Skip to main content

Destiny in the Desert by Jonathan Dimbleby #inbetweeny

This hardback was given to me by my mum one Christmas as it featured the 8th Army of which my grandad was a part. I'm not sure to what extent he was involved with El Alamein but he was definitely in Africa and served under Monty. Band of Brothers is one of my favourite box sets, I love reading about history, particularly World War II and so this for many reasons was a book with my name stamped all over it

It's obviously factual and is quite lengthy and so I wasn't expecting it to be sunlounger reading. I wasn't however expecting to need a dictionary to decode some of the pages. I have a degree, I am a solicitor, I read anything and everything constantly and consider myself to have reasonable intelligence yet even I had never come across words like sybaritic or grangiliquence. It alienated me as I'm sure it would do a lot of people and I really found myself frustrated by Dimbleby for writing in such a way as to make it so inaccessible. The soldiers he wrote about in his book wouldn't have found it readable and at times neither did I.

It also seemed to take a long time to get to the actual El Alamein battle(s). How important Africa was in the overall scheme of things, Churchill's wooing of America (well the President), his temper tantrums and America's reluctance to commit were laboured over endlessly. 

I also found the reference to Dimbleby's father quite strange. Jonathan introduced him as his father and the idea behind the book seemed to stem from this personal connection to the war however in the actual pages of the book Dimbleby was referred to without any sentiment and seemed to be slightly shoe horned into the book before being removed from the tale all together. 

I did learn a large amount, I hadn't read quite so much about Churchill's involvement or Romel's brilliance and the whole thing came across as very factually correct. Dimbleby made crytal clear how close we were to losing, not just Africa but Malta and indeed the war in it's entirely but for certain chance things such as the German lack of supplies or Hitler's obsession with Russia. How slim the differences between winning and losing!

Given that I had a personal connection to the book the horrors faced didn't quite hit home somehow. The casualties (of which there were thousands) got lost in amongst the frequent tank round ups. Lumping the two together so frequently lessened the impact the loss of life should have had on the reader.  

In the end it became a book I was keen to finish so I could move on. It will stay on my shelf but only for my grandad's connection to the subject matter. It has inspired me to research exactly what role my grandad played and once I do should I find a book that more truly represents him and his experience Destiny in the Desert will be eagerly replaced. If you like facts, a good overview of the events and decisions leading up to El Amaein and are handy with 8 plus lettered words give it a read. If you can recommend a book about the same subject matter that perhaps is more emotionally powerful let me know. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stitch Up (A Best Defence Mystery) by William McIntyre #BlogTour

OK hold on everybody for MY FIRST EVER BLOG TOUR!!!!!!!!! Did I like it? Did I manage to read it in time? Did I forget to post my review when I should have done? Yes, yes and (thankfully) no! Stitch Up is the ninth in the Best Defence Series featuring Scottish defence lawyer Robbie Munro. As a solicitor not a policeman who successfully runs his own law firm, is recently married and has a daughter the book immediately set itself apart from your standard crime thriller. The book begins with Robbie's ex girlfriend asking him to investigate the apparent suicide of her new boyfriend (awkward!). At the same time a convicted child-murderer is attempting to have his conviction quashed (if I remember the term correctly Mr McIntyre?) claiming Robbie's dad ex sergeant Alex Munro planted key evidence at the scene of the crime (double awkward!). I liked the two stories running along side each other which kept the pace of the book moving swiftly forwards. In real life McIntyre is ...
2 comments
Read more

After The Party by Cressida Connolly

After The Party was May's book of the month. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’ It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.” We were very confused initially as to which party the book was referring to. We all thought it...
Post a Comment
Read more