Inspired by my recent favorite podcast The Rest is History, I finally read the copy of The Gallic Wars that I had lying around. It is Julius Caesar’s account of conquering the various peoples of Gaul and bringing their territory firmly under Roman rule.
The book is surprisingly readable and relatable, even two thousand years later. The fact that it was Caesar’s own account of his campaigns is really fantastic. Even though you can’t take it all at face value, how often, even in the modern era do we have a first hand account from someone of Caesar’s stature?
I love the fact that Caesar wrote these accounts in order to raise his own status in Rome. The image that came to mind for me are the giant status updates that teams send inside of tech companies to keep everyone up-to-date on project status and build momentum. Julius Caesar was literally doing this!!! And he became dictator for life!
Caesar comes across as charismatic. His ability to project confidence and rally his teams despite the odds ahead of them is compelling. You can see why the men wanted to follow him. He both pushed them and related to them. Like a character from The Sopranos or The Wire, you root for him despite the human cost of his actions. He claims to have killed a million Gauls. Historians consider this to be an exaggeration… but still, this is who you find yourself rooting for!
The high point of the book is the Siege of Alesia, where the Romans surround their foe Vercingetorix in Alesia and then put a wall around their siege in order to hold off the force that had been sent to relieve Alesia. Absolutely astounding and not the sort of thing that works out for a lesser general. If you’ve never heard of this, take the time to read the wikipedia article. It’s worth it.
Vercingetorix is a tragic figure in his own right. His appeals to liberty and self rule resonate today. He is clearly a talented leader, going toe-to-toe with Caesar. And yet he comes on a little too late and is not quite able to unify the Gallic tribes enough to prevail. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a novel / movie / Netflix show made from his perspective yet.
I’m not a military historian, but I was struck by how often Caesar created advantages for himself by showing up places where his enemy didn’t expect him to be or by understanding what his enemy was going to do via intelligence. He also does a great job of weighing the cost of inaction — frequently the risks he takes are due to his assessment that delaying an engagement is an even greater risk.
Despite the readability, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re already interested in the topic. I am a total dork for Roman history and I still got lost in the names of tribes, commanders, and local rulers.
I picked up House of Broken Angels as another stop on my literary tour of California, but after reading it, I wouldn’t call it a California book. It’s a San Diego book, through and through. I’m not sure how it reads to someone who hasn’t lived here, but even as a relatively new resident, I recognized places and neighborhoods.
House of Broken Angels is the story of two half brothers, both named Angel, of a man from Tijuana as the elder Angel (Big Angel) nears death from cancer. The two Angels wrestle (figuratively and literally) with each other’s and their father’s sins, as do the rest of their families. It’s a book about how short life is and about how frail humans are.
The other thing that places this book in San Diego is the connection the characters have to Tijuana, where the main character immigrated from. The two cities, just 20 miles a part, share an economic and social relationship. They mayors regularly meet with each other. Now that I live here, this seems obvious, but it surprised me at first.
The book brings the relationship between the two cities to life. The Angels’ father is from Tijuana, but immigrates to San Diego when he leaves his first wife (Big Angel’s mom) for his second wife (Little Angel’s mom). When I lived in Europe, one of my favorite things were the border regions where cultures bled into each other. The Italian part of Switzerland, which feels like both Italy and Switzerland, the northern part of Spain, the feels both Spanish and French. San Diego has elements of that. This book the way that people, relationships, and culture move back and forth across the border.
To me, the best part about this book was the way that it approached the end of life, the yearning for one more Christmas morning, and regret over mistakes. The other thing I’ll take from it is some understanding of the Mexican-American San Diego experience.
The next book in my literary survey of California has been Grapes of Wrath, the iconic novel that I missed in high school.
The book tells the story of the Joan family as they leave Oklahoma and head west to California, driven by the Great Depression, mechanized farming, and poverty.
[I’m not going to review the book since I don’t think that’s useful for a book of this stature. I’m just going to reflect on it. I’m also not going to worry about spoilers, so if that bothers you be warned].
The book is extremely well paced. Steinbeck slowly turns up the pressure, showing how poverty forces the Joads from one no win situation to another. After enough least-bad options, the family eventually breaks apart. The slow creep of ruin really affected me, as did the images of starving children and pregnant women.
