Though superficially this year has been a disappointing year in reading—I finished considerably fewer books, just over 60 rather than my typical 75 or more—this lack of quantity is largely illusory. A good number of the books I’ve finished this year have been quite long, many over 500 pages and a couple well over 1,000. So in terms of total pages read, I believe I am at par.
For whatever reason, I usually begin the year by getting extremely obsessed with a book. This year, it happened to be Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, which convinced me that I was chronically under-rested and, thus, in danger of imminent death. For months afterwards, I dutifully tried different strategies for achieving optimal sleep—cutting down or (briefly) giving up caffeine, sleeping with a mask, going to bed earlier, drinking herbal tea, avoiding alcohol—and it did make a difference. However, probably the best thing I did for my sleep was simply to get a new job that didn’t require me to get up so early. Since then, I have mostly resorted to my old bad habits.
A few books I read this year required so much effort that they became little projects. This can certainly be said of my encounter with the Qur’an—a book difficult for a Westerner to appreciate, I think, though I did my best. I read a few other religious classics to complement my exploration of Islam—some Buddhist sutras and the Egyptian Book of the Dead—though none made nearly so deep an impression on me. Another project, offsetting my spiritual investigation, was my attempt to finally tackle two of the great works in the history of science: Faraday’s Experimental Researches in Electricity and Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. In both cases, I achieved only the most basic understanding of these great thinkers, though it was rewarding just the same.
I also finally started on two historical series that had long been on my list. The first is Winston Churchill’s account of World War II—deservedly a classic, and quite fun to read, despite its limitations. The other is Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of Lyndon Johnson, which deserves all the superlatives that can be heaped upon it. Both series, though in different ways, make the fine-grained texture of history more palpable, bringing the past alive with copious detail. I will add to this list, though it isn’t exactly a series, the two books by David Simon: Homicide and The Corner. Though Simon’s scope is smaller—the city of Baltimore rather than a president or a major historical event—he is just as good at revealing the inner workings of human life.
There are a few other smaller categories I should include. One is accounts of historical disasters. This describes John Hersey’s Hiroshima, Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl, and Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember (about the sinking of the Titanic). Perhaps my morbid fascination with these events reveals something unsavory about my character, but I greatly enjoyed these books. Another category is America. Into this bin I would put William Least Heat-Moon’s famous travelog of the United States, Alan Taylor’s excellent history of the early American colonies, and Laurence Bergreen’s informative biography of Christopher Columbus. I am not sure I am feeling any more patriotic, though it is good to reconnect with one’s native land occasionally.
Last, I ought to mention fiction. This year has been, in retrospect, rather light on literature. True, I finally finished Les Miserables, which took months, and finally reread The Canterbury Tales. I also read the trifecta of great American plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, and A Long Day’s Journey into Night—all deserved classics. But the books that stand out in my memory are The Things They Carried (an excellent anti-war book) and Sister Carrie (a devastating deconstruction of the American Dream). I also ought to mention having read my first P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, both superb in their respective fields.
My goals for 2024 are basically to keep going in the same direction: read a few more spiritual classics, some more influential works of science, continue reading Caro and Churchill, and tackle some rewarding works of literature. As usual, I must express my gratitude to everyone on this site. All of you help make reading a communal activity rather than a lonely endeavor. It is a continual pleasure.
Strange to say, but I seem to be enjoying the holidays more and more with each passing year. This year, to my surprise, I even find myself searching out Christmas music and sentimental holiday movies. I think this is because I have come to appreciate how holidays chart the course of time, preventing one moment from slipping into another in a dreary monotony. And, corny as it sounds, I realize that we do need periodic reminders of what is really important in life, and opportunities to take the time to celebrate it.
So, to all of my readers, I wish to say: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy New Years, and enjoy the holidays!
Robert Caro sets his own standard for political biographies, and if this volume was at all lacking for me it was only in comparison to the masterful first volume in this series. But even this is not exactly a fair comparison, as The Path to Power covered Johnson’s formative years—delving into his family history, his marriage, his schooling, his environment, his first working experience, and finally his rise to the House of Representatives. Its scope, in other words, is quite broad.
