Lake Forest: a good book and a poor movie; imagine

I found myself wondering why I read and watch so much about war.  Both the book and film in this post are about war and of the fifteen books I have read so far this year five have been about war and of the remaining ten, five were books of poetry.  I have concluded that I read and watch so much about war because war is along with love and scrounging for a living one of the most fundamental human behaviors.  We are an aggressive species and that aggression has played a large part in our survival.  Probably all those of us alive today are because we had ancestors who were among the most aggressive in their times.  The meek have died out.

The book, UNNOWN SOLDIERS by Vaino Linna, I mentioned while I was still reading it.  Now that I have finished I consider it to be among the finest of war novels.  Seemingly realistic to me who has not been in combat and so cannot truly judge and totally unsentimental.  I thank Michael for bringing it to my attention.

Since reading UNKNOWN SOLDIERS I have read more about Finland history.  The novel is about Finland’s part in World War Two fighting on the side of Germany from 1941 to 1944,, not in shared values, but a shared enemy.  Finland calls that The Continuation War because it followed The Winter War which lasted three months after the Soviet Union invaded Finland on November 30, 1939.  At that time the population of the USSR was 186 million.  The population of Finland was 3.5 million.  Nevertheless Finland inflicted significant defeats on the USSR until finally overwhelmed.  I have read elsewhere that the poor performance of the Soviet forces in that brief war influenced Hitler in his decision to invade the USSR.

In 1944 the Soviet Union had the Germans in full retreat and were able to turn some attention to what was to them a sideshow and again overwhelmed Finland’s army forcing the country to sue for peace.  Finland then had to fight The Lapland War against German troops in the north of their country who did not want to leave.

Considering its history, it is interesting that currently Finland is usually ranked among the happiest countries in the world.

With the caveat that there are some brutal scenes, I highly recommend UNKNOWN SOLDIERS.

Last evening Carol I concluded watching the recent Ridley Scott directed NAPOLEON.  I try to read reviews minimally before reading a book or watching a movie, but I did see some of this NAPOLEON which were unfavorable and unfortunately accurate.  A large part of this is due to the screen play which is incoherent and spends far too much time on Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine, which may appeal to prurient interests, but was hardly the most significant part of his life.  

There are many historical inaccuracies, among them that Napoleon deserted his army in Egypt because he learned Josephine was having an affair back in France.  That Nelson had destroyed his navy at the Battle of the Nile and left him isolated in the Middle East is never mentioned.  Nor that he returned to France because he was afraid in his absence others would seize power.

Napoleon also deserted another army, this the one he led into Russia, and left it to be destroyed while he again saved himself.  Estimates vary but of the 600,000 men he led into Russia it is generally agreed that fewer than 100,000 survived.

I suppose that Napoleon thought as have others like him that if these fools are willing to suffer and die for my glory, let them.

Again estimates vary, but Napoleon was responsible for millions of deaths.  A foremost current scholar puts the figure at 5,000,000.  Yet the French built a more grandiose monument to the loser than the British did to the winners, Nelson and Wellington, whose remains are in the crypt of St. Paul’s.  We are indeed a strange species of celebrity worshipers.

Don’t waste your time on NAPOLEON.

Imagine a time when two men have the power to destroy the world.  Imagine that those two men are Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.  Unimaginable.  But that time may soon be at hand.