April 5, 2006

Book 10: The Magic Lantern

The Magic Lantern
Timothy Garton Ash

Well, this book is very interesting for several different reasons. It is a semi-hands-on account of the events in several major East European cities right as the revolutions against Communism were taking place. Ash was present in Poland for the monumental elections where Solidarity took control of the country and the Party was forced to cede much of its power. He was in Budapest where Party officials agreed to hold a funeral for a fallen resistance leader, acknowledging the needs of the Hungarian people for more open government. This soon followed. Ash was there when the wall fell and when East Germans streamed into Berlin to...shop. He was also the only foreigner to be present at the Czech Forum meetings in an old theater in Prague, given an insider's view of the organization of the resistance. Given all of this, it is bound to be an interesting, unique book.

That said, though, it is not without its major faults. Ash tends to change tense in his accounts, which read very rapidly, perhaps capturing the mood of the times but leaving the reader stranded. If you miss a paragraph in this book, the next seven won't make any sense. That is, if you were able to make sense of them at all. It is very hard to follow Ash's book if you are not very familiar with the events taking place already. That said, I believe it would be a valuable resource for future scholars studying the citizens' movements that were able to enact change across the region, but as an outsider I felt very lost throughout most of the book.

Ash also has a nasty habit of tooting his own horn a bit too much for my particular liking. He makes an overly extensive note that he was the only foreigner allowed into the Forum meetings in Prague, and while this makes him invaluable to any Western study of the events of 1989, he doesn't have to recognize that so overtly in his writing. We get it, his position is unique. I may revisit his account one day when I know more about the intricate workings of the movements of 1989, but until then the book is a primary source floating on an unknown sea.

Grade: B-

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