history

REVIEW: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Translated by Susan Massotty and audiobook narrated by Helena Bonham Carter.

This will hardly be a proper review because how can someone review the thoughts and musings of a teenage girl living under the Nazi regime of World War II? Instead, it’s going to be more about what this book made me feel and how it surprised me.

Perhaps because it’s because it was written over 80 years ago, I thought it would be hard to read due to the language or the subject matter – a misconception that seems to be proven wrong repeatedly anytime I try a “classic”. I listened to the audiobook and that was a great way to take it in as it was if Anne was speaking directly to me, but I think even if I’d read a physical copy, it would’ve been easy to read and get engrossed in it.

Naturally Anne writes about the day-to-day life of living in hiding with seven other people, her parents and older sister, another family and a dentist, and all the highs and lows of that from the camaraderie to the arguments when living in such close quarters with no chance to escape. There’s a lot of talk about rationing food, being terrified when there’s unexpected visitors to the house below them, and the people who helped hide and feed them. There’s also her and the other’s thoughts on the War, how the Allies are doing, what’s happening to their fellow Jews, and when it will all be over.

The thing that surprised me the most (though in hindsight it really shouldn’t have) was how so much of Anne’s diary was relatable teen girl angst and musings. So much of it was how she felt about the people she was living with, how she loved her father wholeheartedly but didn’t understand or get on with her mother, how she had all these ideas and feelings about herself but no one seemed to see that side of her or understand what she meant when she did try and express herself.

There are her thoughts about girls and boys and desire and over the course of the entries she can be so contrary about different things or people depending on her mood or what happened that day which is very true to life. One thing that made me smile was her fascination/obsession of Greek and Roman mythology – that is such a teenage (girl) thing, being obsessed with one aspect of history, whether it’s a specific event or a mythology or time period. There’s something almost reassuring that decades ago teens were fascinated by the same stuff teens are often fascinated by today – even while living through such horrors.

It’s the juxtaposition of the relatable teen thoughts and feelings with the incredible hardship Anne is going through that makes her writings so effective and important. So often with any event in the past, the people involved become just names or statistics. Anne Frank’s diary brings the events and statistics into life in an unflinching way, and allows readers to experience that fear and dread while still having the everyday experiences of birthdays and holidays, though gifts of jam and butter are held to the highest regard in this scenario.

It is such an important work, and one that is accessible and thought-provoking. While naturally Anne was all too aware of the threat hanging over her and the others and writes about it often, it’s knowing the fate of Anne and the people she’s with that makes reading her diary give you such a sense of foreboding – especially as the years past and the moments when Anne experiences some joy.

F is for The Fires of Pompeii

Besides the two-part finale (which is Doctor Who’s version of Avengers: Endgame ten years earlier) “The Fires of Pompeii” is probably my favourite episode in series four. Well, there’s also “Midnight” which is pretty fantastic but “The Fires of Pompeii” pips it to the post because of how it really sets up the Doctor’s and Donna’s relationship and there’s the inevitability of a major historic event poised to happen at any moment.

The historical episodes really worked for me and having the ticking time bomb of Mount Vesuvius set to explode at any moment in “The Fires of Pompeii” added some great tension but also emotion to the story. You spend some time with the people of Pompeii, and one family in particular, putting faces to this tragedy caused by nature. I learnt about Mount Vesuvius at school so this episode put into focus some of the facts and figures and stuff I only knew about in the abstract before.

Part of the point of companions is to challenge the Doctor but Donna did it in a way unlike we’d really seen before. She’s not afraid to shout at him in the street and him being an almighty Time Lord means nothing when there’s lives on the line. Plus, there’s the moment where he has to make the impossible decision – push the button to set off Mount Vesuvius and save the world, but in the process cause the destruction of Pompeii and kill everyone who lives there – and Donna is right by his side, sharing the responsibility and guilt of that decision.

