Before the Last All Clear 
Ray Evans, 2005
Morgan James Publishing
263 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781600373787


Summary
During World War II around three and a half million British people were evacuated away from possible air raids in the big cities in one of the largest social upheavals Great Britain has ever seen.

The Government called this ‘Operation Pied Piper’ and many of the evacuees were children. Journeys from the cities were long and tiring and the evacuees did not know where they were going. They were often dropped off in groups and gathered in a local village hall or school to be 'chosen' by the prospective foster parents. One of those children was Ray Evans whose family was transported from Liverpool to the Welsh Town of Llanelli.

In Before the Last All Clear, Evans tells a harrowing tale of leaving his mother and being forced to live with families who at best regarded him as a nuisance and, at worst, exploited and brutalised him. Evans account takes a happy turn when he is billeted to a family who make him so welcome that he is reluctant to leave them at the end of the war.

Written in a simple, direct style Before the Last All Clear depicts a world far removed from the glamour and sophistication of the twenty-first century. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—August 29, 1933
• Where—Liverpool, England, UK
• Education—Secondary School
• Awards—Welsh Book Council Wales Reads
• Currently—lives in Virginia, USA

Born in Liverpool in 1933, Ray Evans was evacuated to the South Wales town of Llanelli at the outbreak of World War Two in 1939. He remained there until the cessation of hostilities in 1945. When he left school he served two years National Service in Egypt as a member of the British Royal Army Medical Corps, before marrying Lilian in 1956. Ray started a wholesale clothing business in 1964 and ran this enterprise very successfully along with Lilian until they retired and moved to the USA to be closer to their daughter. They lived first in New Hampshire, but now reside in the warmer climes of south east Virginia. Ray has been happily married to Lilian for 54 years: they have two children and six grandchildren. Ray now spends his time writing, blogging and golfing unless his lifetime favorite football (soccer) team Liverpool FC are playing, in which case he will be ‘glued’ to the television!

His own words:
During the writing of the book I learned a lot that I had either forgotten or was never aware of because I was so young when the events took place. It was in the course of my researching certain war time events for accuracy and inclusion in the book that I discovered just how much interest there really must be because of the myriad of websites and organizations that exist.

Before the Last All Clear began as a way to ensure the stories that had fascinated my children and now my grandchildren, would continue to be shared within our own family. Although I was reluctant at first [I felt I didn’t had the education to write a book and am well aware, I am no Shakespeare]  however it became a labor of love and grew into so much more than I ever expected it to. Many people tell me the stories are funny, sad and some say beautiful and even inspiring. I can only say they have meant much to me and had a very deep and lasting effect on the person I became in later life.

The greatest pleasure I’ve had since the book was published has been meeting people at book clubs, events and schools. I am constantly amazed at how strongly people relate to the stories and experiences that I now realize have shaped my entire life. It is very humbling to realize that through this book, they may now also affect others – hopefully in a positive way. If there is anything I learned from those early experiences, it is that you have to always look for the light at the end of the tunnel and then just put your head down and work towards it! (From the publisher.)

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Book Reviews 
Some recall it as the greatest adventure of their lives. For others, being a wartime evacuee was a nightmare. These are the witty yet deeply poignant memories of a man still haunted by the cruelties he endured. During World War II, around three and a half million British children were evacuated away from possible air raids in the big cities in one of the largest social upheavals Great Britain has ever seen. One of those children was Ray Evans. This is the story of a young evacuee from Liverpool sent to live in the Welsh town of Llanelli. Separated from his mother, brothers and sisters, six-year old Ray was dispatched to a series of families who ignored, exploited and brutalised him. Pushed from pillar to post, he finally finds happiness with a family who make him so welcome that he is reluctant to leave when war ends. Set in a world of ration books, air-raid sirens and ever-present danger, this is a candid and direct account of wartime Britain as seen through the eyes of a child..
Daily Mail (UK)


