Prescient Grab Bag of Human Follies

Whoa! I've just completed reading this hefty 1,150-page book that took me over two months. It wasn't my absolute favorite, but it surely left a mark on me. West, a pre-war British intellectual, made a second trip to Yugoslavia with her husband in the spring of 1937. They spent just a few weeks there. On the surface, BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON is a travel record of their journey around what is now Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro - most of the parts of a country that disintegrated violently in the 1990s. But calling it just a travelogue is like saying "Hamlet" is just a play. West's insights into local politics presaged the Yugoslavia of 55 years later. She recorded the animosities between Croats and Serbs and others. She dedicated a lot of space to specific historical incidents, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered World War I and the creation of Yugoslavia. She looked at the murders of Serbian rulers, the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and traced the rise and fall of Balkan rulers. There's also philosophy, religion, and her views on women's rights, liberty, and justice. She attacked fascism and Nazism and spoke out against colonialism, though a bit softer. Overall, she thought nationalism was positive. But seventy-odd years and many massacres later, I don't think so. I didn't like references like "Slav blood" and such, but that was the era. I predict readers will feel, like I did, that a strong message is that people don't learn from history and are condemned to repeat it.

Her traveling companions, besides her husband, included a Serbian Jewish intellectual, a poet, a government official, and a war hero, and his German wife, who turned out to be a Nazi. How their marriage survived is a mystery. Her sense of humor helped her through. Like Freya Stark, she didn't reveal how she knew people or why the Yugoslav government was interested. But there's a deeper level to the book, perhaps why many call it a great 20th-century book. I'm not sure I agree, but as a travel book, it's one of the best. To understand the deeper level, you have to put yourself in West's shoes in 1941 when the book came out. The Nazis had taken over most of Europe. Only a few democracies remained, and the Yugoslavia she loved had been bombed and invaded. The Germans killed 24,000 people in Belgrade in a couple of days. The Yugoslav government defied the Nazis and sacrificed themselves for honor and future history. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon refer to two kinds of sacrifice. Sometimes her prose is wordy, dialogues tiring, and digressions wearisome, but there's no doubt. This is a great book. If you can persevere, I think you'll agree.

But for one thing, this would be 10 stars (out of possible 5).

Hearing the news of the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in 1934 opened a window in the brilliant mind of Dame Rebecca West. She felt an urgent need to understand what had happened. So, she visited Yugoslavia several times, engaging in what she called "the curiously gratuitous labour of taking an inventory of a foreign country." She explained, "I had come to Yugoslavia to see what history meant in flesh and blood."

The result is her massive and magnificent travel memoir. It's not just a simple account of her travels; it includes in-depth cultural commentary, discussions on art, architecture, music, and history, as well as fascinating sketches of people.

I approached this book as a baptism by immersion:

- Reading reviews from Goodreads, Amazon, and online publications was my first step. I dug around online and printed Alan Jacobs quotes, such as ...what I have said many times is the best book of the twentieth century. These were like motivation vitamins when the 1189 pages seemed daunting.

- Reading Simon Winchester's The Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkans, Robert Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts, and Ivo Andric's The Bridge on the Drina was helpful. These shorter books helped me get more familiar with an unknown region.

- I printed several maps of the former Yugoslavia and slipped them into the book. They were truly invaluable.

- When a place was referenced, I watched YouTube videos, preferably drone footage with no commentary. Rebecca West said Gracanica Monastery in Kosovo was "as religious a building as Chartres Cathedral." It is truly stunning. I found a gem: a 1934 black and white film of the monastery at some festival with costumed Serbs and smiling girls. One channel, Amazing Places on our Planet, was above all others. Trogir!! Oh, my. Add Croatia to my travel list.

- Podcasts! Peter Korchnak's Remembering Yugoslavia and Alex Cruikshanks' The History of Yugoslavia have been helpful, particularly Korchnak's interview with West's niece.

- I found archive video of William F. Buckley Jr. interviewing Dame Rebecca West in February 1968. To see her and hear her talk was truly gratifying. She has humor, opinions, and flair.

All that was optional — the book's the thing. I settled in for the long enjoyable journey of reading.

