(I hope I can do justice to this synoposis of our discussion, but I only remembered my notepad halfway through and, thus, abandoned the idea of taking notes. I won't do as well as Heather in that regard. The rest of you -- please, chime in.)
The Lindbergh's (Charles, Anne, and brood) fascinate because they're probably the first celebrity couple of the modern era. Charles' solo flight across the Atlantic brought him worldwide fame and fortune. He was a hero, one of the last in a long line of explorers and adventureres. (I'm about halfway through the flight, reading The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles' autobiographical Pulitzer Prize winning account of the feat -- you can apparently read it online here!) The kidnapping of little Charles and the trial of his murderer again focussed another worldwide spotlight, this time one more lurid and macabre. (A couple of us had read Susan Hertog's Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life and noted that, at the time of the kidnapping and murder, thousands of Chinese children were being killed in the Japanese invasion, but the front page news was only about one baby in America.) Charles' wartime views brought a wave of criticism. Finally, the revelation after his death that, completely unknown to his wife and family, he had sired three additional families in Europe -- well, what could be more modern than that?
Through the eyes of their youngest daughter Reeve, in Under a Wing, these people and events come down to earth. She describes their personalities as life-sized, not larger-than. Perhaps no one in America was more curious about the flight and the lost baby than Reeve. Her parents were reluctant to talk with family members about the two events that caused the family to live in obscurity and isolation. Then there's the shock she endured in college upon learning her father was considered a Nazi-lover and anti-Semite. A later book, Forward From Here, reveals how she and her brothers dealt with the news of their half-siblings. She's a good writer. Her mother taught her to write every day, to journal, and her books demonstrate the value of that practice, both in the skillful writing that results and in the recollection of insightful detail.
Anne's poetry is simple and accessible. We read a few selections out loud: "Testament," "Bare Trees," and "Second Sowing." Reeve tells, in Under a Wing, how her mother's book had been severely panned by a critic, and that it discouraged her from publishing more poems. In No More Words, a book about her mother's later stages of life, Reeve introduces chapters with Anne's early poetry.
But Reeve didn't only get the "writing gene" from her mother. Charles proves to be equally skillful and insightful. It's an artist that can write, "I take off from Lambert Field [in St. Louis] . . . and set course for New York City. . . . Illinois grain fields ripple in the northwest wind. The Spirit of St. Louis [his plane] has grown with those crops: I conceived the flight last fall when the wheat was planted. Now I'm getting under way with the green blades of spring." Later that flight, he observes, "Manhattan Island lies below me -- building-weighted, wharf-spined, teeming with life -- millions of people in that river-boundaried strip of brick and concrete, ech one surrounded by a little aura of his problems and his thoughts, hardly conscious of the earth's expanse beyond." Okay, the "teeming with life" is cliche, but "building-weighted, wharf-spined" . . . did Anne give him that? He credits her for everything in his dedication.
Finally, I can't help myself, but I'm always looking for references to what they believed. There are references to 'lapsed Presbyterianism,' and the Calvinism of Anne's father, but little personal reference. One chapter (so far) in The Spirit of St. Louis delves into Charles' belief system. He seems to have rejected organized religion -- mainly because it's stuffy and anti-science and separated from the natural world he loves. But then he's intrigued with his great-grandfather, a physician and preacher, and he writes:
"It's hard to be an agnostic up here in the 'Spirit of St. Louis,' aware of the frailty of man's devices, a part of the universe between its earth and stars. If one dies, all this goes on existing in a plan so perfectly balanced, so wonderfully simple, so incredibly complex that it's far beyond our comprehension -- worlds and moons revolving; planets orbiting on suns; suns flung with apparent recklessness through space. There's the infinite magnitude of the universe; there's the infinite detail of its matter -- the outer star, the inner atom. And man conscious of it all -- a worldly audience to what if not to God?"
Related articles:
- Lindbergh Family Bashes Biographer
- News from 1932, when the baby was kidnapped. And this. It's fascinating that the NY Times has the stories from the time.
- Here's a news article about the flight.
- This is a story about Reeve discussing Forward from Here and the discovery of the other families.
- Here's "breaking news" on the discovery of the other families.
- DNA proves L. lead double life
4 comments:
Sounds like you had a great discussion - so sorry I missed it. I have not read any of the additional materials yet, and I came to Under a Wing with very little knowledge of the Lindbergh family aside from the flight across the Atlantic. I didn't even know about the Lindbergh baby story - that's how culturally illiterate I can sometimes be, especially about 20th century and current events (more distant history is another story!)
