Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Penguin Classics)
by Rebecca West
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rebecca WestIntroduction: Christopher Hitchens
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-30
ISBN: 014310490X
Number of pages: 1232
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: For All That
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" is wonderful for all the reasons stated in these reviews, but for all that it must be said that the dominant theme of Ms West's masterpiece is the eternal human condition. She sees with the eyes of a woman and the eyes of a genius. She has seen humanity's troubled soul, and gently brought it to the surface in the fabric of her marvelous linguistic tapestry. "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" is in a class by its self.
Summary of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Penguin Classics)
Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West?s classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans and the uneasy relationships among its ethnic groups. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country?s history as well as its daily life.Part travelogue, part history, part love letter on a thousand-page scale, Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a genre-bending masterwork written in elegant prose. But what makes it so unlikely to be confused with any other book of history, politics, or culture--with, in fact, any other book--is its unashamed depth of feeling: think The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire crossed with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. West visited Yugoslavia for the first time in 1936. What she saw there affected her so much that she had to return--partly, she writes, because it most resembled "the country I have always seen between sleeping and waking," and partly because "it was like picking up a strand of wool that would lead me out of a labyrinth in which, to my surprise, I had found myself immured." Black Lamb is the chronicle of her travels, but above all it is West following that strand of wool: through countless historical digressions; through winding narratives of battles, slavery, and assassinations; through Shakespeare and Augustine and into the very heart of human frailty.
West wrote on the brink of World War II, when she was "already convinced of the inevitability of the second Anglo-German war." The resulting book is colored by that impending conflict, and by West's search for universals amid the complex particulars of Balkan history. In the end, she saw the region's doom--and our own--in a double infatuation with sacrifice, the "black lamb and grey falcon" of her title. It's the story of Abraham and Isaac without the last-minute reprieve: those who hate are all too ready to martyr the innocent in order to procure their own advantage, and the innocent themselves are all too eager to be martyred. To West, in 1941, "the whole world is a vast Kossovo, an abominable blood-logged plain." Unfortunately, little has happened since then to prove her wrong. --Mary Park
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