Means of Ascent is a very different book, covering only seven years (1941-48). It is significantly shorter (though still hefty enough), and most of these pages are dedicated to Johnson’s 1948 Senate race. This corresponds to what Winston Churchill called his “wilderness years,” in which Johnson was directionless and cut off from the main arteries of power. He spent some of this time in a non-combat role in the military (and spent the rest of his life shamelessly exaggerating his minimal exploits), some of this time using his connections to get rich through a radio station—and finally got back onto the path to power by stealing a Senate election.
As Caro says repeatedly, Johnson is a complex personality with a strange admixture of the despicable and the admirable—and this book contains precious little of the latter. As a result, whereas in the first volume one could sometimes feel sympathetic for the young man from Texas, here he is little more than a power-grasping villain. Caro himself obviously came to feel disgusted with Johnson’s personality, and his feelings seep through in his descriptions of Johnson’s ample transgressions: his blatant mistreatment—indeed, verbal abuse—of anyone he considers inferior (including receptionists, waiters, his own staff, and his poor wife), his absolute amorality regarding even basic ideals (such as democracy itself), and his willingness to stop at nothing to obtain power.
Caro contrasts Johnson’s personality with that of his opponent in the 1948 Senate election, Coke Stevenson—a man Caro portrays as honest and honorable. And here the esteemed biographer got into a little bit of trouble. While Stevenson may indeed have been upstanding in the sense that he was true to his word, did not bow to lobbyists, did not attack political opponents, and did not seek political office in order to satisfy a lust for power—while all this may have been true, Stevenson was also certainly a reactionary and a racist.
These rather unflattering qualities are given only a passing mention in the book, which may leave the reader with a skewed impression of Stevenson. Caro was roundly criticized for this, and in an article in the New York Times, published in 1991, he responded some of these criticisms. Yet his defense—that the subject of race played little role in the election—while valid as far as historical explanation goes, still does not quite excuse the glowing portrait he painted. Upon finishing the book, it is difficult to resist the impression that Caro himself came to admire Stevenson.
Even so, as abhorrent as I find Stevenson’s views to be, I would still prefer such a man to the Johnson of 1948, who seems to have had no political philosophy, no political aspirations beyond his desire to control people, and—worst of all—no respect for the institution of democracy. Throughout all of the legal battles and maneuvers which allowed him to keep his stolen election victory, Johnson never once betrayed the slightest hint that he might have had misgivings about betraying the will of the people. Indeed, as Caro makes clear, he seems to have been proud of it, virtually boasting of the “victory” in later years.
Now, at this point I will do something very brave—or cowardly, perhaps—and venture a slight criticism of Caro. After so many pages, his writing style is beginning to ware on me. This is because, I think, his primary rhetorical technique is that of superlatives. What I mean is that, for Caro, everything is as extreme as possible. Johnson is not just a sleazy politician, but unprecedentedly amoral; Stevenson is not just a popular governor, but a Texan hero; and so on, and so on. Caro relentlessly emphasizes how extreme every event and experience was—so much so that, by the end, you are begging for something totally ordinary and unremarkable to happen (and no, not superlatively ordinary).
That said, the book is eminently readable and highly enjoyable. Here Caro creates such a memorable portrait of an amoral, power-crazed politician that, had this book been written by anyone else, it would by itself be considered an enduring classic of American political writing. It is only when compared to his other books that this one may seem somewhat light.
Most good books lend themselves to be read on many levels. One can read them superficially, merely for momentary pleasure, or study them deeply, working your way slowly through their contents. For the most part, I try to chart a middle path through these two extremes, doing my best to understand what I’m reading—at least on a basic level—without getting bogged down in academic study.
However, some books simply do not lend themselves to that approach, and this is one of them. One can skim over the mathematical proofs in, say, Newton’s Principia and still get a fairly good idea of what the book is about. But in Maxwell’s magnum opus, the math is what does the talking. Indeed, by the midway point I was so desperate—feeling guilty, lazy, and stupid for understanding so little of what I was reading—that I decided to turn to an old ally, Kahn Academy. There, I went through all of the videos on electricity and magnetism, and learned a great deal. (The last time I had any formal instruction on the subject was in my sophomore year of high school, and I doubt I understand much back then.)
But I found, when I picked up the book again, that even this Hail Mary would not save me from the perdition of Maxwell’s writing. Indeed, as I had already bought the heavily annotated student’s edition (with copious notes by Howard J. Fisher), it seemed that I had used up all of my lifelines, and simply had to content myself with only the most superficial reading of this important book.