A superb portrait of wartime Britain seen from a child’s perspective, and recalled in astounding and excruciating detail by a man who lived through it and tells all. Before the Last All Clear is a superb memoir, but more importantly, it is a vivid and uniquely personal morsel of history that any reader will find difficult to forget.
Book Review.com (www.bookreview.com)

 
At the age of six, Evans, along with thousands of other British children, was separated from his family, home and school and sent to the safety of the English countryside during WWII. In his memoir, the author recalls the emotions of a small child who misses his mother and family. While it may be easy for readers to become emotional when it comes to this kind of story, Evan’s touching account is indeed a tearjerker; he aptly recaptures his fear and the feeling of being lost as he made his way to his temporary home. He presents a tale of horror as he relives the memories of two homes where he stayed during the evacuation period. As a castoff evacuee, Evans was often mistreated by the families with whom he stayed, enduring what Western society today would consider child abuse. By the time the author reaches his third and final home, he loves it so much that he almost doesn’t want to leave. Evans’ illustrative writing capably paints each scene, making it easy to imagine the conditions in which he lived. In fact, it would be realistic to picture this cute young boy’s life portrayed on screen. Before the Last All Clear is a well-written account of a lovable protagonist who yearns for a sense of normalcy—all while remaining optimistic that the war will soon end and better days are ahead. A beautiful memoir of WWII as seen through the eyes of a child.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the differences between life in 1939 and how we live today. How are things easier for us today than they were back then?

2. How do you think you would feel or react to being told that your hometown was a major bombing target? Was evacuation voluntary or compulsory?

3. Imagine you are a parent – intellectually you know and understand you must allow your children to be evacuated, yet you have no idea of their destination, who they will be housed with or when they will be allowed to return. What do you think might go through your mind as you watch your children leave?

4. Describe Ray’s reaction to the selection process he goes through at the “evacuee Distribution Center” on arrival in Wales

5. Discuss the relationship between Ray and his various ‘foster parents’ at the different billets.

6. How do you think children in that time differ from children today? They certainly seem more naïve, but then so do the adults. Are we better off now or has society in general lost more than it’s gained?

7. Describe how Ray is made to feel when he has to ask for another billet, food or clothing.

8. What would you have the most trouble or difficulty with in Ray’s situation - living with strangers, going hungry or the separation from family and friends?

9. Was Ray’s a typical evacuation experience or more likely the exception? How many children were evacuated under Operation Pied Piper? Where did they get sent to?

10. How did Mrs. Williams and her family make Ray’s final years of evacuation a positive experience in the end?

11. How do you think Ray’s experiences as an evacuee shaped his personality in later life? Do you feel they helped or hurt him and if so, how?

12. What did you learn about wartime life in England and about yourself from reading this book

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Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
E.F. Schumacher, 1973
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061997761

Summary
Noted British economist E.F. Schumacher proposed the idea of "smallness within bigness": a specific form of decentralization. For a large organization to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement.

The book is divided into four parts: "The Modern World," "Resources," "The Third World," and "Organization and Ownership."

Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (like fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable and, thus, subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development, because relatively minor improvements—for example, technology transfer to Third World countries—will not solve the underlying problem of an unsustainable economy.

Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness," appreciating both human needs, limitations and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed "Buddhist economics."

He faults conventional economic thinking for failing to consider the most appropriate scale for an activity, blasts notions that "growth is good," and that "bigger is better," and questions the appropriateness of using mass production in developing countries, promoting instead "production by the masses." Schumacher was one of the first economists to question the appropriateness of using GNP to measure human well being, emphasizing that "the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption. (From Wikipedia.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—August 16, 1911
• Where—Bonn, Germany
• Died—September 4, 1977
• Where—Romont, Fribourg Canton, Switzerland
• Education—schooled in Bonn and Berlin, Germany; Rhodes
   Scholar at Oxford University, UK; Columbia University, USA.

Schumacher was a respected economist who worked with John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith. For twenty years he was the Chief Economic Advisor to the National Coal Board in the United Kingdom, opposed the neo-classical economics by declaring that single-minded concentration on output and technology was dehumanizing. He held that one's workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature (and the world's natural resources) is priceless.

