Review: In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts, by history writer Erik Larson, came out just a few weeks ago. It may be the most recent book I ever review. I rushed to grab it in part because of a Border's coupon, but also because I absolutely loved Larson's Devil in the White City. In Devil, Larson uses succinct but eloquent writing to tell the story of Chicago's World's Fair from the perspectives of the fair's architect, Daniel Burnham, and, conversely, the fair's serial murderer, H. H. Holmes. Devil read almost like a novel, flowing neatly even as it jumped between the two perspectives, and at the end not only had I enjoyed it, but I was newly acquainted with Chicago, the fair, and with these two men, as well as others. I highly recommend Devil to those who enjoy history and historical writing.

In the Garden was a disappointment to me. Here Larson is focusing on Berlin during the rise of Nazi power, mainly from '33-'37. As in Devil he aims to paint a picture of Berlin through the eyes and actions of two individuals, namely William Dodd, ambassador to Germany during these years, and his daughter, Martha. The story does not flow as well as in Devil but feels choppy. Much of the book is actually about Martha, perhaps because so many of her letters and diaries are available, as she flits from love affair to love affair and political ideology to political ideology. She is shown as promiscuous and silly for most of the book, so I was surprised when Larson described her as "not precisely a hero but certainly a woman of principle", in his closing pages. In that case the history told here seems to be more about women's lib and sexual freedom in the personage of Martha, although she is a weak heroine even for these causes. Other than that, the tidbits and tales about Nazi Germany are of course not new, but it was interesting to see them through the diaries and writings of people there at the time.

Book 20 on my way to 52.