What follows, then, is probably as valuable as a review of Hamlet by somebody with an elementary level of English. Here I goes.
Now, as I mentioned, the version I picked up is meant for students. Thus, it is heavily abridged and, often, so full of explanatory footnotes that the original text is crowded out.
For what it’s worth, even if you do have the mathematical and scientific chops to handle Maxwell’s tome, I would recommend either this version or something similar. The original is famous for being rather unfocused and overlong. After all, this book was not meant to be Maxwell’s Origin of Species—a text devoted to propounding a radical new theory. Maxwell had already set forth his most revolutionary insights—most notably in the paper “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field,” in 1865—several years before this book was published. Instead, this was meant as a kind of definitive textbook on the subject, to be studied by university students, telegram technicians, and other specialists. Thus, there are long sections in which he rehashed old theories which would be of limited interest to any modern reader.
This edition attempts to pare down the original, leaving only what Fisher considers to be the “central argument”—that is, the material leading directly to Maxwell’s signature breakthroughs. These would be, first, his four famous eponymous equations and, second, the electromagnetic theory of light.
Regarding the former, as you may know, Maxwell did not actually formulate his equations in the form which modern students encounter them. It was one of Maxwell’s followers, Oliver Heaviside, who put the equations into their definitive form. Instead, Maxwell puts forward twelve equations, which use the now-defunct quaternion notation rather than vector calculus. This makes Maxwell’s presentation seem rather foreign, even to those less ignorant than myself. What is more, Maxwell has a liking for using Gothic letters as symbols in his equations, which gives them a doubly strange appearance.
More generally, I think even a mathematically literate reader will have some trouble following significant portions of this book, if only because Maxwell’s mathematical language seems clunky and dated. In my version, for example, Fisher is continually translating Maxwell’s operations into more familiar forms (which, admittedly, I still did not follow).
As I had recently made my way through an (abridged) version of Faraday’s epochal Experimental Researches in Electricity, I was most interested in the sections in which Maxwell reflects on his predecessor’s work. He is extremely laudatory of the English physicist and is quite generous in giving credit for developing this new way of examining electricity.
And, indeed, if I have any way of understanding Maxwell, it is only through the lens of Faraday. At first glance, the devoted experimentalist with no mathematical schooling seems to have little in common with the visionary theorist who prefers numbers to words. And yet, as I’m sure Maxwell would agree, they were bound together by a new vision of the cosmos. In a nutshell, and said very imprecisely, I think their insight was to see energy rather than matter as fundamental.
In the Newtonian view that preceded Maxwell, the world was composed of matter—indeed, even light was supposed to be made up of little corpuscles. This matter traveled in straight lines and attracted other matter in straight lines. This Newtonian view was embodied in, say, Ampère’s earlier theory of electromagnetism.
And yet this view always sat uncomfortably with Faraday, who instead saw the curving lines of the magnetic field as the fundamental reality, rather than one piece of matter attracting another via “action at a distance.” Indeed, Faraday’s brilliant experiment involving the shifting of light via a magnet got him tantalizingly close to the central insight of Maxwell’s life: the unification of light with electromagnetic radiation.
Faraday is one fount of Maxwell’s inspiration. Yet if Maxwell has a mathematical predecessor, it is Joseph-Louis Lagrange, whose work comprises a culminating chapter in this book. Lagrange arguably developed the math that Faraday had been striving toward from another direction. For in Lagrangian mechanics, rather than thinking of forces being exerted by physical objects, one thinks of the energies in the system—the object in question merely following the path of least resistance through the fields of energy around it.
It was Maxwell’s great insight to see how the work of Faraday and Lagrange—among many, many other brilliant scientists—fit together to form one complete account of electricity and magnetism. It is a theory in which fields of energy take precedence over particles, indeed in which the world around us is filled with vibrations in luminiferous ether. And while some parts of Maxwell’s theory (notably the ether) have not survived to the present day, his basic insight was so sound and so significant that, as Richard Feynman said, his discovery constitutes one of the major turning points in human history. You certainly wouldn’t be reading this review without it. Thus, Maxwell’s name stands beside Newton’s and Einstein’s as one of the greatest physicists of all time—even if his book is completely opaque to people like me.
Werner Herzog’s series of films about inmates on death row all begin with him making his stance on the death penalty clear: he is against it. And yet, these films are anything but political. Herzog does not, for example, review the arguments against the death penalty—that many of those condemned are likely innocent, that it is racially biased, that it does not act as a deterrent to other violent crime, and so on—nor does he get into its legal justification or its history.