Fixed points in time are something that’s mentioned a lot in Doctor Who. They’re moments in history that can’t be changed because if they are, there will be terrible consequences. In “The Fires of Pompeii” this means that a city and its people have to be destroyed to preserve the timeline. I love how Donna begs the Doctor to just save one person, just one person out of thousands can’t destroy a fixed point in time, and he does. And though there’s no way the writers would’ve planned for it at the time, that decision had consequences for the Twelfth Doctor and his story arc which was pretty cool way to explain how an actor has appeared in the show more than once.

REVIEW: RRR (2022)

After a young girl is taken from her village by the British Governor (Ray Stevenson) at the whim of his wife, the village’s protector, Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.), sets out to find her and bring her home. As the Governor’s life is deemed to be threatened, loyal and almost unstoppable police officer Raju (Ram Charan Teja) is put on the case to find and stop this protector.

In some ways I don’t want to say much about RRR because it’s a feel that defies explanation and it’s all the better for it. Considering I’d heard nothing but good things about RRR on social media, I didn’t really know what it was about (besides being anti-British/colonial rule and having bonkers set pieces) so everything was a wonderful surprise and I want everyone to be able to experience this film like that.

RRR is a three-hour historical epic but it’s one of those rare long films where not a single minute is wasted and I never found myself bored or thinking that the story was dragging. RRR is also a musical, an action film, a drama, and a romance and all those elements come together so well and sometimes in unexpected ways. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a three-hour film that was so fun, engaging and thrilling.

The action and set pieces really are astounding. Every big moment would be a standout in any film but this one has like seven of them – it truly is impressive. What makes the set pieces so good is that they’re all grounded in the characters. It makes the drama and stakes more tangible as well as just being highly entertaining.

Really though, the thing I loved most about RRR is the two main characters and their friendship. RRR is truly one of those power-of-friendship kind of movies and the tension of knowing that Bheem and Raju are on opposite sides but have so much in common is so good. The actors are fantastic and their chemistry is excellent and their friendship, and everything it goes through over the course of them film is just the best.

RRR really is something special and is unlike anything I’ve seen before. It’s fun and bombastic and at the same time has a really important story about Britain and India’s past and the harm that the British did and the strength it took to fight back against it. 5/5.

REVIEW: Call Jane (2022)

Chicago, 1968. Joy (Elizabeth Banks), a housewife, is expecting her second child but when she learns that continuing her pregnancy could kill her in a time when abortions are illegal in America, she finds help in an unlikely place and goes on to work with the group of suburban women who helped her.

Call Jane does a great job at tackling a tough topic with both sensitivity and humour though never makes light of the dangers these women are in. Both the group known as Jane themselves as they organise illegal abortions, and the women who are having the abortions could face jail, and then potentially lose their jobs or families because of their actions.

The humour and candour in Call Jane works because the situation of women having to illegally procure abortions aka basic healthcare, is the kind of situation where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Listening to male doctors talk about Joy as if she’s not in the room and not of value because the unborn child is seen as more important is laughable and frustrating.

Personally, I tend to think of Elizabeth Banks as a comedic actor so to see her as a lead in a more dramatic role was really different and she did a great job and is the heart of this story. Joy is an interesting character as she has her own biases that she’s never really considered before as she does have a more privileged background compared to some of the other women who come looking for abortions. It’s great to see how her attitude changes over time and how she almost gets a new lease of life as she does something meaningful and becomes more than a housewife and a mother – not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things.

Sigourney Weaver and Wunmi Mosaku play two of the prominent women in this underground abortion group that Joy meets. Weaver is especially brilliant and has pretty much all of the best lines and while the socio-economic factors of who has to get illegal abortions is mostly glossed over, Mosaku’s Gwen is an important Black voice in a group of well-meaning but white women.

The ending of Call Jane is quite abrupt and almost rushed which is a shame as the rest of the film was pretty well-paced and has an engaging script that does well to avoid some fo the clichés. It’s as if they didn’t quite know how to wrap things up or end this story without having a time jump. That being said, overall Call Jane is an enjoyable and unfortunately a timely film. If women could do this in the 1960s, what can they do today in order to have the freedom to chose what should happen to their bodies? 4/5.

