tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post5756576491177073308..comments2024-02-14T22:50:48.749+10:30Comments on Bill Kerr: All along the watchtower by Michael HydeBill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-8425938379586832362015-11-28T21:25:26.737+10:302015-11-28T21:25:26.737+10:30hi Barry,
Thanks for the comment ... I only notic...hi Barry,<br /><br />Thanks for the comment ... I only noticed it then, it didn't come into my email as normal, so the publication of your comment was delayed<br /><br />I just reread and did an edit of the original book review. It's hard to write well. I wasn't happy with the way I had juxtaposed Michael's simple side with his more complex, occasional dark side. The raw animal spirits, the joy and the fear of facing up to the shock of discovering that our government is our enemy are two sides of a complex coin, which Michael does describe well.<br /><br />I'm now two thirds of the way through Doris Lessing's The Four Gated City (1969), the aftermath of WW2, the McCarthy era / persecutions (flight and suicide), the related but independent growing disillusion with the USSR, searching for work that means something, sexual liberation, mental health issues, child rearing, the struggle to find a meaningful way in the world. For page after page she makes amazing insights into the human condition. This is part 5 of a 5 part memoir (Children of Violence) from Doris. Part 3 delves into the war years where the heroine, Martha Quest, joins the communist party and marries a communist at the height of Stalin's popularity (1943-45), since the USSR was doing all the heavy lifting in fighting the Nazis as the Allies delayed the second front.<br />Bill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-41057864524195530662015-11-18T09:11:19.144+10:302015-11-18T09:11:19.144+10:30As you know Bill, I was part of that period of act...As you know Bill, I was part of that period of activism too and, like Mike, came to identify as a Maoist. I did not come from a communist family background, though my dad was very left-wing and was influenced by communists and socialists in the Royal Air Force, which he had joined in 1940 in Malta. I think Mike's book captures the spirit of the mid-1960s to early 1970s very well - a spirit based on rebellion - and is the best available book on the left-wing political activist dimension back then. The critical comments by Ken Mansell are a bit over the top, though I think Mike Hyde needed a brief paragraph or a couple of lines at the beginning, an Author's Note perhaps, to explain that the book is a "literary memoir" and how that differs from a work of history. In personal correspondence, he didn't seem keen on the idea. Barry Yorknoreply@blogger.com