Indeed, although Herzog repeatedly states that he is against the death penalty, he seems intentionally to portray the punishment in its most “justifiable” form. With some arguable exceptions (to be discussed later), all of the prisoners he interviewed were convicted of horrible crimes on very strong evidence. Most of them, for that matter, are white; and in any case he never explicitly brings up the subject of race. Thus, most of the arguments usually cited against the death penalty do not apply to these cases.
Despite this—or, perhaps, because of it—Herzog’s films become a strong statement against the death penalty’s continued existence. His view is not that the death penalty is wrong because it violates constitutional rights or it’s statistically unfair or so on, but that the death penalty is simply wrong in itself. This is because even the worst criminals are human beings. It is a simple and powerful argument, and I think ultimately the right one to make. For there will always be people who commit terrible crimes, and as a consequence there will always be the temptation to view such people as somehow inhuman or monstrous, and thus not worthy of life.
Herzog combats this tendency by bringing the viewer into direct contact with the reality of the death penalty. Every episode of this documentary series begins in the same way: The camera goes from the holding cell of the death house to the execution chamber. Eerie music plays in the background and Herzog’s equally eerie voice gives us the basic facts about the death penalty in America.
Typical of Herzog, the camerawork has a curiously amateurish quality. It looks as if somebody were simply holding their phone and walking. The angle shifts like a man turning his head: peering down at the Bibles on the table, up at the microphone to capture the prisoner’s final statement, and into the observation room where relatives of the victims and the prisoner are there to watch the final moments.
It is a short and simple sequence, and yet I think it is far more effective than any flashy camerawork or well-produced dramatization could be, as it really makes you feel as if you are a prisoner being led to your own execution. As the camera moves from the white cellblock to the execution chamber with its sickly green brick walls, you can feel some of the numbing terror of institutionalized death.
And this impression is fleshed out with further information at various moments in the different episodes. In the feature-length, standalone documentary that kicks off the series, Into the Abyss, we hear from the priest who administers the last rites and who stays with the inmate as the poison is administered. Behind him we see the rows of stone crosses, where the prisoners are buried whose families don’t make arrangements. They bear only the prisoner’s ID number, no name.*
Later on in that documentary, we hear from Fred Allen, who was the captain of the team that managed the “Death House.” He describes the final hours of a prisoner: They are allowed to shower, for example, and to put on their civilian clothes. They can use a phone to call loved ones. At the fatal hour, a team of five guards takes the prisoner to the gurney, and are able to have the prisoner strapped down within thirty seconds. Allen performed this routine for over 120 executions. His final job was to unstrap the dead prisoner and move them to a stretcher for removal.**
In the documentary on Hank Skinner—whose execution was stayed by order of the Supreme Court just twenty minutes before it was to take place—we get perhaps the most revealing look at the final moments of an inmate scheduled for death. In Texas, though executions are carried out in Huntsville, the male death row inmates are housed in the Polunsky unit, about 40 miles away. In a powerful sequence, Herzog and his crew make the drive from the one prison to the other, showing what a condemned man would see as his last glimpse of the world outside. As Herzog says, it is rather dreary—the standard tableau of gas stations and billboards facing a highway—but when seen through the eyes of somebody who will shortly cease to exist, even this banal landscape can be crushingly beautiful.
(Skinner has since died in prison, months before his new execution date.)
All of this footage and information serves to make something that is normally quite abstract terrifyingly concrete.*** But perhaps even more valuable than this are the interviews with the inmates. Herzog shows himself in these films to be a masterful, if unorthodox, interviewer. Into the Abyss, for example, opens with Herzog evoking tears from the minister by asking him to explain an encounter with a squirrel.
More generally, he is good at getting his subjects to open up, not just about the details of the cases, but about their inner world—what they miss about the outside world, what they dream about, how they are dealing with their approaching end. Yet sometimes the silences are more revealing than the words. Another of Herzog’s characteristic touches is to hold the camera on a person’s face when they have finished speaking. This is uncomfortable at first, but I think it gives the interactions a certain naturalness that recorded interviews otherwise lack. For in reality we often observe others in silence.