As a sidenote, I highly recommend the documentary The Janes which goes more into depth about this group of women and the near misses they had with both the cops and the mob.

READ THE WORLD – Tuvalu: Tuvalu – A History edited by Hugh Laracy

First off as there were too many names for the title of this post, here are all the people who wrote chapters for this book: Simati Faaniu, Vinaka Ielemia, Taula Isako, Tito Isala, Reverend Laumua Kofe, Nofoaiga Lafita, Pusineli Lafai, Dr Kalaaki Laupepa, Nalu Nia, Talakatoa O’Brien, Sotaga Pape, Laloniu Samelu, Enele Sapoaga, Pasoni Taafaki, Melei Telavi, Noatia Penitala Teo and Vaieli Tinilau.

Tuvalu – A History is a history of Tuvalu, written by Tuvaluans. It’s a really interesting and accessible book as it’s not just the history and politics of the country, but it also spends time talking about the culture and the way Tuvaluans lives have – or haven’t – changed across the generations.

Tuvalu – A History is kind of a book of two halves with the first being more about the island’s origins, culture and traditions while the latter half is more about the history, politics and international relations. I liked both parts of the book and I think they complimented each other. Having the knowledge of the culture of the country and its people made the historical developments more understandable. There’s also photographs, maps and family trees which were all pretty cool too.

The first half was more of a narrative with the stories passed down the generations that explain how each of the islands that make up Tuvalu were formed and populated. Each of the eight islands that make up Tuvalu had their own story and some were related to each other – though technically there’s nine islands but one isn’t inhabited. I liked reading those stories as they’re like a snapshot of culture and history and of how people can explain the unexplainable.

The second half is interesting because as Tuvalu is such a small and remote country, naturally it took time before white Europeans “discovered” it and even when they did “discover” it and there’s written accounts about things, there’s also evidence that Europeans must’ve been there earlier but when and how is a mystery. For instance, there’s Christian Bibles on some of the islands with people know a few hymns in English but the people who must’ve taught them that or given them the Bible aren’t there. It’s kind of amusing how (for better or worse) Christianity manages to get everywhere in the world no matter how remote. Naturally when some Europeans arrive it’s to trick and take the Tuvaluans away from home to become slaves, forced to work in mines in countries like Peru. It’s horrifying to read how the population of an island went from almost 800 to about 170 in ten years because of these slavers.

Something that I hadn’t really considered before my Read the World Project was how big world events affected the countries we don’t tend to learn about in school. Sure, the clue is in the name, but it’s always interesting and insightful to see World War Two from other countries point of view – especially non-European ones as that was the focus for my schooling in the UK. It turns out that Tuvalu became an outpost for Americans as they fought the Japanese and while some thing’s they did had a positive effect on the country – like cutting down a load of coconut trees to make an airstrip – others weren’t so much, like the Americans leaving a load of unexploded munitions around so children could play with it.

Tuvalu – A History was written and published in the early 1980s so naturally the history/politics side of things finishes there. I’d love to learn more about Tuvalu and see if/how life on the islands have changed over the last 40 years. I guess there’s a good chance they’d be suffering the affects of climate change as Tuvalu is not far from the Marshall Islands and the poetry I read for that country touched on how climate change was affecting them. I think I’ve used the word “interesting” a lot here but that’s how I found Tuvalu – A History, it’s very readable and the language used is simple but engaging and I read it in one sitting because I found it so interesting. The fact it’s under 200 pages probably helped a bit too.

READ THE WORLD – Armenia: Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918 by Grigoris Balakian

Translated by Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag.

On April 24, 1915, the priest Grigoris Balakian was arrested along with some 250 other intellectuals and leaders of Constantinople’s Armenian community. It was the beginning of the Ottoman Turkish government’s systematic attempt to eliminate the Armenian people from Turkey; it was a campaign that continued through World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, by which time more than a million Armenians had been annihilated and expunged from their historic homeland. For Grigoris Balakian, himself condemned, it was also the beginning of a four-year ordeal during which he would bear witness to a seemingly endless caravan of blood.