Highlights:

- The assassination of Franz Ferdinand seemed current. Twenty-two years after 1914, West talked to people who were there the night before and heard and saw FF and Sophie Chotek. "..most clearly I remember the funny thin voice of the Archduke and his marionette strut."

- Rebecca West is not a woman of faith. She is interested in and respectful of forms of worship. She attended Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim services. She especially loves joyful singing full of adoration.

- Here was a new and different take on Austria. When I think of Austria, I hear string quartets playing Haydn, Schubert, Litz, Strauss, and, especially, Mozart. West paints a picture of imperialism, racism, and meanness. She reminds the reader that Hitler came from Austria, that his idea of ethnic cleansing existed before his rise to power.

- Unless you are already knowledgeable of this land, you will be introduced to many glorious places of beauty. Does she idealize the Balkans? Probably. Do I care? No.

- The prose. Glorious prose. Wondrous. The scent of the soap was so powerful, so catastrophically floral...
We left the bosomy domes of the Patriarchate...
A man without tradition and craft is lost, and book learning is of little help to him, for he lacks the shrewdness to winnow what he reads.

About the Black Lamb:

West witnesses a Muslim fertility rite where a black lamb's throat is slit in hope that this sacrifice will fill a barren womb. She is thoroughly disgusted and goes off on the doctrine of atonement, particularly Christian atonement. \\n  For it is not possible that a just God should forgive people who are wicked because another person who was good endured agony by being nailed to a cross.\\n

As I copied quotes into my journal, I realized that this theme was throughout the book. It makes me sad, because I heartily believe and trust in Jesus Christ dying for my sins. For that reason I could not give this book five stars.

About the Grey Falcon:

In short, the grey falcon is a symbol of pacifism. It is from a poem about a Serbian leader who chose a heavenly kingdom (death) instead of an earthly kingdom. By refusing to fight, this general allowed his army of 77,000 to be destroyed. A modern day example of a grey falcon is Neville Chamberlain.

She minces no words: It goes straight to the heart of the matter and betrays that what the pacifist really wants is to be defeated.

And, surprisingly, these words began to change my mind in a matter of disagreement between my husband and me. I've never wanted to learn defensive tactics against an intruder in our home, stating that I'd rather be raped (and killed, I suppose) than maim or kill another human being. I'm pondering these ideas.

And Finally:

2023 has been a landmark year in my life. My husband was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer; he underwent seven weeks of treatment away from home; we are now settling into a new normal.

But, in regards to my reading life, 2023 will always be The Year I Read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

This book is truly a vast and complex one. In terms of size, it is substantial. When it comes to worth, it has both positive and negative aspects. In terms of intensity, it presents a wide range of ideas and emotions. Virtually every type of non-scientific understanding can be discovered within its pages, along with significant beauty. However, it also contains a number of really stupid things that cannot be simply excused by "considering the context in which it was written."

CN: (I actually had to take notes while reading this book just to cope with the cognitive dissonance within myself, and yet I almost surely have left some things out!)

It includes the use of the N slur and the g slur. There is racism, colonialism, antisemitism, sexism, and imperialism. Although there is also, and perhaps more prominently, antiracism, anticolonialism, feminism, antiantisemitism, antifascism, and anti-imperialism. There is both anti-Islam and pro-Islam sentiment. Anti-Catholicism is present as well. There are prejudices against various ethnic groups, but also the dissection and rejection of (mostly different from the author's but with some overlap) ethnic prejudices.

This book is a fascinating and yet deeply flawed work that forces the reader to grapple with a wide range of difficult and often uncomfortable ideas.

Google keeps blanking out on the title. However, there is a Ford Madox Ford novel where the main character, upon hearing about a friend's engagement, wonders why any man would choose to marry. Then he comes up with a rather generous explanation. He thinks that perhaps the careful study of one woman provides a sort of map of all the others.

You see, this idea is crazy enough to potentially work. Although I haven't tried this experiment myself, in my better moments, I can almost understand the logic. I'm not even really talking about marriage itself, but rather a certain philosophy of life. Sometimes I have this faint suspicion that the only way to get a handle on the universe is to closely examine a tiny corner of it with passionate intensity. Then I get sucked into the MILF portal on Youporn again, and the whole vexing question disappears into a metaphysical mist.