Schumacher proposed the idea of "smallness within bigness": a specific form of decentralization. For a large organization to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement.

E.F. Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker with a professional background as a statistician and economist in Britain. He served as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became well-known in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s. He is best known for his critique of Western economies and his proposals for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies.

According to London's Times Literary Supplement, his 1973 book Small Is Beautiful is among the 100 most influential books published since World War II. It was quickly translated into many languages and brought international fame to Schumacher, after which he was invited to numerous international conferences, university guest speaker lectures and consultations.

Early years
Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany in 1911. His father was a professor of political economy. The younger Schumacher studied in Bonn and Berlin, then afterwards in England as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford in the 1930s, and later at Columbia University in New York City, earning a diploma in economics. He became a professional economist, but his wide-ranging mind never confined itself to a single discipline.

Schumacher moved back to England from Germany before World War II, as he had no intention of living under Nazism. For a period during the War, he was interned on an isolated English farm as an "enemy alien." In these years, Schumacher captured the attention of John Maynard Keynes with a paper entitled "Multilateral Clearing" that he had written between sessions working in the fields of the internment camp. Keynes recognised the young German's understanding and abilities, and was able to have Schumacher released from internment. Schumacher helped the British government mobilise economically and financially during World War II, and Keynes found a position for him at Oxford University.

According to Leopold Kohr's obituary for Schumacher, when his paper "was published in the spring of 1943 in Economica, it caused some embarrassment to Keynes who, instead of arranging for its separate publication, had incorporated the text almost verbatim in his famous "Plan for an International Clearing Union," which the British government issued as a White Paper a few weeks later."

Coal Board
After the War, Schumacher worked as an economic advisor to, and later Chief Statistician for, the British Control Commission which was charged with rebuilding the German economy. From 1950 to 1970 he was Chief Economic Adviser to the National Coal Board, one of the world's largest organisations, with 800,000 employees. In this position, he argued that coal, not petroleum, should be used to supply the energy needs of the world's population. He viewed oil as a finite resource, fearing its depletion and eventually prohibitive price, and viewing with alarm the fact that, as Schumacher put it, "the richest and cheapest reserves are located in some of the world's most unstable countries" (Daniel Yergin, The Prize [1991], p. 559).

His position on the Coal Board was often mentioned later by those introducing Schumacher or his ideas. It is generally thought that his farsighted planning contributed to Britain's post-war economic recovery. Schumacher predicted the rise of OPEC and many of the problems of nuclear power.

1955 Schumacher traveled to Burma as an economic consultant. While there, he developed the set of principles he called "Buddhist economics," based on the belief that individuals needed good work for proper human development. He also proclaimed that "production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life." He traveled throughout many Third World countries, encouraging local governments to create self-reliant economies.

Schumacher's experience led him to become a pioneer of what is now called appropriate technology: user-friendly and ecologically suitable technology applicable to the scale of the community. He founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) in 1966. His theories of development have been summed up for many in catch phrases like "intermediate size," and "intermediate technology." He was a trustee of Scott Bader Commonwealth and in 1970 the president of the Soil Association.

By the end of his life, it can be said that Schumacher's personal development had led him very far afield from the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes, second only to Adam Smith, is widely regarded as the most influential modern orthodox economist. In contrast, Schumacher is one of the most widely recognized heterodox economists.

Writings
Schumacher wrote on economics for London's The Times and became one of the paper's chief editorial writers. At this post he was assigned the somewhat uncomfortable task of compiling information for the obituary of John Keynes many years before the event of his death. He also wrote for The Economist and Resurgence. He served as adviser to the India Planning Commission, as well as to the governments of Zambia and Burma — an experience that led to his much-read essay on "Buddhist Economics."

The 1973 publication of Small is Beautiful, a collection of essays, brought his ideas to a wider audience. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement and community movement.

His 1977 work A Guide For The Perplexed is both a critique of materialistic scientism and an exploration of the nature and organization of knowledge.

