Review of Susan Hertog's Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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 major world events. It would be very hard for us to understand how this affected Charles and Anne - 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 the democratic system and this may explain his support of Hitler's Nazi Germany. I 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.