I have started to read Ron Chernow’s massive biography of Alexander Hamilton. Kind of amazing I haven’t read it yet – seeing as I’m rather insane – but I had just read Willard Sterne Randall’s Alexander Hamilton: A Life
Strangely – I picked it up a couple of nights ago, opened it up – and on the front page I had written my name, the date, and, in parentheses: “A gift from Daniel Champion”. Which … suddenly … made me sad. Daniel Champion. I never met him, but I miss him. His widow Stephanie has continued on blogging on his blog – which is wonderful – but just seeing his name like that was odd. Thank you, Daniel Champion, for this beautiful big book. He gave it to me in hardcover as well. I, being not a rich person, normally wait for the paperbacks. Save a couple bucks. But here it is. This ginormous BEAUTIFULLY made book … Anyway. Sad. Very sad.
Talk about sad.
The first chapter – about Hamilton’s upbringing – is one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever read. I know about his upbringing. I am familiar with the particulars of what he was born into, and what happened to him.
But Chernow makes you feel like you are THERE. Great writing. It’s the kind of thing where, at one point, I had to put the book down – just to sit and contemplate for a second … contemplate the pictures Chernow had put in my mind. The picturesque surroundings … and the sick and brutal society of those islands … So so well written.
Willard Sterne Randall’s book is also good – I very much like his writing – but for whatever reason – the truth of Hamilton’s situation – what it must have been LIKE for him … does not come wafting off the pages the way it does in Chernow’s book. It becomes 100 times more amazing to realize how he became what he did … how brilliant he was … when you realize the horror he was born into. Truly astonishing. I’ll never get over being amazed by Alexander Hamilton.
So Danny Champion – my very-much-missed blog friend – thank you. Thank you.
The other day when I was at Dean’s, I just happened to see Dan’s name still on Dean’s blogroll, and it really got to me. I miss him.
I know, Lisa – me too. What a wonderful man.
What a fantastic gift and a poignant story.
I believe you sum up Chernow’s writing well. He is obviously enthralled with the subject matter and takes you along on his ride.
cullen – yeah, that opening chapter was just awful and made those islands sound like the weirdest mixture of beauty and savagery … Doesn’t shock me at all that Hamilton was a fierce abolitionist – the most outspoken of all the founding fathers – coming from that hellatious background.
And the story of his mother’s death just … just HORRIBLE. Chernow just put me in that room, with the horrible smells, and … God, it just seemed so real to me. The “medicine” she was given, Alexander’s illness at the same time, the two of them lying in bed together – basically being killed by the barbaric medicine at the time (I know … they didn’t know any better – but still!) What a HORRIBLE story.
Makes it even more amazing to contemplate his later accomplishments.
I miss Big Dan too.
I’m so glad that you’re reading this book! I’m still in the middle of it, around the end of the Revolutionary War. It only gets more detailed from there, but I agree, the beginning was SO interesting. I love reading about the lives of famous figures before they were famous, and Chernow does a fabulous job of describing it.
Jen – the image of the bright blue Caribbean water, the glowing fires from all the sugar burning – and the ubiquitousness of brutal slavery – the ratio of blacks to whites, they’re on TOP of each other – in this idyllic setting – it’s just haunting.
It’s still astonishes me every time I think of the fact that he came from there, with nothing of what his contemporaries had, and he was the brightest, most eloquent person of that time period. Or of most time periods, for that matter. I can’t even grasp genius such as that.
And plus, just a side note. Can you just IMAGINE doing all of the research for this book that Chernow did? Yikes.
I listened to the audio book a few months ago and loved it. The only thing that occasionally irked me about it was the author’s occasional assumptions about what Hamilton must’ve been thinking about certain things. And never about real events, more like, “Hamilton must have enjoyed contemplating the red sky at dusk,” or something along those lines. Nevertheless, it just gets better as the book goes on. (Oh, one more complaint. It ends much much too quickly, just to give you warning. The last chapter should be significantly longer. I felt robbed, especially since Founding Brothers does such a good job of looking at the duel.)