Philosophy
Schumacher's rejection of materialist, capitalist, agnostic modernity was paralleled by a growing fascination with religion. His interest in Buddhism has been noted. However, from the late 1950s on, Catholicism heavily influenced his thought. He noted the similarities between his own economic views and the teaching of papal encyclicals on socioeconomic issues, from Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" to Pope John XXIII's "Mater et Magistra", as well as with the distributism supported by the Catholic thinkers G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and Vincent McNabb.

Philosophically, he absorbed much of Thomism, which provided an objective system in contrast to what he saw as the self-centered subjectivism and relativism of modern philosophy and society. He also was greatly interested in the tradition of Christian mysticism, reading deeply such writers as St. Teresa of Avila and Thomas Merton. These were all interests that he shared with his friend, the Catholic writer Christopher Derrick. In 1971, he converted to Catholicism.

Schumacher gave interviews and published articles for a wide readership in his later years. He also pursued one of the loves of his life: gardening. He died during a lecture tour of a heart attack on 4 September 1977, in Switzerland. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
E.F. Schumacher...is among the small number of writers whose ideas influence opinion and eventual public policy.... It is not at all difficult to comprehend Schumacher's immediate and enduring appeal. He asks us to start where we are—with ourselves and our immediate environment.... However much one may doubt the possibility of checking the momentum of modern technology, it is hard to deny Schumacher's anguished warning that at present rates of consumption, the world's inhabitants will soon exhaust existing stocks of nonrenewable resources and in the process poison the thin layer of atmosphere within which we subsist.
New York Times (5/20/1979)

Enormously broad in scope, pithily weaving together threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology.
The New Republic

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Small is Beautiful:

1. It has been over 35 years since Schumacher posited the central tenet of his work—that infinite economic growth is impossible within a finite system. Do you believe he has been vindicated?

2. Just how relevant are Schumacher's ideas today? Some argue Schumacher was a visionary—that his ideas are as important today as when he wrote them; others say his views are outdated and no longer apply to 21st-century conditions. Where do you stand—and on which ideas in particular?

3. Most economists and politicians believe that our consumption-based society has created unprecedented wealth in the West and, therefore, justifies a degree of inequality. How does Schumacher view consumption-based economies? What kind of alternative system or reforms does he propose?

4. Some of the book's insights are aimed at the scientific community, with Schumacher asserting that scientists are incapable of ethical decision-making regarding the direction of their research. Consider his arguments in light of recent advances in stem cell research, cloning, and bio-engineered agricultural products. Do you agree with Schumacher...or are scientists as capable as anyone else, perhaps even more so, to explore the consequences of their work?

5. Schumacher asks a simple but penetrating question: what is progress? How does he answer that question...and how do you? Do you agree or disagree with Schumacher?

6. What are Schumacher's views on assisting developing countries?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
Jason Roberts, 2006
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780007161263

Summary
He was known simply as the Blind Traveler. A solitary, sightless adventurer, James Holman (1786-1857) fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, helped chart the Australian outback—and, astonishingly, circumnavigated the globe, becoming one of the greatest wonders of the world he so sagaciously explored.

A Sense of the World is a spellbinding and moving rediscovery of one of history's most epic lives—a story to awaken our own senses of awe and wonder. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Education—University of California, Santa Cruz
• Awards—Van Zorn Prize (short story)
• Currently—lives in northern California, USA

Jason Roberts is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction. He is best known for the bestselling A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler (2006), a biography of James Holman, the blind adventurer of the early 19th century.

He was the editor of The Learn2 Guide (Villard) and has also contributed to McSweeney's, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the Village Voice, Believer, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

In addition to his work as a journalist and author, Roberts was the founder of the pioneering educational website Learn2.com, honored by Yahoo as "one of the ten most important websites of the 20th Century." He is also an authority on multimedia programming, and has written or co-written several volumes in the Director Demystified reference/instructional series (Peachpit Press).

