I'm the webmaster for the WWII destroyer escort USS Wintle ... I've purchased every DE book I can get my hands on to help me make my web page better. Unfortunately, there aren’t really that many good books on DE's. The few that are out there fall into two or three basic categories, those that are technical and meant mostly for WWII enthusiasts that are excited about the equipment (like model builders), and those that are “action” oriented. Since my web site was really geared to celebrate the regular people who were the crew members of a ship that “merely” did its duty escorting convoys and hunting subs, neither of these type of books typically has the depth of experience necessary to tell that type of story. After a lot of digging I did find a few “memoirs” from sailors, but inevitable they had flaws. They were not professionally published, so they were weak on proofing and editing. They tended to be spiral-bound. And if they had pictures or illustrations they were amateurish. Finally, they were often written by sailors that didn’t have access to the bridge. The authors seldom really understood the “big picture” or had researched the specifics of what their ships part was in the grand scheme of things.

When I found this book, Men of Poseidon, I was pretty impressed. The binding is professional, as are the pictures and the layout. There are no weird grammatical errors or spelling problems. The research is impeccable. Throughout, the author refers to specific log entries that he himself had made in the official ships log, which he requested from the US Navy in order to write this book. That brings up an important point. Since the author was an officer on the USS Rall, he was able to get the big picture and understand the real behind the scenes missions. He not only explains what happens on a day to day basis, but addresses why it happened. I learned a great deal from this book that no film or military history book will ever convey. In fact I learned so much that I couldn’t resist emailing the publisher to try to contact Mr. Graves himself, to see if he could help resolve some questions I had run into researching “my” DE, the USS Wintle. Imagine my surprise when he wrote me back and gave me wonderfully detailed information to help me in my work. A DE officer with an amazing memory is a tremendous resource. And he turned out to be a really nice guy.

The most important thing about the book is that the author, Richard Graves, is a very good writer. I was never confused, since the book takes the time to explain everything, yet I was never bored, since he kept things moving. That’s a very hard balance to achieve. The book does not skimp on scope either. It starts in the time leading up to the war, so you can appreciate the anti-war sentiment that was real, and the ambivalence that many people had about it, and continues on to the ships 50-year reunion.

When I categorized DE books, I didn’t put Men of Poseidon in the “action” category, because it doesn’t read that way. It’s not written to culminate in an exciting battle. However, it’s definitely more than a memoir. The USS Rall saw real action. The punishment it took at the hands of a concentrated 8-aircraft Japanese Kamikaze attack was substantial and deadly. I’m sure Mr. Graves could have chosen to write an action book about the episode. But instead he wrote a very personal memoir. It’s not about drama, it’s not about action or inflated speeches. It’s not about firepower, speed and camouflage schemes of a particular ship class. This book really is the story of the sailors of the USS Rall -- regular men in extraordinary circumstances, forced into heroism to serve their country and oppose imperialism. It’s a good book, a fun read, and an inspiring real-life, real-world memoir. It’s one of those book that, after you finish reading it, makes you feel like you just had the most amazing dinner conversation with a great story-teller. In other words, I highly recommend it.

Here is the first place to go if your paper happens to be on one of Wagner's music dramas (read: operas). This is the only publication I have found which lists every single leitmotif used in each music drama, with musical examples. There is even a chart at the beginning of each section (each music drama) which lists all leitmotifs one should look for in each scene. Definately a must for every musicologist's library, and recommended reading for all those who want to join the struggle to understand Wagner.

Clear concise overview of the Wagner Ring Cycle story and associated Leitmotives. Equally useful to the beginner as well as the more advanced student of music. The progressive changes of the motives over the duration of the cycle are well explained. I have read several books about the ring, but find myself returning to this book the most

Contains Rienzi, Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser, and Die Meistersinger overtures, as well as Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal preludes. Great works. Most of the engraving is quite clear, with the exception of Rienzi, which looks like a grainy photocopy (at times difficult to distinguish between natural and sharp accidentals, etc.). All in all, a wonderful resource.

This is an excellent and useful book. Though there is some commentary by Sabor, the book is largely a compendium of quotes, mainly from Wagner himself, on different aspects of his life, views and work.

