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Philipp Blom ('Encyclopedie') has written a very interesting book, but spends way to much time discussing 'manliness' 'sexual disfunction' and the sociology of Europe post- fin-de-siecle. Did anything else happen that year. Wasn't mentioned. For anyone looking for a discussion of each year and what happened, don't bother reading this book. Is it an interesting book, yes. The clash of Germany and France over Morocco is hardly touched, and the continuing wars in the Balkans, which were the prelude to WW1 aren't mentioned at all.What we do have for example, in 1908 is the Suffragette meeting of 1/2 million people in Hyde Park. Starting with the Paris Exhibition of 1900, he states an event and then from that states a premise and then spends the rest of the chapter explaining his reasoning and proof for and against his premise. Don't know.
What we then have is a discussion of the Suffragette movement beginning in 1875 up to the granting of the vote for woman just after WW1. We also have a discussion of the beginning of the 'woman's liberation' movement, the first 'free love' communities, and the affect of Lesbianism on all the above movements. And so it goes.Is it a great book, IMHO no. Make your own decision.Zeb Kantrowitzzbestblogaround.blogspot.com
An intriguing and different look at a major turning point in history which parallels today's paradigm shifts due to technology, psychology, and the rise and fall of empires.
But then Blom can also come up with theodd story or with a cultural perception which keeps the reader alwaysinterested in finding what may come up next in the narrative. Each year is checked off one after the other with events that happened most likely in England, France, Germany or Russia. This Blom says will give back to the periodbefore WWI its future. the modern Department store for example.
Bottom line theVERTIGO YEARS may give the reader vertigo as Bloom skips, stops, andinterrupts his narative in an organization style that is not easy to follow or keep pace with. Philipp Blom at the beginning and end of his book invites the readerto imagine being deprived of any information about the twentiethcentury after July 1914. (Who knew thatthe great Sarah Bernhardt had a habit of sleeping in her coffin and having herself photographed in it). Don't get mewrong as the book offers much to be enjoyed. Blom says, "The rush of modernity caused danger (accidents, the terrorist bombs), the anxious feeling of speeding along without control, of holding on to live wire, flung and `whirled about in the vortex of infinite forces'.
Blom focuses on the first decade of the20th Century as an age of speed, technology, and rapid change including both the male and female rolls also covers the rise of newspapers and commercialism. But like its subject Icame out of the reading experience with Vertigo. And what a future it is in Blom's historicalanthology of anecdotes and popular social history. (Even the film industry began notin Hollywood but in France where the first big motion pictureexhibited showed French women factory workers leaving their plantafter work). In 1904 Blom takesa turn to the Congo and King Leopold which much better told in KINGLEOPOLD's GHOST by Adam Hochschild.
Blom also passes interest in MarieCuie whose story is told better elsewhere. Overall I found the perspective of the subject matter constantly interesting and unfortunately the writing style less to myliking as it is scattered and full of long pointless sentences attemptingto bring several anecdotes to some logical connection (i.e., "The goalwas to return, by way of a violent cataclysm, to a primeval harmonywith destiny, to a primeval community based on a spiritual essence,the very antithesis of the modern tribes." You say what). I recommend youattempt this but only with my reservations and patience advised.
We are going through similar anxieties and insecurities at the beginning of the new century. History books are often dull and loaded with dry fact. People suffer from similar mental and other diseases. This one is engaging and inspiring. For example, I played my Stravinsky CD while I read passages about the Paris premiere the Rites of Spring.I have always been interested in the early 19-hundreds and fin-de-siecle, but this book really gave me the flavor of the era, as if I were living through it. His style is engaging, witty and full of surprises. The chapter derives its title from the sensational murder committed by the wife of a French politician.I disagree with the reviewer who said the last chapter is repetitive.
For example, I first read one of the latter chapters, titled Wagner's Crime, because I thought it was about the composer whose music I like. Starting from an intimate story, Blom moves to analyze a whole period and shows how the story fits into it or even symbolizes it. Instead, the chapter centers around an insane serial murderer, a provincial Austrian teacher. And while some of us are "futurists," others would like to stop the clock from ticking and hold on to the 20-th century beliefs and practices.
This is one of the best books I've read in recent years and I am sure I will come back to it for reference many times. I am glad Blom summarized the points from his previous chapters, rounding his image of the era.The book was hard to put down. And more importantly, it inspired me to reach for other history books, Internet, or whatever, to find out more about the topics Blom tackles. In addition, I found in it a lot of parallel with our times a hundred years later. I had no doubt it was about the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo. The battle between the sexes is far from over. It reveals many little known events that were a sensation in their time, but we know little about them today. I find, for example, similarities between neurasthenia and fibromyalgia.
The last chapter, about year 1914 is titled Murder Most Foul. Wrong. Killings such as Wagner's also take place, including those committed by deranged teenagers. I cannot think of a better book to read at this time.
The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914If you like well-written pastiche intellectual, cultural, and social history you should enjoy this book. Therefore I felt I learned something. Blom focuses on a narrow time period, selects several seemingly unrelated personalities and events that hold interest on their own, and then ties them together under a unifying theme that justifies their inclusion. Here Blom recounts various notorious incidents and introduces many key figures that I should surely have known about before, but did not. The "vertigo" theme is not original or wholly convincing -- it is a restatement of Henry Adams' "virgin and the dynamo" trope -- but no matter. The reading time was otherwise worthwhile.
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