Rebecca West, as far as I know, didn't face such distractions. She found her particular corner of the universe in the doomed federation formerly known as Yugoslavia. Already a successful, middle-aged writer when she first visited the Balkans, she discovered a place where the inner workings of history were painfully exposed. As the line in an old Mekons song goes, "Take the lid off of life, let me look at the works." For West, Yugoslavia was where the lid came off.

At 1100 pages, "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" is a very large book. It's a vast, teeming, magnum-opussy thingamajig that combines history, travelogue, political theory, and ethnographic fantastication. So, yes, it's not for everyone. I happen to think it's a work of genius, but even so, it took me well over a year to get through. A genius can be a huge pain in the ass, you know? Their whims and prejudices are so much more extreme than other people's. Sometimes I almost prefer a nice, interesting minor talent.

But to explain why this huge, maddening book is worth reading, I'm going to tell a trivial anecdote disguised as an allegory.

One of my co-workers recently competed in the World Jujitsu Championships in California. When he returned to work, we asked him how he did. "I got destroyed," he replied cheerfully. "But you know, you always learn something. After you come to, you think: huh, I've never seen that before."

On a purely intellectual level, that's what great writing can do. It can knock you on your ass and make you think: huh, I've never seen that before. Whatever else she is, West is a great writer. Just as a composer of interesting sentences, she has some serious flair. Sometimes she'll surprise you with a whimsical simile, like when she describes a woman as being "fat in the curious way of beautiful middle-aged Turkish women. She did not look like one fat woman, she looked like a cluster of beautiful women loosely attached to a common centre."

Or she'll take a historical figure and condense him efficiently, like so much evaporated milk, as when she writes about Prince Montenuovo: "Prince Montenuovo was one of the strangest figures in Europe of our time; a character that Shakespeare decided at the last moment not to use in King Lear or Othello, and laid by so carelessly that it fell out of art into life."

A bizarre and bizarrely beautiful passage finds West hallucinating in what is apparently the Balkans' worst toilet: "The lavatory was of the old Turkish kind…The whole floor was wet. Everybody who used the place must go out with shoes stained with urine…The dark hole in the floor, and something hieratic in the proportions of the place, made it seem as if dung, having been expelled by man, had set itself up as a new and magically powerful element that could cover the whole earth with dark ooze and sickly humidity."

As in that last example, West's prose sometimes gives off a hint of something infernal, almost apocalyptic. This isn't surprising considering she was writing in the spooky dusk of the late 1930s, and by the time she added an epilogue in 1941, London was in flames. ("Often, when I have thought of invasion, or a bomb has dropped near by, I have prayed, "Let me behave like a Serb."”). This gives the book a terrible urgency, as if West felt she might be writing an extended obituary for her civilization. And in a way, it is a funeral oration – for Yugoslavia, for a certain idea of Europe, for everything beautiful that gets defaced or beaten down by history.

All of which is to say that "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" isn't really a book for the iPhone age. It's just too big, dense, and idiosyncratic. But that's okay: it'll still be here when we get tired of Angry Birds, or when the bombs start falling again, whichever comes first.

For anyone who has a genuine interest in the Balkans, this particular piece of writing is an absolute must-read.

It is indeed seriously long, but don't let that deter you. The content within is endlessly engaging, drawing you in from the very first word and keeping your attention firmly fixed until the very end.

The author has done an excellent job of presenting a detailed and comprehensive exploration of the Balkans, covering a wide range of topics and aspects.

Whether you are a history buff, a culture enthusiast, or simply someone who wants to learn more about this fascinating region, this article has something for everyone.

So, if you're looking for a captivating and informative read about the Balkans, look no further. This article is sure to satisfy your curiosity and leave you with a deeper understanding and appreciation of this unique and diverse part of the world.

This is a truly fascinating book that takes you on a journey through Yugoslavia.

The author not only provides a detailed account of the present-day aspects of the places visited but also delves deep into the history of the towns.

In particular, the history of one town is traced back several hundred years, revealing a rich tapestry of events, cultures, and traditions.

It is truly interesting to learn about how the town has evolved over time, from its humble beginnings to what it is today.