It's surprising how complete a picture of Wagner's personality can be given in this format. Wagner emerges, in my view accurately, as mercurial, utterly inconsistent, and full of crank ideas. The most notorious of Wagner's crank notions is his antisemitism, but he held to his Francophobia, his water-cures, his advocacy - though not consistent practice - of vegetarianism, just as fiercely. Sabor also quotes Wagner confessing that these notions were "a kind of poison he needed to get out of his system", showing an awareness that they were not Wagner at his best.

Sabor shows Wagner ready to flair into anger (with truly astonishing tantrums) at a moment's notice, and equally swift to apologise; sometimes playful, sometimes grumpy, remarkably like a child all his life. So the long-suffering and devoted Cosima was a miracle not just for him, but for us too. Without her patience we may never have had the finished "Ring", "Meistersinger" or "Parsifal". Sabor's quotes demonstrate the trials she went through, but also the rewards.

Another miracle is how much information can be packed into a relatively short book, in this way. The quotes are also illuminating on the works, and on Wagner's musical and philosophical development.

And the last miracle is how a man like Sabor, auther of a splendidly well-researched commentary on the "Ring", can have the modesty to allow his subjects, largely, to speak for themselves.

Good book.

Laon

There are few better suited to reflect on the Ring Cycle than John Culshaw. An instrumental figure in the titanic Solti Ring, Culshaw's Ring Resounding offered a clear, bright view on Wagner's phenomenon, a 16-hour opera cycle that has been regarded, with the Chartres Cathedral at Notre Dame, as one of Western art's pinnacles. Reflections does the same: it shows Culshaw's personal yet often virtually universal thinking.

This book was drawn from Culshaw's lectures, in the intermissions, which appeared on the Met Opera broadcast of the entire Ring Cycle some years back. Essentially this is a volume printed by popular demand. Reflections is a "middle ground" to read. The book's character analysis tends to be concise yet much more meaningful than the general pages and pages of review, and the same applies for the rest of the volume. The connections forged by this book between Wagner's Ring and general humanity are strong, and Reflections is certainly a good companion to the Ring for those who seek to find a greater awareness within Wagner's work. The photographs and illustrations are in the style of Wieland Wagner's famous Bayreuth productions. They seem, to me, a perfect choice for the book. John Culshaw's words are designed to get the reader thinking about Wagner's meaning: Wieland's sets and lightings are likewise very open to interpretation.

Best translation of this work. Useful notes and essays. Highest recommendation.

The following remarks are made on the basis of reading the Swedish original, which equally should apply to this German translation. The reader should be aware that, although where Sanskrit text is given it has been translated for our benefit, quotations from other languages, such as French and English, have not been translated.

Professor Suneson sheds light on a previously little illuminated corner of the life and work of the German composer Richard Wagner; namely, Wagner's lifelong interest in the literature and religions of India and Ceylon. As an Indologist, Professor Suneson was able to produce what can only be regarded as the definitive study of the influence of India and Ceylon on Wagner's works.

The first part of the book is a general introduction to Wagner's interest in this area. It is natural that this discussion centres on the philosopher Schopenhauer, who related his pessimistic philosophy to the ideas of Buddhism. As most people know, Schopenhauer's philosophy came to assume enormous significance for Wagner during the early 1850's, and when blended with Wagner's own ideas (such as the theme of salvation through love), this philosophy became the foundation of later works such as 'Tristan und Isolde', 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' and 'Parsifal'. As a result of Schopenhauer's interest in Buddhism, Wagner too explored the Buddhist literature of India and (where available) Ceylon.

As Carl Suneson explains, a number of authors have addressed this aspect of Wagner's life and work before, but mostly in brief articles and not without error. Suneson's review of the literature provides references for further reading.

Carl Suneson provides a highly interesting account of which Indian works Richard Wagner read, and what he might have read. This information is drawn from Wagner's letters and from other writings, such as 'Mein Leben' (My Life, Wagner's autobiography), 'Das Braune Buch' (The Brown Book, Wagner's diary 1865-1882) and Cosima's 'Tagebücher' (Cosima Wagner's diaries 1869-1882).

In the second and shortest part of the book, Suneson considers the influence of Indian writings on Wagner's thinking about music.

In the third section, Suneson considers the Indian influences in later music-dramatic works by Richard Wagner. He warns that it is only with great caution that anyone should attempt to do this for any work other than 'Die Sieger' (The Victors), which would, if completed, have been the only stage-work by Wagner based entirely on Indian sources (specifically on 'Sardulakarnavadana' from the collection 'Divya vadana').