I was a little skeptical of reading about a celebrity family, even if their notoriety was 50-60 years ago. I wondered if I really waned to spend my time reading about the private lives of public figures. But Reeve's writing brings a very personal aspect to their lives, like Slow Reader noted, presenting them as very real and very human. My skepticism was quickly dispelled as the Lindbergh family portrait appeared in greater detail with each chapter.
Perhaps that's what I love about memoirs: they help us to see that the ups and downs of our own lives - love, fear, joy, anger, grief, and skeletons in the closet, too - are not so uncommon after all. Not that my life has even a fraction of the culture, excitement, or tragedy of the Lindbergh's - but it is refreshing to see the human side of a famous family.
I just finished Susan Hertog's biography Anne Morrow Lindbergh and want to post some thoughts before I return it to the library. All in all I found it to be an interesting book, covering the story thoroughly, and written adequately well. It provides a good picture of her life, spends no few pages on the kidnapping and death of Charlie and subsequent trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, explains Charles and Anne's involvement in pre-WWII politics, and explores the over-all theme of Anne's struggle to reconcile her roles of wife, mother, writer, and woman.
M.S. has already pointed out how popular the Lindberghs were and how the stories of their life took precedence in the news over other major world events. It would be very hard for us to understand how this affected them - there are so many famous people in today's world - but they were really the first to gain such immediate and widespread fame. It made their lives nearly impossible to live in a natural way. Furthermore, Charles believed that Charlie's kidnapping and death was proof of the failure of democratic ideology. I'll quote from the book:
"Clearly, Charles saw the Third Reich as the embodiment of his values: science and technology harnessed for the preservation of a superior race, physically able and morally pure. While Charles valued democracy in the abstract, he had come to believe that its freedoms were not worth the price. Social and political equality, together with an ungoverned press, had produced a climate of moral degeneracy that had permitted the murder of his infant son. He did not disdain democracy so much as he did the common man - the uneducated and enfeebled masses, typified by Hauptmann, who lived like parasites on the body politic. America wallowed in decadence, the Russians sank into mediocrity, and England and France, at war with themselves, were weak, aimless, and morally defunct. To Charles, Germany under Hitler was a nation of true manhood - virility and purpose. The strong central leadership of a fascitst state was the only hope for restoring a moral world order." (pg 324)
Interesting stuff... The book explores this theme admirably.
The theme of womanhood and Anne's struggle in her marriage to Charles is also well-developed in the book. The people who influenced Anne's thinking, the experiences that shaped her, the places she lived (many), the opportunities she had - the books she wrote - all center around her need to understand her roles and live at peace with herself. Again, I quote:
"Was it possible to reconcile her need to write with the responsibilities of motherhood? She wrote to her cousin Margaret Landenberger Scandrett, that she would not choose to work if it meant denying the needs of her family. 'Deep down in my heart, I don't honestly want to be a "woman writer" any more than I once wanted to be a "woman aviator"... I am not prepared to sacrifice...those advantages and qualities that are truly feminine.'
"Echoing the poetry of Lao-tzu, Anne wrote that a woman must stand at the hub of a wheel that moves toward a larger goal. Creative work was merely one spoke of the wheel, a ray of insight leading to and from a unifying core, essential to the balance of the wheel, without which her life would simply stop turning. Out of this way of life, she wrote, 'some very great art might spring - not much but pure gold.'" (pgs 302-303)
This is my little book report. I would not have read the book had we not chosen Reeve's memoir for our selection - I am not drawn to biographies as a general rule. I think that fascination with the rich and famous - in its various degrees - is telling. But at its best, it serves as a way to better understand ourselves. So I will recommend this book.
Good to hear from you, Page Turner! How's Indiana?
Indiana is not Grand Rapids, but we are adjusting! I miss the huge network of libraries that we had in Grand Rapids and Ottawa County. The library here is big, but there are only 2 libraries in the whole county, only one copy of Red Scarf Girl, and it's checked out already!
Back to the Lindbergh discussion... thank you, Wordsmith, for your review of the biography. Anne's self-perception as a mother and writer sounds very interesting to me, but I'm not sure when I'll find time to read it. My personal review of Under a Wing can by found here. I'd love to see some comments from friends!
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