The Constant Reader

I have a few books to talk about, and an odd assortment at that. In the order read in which I read them, the first is Jonathan Carr's The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's most Illustrious and Infamous Family. Termed by one commentator "fiendishly enjoyable," it is all of that. It's also an absorbing history of Bayreuth, the theater that Wagner wanted it to be, what is has been and what it might be in the future. Although it's sometimes difficult to keep the family members straight, especially as time goes on and the cast grows larger, it's never hard to marvel at their eccentricities. Wagner's daughter-in-law (Seigfried's wife) Winifred looms large. Energetic, intelligent, opinionated and deeply compromised by her cosy relationship with Hitler, she is nonetheless largely responsible for the continued existence of the festival, which has survived two world wars and family conflicts beyond belief. Carr narrates the tale with aplomb and sympathy; he never neglects the moral issues raised by all this happening in Germany, but neither does he preach. He also displays a constant awareness of the importance of the great music without which there would be no story and takes a sensible attitude towards the issue of whether or not it is in and of itself anti-semitic. If you're at all interested in Wagner, or in modern Germany, this is a must.
Then I took a breather and read a thriller and a mystery. The thriller was The Silent Man, by Alex Berenson. Welcome back, John Wells, savior of America in The Faithful Spy and The Ghost War. A CIA agent, Wells is, however, the despair of the CIA establishment. Preferring to do things his own way, he is given assignments that no one else will touch or else he just takes them on, permission be damned. In defying death on a regular basis, he threatens his relationship with Jennifer Exley, the love of his life and an agent herself, but one less devoted to self-destruction. Berenson is a good plotter and the details always sound right even if maybe they're not. But somehow this one left me unsatisfied, as if I'd eaten too much candy and still wasn't sated--just a bit overstuffed. I kept thinking I'd read it all before--not that I could put it down, mind you. The story involves a stolen nuclear device and an awful lot of space was given to the plotters and the physics behind their venture--more than I ever wanted to know about concocting a nuclear device, especially when I knew it was doomed to be a dud.
As for the mystery, that was Fatal Lies, by Frank Tallis, who specializes in period mysteries set against the backdrop of late 19th-century Vienna. The gas lights flicker, the sachertorte is delicious, Strauss waltzes play in the background--what more can one ask? But to be picky, there's a thing called too much atmosphere and sometimes those gaslights glowed just a hair too long. Still, Dr. Max Liebermann, an expert in Freudian psychology--the good doctor even makes an appearance--is an attractive protagonist and the plot, centered on a brutal murder at an elite military academy, is believable. It all makes for pleasant reading, and would be perfect to take to Vienna if you're lucky enough to be headed that way.