Three of the works that Wagner did realise contain elements that seem to have been inspired by Wagner's studies of Indian and Ceylonese literature. Firstly, the ending of 'Götterdämmerung' (Twilight of the Gods). After writing what was originally entitled 'Siegfried's Tod' (Siegfried's Death), Wagner changed the ending several times, as his world-view and therefore his interpretation of his own 'Ring' changed. In two of these revisions, the words given to Brünnhilde had a Buddhist resonance, of which little or nothing remains in the final version.

Similarly, in the ending of Wagner's most Schopenhauerian work, 'Tristan und Isolde', the words of Isolde's Transfiguration have an Indian flavour, but Suneson is unable to relate this to any specific source in Indian literature.

When he comes to consider Wagner's last music-drama, 'Parsifal', however, the evidence for Buddhist influence is much stronger. Suneson explains, in my view convincingly, that at least one, and perhaps as many as three passages in the text of 'Parsifal' are primarily based on Indian texts. The most obvious connection is an indirect one, namely via Mathilde Wesendonck's poem about Buddha and the wounded swan. Other connections explain more of the text in the swan incident in the first act of the opera, and several passages in the second act: for example, the temptation of Parsifal by Klingsor's magic maidens can be related to the similar temptation of the future Buddha by women conjured up by Mara, Lord Death. Exploring the Parsifal-Buddha and Klingsor-Mara parallels further, we begin to see a Buddhist (or pseudo-Buddhist) dimension underlying a work in which the Christian symbols have been more obvious.

Besides "The Ride of the Valkyries," (from Die Walkuere, 1856) this volume contains these other orchestral highlights from Wagner's Ring: Entry of the Gods into Valhalla (from Das Rheingold, 1854); Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music (from Die Walkuere, 1856); Forest Murmers (from Siegfried, 1869); Siegfried's Rhine Journey (from Goetterdaemmerung, 1874); Siegfried's Funeral Music (from Goetterdaemmerung, 1874). From Dover's Bibliographical Note: "This Dover edition, first published in 1996, is a new compilation of six scores originally published separately. B. Schott's Soehne, Mainz, originally published Der Ritt der Walkueren aus dem Musik-Drama Die Walkuere von R. Wagner/fuer Orchester zum Conzertvortrag eingerichtet, edition No. 22139, n.d.; and Trauermarsch beim Tode Siegfried's aus dem Musik-Drama Goetterdaemmerung/fuer grosses Orchester von Richard Wagner, edition No. 21998, n.d. The other scores in this compilation were originally published in early authoritative editions, n.d., including: Einzug der Goetter in Walhall (from Das Rheingold); Wotans Abschied und Feuerzauber (from Die Walkuere); Waldweben (from Siegfried); and Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt (from Goetterdaemmerung), transcribed by Engelbert Humperdinck. The Dover edition adds lists of contents and instrumentation, a glossary of German terms and English translations of four footnotes. A few errors in the scores have been corrected, including incorrect pitches in "Wotan's Farewell," p. 123, and missing accidentals throughout the timpani part of that work. We are grateful to the Duke University Music Library for the loan of several scores."

At a controversial Israel Festival concert on 7 July 2000, the Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Barenboim played music by a passionate antisemite with Fascist tendencies.

After that they played some Wagner.

Ironies abounded that night. The concert was planned as an all-Wagner night: a Jewish conductor leading a German orchestra playing German music in Jerusalem would provide fine symbolism for a night of reconciliation. Instead rightwing Israeli politicians intervened: threats were made to Festival funding, pressure was applied. The result? The music of one antisemitic composer was replaced with the music of two antisemitic composers, Schumann and Stravinsky. Schumann, like Wagner, died long before Nazism existed. But the antisemitic Stravinsky met privately with Mussolini, calling him "the hope of Italy and of Europe", wrote to assure the Nazis that he was of pure Aryan stock, and abandoned dealings with Jewish conductors and musicians in order to conform to Nazi sensibilities. Still, it was only when Barenboim played Wagner, after the Stravinsky, that controversy erupted.

