{"id":1061,"date":"2004-06-08T14:38:17","date_gmt":"2004-06-08T18:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2015-11-14T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T14:42:13","slug":"a-bit-of-rebecca-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1061","title":{"rendered":"<i>Black Lamb and Grey Falcon<\/i>, by Rebecca West"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=014310490X&#038;asins=014310490X&#038;linkId=44IEVBOYRZTUK4I6&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nOn <i><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/014310490X?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=thesheivari-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=014310490X\">Black Lamb and Grey Falcon<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=014310490X\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i><\/i> &#8211; about Rebecca West&#8217;s travels through Yugoslavia in 1937.<\/p>\n<p>The length of the book was what originally kept me from launching into it, even though so many people who I admire love Rebecca West, and reference THAT book as WHY they got into journalism, or WHY they became a writer, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;ve begun the book, I can completely see why.<\/p>\n<p>Holy mackerel.  Can she write.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who writes anything about the Balkans must contend with Rebecca West.  You will not be doing anything new, you will just be adding onto the work already been done by this extraordinary woman.  It is 1937.  You can completely see the cataclysm to come &#8211; she prophesied it all.<\/p>\n<p>There doesn&#8217;t seem to me to be one boring paragraph.  In a book 1700 pages long or whatever, that is some feat.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s history, yes.  But there are also long descriptions of vigorous conversations before the fire &#8211; Croat arguing with Serb arguing with Yugoslav patriot &#8230; everyone drinking plum brandy.  She goes to church, describes the native dress, the faces.  She picks up on EVERYTHING. You read about the scenery, you get the smells, the sights, the sounds.  She does not just focus on politics.<\/p>\n<p>We meet dancers.  We meet playwrights.  We meet doctors.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t believe the scope of the book.<\/p>\n<p>It certainly took some doing to get me to actually pick up and BEGIN this book, but now &#8211; I assure you &#8211; I will read it through to the end.<\/p>\n<p>Rebecca West deserves a longer post than this one &#8211; but here are a couple of quotes I have pulled out &#8211; short and sweet.  Later, when I have more time, I&#8217;ll post some excerpts.  Damn, this dame could write.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=014310490X&#038;asins=014310490X&#038;linkId=44IEVBOYRZTUK4I6&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Black Lamb and Grey Falcon &#8211; about Rebecca West&#8217;s travels through Yugoslavia in 1937. The length of the book was what originally kept me from launching into it, even though so many people who I admire love Rebecca West, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1061\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[157,2379,143,2424],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100967,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/100967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}