The descriptions are vivid and engaging, making it easy for the reader to imagine themselves walking through the streets of the town, experiencing its unique charm and character.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in traveling, history, or simply learning about different cultures. It offers a unique perspective on Yugoslavia and is sure to leave a lasting impression on the reader.

I was residing and employed in that particular area when I came across this book.

It was indeed a travelogue, but it offered so much more. The vivid descriptions of the people, highlighting their generosity and indomitable spirit, were truly a remarkable aspect of this literary work.

However, everything took a drastic turn when war was proclaimed. Neighbors who had coexisted peacefully for decades suddenly started murdering one another in the name of God!

This stark contrast between the initial harmonious community and the subsequent chaos and violence is truly eye-opening.

If you have a desire to witness such a profound contrast and gain a deeper understanding of the impact of war on human relationships, then I highly recommend reading this book.

It will surely make you reflect on the fragility of peace and the power of hatred.

DNF. I have only read 100 pages of this book and then I haven't gone back to it for 6 months. At this point, I think it's better for me to put this one aside for another day.

Maybe I will pick it up again in the future when I have more time and a better state of mind. There could be many reasons why I stopped reading it. Perhaps the story didn't engage me enough initially, or I was distracted by other things in my life.

But for now, I'm okay with leaving it on the shelf. I believe that there are other books out there that will capture my attention and keep me hooked from start to finish.

And who knows, maybe when I come back to this one later, I'll have a completely different perspective and enjoy it more than I did before.

FROM MY BLOG

Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a remarkable work. After her 1937 travels through Yugoslavia, she penned this 1,200-page tome. At one point, she thought no one would read it due to its length, but she was wrong. During my four-week read, I could understand her initial concern.

West had visited Yugoslavia briefly in the previous year and was captivated by the country and its people. In 1937, she returned with her husband for a comprehensive tour. They visited historical sites and interacted with locals from all walks of life. The book, however, is not a typical travelogue.
It is indeed a travelogue as they journey by train from Budapest to Zagreb and meet various locals. Constantine, a Serbian poet and government official, is a significant figure who accompanies them. They visit multiple regions including Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, "Old Serbia" (Kosovo), and Montenegro.
West also had a great art education and passionately shared her views on Slavic art and architecture. She had a strong bias in favor of the Slavic peoples, highlighting their speculative, mystical, and emotional nature. She detested the Austrians, Germans, and Hungarians, and had a complex attitude towards the Italians and Ottoman Turks.
As a feminist, she believed in different spheres for men and women. She also emerged as a philosopher, being attracted to Eastern Orthodoxy, especially the Serbian Orthodox church. The contrast between the darkness of Orthodox churches and the light of Catholic and Protestant ones intrigued her.
In a 1941 epilogue, she updated the world from 1937. Yugoslavia's refusal to submit to the Nazis, despite the inevitable devastation, was lauded. She contrasted this with the inaction of Britain and France. The book is filled with her detailed travels, wide-ranging thoughts, and firm likes and dislikes.
Today, Yugoslavia is divided into seven independent countries. West, a strong supporter of Slav unity, might have had mixed feelings. While she hated empires, the EU is different. Its success in maintaining peace in Europe might have convinced her that her hopes and objectives were being achieved in an unexpected way. If you love history, travel, or pondering life's imperatives, I highly recommend this book.

You can blame Goodreads for this rating being rounded down rather than up. Anything three-starred or higher gets churned up in a 'liked it' mash and spewed forth on recommendations that have nothing to do with why I read the book in the first place and everything to do with sucking up to the capitalism machine. If I could get some assurance of my rating having the nuance of 'found it useful despite all odious efforts to the contrary', I'd bother with the effort of joining in with the percentage points that are on the side of yay rather than nay and play its own small role in the advertising juggernaut.

As it stands, this book is already suffering from a preponderance of overblown praise intent on selling it to all and sundry without the slightest consideration for how all and sundry may differ from this book's optimal reader, who will be white, well off, and think that Trump really gets the United States. Anyone offended by that last one should take a good look at West and her utter refusal to see where her ideologies and those of her nightmarish Nazis and Facists are in such delightful agreement.