I hesitate to make the following comment, as I am a layperson and have no psychological training whatsoever. Nevertheless, I could not help noticing some strong similarities between many of the subjects. With the exception of Blaine Milam, everyone behind bars whom Herzog interviews is surprisingly articulate and intelligent. More than that, I often got the feeling that they would be adept at convincing and manipulating others, for many of them are persuasive on camera.
This apparent intelligence is striking all the more so for the stupidity of their crimes. The crime at the center of Into the Abyss, for example, is so shocking partly because it was done with so little planning and for such a small reward (a car). Both Douglas Feldman and James Barnes—murderers from other episodes—seem highly intelligent, and yet both were caught for pointless and easily-caught acts of violence (the former, basically a case of road rage, and the later, a domestic dispute). Robert Fratta killed his estranged wife rather than just get a divorce, and Linda Carty murdered a woman for her child, somehow believing she could convince others it was her own. The only notable exception to this pattern of stupidity is George Rivas, of the notorious Texas Seven, who was a methodical planner—most famously, orchestrating a complex prison break.
Another thing I found striking was that so many of these convicts strongly protested their innocence, even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. To be sure, if you are on death row, the only way to potentially avoid execution is to fight for your innocence. Still, even if their circumstances virtually force them to deny the crime, I did notice a lack of regard or concern for the victims of these crimes. Darlie Routier, for example, who was convicted for killing two of her sons, spends all of her time painstakingly going over all of the evidence that could exculpate her, but seems unconcerned that the (supposed) real killer is still on the loose. An even starker example is Douglas Feldman, who gunned down two truck drivers in a random spree of violence. He said in his final statement:
I hereby declare Robert Steven Everett and Nicholas Velasquez guilty of crimes against me, Douglas Alan Feldman. Either by fact or by proxy, I find them both guilty. I hereby sentence both of them to death, which I carried out in 1988.
A starker lack of remorse could hardly be imagined.
Here are a few more similarities that jump out. Two of the convicts in this series, Darlie Routier and Robert Fratta, are notable for being highly superficial, in the sense that they care deeply about how they look and are perceived by others. Another similarity is religion. Many of the convicts, perhaps unsurprisingly, turn to God in their time of need. Fratta, for example, converted to Christianity in prison, and claimed that God had inspired him to invent a new political philosophy (in which all the Christians live together under an elected monarch—oh, and the different races are to live separately), while another murderer, James Barnes, converted to Islam and confessed to additional murders (including some he probably did not commit). Hank Skinner, meanwhile, lost himself in mystical, New Agey numerical coincidences.
If there is one prisoner who stands out as being unlike the others in this series, it is Blaine Milam. In the film, he comes across as somebody who is neither particularly bright nor articulate (indeed, an intellectual disability claim is being reviewed). And he also lacks, for me, the strange remorseless quality I noted in the other convicts. When he talks, he does not sound like he is trying to manipulate you, and he does not plead his case. And yet, he is guilty of perhaps the most disturbing and disgusting crime of all in this series: the brutal torture and murder of a 13-month-old baby girl. Indeed, this murder was so sickening that it dissuaded Herzog from making more of these films.
In fairness to these convicts, I wish to highlight the two who were convicted on the weakest evidence. In my view (and, again, I am the furthest thing from an expert), these are Darlie Routier and Hank Skinner.
For both, the case against them is largely forensic and circumstantial—they were the only people known to be at the scene of a crime, and their blood was found on the murder weapon and the victims. However, in both cases the motive is rather unclear. Furthermore, Routier was herself nearly killed from a knife wound (prosecutors say it was self-inflicted) and Skinner had such a high level of alcohol and codeine in his system that an expert testified he would have been physically unable to commit the brutal triple homicide (though he did walk to a girlfriend’s house shortly after the murder).
For what it’s worth, I personally found the cases against these two to be quite strong, even if it did leave some room for doubt. The theory of their innocence requires, for both, that somebody break into a house and commit a brutal murder—sparing only the person convicted—and then vanish without leaving any trace of their identity. It seems far-fetched to me.
I have gone on about the criminals, but ultimately even they are not at the core of these films. Rather, it is the crimes they committed. These brutal acts are the vital center of these stories, whose effects ripple outward in space and time. Herzog, as usual, does his best to get as close as he can to the moral abyss. He uses archival footage of crime scenes, recordings of interrogations, taped confessions, interviews with police officers and detectives—all this, trying to get a clear look at the worst side of our nature.