The Armenian genocide isn’t something I’d even heard of before finding this book for my Read the World Project. While I learnt about WWI in school, it was naturally focused on Britain’s involvement and little time was spent on what other people and countries that weren’t part of the main Allied forces or Central powers were going through. In fact, I don’t think I even learnt that Turkey was allied with Germany in WWI, Austria-Hungary and Germany were the ones we learnt about.

Naturally based on the subject matter Armenian Golgotha is a very intense and bleak read. Reading about what the Armenian people went through, from intellectuals to the everyday person, was very hard at times. Photos were included throughout the book which were hard to look at.

It’s wrong to presume but somehow I thought that the Armenians would be killed as quickly as possible, but that was not the case. Women were raped, people starved to death or faced countless diseases, and when hundreds of people were murdered at once, it wasn’t quick. A quote that stuck with me was from a Turkish soldier, describing how people were massacred: “It’s wartime, and bullets are expensive. So, people grabbed whatever they could from their villages – axes, hatchets, scythes, sickles, clubs, hoes, pickaxes, shovels – and they did the killing accordingly.”

The way that Balakian recounts the horrors he witnessed treads a fine line between clinical and emotional. Armenian Golgotha is full of facts and insights into the political, historical, and cultural context of the genocide which is very interesting and is – unfortunately – a reference point to other atrocities that have happened since. While Balakian never shies away from what happened it’s clear to see how his experience affected him. How the suffering he saw and experienced shaped him, and how he was still able to trust those who had been ordered to hate him and his people. A few brave Turks, who, with some of their German allies working for the Baghdad Railway were one of the many people who helped Balakian escape, showing while it’s easy to tar a group of people with the same brush, there are those who are willing to resist terrible orders.

That was one of the many interesting things in Armenian Golgotha, Balakian was often incredulous that his fellow Armenians would trust what the Turkish government was saying or promising, and the same goes for a lot of Turkish police and military, after what they’d been through. But there was still the odd person, especially those far enough away from the governments influence that may be willing to help.

Armenian Golgotha is an important account of a tragedy that I knew nothing of. I’ve learnt a lot from this memoir and the time spent on explaining historical or political contexts to certain situations was very helpful. It’s a tough read but also a compelling one.

READ THE WORLD – Liechtenstein: The State in the Third Millennium by Hans-Adam II, The Reigning Prince of Liechtenstein

The State in the Third Millennium analyses the forces that have shaped human history in the past and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. These include religions, ideologies, military technology and economics. Prince Hans-Adam explores ways to make the traditional democratic constitutional state both more democratic and more efficient. He also discusses strategies on how to realise worldwide the modern democratic constitutional state in the third millennium. He observes that citizens should no longer be viewed as servants of the state, but rather that states be converted into benevolent service companies which serve the people as their customers.

I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It’s been a while since I’ve read a non-fiction book that wasn’t a memoir and was instead an in-depth look at a specific topic. Over the years as I’ve become more aware of the politics of my own country, the UK, and international politics I’ve had my own ideas of what I think makes a society or country work and what doesn’t so reading about what the monarch of one of the world’s smallest country’s thinks about this was super interesting. The State in the Third Millennium was written in a really simple and accessible way. Some big ideas are talked about and it covers everything from politics, history, religion, monarchies, and economics but I was never really lost.

I did prefer the first half of the book that was more about the history side of things and how historical examples of different states can guide us on how states succeed and fail today. It gives you the context for the latter half of the book which is the Prince’s suggestions as to what would make a successful state in the current millennium. The latter half was also more of the economics side of things which while still interesting, wasn’t the sort of thing I’m naturally interested so some of those ideas weren’t as easy for me to grasp and some I wasn’t sure I agreed with.