He is a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz and member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, a workspace co-operative that also includes Po Bronson, Caroline Paul, Tom Barbash, Peter Orner, ZZ Packer, and B. Ruby Rich, among others. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
Roberts's vibrant prose and meticulous recreation of Holman's world offer modern readers a chance to see what Holman saw as he tapped his way around the globe.
Rachel Hartigan Shea - Washington Post

Through meticulous research…with intrigue and humor, Roberts brings Holman fully to life.
New York Daily News

An admirable work, testament to the determination, resourcefulness, and skill of not only its subject, but also its author.
Boston Globe

A remarkable job of resurrecting Holman from obscurity, painting a portrait of a complex and compelling persona.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Paints a convincing and well-researched picture of Holman’s early life.... Holman’s first trip, to Russia, is particularly well-drawn.
The Economist

In this vibrant biography of James Holman (1786-1857), Roberts, a contributor to the Village Voice and McSweeney's, narrates the life of a 19th-century British naval officer who was mysteriously blinded at 25, but nevertheless became the greatest traveler of his time. Holman entered the navy at age 12, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. When blindness overcame him, Holman was an accomplished sailor, and he engineered to join the Naval Knights of Windsor, a quirky group who only had to live in quarters near Windsor Castle and attend mass for their stipend. For many blind people at the time, this would have been the start of a long (if safe) march to the grave. Holman would have none of it and spent the bulk of his life arranging leaves of absence from the Knights in order to wander the world (without assistance) from Paris to Canton; study medicine at the University of Edinburgh; hunt slavers off the coast of Africa; get arrested by one of the czar's elite bodyguards in Siberia; and publish several bestselling travel memoirs. Roberts does Holman justice, evoking with grace and wit the tale of this man once lionized as "The Blind Traveler."
Publishers Weekly

In his first book of narrative nonfiction, freelance writer Roberts (McSweeney's) tells the story of James Holman, who enjoyed a brief period of fame in the early 19th century as the "Blind Traveler." After serving in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars, he was blinded at age 25 by a mysterious illness. What Holman decided to do with his life after losing his sight was amazing and inspiring: he became a world traveler and author, going as far afield as West Africa, Ceylon, and Siberia; his best-selling books were known to such figures as Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Francis Burton. In time, Holman's fame was eclipsed by the efforts of jealous rivals, who mocked the thought of a blind travel writer. By his death, his works were no longer in print, and he had been largely forgotten by a public who had perhaps only ever seen him as a novelty. Holman's accomplishments deserve Roberts's labor of love, a well-written popular history that will appeal to an audience interested in stories of individuals triumphing over physical difficulties. Recommended for public and academic libraries. —Robert J. Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN
Library Journal

(Adult/High School) An engaging account of a most undeservedly obscure figure. The book itself is a fortuitous happenstance; had a certain volume not caught Roberts's eye during a "wander break" through the stacks on a library visit, the story of Lieutenant James Holman, known to his contemporaries as the Blind Traveler, might still be lost to a modern audience. Born in 1786, Holman began service in the British navy at the age of 12. The rigorous lifestyle ravaged him physically; by age 20, pain had left him nearly incapacitated; five years later, he was blind, ill, and strapped for funds. Holman pursued a course-travel-that proved the best remedy. The Blind Traveler traversed the globe, encountering a plethora of colorful characters and gaining short-lived fame, if not fortune, from his narratives and memoirs. Roberts re-creates each journey, both geographical and physiological, providing insights into 18th-century beliefs, mores, and worldly knowledge, along with a ghastly array of "cures" inflicted on Holman by practitioners of medicine. The admiration and respect that the author feels for his subject are unmistakable, but in no way diminish the accomplishments of "the most restless man in history." Black-and-white reproductions show Holman as he was depicted by contemporaries during his travels. This volume is an obvious addition to any number of booklists, from biographies to "nonfiction that reads like fiction." —Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
School Library Journal

