This morning I finished the chapter in Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in the streets of Sarajevo in June, 1914.
Now, the book is amazing, in pretty much every way (content, writing-style, human interest, information) – but this chapter in particular is a masterpiece.
I know the story, but in a kind of bare-bones historical way. Princip, and what happened afterwards … the importance of the assassination in a grand historical sense.
But Rebecca West doesn’t write about history in a bare-bones way. She gets inside of it. She leaves things unanswered that cannot be answered (damn, if every historian and biographer on earth would take a hint from her!!) – and yet she asks all the questions. She ponders things, she digs in the dirt, she imagines motivations and imagines what people must be thinking: but she does not assume that she is right. It’s such a rare quality in a writer of history or historical events or biography that … it took me a second to realize: Wow. NOBODY writes like this. Only she does.
The chapter (entitled “Sarajevo V”) is a masterpiece.
I’m often amazed by how few people even know who Gavrilo Princip was. You’d think he would be one of the 20th century’s most infamous names, but if you mention him to most people all you get back is a blank stare.
Sheila, I realize you are a literature person, but if you are interested in this particular bit of history, may I recommend Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. Excellent book about the beginnings of what has to be the most stupidly managed war in history.
I have a copy, if you’re interested in borrowing rather than checking it out from the library, email me.
I read it back in the 90s as background for the war. It is an amazing book. Everything you say is true, and that war isn’t over yet.
Amazing book, both are good background. It was spooky being there and walking around on the streets, both from older history and more recent.
Outlaw: Man, I sure would like to go there someday.