That, and some history that was the only redeeming factor for this read by way of utmost usefulness, is the entirety of the book. West goes, West sees, West writes some fanfiction that coagulates around fingers in too many pies and results in some virulently racist and Islamophobic tract whose worth lies only in the few facts that manage to slip past her sentimental grasp. If you took Tolstoy's epilogue to War and Peace and expanded it to 1150 of the 1400+ pages, you'd get a sense of flavor of disgruntled whining filling hundreds upon hundreds of pages; one obsessed with the threat of a literate proletariat, the other convinced that queer people are the reason for everything going wrong in the world.

The commentaries on imperialism, nationalism, capitalism, and oppression are aborted by West's tendency to treat with everything as types, rather than facts: \\"Americans\\" are wishy washy white liberals with paranoid tendencies, the British Empire has mostly redeeming qualities while the Ottoman Empire was nothing but stagnant filth, and it's the industrial workers that are to blame for Hitler and Mussolini, not the veins of hatred that have been carefully cultivated for centuries by both the European powers and every nation they have spawned. Only a few of the broad sides caused by her continued and defensive thrusting her head in the sand, mind you. She makes apologisms for everything from anti-Semitism to pedophilia, and whatever prose style she has works more to obfuscate her have-her-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude towards the oh so poor but manly Slavs, the sadly neglected but obviously blood inherited aesthetics of the Byzantine Empire, and the Catholic/Orthodox tradition.

The fact that I better understand the aspects of religious piety the title of this work refers than she does is sad, to say the least. All that reading, and she couldn't even spare a glance for the hagiographies of female saints? The closest she got was Saint Monica, who wasn't even referred to by name and was probably only appreciated with how she kept her husband a 'true' man and insured her son is remembered to this day.

The worst part about this books is I have no idea where to go from here. I can't trust the bibliography, as West's characterizing of epistemological worth relies on little more than on how well she can mold whatever she comes across into some drama of stereotypes and on her pride. Recommendations would be great if I hadn't been led to this work by recommendations in the first place and the compatriot lists below my shelving of this wasn't littered with stars galore and very little serious consideration of values other than how many subjects someone tries to talk about, how well someone writes, and how long their money and self-satisfaction allows them to write.

My best bet is to move along the lines of what West admitted to, such as the history of Islam and Turkey (the two are not identical) in southeastern Europe, the Romani (you don't get to say g*psy unless you are Romani. It's a slur, and the hatred is alive and well as evidenced in the white washing that happened in Avengers 2 and films subsequent to that), and history actually written by those with some investiture in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia, beyond some trite approval of tourist souvenirs and a desire to do some novel \\"noble savage\\" writing that hadn't already been taken up by Bird and Blixen.

By the end of this book, Constantine, West's officiating friend and knowledgeable tour guide, has had a physically noticeable breakdown that results in, among other things, an increased antagonism towards his English wanderlusters. West chalks it up to his wife's antisemitism (a wife that West blames for everything from Nazis to the denial of world peace) and remains content in the belief that they would be in Constantine's good graces if he was in his right mind. If West had been reading even a fraction of the trash she had written aloud to her Serbian thinker, the only surprise is that his patience didn't run out sooner.

\\n  Why should Western cretins drool their spittle on our sacred things?\\n

There's nothing like finishing off some monstrous entity to the point that naysayers cannot use lack of completion as leverage for enforcing their own opinionated acceptance onto oneself.

Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.

I have to concur with those who have regarded this one as a bit of a struggle. I delved into it for the travel narrative element, which constitutes scarcely one-third of the content, albeit it is presented admirably. Regrettably, a significant portion of the remainder is composed of historical background, which delves into greater detail than I deemed requisite (the rabbit hole effect). There are also discourses with local intellectuals that failed to resonate much with me. To be perfectly honest, a great deal of skimming was engaged in.

On the brighter side, there is indeed a foreshadowing of the brutal 1990s civil war; Yugoslavia as a nation was more endured than embraced. Her direct perceptions of the Yugoslav world surrounding her were vivid: it was as if you were right there.

Perhaps this would have been more effectively issued as three three-hundred-page volumes? Under different circumstances, that is how I would have approached reading it, one-third at a time with lengthy intervals in between. There is almost no conceivable way that I could envision someone plowing through it as a library book, even with renewals. (Bear in mind, I skimmed extensively, so I am claiming to have read it, but more committed and serious readers would surely require far more time.)