I was surprised at how deep I was into the book before I realized how bleak the ending would be. There wouldn’t even be the satisfaction of a shootout.
The ending! I can’t believe no one I knew let on even a little bit about how weird it is. I can’t claim to understand it.
It’s impossible to read this book now and not think of the homelessness crisis in California. I’m sure some of the members of California’s current tent camps would agree with Steinbeck that the police cause more injustice than the people.
For better or worse, the claiming of land is a part of the California psyche. Wether it is water rights, land claims, zoning, or the right to keep your view in a California beach town, there is a preoccupation with protecting one’s claim from others in the golden state.
I think the biggest thing that this book added to my understanding of California is an appreciation for how turbulent the period mass inward migration was, even though it is a crisis that has now passed. I think I understand better why it was such a big deal.
On the whole, I enjoyed the book. Although I liked East of Eden more, I thought the characters in Grapes of Wrath, particularly the female characters were more fully imagined.
Earlier this year, I moved back to California. I am a Californian by marriage and a somewhat reluctant one at that. The muted seasons and even the beautiful beaches, which I sometimes enjoy, aren’t really my thing. And yet this is where life has taken me again.
In an effort to make the best of it, I resolved that if I’m going to live in this state, I’m going to appreciate it, and I kicked off a California reading tour.
The latest book in my survey is Where I was from, a memoir by Joan Didion. I’m still at the beginning of my California reading journey, but so far this would be the first book I suggest anyone read if they want to understand the state.
Where I was from is about the author’s relationship with California, how her understanding of California changed as she grew up, how the California of her youth faded away, and her relationship with her parents as they grow old and ultimately pass away. It’s exceptionally well written. It weaves the author’s family history into notable events from California history and both of these into the human experience of leaving behind a version of a place, of yourself, and of those you love you as you age.
Where I was from isn’t primarily a history book. Perhaps because of this, it has unlocked California for me in a new way, like how meeting a friend’s parents for the first time helps explain who they are.
It’s common to talk about California’s boom/bust cycles because of the gold rush, but it’s also apt. After all, this is a state that’s population has increased by more than 50% in a decade 5 times since 18501. Didion’s book spends time on less famous booms: the aerospace industry after the Second World War and the development boom of the 1960-80s when the great ranches of California were broken up and developed into communities.
The aerospace boom is told through the perspective of Lakewood, California, a suburb that grew up next to the McDonnell-Douglas plant, and then struggles with its identity as that industry moves away in the waning days of the Cold War.
The development boom is told through the stories of the heirs of the Irvine and Hollister estates, great California ranches passed down intact from Spanish and Mexican land grants. These heirs proceed to break up these great ranches to make suburbs and shopping malls, along with a tidy fortune.
For Didion, the settlers that rushed West during the gold rush, the families of Lakewood and the heirs of the great ranches all have a common Californian experience: Each generation rushes headlong to make California into their version of paradise. Some make it and prosper and others are left behind. In in doing so, they change California. In the end, those who profited most from the changes look back and wonder what they’ve lost in the process2.
Didion’s Californians are not fearless and self sufficient pioneers, but real people terrified of getting caught in the mountains before the weather turns. They benefit greatly from the investments of the Federal Government, be those investments railroads, aqueducts, or jet planes. Their experience of striving to change the world and then having to live with the consequences is a human one. If there is something uniquely Californian, it is the speed and the scale with which those changes take shape.
The best example I have of how this book has changed how I view California is Cannery Row in Monterey. Today, Cannery Row is a tourist trap. A couple of the old canning operation buildings are preserved but no actual fishing or canning continues. When I had visited it in the past, all I saw where the tschotskes and doodads. But now I see it differently: a monument to a past generation of Californians who strived to build a new world and succeeded, only to have that way of life slowly become irrelevant and fade away3.
Notes
I didn't have anywhere to put this, but I especially appreciated the Didion's mother's observation that California had become "all San Jose."
1: California’s growth is really stunning. The first decade where it didn’t grow more than 20% was 1980.
2: The addendum to this book set south of Market street in San Francisco about the tech industry almost writes itself. I also appreciated the author's observation that it is especially Californian to feel that anyone who shows up after you is altering the state beyond repair.
3: In a typically Californian way, just up the street from Cannery Row, an industry that literally fished itself out of existence, is the Monterey acquarium, with emphasizes the importance of ocean conservation.
