Prisoners and Villans

" We're all prisoners of birth, deary. Some of us are just lucky and win the uterian lottery." OK, I just made up that quote. The first sentence is sort of from this book, only the person who said it would never have used the word deary. The second sentence comes from Warren Buffet who feels that everyone born in the US has won the uterian lottery. After all, our little zygot selves could have been planted in any womb anywhere else in the world and probably wouldn't have had this opportunity for an easy life.

Let me first of all say that I liked this book, A Prisoner of Birth. It is a take-off on Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, a book I happen to love. I realized when I started listening to the book that the part of the Count that I like so much is the revenge part. It was a little tough going through the criminal conviction part of the story in the beginning. Archer's chapters are short and it was easy to skip past some of that, even on Audible. The revenge part was good. I skipped over parts of that, too, to find out how it ended, but I went back and listened to it all. Very clever. Not my skipping, but the book was clever.

And that's what the protagonist is, very clever. Even though he was raised in the wrong part of London and was poorly educated, he was always bright. So I will say that the way we are lucky in our births is when we have the ability to overcome a less than desireable start. We're also lucky if we have landed is good circumstances and are able not to mess it up. All these things are possible, no matter where or how you are born.

And then there are those people who are born damaged or who are damaged somewhere along the way. They don't all end up as merciless dictators, but some do. The Greatest Battle is about the German's attempt to capture Moscow in WWII. That's what the book cover says it's about. It's really about two sick, demented men who hold entire countries in their sway, who can affect the course of battle and destroy thousands of people's lives without a thought. Usually you will find that one antagonist is more worthy than the other. Not here. Nagorski does a great job of telling us about these two men, Stalin and Hitler. Ugly, despicable men. And as you are reading, you think about other books you've read; about the conference at Yalta where Stalin manipulated Truman against Churchill.

I guess even psychopaths can be charming at times. Hitler certainly was. He had my good friend Mencken fooled for a very long time. The best thing about the book is that it strips away the charm and tells about the stupidity of these guys. I think my only complaint is that the battle ended abruptly. Karen would say it was because I had fallen asleep while listening after a long day at the Festival of Books. I really think that I was just very comfortable. The battle was ending by that time. Winter had come. OMG, those poor Germans were sent out without anti-freeze, warm clothes or much food. Poor Nazi soldiers. Not an easy concept.