Chateaubriand, Desportes, Hamalainen

I completed the biography of Chateaubriand, in anticipation of the 18 volumes of his complete works being shipped out to me to read (!), and I was disappointed. The author is a great expert on Chateaubriand, but sold the editors (Flammarion Grande Biographie) a bill of goods: there are four large essays on Chateaubriand instead of a chronological biography, i.e. work the author had already done. So there was no sense of how the man developed over time, along his various careers as writer and politician.

I also read Pekka Hamalainen's Comanche Empire. This was interesting both for the content and the approach. The author detailed the Comanche tribe's history as if it was, say, 18th century France, as if it was an independent nation. As far as the content is concerned, the Comanche empire collapsed not because the might US Army conquered it, but because it had overstressed its natural resources, resulting in a terrible hunger, and then survived because it adapted. I am starting to think this is significant in the case of many civilizations, and I thought of course of the European settlements in Greenland.

I also read Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, which I didn't like. I don't understand why anyone would write a novel about someone else's novel's character. However, she was prolific, and maybe she was making a feminist or nationalist point I'm missing.

I also read two more books by Vincent Desportes, on the US armed forces, which was very acute in its discussion, and an earlier book, Comprendre la guerre. This second book contained much that was familiar to me, but it was still clearly written and identified many points in which I am in agreement.

I read Cave Painters by Greg Curtis, which was more about the archaeologists working on the French prehistorical cave paintings, than about the cave paintings themselves. It actually said that there was little sexual content in the cave paintings, something counter intuitive that has since become disputed.

On my nighttable are the novels of Charlotte Bronte, a book on the Heidegger controversy, and Madame de Stael's Corinne, which I plan to read either this afternoon or on my return Friday.