if many of its points in favor of modernizing monasticism are still all too fleetingly considered. It's rare I think in such types of books to treat what it's like to have to put up with so many visitors, retreatants, and fanatics all of whom happen to wander in to the Abbey for a few minutes or a few weeks, it seems. Certainly this must test the hospitality and good nature of the monks who are gawked at as quaint rather than as fully complicated, less idealistic and so all the more too realistic, fellow men. I closed this book hoping that a few good men would continue to be called to such a life too long misunderstood and caricatured. When so many younger people from the West the past few decades have entered the forbiddingly much more challenging life as Buddhist monastics, for example, this only makes me wonder if such monasteries as Blue Cloud will continue to thrive after they have loosened their ancient regimen in the name of broader appeal and greater relevance to the world that they both live in and live beyond. I wish the monks well as they like us all navigate through this perplexing world.

...they'd undoubtedly look at me curiously. This isn't standard reading for Christian folk, but hey, I gotta satisfy my curiosity. My fascination with hermitages and monasteries may be viewed as a strange one, but I find that I'm very drawn to the inner world of prayer, contemplation and simplicity. If but from a distance, I enjoy knowing the workings of the lives of people who live in hermitages and monasteries. This wasn't the best of books, but certainly not the worst. It was written in simple and straight-forward language, but seemed to take nearly the entire length of the book to answer the one question I had: what's an ordinary monastery day like? Finally I had that answer (near the book's end), and I felt satisfied, though I was pretty lost on the doctrine the author adheres to. I also felt a little confused about what called him to the monastery and, admittedly, am a bit suspicious of people who follow the leading of people (dead or alive) as opposed to the leading of God. I read little in this book about this brother feeling called by God Himself. He seemed more impressed and led by Benedictine teaching. It was like, oh yeah, and God just happens to be a part of that, by the way. Overall, though, it gave an insightful look at life in a monastery, and I did find it an interesting read.

This book is beautifully written and most definetly worth the money! However, I was surprised by this monk's very liberal application of the scriptures to controversial issues. I think St. Benedict himself would roll over in his grave if he knew how the monks of his order live nowadays. I'm not sure I understand Brother Benet's message but I was surprised at some of his beliefs. This book is still a nice little read and definetly an interesting peek into the lives of modern-day monks.

This book, 'A View from the Monastery,' written by the witty and compassionate Brother Benet Tvedten, is a wonderful view into a monastic life, despite the title's reversal.

Blue Cloud Abbey is one of the monasteries on Kathleen Norris' list of retreat centres. I have an affinity for this place (even though I've not been there) as they grew up and out of the southern Indiana Catholic community, practically next door (St. Meinrads is a seminary I will most likely take courses from before long). In this book, Brother Benet reflects on his choices, the monastery's choices, the world's choices, and the opportunities we all have for continuing our choices in the world. He shows that a monastic life is not 'unreal' or distant--in recounting the shopping trips and movie nights into the small town near the Abbey, and in the reactions of the visitors and monks to each other, he shows himself (and everyone around him) as remarkably human beings.

'Although Brother Felix had a temper which could be easily aroused, he was quick to make amends. He seldom said, 'I'm sorry,' but atonement was made through little gifts and unsought favours. Ordinarily he was friendly and jovial. Gemutlich. He had friends all over the countryside. Many of them attended his funeral, which was one of the largest ever held in our community.

'In his twilight years, he made several trips back to Germany. The last time he went home, he celebrated his eightieth birthday in the house where he was born. Brother Felix went his own way most of the time, but he never strayed away from us. He also loved his finches and spoke and sang to them all day long. Sometimes he played phonograph records for them of German polkas. They responded with their own kind of music.

'After saying good night to his finches one All Hallows' Eve, he covered their cages and then went to bed himself, and died. So did one of his finches the same night.'

He treats all of his subjects, be they human, animal, principle, whatever, with humour, insight, and a gentleness of spirit which shows many years of growth of feeling. He recounts the story of Patrick Sean O'Mahoney, a homeless drifter who specialised in the kindness of monasteries, with grace and warmth that only someone with a deeply inset hospitality could do (one of the conversions of life Benedict calls for is to be open and hospitable to all, for in many disguises does God come to call).

In retelling the frequent questions he is asked by visitors (especially school tours, where the children are painfully honest in questioning most times), he is able to show insight even when the answer doesn't conform to the way he himself would wish it. 'Are you ever given money?' 'Are you able to buy the things you want?' His honest answer to the later question is no. Once he had been to a museum and wanted to know if he could get a print of a photograph--the clerk explained that he could buy one in a book; he didn't have the money, or a cheque, or a