From newcomer Roberts, the first and very welcome, full-scale biography of a great, early-19th-century world voyager who also happened to be blind. James Holman (1787-1857) was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy when he inexplicably lost his eyesight. He was fortunate to be admitted to England's Naval Knights, a sanctuary at Windsor Castle. With his half-pension from the navy and the small financial benefit of being a knight, he made £84 a year (at a time when a government clerk earned £600). But as Roberts, a smooth, thoughtful writer, so ably chronicles, Holman was not about to let the business of life pass him by. He wanted to travel, even on a shoestring. Though sightless, Holman was a wizard at haptic perception, or touch-based understanding. "Where vision gulps, tactility sips successively over time," observes Roberts. There is no doubt, however, that Holman took great draughts of sensory input, which coalesced into well-honed senses of place. His feet were rheumatic, but they itched. His first journey was a Grand Tour-style circuit of Western Europe, resulting in a well-received book about his adventure. Then it was off to Russia, crossing to Siberia in a cart with a Tartar postilion, shadowed by police, through the "path-swallowing marshlands known as the Baraba Steppe." Next stop was the African island of Fernando Po, where Holman worked to thwart the slave trade. Both of those travels also sold well as narratives. On he fared to Brazil, Zanzibar, New Zealand, Ceylon and the Levant, for three or five or six years, returning with reports of soy sauce, kangaroo-hunting, wall-plastering in the Indian fashion. The extent of his lifetime travels probably amounted to 250,000 miles, writesRoberts, who himself deserves readers' admiration for not only making each step a pleasure to read, but for opening our eyes to so remarkably forgotten an individual. A polished and entertaining account of an astonishing wayfarer.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Sense of the World:

1. Start with Holman's blindness, the first remarkable fact about him (which made the second fact, his globetrotting, all the more remarkable). What was his reaction to his loss of sight? What would be yours? What inner strengths must Holman have drawn upon?

2. How did society/people treat Holmes when he first began to travel? Might his experiences be instructive to us today—in terms of how we treat blind people? Have you ever had a personal experience with someone who is blind? How'd it go?

3. Talk about the method Holman used to move about independently—tapping his cane to produce sound and echo. How was he able to decode the sounds to determine his surroundings? Does the fact that blindness often enhances the faculty of hearing explain Holmes's achievements—or is there something else at work here?

4. Why would Holman have refused his brother's offer to accompany him on his travels. What would your decision have been?

5. Would the fact that Holman traveled at the turn of the 19th century, when the world was not so peopled, travel not so rapid, have made his travels as a blind man easier or more difficult than today?

6. At one point, Holman quipped: "while vision gulps, tactility sips." What does he mean by this?

7. Holman's comment above suggests that not seeing can yield a richer sensation than seeing. On the other hand, Edmund Burke—who insisted that "no smells or tastes can produce a grand sensation" like that of sight"—seems to imply that a sightless person is not fully developed. Care to discuss the differences in opinion? And while you're at it: if an evil genie forced you to choose between one or the other, which would it be—blindness or deafness?

8. How did Holman make use of his sociable nature to help himself out of difficult, even dangerous, situations.

9. Which of his adventures do you find most astonishing: his ascent of Vesuvius, his attempt to cross Siberia, his work in Fernando Po hunting slavers...or any of his other exploits?

10. To what do you attribute the scorn leveled at Holman, and the eventual neglect of his books? What prompted Captain Chochrane's villification against him?

11. Does Roberts give us an objective biography? Or is he overly biased in favor of his subject? In other words, has he fallen under his Holman's spell? Does it matter?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point
Elizabeth D. Samet, 2007
Macmillan Picador
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312427825


Summary
In 1997 Elizabeth D. Samet began teaching English at the United States Military Academy at West Point after completing her doctorate at Yale University. She encountered stark contrasts and surprising similarities between the two campuses, but nothing fully prepared her for the experience of watching her students and colleagues deploy to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other turbulent corners of the world.

What does literature—particularly the literature of war—mean to a student who is likely to encounter its reality? What is the best way to stir uninhibited classroom discussions in a setting that is designed to train students to follow orders, respect authority, and survive grueling physical and mental experiences? This is the terrain Samet traverses each semester, a challenge beautifully captured in Soldier’s Heart.