Na'ama Sheffi's _The Ring of Myths: The Israelis, Wagner and the Nazis_ provides a guide through some of these ironies and puzzles. How, for example, can politicians think that imposing political control on what artists can play is an anti-Nazi act? And why did they select a composer who died long before Nazism existed but despised Nazism's political ancestors, who became a pacifist opposing German military spending and writing that Germany loses its soul when it tries to rule other nations, who condemned slavery and the exploitation of one "race" by another, who wrote works showing that the pursuit of power leads to evil and self-destruction, whose opera _Parsifal_ was banned by the Nazis, who also asked that the _Ring_ not be performed as a cycle, and performances of whose works actually declined under the Nazis?

Sheffi reveals that the ban was a historical accident: in 1938 the Palestine Orchestra (principally made up of Jews from Eastern Europe) protested against Kristallnacht by dropping the _Meistersinger_ overture from their next concert. The gesture was hurried but not unreasonable: the Nazis used _Die Meistersinger_ for propaganda purposes, as they misappropriated other German music and art, Beethoven, Bruckner, Goethe and Rembrandt in particular. But the scheduled concert after Kristalnacht had had Wagner on the program, so it was against Wagner in particular that the gesture was made. The Palestine Orchestra played Wagner again after that one-off cancellation (though in Cairo, not Jerusalem), but with the war's end and the creation of the state of Israel, the precedent of a musical boycott had been set.

Since then, Sheffi argues, Wagner has been built, in Israel, into a symbol of the holocaust, a symbol with little relationship to the actual historical personage, who, she observes, "did not devote his life to denigrating Jews and certainly not to annihilating them." The Israeli ban endorses the Nazi's malicious misreadings of Wagner; thus it remains a homage rather than a repudiation of Nazi cultural thought. A genuine rejection of Nazi ideas necessarily involves dismissing their claim to Wagner, just as the Nazi uses and misreadings of Goethe's _Faust_ (Faust as the German soul; Mephistopheles as corrupting Jew) are now remembered only to be dismissed with contempt.

Sheffi argues that the danger in using Wagner as Holocaust symbol and shorthand for Nazism is not only that it perpetuates a falsehood. Worse, it directs attention away from the individuals, political groups and social forces that really created and operated the Holocaust. The ban on Wagner "facilitated the obliteration of the true essence of the Holocaust from the Israeli collective memory ... From a man of culture and learning, problematic though his views were, [Wagner] became a man identified with the Holocaust; whereas the real threats of the past - not only extremist nationalism, racism, and systematic murder, but the enormous inherent danger to democracy - all became slogans, at best."

The real Wagner and his works, Sheffi argues, is being inappropriately used as a weapon in a cultural war within Israel. "Eventually the musical dispute proved to be only part of the general cultural clash in Israel, a clash reflected primarily in a fierce controversy over the cultural character of the state. Certain sectors - the Orthodox and national-religious Jews - began to perceive the desire to play Wagner's music as an attempt to Westernize Israeli culture while obliterating its original Hebrew Jewish identity."

Sheffi's explication of these themes, and her tracing of the history of this debate, ranges through 60-odd years of Israeli cultural and political history, and is considerably more subtle and nuanced than this review's brief outline can reveal. Israeli politics are both labyrinth and minefield, and the clarity of Sheffi's guidance through the twists and turns is something the reader can both admire and be grateful for.

Sheffi does not know her Wagner quite as well as she knows Israel, however. For example she is too credulous in relation to the various readings of antisemitic meanings into Wagner works, the Wagnerian equivalent of proofs that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. She also commits occasional solecisms like, "Wagner had been on close terms with his son-in-law." That "son-in-law" is Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a man who once saw Wagner from a distance, but who Wagner never met or even heard of. Chamberlain's involvement with Wagner's pathetic offspring began well after Wagner's death. Here Sheffi has fallen into the trap of trusting some of the makers of the "Ring of Myths" of her title, who tend to fudge the distance between Wagner and Chamberlain because Chamberlain really did contribute to Nazi ideology, which makes it tempting to place Chamberlain, falsely, in Wagner's Bayreuth circle. Obviously Sheffi sometimes relied on secondary sources, and in Wagner studies, where certain secondary sources are not exactly committed to truth and accuracy, that's fatal.

But those are quibbles. This is a thoughtful, generally well-researched and referenced book, clearly written, and showing alertness to nuances of meaning in a field where attention to nuance is a rare commodity.

Cheers!

Laon