This crime sets the convict on a path towards prison and, ultimately, death. And of course it ends the path of the victims. The victims’ stories, instead, reverberate back in time, as they become the centers of investigations and the protagonists of tragedies. And it is perhaps the final tragedy of these victims that they are no longer around even to tell their stories. As one prosecutor explains, when dealing with a murder, there is a kind of asymmetry in our sympathies, since the victim’s suffering is in the past and, therefore, abstract, while the suffering of the criminal is present and palpable.
Herzog cannot, obviously, round out the picture of these crimes by interviewing its victims. But he does his best to give these victims a voice. When he can, he interviews surviving family members. These interviews are (perhaps unsurprisingly) among the most heartbreaking parts of this series—each person faced with a sudden, violent, irrecoverable loss. And though it is uncomfortable, he even asks the murderers to recall their victims—vainly hoping, perhaps, to ignite some spark of conscience. This is a natural extension of his basic attitude: for if Herzog is against the death penalty, he also cannot ignore the evil of murder. As he repeatedly makes clear, he is not opposed to punishment, but to the taking of human life.
There is a repeated image in this series, of birds slowly flying over what appears to be a landfill. They are just pigeons and seagulls, hundreds of them, on the lookout for trash. And yet, the sky and land are so bleak that these birds take on the appearance of vultures circling carrion. This image has no obvious connection to the subject of the film, and yet it somehow seems to embody it. Herzog has a knack for choosing visual metaphors that are powerful without being obvious. This image, I think, represents a feeling rather than a thought: pure desolation—ugly, gray, bleak. This mood hangs over this whole project, lending every moment a certain weight. I think it is a feeling we ought to reckon with.
*In Texas, starting in 2019, ministers could no longer be with inmates as they are executed. This is because, in 2019, the execution of Patrick Murphy was stayed since the prison would not allow a Buddhist minister to be with him in the execution chamber, while Christian ministers could be present. The Supreme Court decided that this constituted religious discrimination and the execution was postponed. In response, Texas simply decided that no ministers, Christian or Buddhist, would be allowed in the execution chamber. This hardly addressed the fundamental issue, in my opinion, as Christian prisoners were still given access to a minister (before the execution), while Buddhist inmates were not. This policy was apparently reversed when, in 2021, John Ramirez won a Supreme Court case that allowed a Baptist minister to be in the execution chamber with him when the fatal injection was administered. In any case, it is rather bizarre to think that the government’s commitment to religious equality is enough to stop an execution from going forward, but not its commitment to avoiding cruel and unusual punishments.
**It is worth noting that, after having participated in so many executions, Allen had a crisis of conscience and decided that the death penalty was immoral. He immediately quit his job, even though he had to give up his pension. This crisis was provoked by the execution of Kayla Faye Tucker in 1998, which was the first execution of a woman in Texas since 1863. As it happened, Tucker had become something of a celebrity, with even some foreign officials supporting clemency for her crimes.
***I cannot resist adding one final morbid detail about the execution process. One popular fixture of executions is the “Last Meal,” in which the prisoner can request virtually anything to enjoy as their final taste of earthly nourishment. Back in 1959, the blues singer Jimmy Rogers released a song, “My Last Meal,” in which he (as a convict) requests an impossible last meal (including dinosaur eggs, mosquito knees, and rattlesnake hips) so that the warden won’t be able to execute him. The reality is far less romantic. In Florida, the cost of the last meal is limited to $40, and in Oklahoma to $25, neither of which is enough to afford anything luxurious. In Texas, however, the practice of the last meal was abolished in 2011, when the white supremecist Lawrence Russell Brewer requested an enormous last meal—indeed, almost worthy of Jimmy Rogers—and then refused to touch it. Now, Texas inmates simply eat whatever is served to the other prisoners.
The Middle Rhine is majestic and impressive, but it is not exactly tranquil. There are barges and ferries full of tourists constantly running up and down the river. There are small villages, yes, but they are often crowded with visitors. During my visit, an American fighter jet even flew over the river valley. The Middle Rhine, in other words, for all of its beauty, is not a trip to the countryside for a bit of scenery and fresh air.
But its little brother, the Moselle, is wonderfully sleepy by comparison. Joining the Rhine at Koblenz (of which, more later), the Moselle seems to flow lazily along when compared to the mighty current of the Rhine. Rather than being surrounded by steep cliffs and towering hills, the land gently rises into green knolls, all of them covered in vineyards.
