The Guns of August
By: Barbara W. Tuchman / Narrated By: John Lee / Narrated By: Wanda McCaddon
Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
Erudite and clever crafting, impeccable narration!
This is how it is: My husband reads aloud, and I kick back and scarf TexMex Trail mix and enjoy m’ lucky li’l hindquarters off as I listen, enraptured. In the past two years, we’ve gone through all gazillion (And six!) pages of 1001 Arabian Nights, Angle of Repose, The Brothers Karamazov, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, and several others. It’s all been great, and I’ve generally enjoyed every single moment of it until…
M’ husband got the grand notion to read Mein Kampf. His reasoning? Who can honestly say they’ve read all two volumes of it; and given the political climate since Shrub Dubya Bush and his evil henchman Cheney went into Office without One Person, One Vote counting? Why, maaaaybe it’d be good to look at The Playbook that brought us Spin and Vitriol.
Oh dude! There’s not enough Trail mix in the WORLD to make THAT book tolerable. Even switching to Slurpees didn’t make it worthwhile to me. HOWEVER?
I came outta it wanting to know even MORE about WWI than ever before. What to get to? Obviously, The Guns of August by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman. My choice for narrators? Welllll, while I very very much love Wanda McCaddon no matter which name she records by? Well, I ADORE John Lee.
Period.
It all starts with the funeral of a much-loved King, and all the movin’ and shakin’ that would go along with such an event. Kaiser Wilhelm II? Sore-peeved, he wants to be loved, accepted, invited. He’s already got a chip on his shoulder as Tuchman points out: Germany felt its glory days were bought through Guns and War.
CONQUEST!
While there were many countries swaggering about like drunken bullies, it is readily apparent that Tuchman is of the: ‘Twas All Germany’s Fault camp. And she has the footnotes and quotes to back it up. As a matter of fact, this reads like popular fiction, with campy descriptions of all the major players, and with plenty of grit and sorrow written for the actual skirmishes and battles themselves. The Quick War? Tuchman, after much history of the Nations involved, covers most thoroughly the opening salvos of August and takes us through the most fraught Fraught FRAUGHT 31-days of disagreements, misapprehensions, tragic bickering, broken promises, eerily prescient battle preparations. EVER.
John Lee? Absolute perfection… except for the occasional (Nearly) lamentable American accent/quotes. Do remember that a World War involves many many Nations, thus requiring an Uber-gifted narrator to don accents as each General, each politician, each statesman, each lowly soldier, is given his due. Lee is able to switch back and forth with ease, fluidly, grandly, and in a MOST entertaining manner. His sweeping tones are such that x1.2 speed is the absolute fastest one can Listen; his capabilities are such that one can almost see the wry expression on his face as he delivers the many hilariously scathing observations that Tuchman makes through the entirety of this near-19-hour audiobook.
So very very many near misses, so very very many What Ifs, especially when Tuchman starts wrapping it all up with the first week of September and the “Battle of Marne”. It Listens like a: THIS is the World We MIGHT’VE Inherited, and them’s some scary scary conjectures.
Eternally engaging, topnotch narration. And I got m’ WWI ya-yas out like nobody’s business. Believe the hype, ignore those who slam Tuchman for her intelligence and broad knowledge-base, and do give this a good and thorough Listen.
Nowhere neeeear enough to make up for Mein Kampf but well?
Nothing could be…
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