Taking its name from a World War I term for a condition akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Samet’s memoir offers insights into America’s newest generations of cadets. In each chapter she reflects on a rich trove of literature, from Homer’s ancient epics to the work of modern and contemporary authors such as Wilfred Owen, Virginia Woolf, Randall Jarrell, E.L. Doctorow, and Tim O’Brien.

For many of her students, reading brings solace and inspiration. For others, it sparks an examination of doubts or fears. In all cases, Samet’s courses provide exhilarating arenas for the young men and women of West Point to explore life and language. (From the publisher

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Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1969-70
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; Ph.D. Yale University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Elizabeth D. Samet earned her BA from Harvard and her PhD in English literature from Yale. An English professor at West Point, she has written about authority, democracy, and the relationship between literature and leadership in the military world. (From the publisher.)

Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:

• My first job— if you don't count a long list of part-time and summer jobs such as cleaning pools and tennis courts, working in a bookstore, teaching unhappy day-campers how to sail, and extracting DNA from corn plants in a genetics lab —is my current job: teaching English. It is one I greatly love.

• When ased what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is what she said:

A "most" question is almost impossible to answer, but certainly no work has influenced me more than Hamlet. Shakespeare's play helped me to grow as a reader and altered my worldview by revealing a character unafraid to think until it hurt. Hamlet offers insights into the nature of seeming and being, the dynamic of thought and action, the relationship between self and world. Many of the problems it dramatizes have long preoccupied me; they also seem to be of great moment to my students. Moreover, Hamlet—and maybe this is the true source of the influence—is a work that seems somehow to change, to yield new ideas, each time I read it. (Author interview from Barnes & Noble.)

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Book Reviews
To her great credit, Samet does not draw easy conclusions in Soldier's Heart. By writing a thoughtful, attentive, stereotype-breaking book about her 10 years as a civilian teacher of literature at the Military Academy, she offers a significant perspective on the crucial social and political force of honor: a principle of behavior at the intersection of duty and imagination.
Robert Pinsky - New York Times Book Review

Soldier's Heart is an exhilarating read. It seats you in the classroom of a feisty professor who commands several fronts with easy expertise: classic film, ancient Greece, Shakespearean tragedy, modern poetry. And it seats you elbow-to-elbow with an elite crop of students whose intelligence and imagination match their courage.
John Beckman - Washington Post

Azar Nafisi meets David Lipsky in this memoir/meditation on crossing the border between the civilian world of literature and the world of the military during 10 years of teaching English at West Point. Samet's students sometimes respond to literature in ways that trouble her, but she lauds their intellectual courage as they "negotiate the multiple contradictions" of military life. Considering the link between literature and war, Samet insightfully explores how Vietnam fiction changed American literary discourse about the heroism of military service. Beyond books, Samet also examines how televised accounts of the Iraq War have turned American civilians "into war's insulated voyeurs," and discusses the gap separating her from the rest of the audience watching a documentary on Iraq. Lighter, gently humorous sections reveal Samet's feelings about army argot. She has been known to ask her mother to meet her "at 1800 instead of at 6:00 p.m.," but she forbids the use of the exclamation "Hooah!"("an affirmative expression of the warrior spirit") in her classroom. Samet is prone to digressions that break the flow of great stories, like an account of her West Point job interview. But this meditation on war, teaching and literature is sympathetic, shrewd and sometimes profound.
Publishers Weekly

In a time when words like patriotismand sacrificeare tossed about with alarming casualness, Samet (Willing Obedience: Citizens, Soldiers, and the Progress of Consent in America, 1776-1898) offers an illuminating exploration of what these terms mean to the modern soldier. In the late 1990s, Samet left graduate school at Yale to become a literature instructor at West Point, where she has for the last decade taught the humanities to young men and women preparing to lead others into combat. Here, she illustrates how literature can transform raw cadets into reflective, conscientious leaders. She and her students struggle with the relationship between art and life as well as the true meaning of sacrifice and honor and their place in a world of peace and a world at war. Samet also reflects on the dramatic changes to the academy, its cadets, and herself over the past ten years. She focuses on the post-9/11 change in attitudes and the juxtaposition between leadership and obedience in the lives of military officers. The inevitable comparison to Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is apt owing to both books' realistic description of the transformative power of literature. Recommended for all libraries.
Shedrick Pittman-Hassett - Library Journal

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Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the book’s title. What are the different meanings of “soldier’s heart”? In what ways does literature address the ailments of what Wilfred Owen calls, in his poem “Insensibility” (epigraph), a heart “small drawn”?

