![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 14th, 2016 11:14 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Gene Smith’s American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family - Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth (acquired through NetGalley) is an interesting if at times frustrating read. I think Smith ought to be more skeptical of some of his sources, in particular a memoir written by Booth’s sister Asia about their childhood which seems to be Smith’s main source about Booth’s youth. Asia is clearly writing in the hopes of at least partly exculpating her beloved dead assassin bother; everything she says ought to be taken much more cautiously than Smith takes it.
In fact, I find that in general Smith doesn’t have anything interesting to say about John Wilkes Booth himself. What drove Booth? What pushed him to make the leap from an ardent identification with the South (which his siblings did not share) to actually assassinating Lincoln? Smith takes more or less at face value Asia’s insistence that Booth wasn’t a racist (or perhaps I should say, was not unusually racist by the very racist standards of the time), even though the thing that apparently pushed Booth into assassinating Lincoln was Lincoln’s announcement that he planned to seek suffrage for former slaves.
But on the topic of the Booth family as a whole, and the way that John’s assassination of Lincoln affected them - and the way that the ripples of that effect spread throughout the American theatrical world, where everyone knew the Booths, because both Edwin and John were great stars - on that, Smith is fascinating. (It reminded me about a bit of Sue Klebold’s memoir about her son Dylan’s role in the Columbine shootings.) Lincoln’s assassination makes much more sense when you know that Booth knew Ford’s theater intimately and was known by all the employees at Ford’s theater. Of course no one stopped him as he went to Lincoln’s box. Sure, he’s not part of the play that not, but he’s the great star!
There’s also some interesting stuff here about nineteenth-century attitudes toward mental illness, both with regard to the Booths themselves - John Wilkes Booth is actually one of the sanest members of the family - and Mary Todd Lincoln, who seems to have been utterly undone by her husband’s assassination.
In other news, at last I have finished Eva Ibbotson’s The Star of Kazan! It is warm and cozy and full of delicious food descriptions and beautiful friendships in that inimitable Ibbotson way. Perfect comfort reading.
What I’m Reading Now
Gloria Whelan’s That Wild Berries Should Grow, about a girl during the Great Depression who is sent for the summer to stay at her grandparents’ farm. She gets in touch with nature and picks wild berries and it’s very sweet and not very memorable.
What I Plan to Read Next
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE ON NETGALLEY??? They have Charles Finch’s The Inheritance, the next of the Charles Lenox mysteries!!! I COVET THIS BOOK SO MUCH AND YET ALSO I WANT TO WAIT TO HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF READING IT IN A PHYSICAL VOLUME, WHAT SHOULD I DOOOOOO.
Gene Smith’s American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family - Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth (acquired through NetGalley) is an interesting if at times frustrating read. I think Smith ought to be more skeptical of some of his sources, in particular a memoir written by Booth’s sister Asia about their childhood which seems to be Smith’s main source about Booth’s youth. Asia is clearly writing in the hopes of at least partly exculpating her beloved dead assassin bother; everything she says ought to be taken much more cautiously than Smith takes it.
In fact, I find that in general Smith doesn’t have anything interesting to say about John Wilkes Booth himself. What drove Booth? What pushed him to make the leap from an ardent identification with the South (which his siblings did not share) to actually assassinating Lincoln? Smith takes more or less at face value Asia’s insistence that Booth wasn’t a racist (or perhaps I should say, was not unusually racist by the very racist standards of the time), even though the thing that apparently pushed Booth into assassinating Lincoln was Lincoln’s announcement that he planned to seek suffrage for former slaves.
But on the topic of the Booth family as a whole, and the way that John’s assassination of Lincoln affected them - and the way that the ripples of that effect spread throughout the American theatrical world, where everyone knew the Booths, because both Edwin and John were great stars - on that, Smith is fascinating. (It reminded me about a bit of Sue Klebold’s memoir about her son Dylan’s role in the Columbine shootings.) Lincoln’s assassination makes much more sense when you know that Booth knew Ford’s theater intimately and was known by all the employees at Ford’s theater. Of course no one stopped him as he went to Lincoln’s box. Sure, he’s not part of the play that not, but he’s the great star!
There’s also some interesting stuff here about nineteenth-century attitudes toward mental illness, both with regard to the Booths themselves - John Wilkes Booth is actually one of the sanest members of the family - and Mary Todd Lincoln, who seems to have been utterly undone by her husband’s assassination.
In other news, at last I have finished Eva Ibbotson’s The Star of Kazan! It is warm and cozy and full of delicious food descriptions and beautiful friendships in that inimitable Ibbotson way. Perfect comfort reading.
What I’m Reading Now
Gloria Whelan’s That Wild Berries Should Grow, about a girl during the Great Depression who is sent for the summer to stay at her grandparents’ farm. She gets in touch with nature and picks wild berries and it’s very sweet and not very memorable.
What I Plan to Read Next
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE ON NETGALLEY??? They have Charles Finch’s The Inheritance, the next of the Charles Lenox mysteries!!! I COVET THIS BOOK SO MUCH AND YET ALSO I WANT TO WAIT TO HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF READING IT IN A PHYSICAL VOLUME, WHAT SHOULD I DOOOOOO.