Out of all the books I’ve read for my Read the World Project I’d never have thought a book by the Prince of Liechtenstein would be one of the ones that really made me want to visit the country it’s about – but it did! It often uses Liechtenstein as an example for the various ways a state can be run and learning about how such a small country functions in relation to the rest of Europe and the World was fascinating. Also, how their monarchy work was especially interesting as it seemed like the people have a very different relationship to their royalty to what we do in the UK do to the British Royal Family. It’s like in Liechtenstein they’re not put on a pedestal and they’re a much more modern monarchy compared to the British one and that’s worked in their favour. I think the British monarchy could learn a lot about adapting to the modern world from the Liechtenstein monarchy but I’d doubt they (and the public/press reaction to them) would change any time soon.

I feel like I’ve used the word “interesting” a lot here but it’s true, I did find The State in the Third Millennium very interesting and very readable. It proposes interesting ideas about the future of countries depending how they’re run and provides specific examples of how different systems work, or don’t, depending on the country and the structure they’re built on. 4/5.

READ THE WORLD Timor-Leste: From Timor-Leste to Australia: Seven Families, Three Generations Tell Their Stories edited by Jan Tresize

A collection of stories and poems from seven families who recount their lives in Timor-Leste and how events like the Japanese invasion during WWII, being a Portuguese colony for almost 500 years, civil war between different political parties once Timor-Leste is decolonised, Indonesia invading, and finally the country gaining its independence after the people vote for it in a referendum in 1999.

Like many countries I’ve read about in my Read the World Project, Timor-Leste is one that I didn’t know anything about so From Timor-Leste to Australia was a real eye-opening and informative read. For each of the seven families there’s at least two people telling their story; sometimes their siblings, or more commonly it’s a parent and then a child. That way the reader can see how these huge events affected different generations as sometime the children were ten years old or younger when they were forced to flee their homes and move to countries far from home so for some it seemed like an adventure and the realities on their situation was lost on them.

Having members of seven different families share their experience is a good way to get a broad idea of what happened to the Timorese people. Some families were wealthier or had connections to the government while others were poor and had little support, but often they all ended up in similar situations, running from their homes and uncertain of what the future held. Those who stayed in Timor-Leste throughout the Indonesian invasion naturally had different experiences to those who managed to get to other countries. So many people still wanted to get back to their home country though, and how some of these people described what they feel is their nationality was interesting. Some now are Australian residents but feel more Portuguese because they spent their formative years there, others feel Timorese first and foremost but still feel at home in Australia or Portugal.

It was interesting to see how these families got displaced with some being separated by loved ones for years and how they adapted to their new countries. One family was in Mozambique for a time as that was also a former Portuguese colony before the revolution there forced them to flee to Portugal. A lot of the families ended up in Portugal for years, sometimes over a decade or more. This was because Timor-Leste was a form Portuguese colony and some of the families had Portuguese parents or grandparents so had connections in the country that could vouch for them. Others ended up there as it was where was deemed to be safest, living in refugee camps for years.

By the end of each of the families’ stories, most of them had ended up settled in Australia, where communities of Timorese people had begun to thrive. This was due to the Australians fighting against the Japanese in WWII and Timorese people would often hide and protect Australian soldiers when the country was occupied by the Japanese.

From Timor-Leste to Australia was quite a sad read at times as so many people in these families were imprisoned, killed, or separated from loved ones for years. People wen through such hardships and nearly every time it seemed like things would get better for the Timorese, something else would happen. The relief and joy when the people of Timor-Leste successfully voted for their country’s independence was palpable in every family member’s recollection. But the resilience of these people and how families managed to stay connected even across oceans was impressive – especially as lot of this happened from around 1942-1999, a time where phones and technology to keep in touch were not how it is today.

K is for King Leopold’s Ghost (2006)

Documentary about the history of the Congo and how the greedy and incredibly ruthless King Leopold II of Belgium turned a vast country into his private estate from 1885-1908. How he plundered the land and caused countless victims; and how his lasting impact is still felt in the country as international powers and corporations fight to take and profit from the Congo’s many resources.

I knew little of the history of the Congo before watching King Leopold’s Ghost, all I really knew was that King Leopold II wasn’t a good person but what his crimes actually were, I had no idea. I presumed it was to do with slavery and taking the country’s resources (like most European nations did with countries in Africa) but the extent to which he took over the country and had the people enslaved – while running a PR campaign saying he was doing no such thing – was incredible. What’s also shocking is that King Leopold II never even went to the Congo but still caused so much damage that had a knock-on effect for decades.