2. Although much has been written about West Point and military life in America, an English professor’s point of view on the subject is rare. What specific insights on this world does Samet offer as a civilian and a humanities professor at a military academy? How is her portrait of military life different from others you have read?

3. How does Samet’s description of her students and former students compare to your stereotypes of soldiers? What are those stereotypes? How does Soldier’s Heart confirm or challenge them?

4. Chapter 1, “Not Your Father’s Army,” touches on the myths and traditions that define West Point, and military life more generally, by alluding to the literature that shaped the experiences of past cadets. Which aspects of the past remain vibrant on campus? Which aspects are radically different in the twenty-first century?

5. Samet writes that she hears the term relevance more and more in informal conversations about the education and training of cadets. How are humanities courses different from military training at West Point? What do such courses contribute to the preparation of cadets? What is the difference between education and training? How do you view the purpose of higher education in general, and the role of literature and the arts within it?

6. How has teaching at West Point changed Samet’s experience of literature? How might her relationship to literature and teaching have been different if she had taken a position at a liberal-arts college instead of at West Point? How does her teaching style compare to that of English teachers from your past?

7. Samet’s deployed colleagues and former students write to her with rich observations about their favorite literary works. In what ways does literature help them understand their experience of war? What do their reading choices reveal about that experience?

8. The author’s previous book explores the tension between liberty and obedience in nineteenth-century America, a dynamic she also explores in Soldier’s Heart. How do soldiers reconcile the military’s demand for conformity with the need for innovative minds—in an all-volunteer military, no less? How do literature and creative writing serve or under-mine the need for obedience and innovative thinking? What role does literature play in forging what West Point alumnus Ulysses S. Grant called moral courage?

9. Why is writing about war one of the oldest forms of literature? What was the significance of epic poems such as Homer’s Iliad or Beowulf to the warriors of earlier ages? What will characterize the artistic legacy of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? What is the relationship between writing and film when it comes to describing the contemporary war experience? Is your own understanding of war shaped more by literature or by film?

10. Some of Samet’s students gravitate toward war literature, while others prefer to read about nonmilitary topics. Does their reading seem more specialized than that of their counter- parts at civilian colleges? What works would you include on a syllabus of assignments for cadets? What classics would you like to see distributed today in an Armed Services Edition?

11. How is the experience of a West Point cadet different from that of a college student at a typical liberal-arts college?

12. What surprised you most about the culture of West Point? How does military hierarchy influence educational practice? Do other American college campuses have comparable hierarchies? Should civilian colleges do more to emphasize the self-discipline of students?

13. Chapter 3, “Becoming Penelope, the Only Woman in the Room,” describes the ways in which gender is sometimes a factor in Samet’s teaching experience. What advantages and disadvantages come with being a woman at a male-dominated institution? What specific challenges do women at West Point face? To what degree does West Point’s recent history as a coed institution reflect the changing nature of the American military and American society? What are the effects of the stereotype associated with Penelope, a woman waiting for the warrior’s return? What role does literature play in helping the cadets think about these issues?

14. How was the author’s worldview shaped by her upbringing—by a father who enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II, as well as by her years at the Winsor School? How did these experiences influence her teaching?

15. Chapter 5, “Bibles, Lots of Bibles,” explores the blend of religion and politics that permeates some segments of military life. How would you describe religion’s role in the personal experiences of soldiers—at West Point and elsewhere—and its influence on national politics decisions about war and peace?

16. How did 9/11 change the role of Samet and other professors at West Point? What were your reactions to the scenes in the closing pages, which captures the difficult debates about the United States’ current and future military responsibilities?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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