Reviews and Comments

Walking through the streets of Athens one may get the false impression that since antiquity, since the old days of democracy, Greece has been a developed nation. Upon reading the book which I found in a lovely bookstore, just by Kolonaki, one of the major ones that hold English books, I discovered a different Greece, outside of the romanticized narratives. The book takes the dictatorship of Metaxas (1936 - 40), oftentimes regarded as fascist - a statement with which I agree - but which in both theory and practice differ much from Mussolini, Antonescu or Hitler. Metaxas had no cult following, had no blue/black/brown shirts following him with the few exception of the youth league.

The book is a collection of essays both on the left and the right with some being more sympathetic towards Metaxas, but rather from a pragmatic statehood point of view, while others are deeply critical of any days of his dictatorship.

Not for the faintly hearted, not for those who aim to get the easy message out or a delicious storyline. A restaurant, a bar, a place to eat, a couple of towns, jobs, Prohibition and reflection upon the craft of writing. The 3/5 review does not indicate the quality of the book which I think is of the highest esteems, but rather represents a disappointment, an indication on my side. To understand Torrents of Spring, I must go back in time, read Anderson and question the "discussing arts in Paris side".

One gets the most out of this by reading the comments he lays masterfully between the pages, commenting on Fitzgerald interrupting his writing session and spending a little too much time by the fireplace. Attention to the "little too much time". The book is a window in its time period, not romanticizing the artistic movement of the modernist, but rather questioning their farts and presumed "intellectual behavior". To gossip, to be in a cafe, to spend time pondering. Hemingway wanted to write, and why did they disturb him?

Nevertheless, it was a great read after Men without Women.

It confirms the bias that the moment politicians realized the power of advertising, they fetishized it and it all became a game stripped of values. Same Delaney interviewed various admen for this book, researched the agencies and got a seat alongside politicians from both Labour and Tory to grasp the importance of selling. Selling what? Selling ideas, just like the Tories and Labour did in the early 60s or selling the persona as Thatcher did in her latter terms and Tony Blair later capitalized as well?

The book does in fact not account for any academic research on the effect that advertising has on politics, but I would not classify that as a downside. It is rather a different approach to the problem, a fun to read one, picking up the book on a Saturday, drinking coffee and putting yourself in the shoes of a politician aiming to get more votes than the other party. When values are lost and people care less about what happens next, what do you do? You sell an image, an illusion, you play the game, because you have fetishized it.

After reading over half of the book, I was wondering why did I keep on coming back to it? I felt that I got the sense of it, what the author was going for and the feelings it was arousing in me were just repeating themselves story after story.
It is not a discouraging review, but rather a personal note on my relationship to the book which I imagined to pick up after work or during work, but during the breaks I often take from work because of the heat that makes it impossible for me to work, and transpose my mind in a fast-paced imaginary world. If I read this book in winter, it would have been different, I am sure, but during the summer, when the time calls for car chases and elevated emotions, the book offers rather space for reflection, self-inquiry and empathy with the characters that find themselves in situations we, in our Protestant logic, would deem as irrational.
Try being in love and acting with reason. I wonder who can.