Posts

Reading21: Never Let Me Go

Image
Long-time readers know I am trying to widen my exposure to fiction from this century (see here and here ). So, it was inevitable that, sooner or later, I would read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The novel kept popping up on lists of "essential 21st-century novels" that I came across. The Guardian , Time , a bunch of others had it ranked near the top, and I figured it was time to broaden my fiction intake beyond the classics and nonfiction I usually lean toward. But truth be told, the novel left me cold. I didn’t connect with it. I didn’t care what happened to anyone. I didn’t even feel much when the so-called revelations started unfolding. I was waiting for the novel to rise to the occasion, and it never did. The story follows a clone (although you don't know it in the beginning) named Kathy H. who grows up in a strange, cloistered boarding school called Hailsham, where students are encouraged to produce art and stay in line, all under a cloud of unspoken rules an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reading A Thousand Acres

Image
Proof of purchase. Jane Smiley's  A Thousand Acres  came to me as a recommendation from Brian during  our  recent trip to St. George . When I learned it had won the Pulitzer Prize in the 1990s, I thought, "why not?" What followed was one of those reading experiences that sneaks up on you—a novel that draws you in through the mundane rhythms of rural life, then delivers its devastating truths with matter-of-fact precision. I was pleased with how Smiley managed to hold my interest during the first half of the novel, without much of anything happening except the goings on of a rural community and farming life. This is no small achievement. The author settles into the slow, steady rhythm of Midwestern farming life—machinery humming, chores repeating, conversations heavy with unspoken tensions. I found myself genuinely invested in this quiet world, even as I began to wonder, despite her having an affair, when something "big" was actually going to happen. Then Rose bl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gaming History: Why August 1943 Changed Everything

Image
The situation on August 22, just before the fall of Kharkov in the game Ring of Fire .  Unfortunately, the 1994 game only plays through August 16 but you can sort of recreate the next week in this manner.  You can see the two Soviet Tank Corps encircled by the Germans with 10th Panzergrenadier linking up with Totenkopf as Grossdeutschland tries to push toward Kharkov.  Bogodukhov is in the center.  I played this game a lot back int he 1990's and still tinker with it now and then.  I played it again for the first time in years with my most recent interest in this situation as detailed in this series. [ Part One ] [ Part Two ]  [ Part Three ] [ Part Four ] [ Part Five ] [ Part Six ] [ Part Seven ] Most people have never heard of any of these places. Americans and Europeans are used to D-Day and the Battle of Bulge. But those operations, as fascinating and historic as they were, do not compare to war on the scale of the Eastern Front. In terms of large-sca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bogodukhov 1943: Twelve Days in August (August 11 – 22)

Image
August 22, 1943.  Four Soviet armies bear down upon Kharkov.  The city would fall the next day.  Meanwhile, action around Bogodukhov burned out as Totenkopf managed to form a corridor with 10th Panzergrenadier, thinly pocketing two Soviet tank corpors and a rifle divisions.  The Soviets lost over 100 tanks per day on this field primarily within two weeks. [ Part One ] [ Part Two ]  [ Part Three ] [ Part Four ] [ Part Five ] [ Part Six ] Operations for both sides ceased by the end of August 22 around Bogodukhov and Akhtyrka. They had literally fought each other out. Kharkov fell the next day necessitating the true beginning of the great German retreat in southern Russia. It wasn’t at Stalingrad, Manstein had mastered that situation at Kharkov in March. Stalingrad was the first major victory by the Soviets, however, the hint of a pendulum swing. Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht could still execute textbook maneuvers, still demonstrate the operational competence th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Pinwheel Battle (August 18 – 20)

Image
  A portion of the situation map for August 20, 1943 from David Glantz’s excellent  From the Don to the Dnepr (1991) shows the unfolding of the pinwheel effect: the 47th Army piercing the German line in the upper left, while the Grossdeutschland division pushes in the opposite direction below. Totenkopf attempts to link with GD, even as the German 34th Infantry Division holds the southernmost line against the 4th Guards Tank Army. Bogodukhov is in the center. [ Read Part One ] [ Read Part Two ]  [ Read Part Three ] [ Read Part Four ] [ Read Part Five ] "Thus, on the morning of 18 August, two separate offensives unfolded in opposite directions within a distance of 100 kilometers. This pinwheel effect had Soviet forces attacking west and southwest at the western extremity of the front while German forces attacked east and southeast at the southern extremity. In essence, it was a race to see whose offensive would have the greatest effect in the shortest time." (Glantz, pag...
Post a Comment
Read more