King Leopold’s Ghost is a really interesting but hard-hitting documentary that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of colonial rule. It’s narrated by Don Cheadle which was an excellent choice as you can often hear the barely contained anger and disgust over what he’s explaining. It includes photos, videos, interviews with historians, and extracts from various people’s diaries and letters including King Leopold II, explorer Henry Morton Stanley, and writer Joseph Conrad.

I liked how King Leopold’s Ghost incorporated what other nations were doing at the same time as what was happening in the Congo. I find it difficult to understand how close certain historic events were to one another so this added extra context. For example, by the time King Leopold was getting involved in the Congo and stealing the land off its people and forcing them to work for him, Britain had stopped being involved with the slave trade. While Britain obviously has its own terrible colonial history, I found it interesting that it had moved away from the slave trade while Belgium was only just getting started.

One of the stats that really shocked me, is that it was estimated that in 40 years from the start of King Leopold’s influence in the Congo, half the population had died – which was 10 million people. And that’s just an estimate. Records of the hangings and killings weren’t kept by the Belgium people who were working out there and some weren’t even really aware of what they were out there for. King Leopold and Belgium’s atrocities have been covered up so that it’s only fairly recently that both Belgians and the Congolese have been taught about these things in schools. In school textbooks in the 1940s-1960s, King Leopold and his involvement in the Congo is framed as a good thing and he helped the people.

King Leopold’s Ghost goes from the nineteenth century to the early 2000s and shows how even when the Congo is supposed to be independent and has elected someone the people want, the Belgian and American secret services will protect their interests, to the detriment of the Congolese.

It’s disappointing but not surprising that still today so many other countries and international corporations have a vested interest in the Congo due to all of its resources. Uranium, ivory, gold, diamonds, coffee, and more are valuable commodities but few Congolese people actual benefit from the sale of it.

King Leopold’s Ghost is a really interesting and comprehensive guide to the history of the Congo and how what King Leopold put in place in the late 1800s, is still having a negative affect on the country and its people today. It’s a great documentary if you have little to know knowledge of the country and its history as it explains everything clearly and draws the links between various people, countries and events without being condescending to the audience. 5/5.

G is for The Good Shepherd (2006)

Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) loves and believes in America and will sacrifice everything to protect it, but as one of the covert founders of the CIA, Edward’s youthful idealism is slowly eroded by his growing suspicion of everyone around him.

The Good Shepherd is Robert De Niro’s sophomore film and it sure is a well-directed film and De Niro has an eye for detail that’s impressive. However, good direction doesn’t necessarily make an interesting film.

The Good Shepherd is set in the 1960s as Edward looks for a mole inside the CIA but there’s a lot of flashbacks to his father’s death, his student days, and how he’s recruited and works in counter intelligence in Europe during the Second World War. So, while The Good Shepherd is framed as the origins of the CIA, it’s more about Edward’s life and how he’s involved with various elements of the CIA and historical events. I had to google to see if Edward was a real person and he’s not but apparently the character is loosely based on a man called James Jesus Angleton who was chief of counterintelligence in the CIA from 1954-1974.

Angelina Jolie plays Clover, Edward’s wife, and she’s given the thankless task of being the typical dutiful wife at home that’s kept in the dark about everything her husband does. It was pretty jarring having Eddie Redmayne play their son in the 1960s. Considering Jolie is only six years older than him and Damon is 11 years older than him, it looks weird every time the three of them are on screen together as he looks too old/too close to their own ages to be their university-aged son.

The Good Shepherd is juggling a few things with Edward’s life story, family drama and life in the CIA, but it doesn’t really make any of them particularly interesting. In fact, for a so-called spy thriller, it actually becomes quite tedious. The hunt for the mole storyline has a few decent moments and Michael Gabon as Edward’s university professor and mentor is one of the most engaging characters, but overall, it’s not a film that really grabbed my attention for its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. 2/5.