I observed this gentler valley as my train traveled from Koblenz, and was immediately charmed. My destination was the little town of Moselkern. I had arrived early, and the town was so quiet that it almost seemed abandoned. Nothing was open, and nobody was on the street. But I did notice some silly pieces of doggerel printed on the sides of buildings. In front of the Hotel Kebstock, for example, I read this:
Mein lieber Gast,
laß dich
Nieder mache Rast
Bei Bier und Wein,
bring Glück herein.
An der Mosel
und am Rhein,
trinkt man
den guten Wein.
In essence: “Come on in, drink some wine, and have a rest.” It certainly sounded appealing.
But I couldn’t stay for long, for I was not visiting Moselkern to see the town. Rather, as I had been doing so often on this trip, I was there to see a castle: Burg Eltz.
As you may know, most castles everywhere are situated in or near a town, normally on a piece of high ground. This particular castle, however, is not in any town, but right in the middle of a forest. To get there, in other words, I had to take a hike.
I marched out of Moselkern headed northwest, following the Elzbach, a little stream that empties into the Moselle. Very soon I found myself completely surrounded by woods. It was marvelous. As I have had occasion to say many times on this blog, one thing I miss about New York is the lush greenery of its forests. For all of its beauty, most of Spain is relatively dry and arid, the landscape yellowish and bare. Thus, I intensely savored the sensation of being, once again, in a dense, green wilderness, surrounded by birdsong and close to the sound of running water. Indeed, I found this hike so intoxicatingly enjoyable that I almost forgot about the famous castle. Later on, I found that this forest is actually an official nature reserve.
Now, it is possible to reach the castle by shuttle bus. But for anyone contemplating visiting the Eltz Burg, I highly recommend doing so this way. Stepping from under the canopy and into the clearing, and seeing the enormous castle above you, is a tremendous experience—the closest that you can probably get to time travel.
(Another tip for travelers is to bring cash, since the castle does not take credit cards and there are no ATMs in sight. Thankfully, I came prepared. You should also be aware that the castle is only available for visits from April to October.)
At first glance, the castle is both imposing and perplexing. It is difficult to imagine what such a magnificent keep is doing seemingly in the middle of nowhere. This mystery is resolved when we learn that this used to be an important trade route between farmers to the north and the Moselle to the south, where their crops could be shipped downstream. This is such a key point to control that there has been a fortress of some kind here for over a millennium. And for most of that time, the castle was controlled by one family: the Eltz.
This is precisely what makes Burg Eltz so special. It has been in the possession of a single family since the Middle Ages, and it still is today. This has made for truly exceptional preservation. Most of the Rhine castles, for example, were damaged or destroyed in various wars; and what stands today are usually later reconstructions, often with whimsical Romantic fancies added on. Even the best-preserved castle on the Rhine, the Marksburg, does not have its original furnishings. But the Eltz is a kind of enormous time-capsule, an unbroken link to the medieval past.
Burg Eltz has only ever been seriously attacked once. The evidence of this is to be found on a hill overlooking the castle, where the ruins of a small fortress can be seen. This is the Burg Trutzeltz, which was constructed to bombard Burg Eltz with catapults and primitive canons. This was part of a local power struggle of the 14th century, known as the Eltz Feud, in which the knights of Eltz Castle struggled to maintain their independence from the Bishop of Trier. Eventually they capitulated and the family became once again vassals. As it stands now, the castle is remarkable more for its beauty than for its value as a fortification. Indeed, the tall, flat walls of the castle would make it an easy target for canonfire. I would wager that a single piece of artillery could wreck the place.
I climbed up the stairs to the main rampart—quite sweaty by now—and bought a ticket for the next guided tour. It would start in about 45 minutes, which gave me some time to visit the castle’s treasury. This is a kind of miniature museum in what appears to be the castle’s dungeon, exhibiting the family’s most valuable possessions. Some of the objects on display are quite fine, exhibiting the prosperity of this aristocratic family. There are, for example, ceremonial crossbows and ornate hunting rifles. And of course, courtly life requires plenty of fine dining. There are ivory drinking vessels, silverware with mother-of-pearl handles, and even a weird mechanical drinking game, a device which participants would wind up and release on the table, dooming one unlucky (or lucky) couple to draining its contents.
I have to admit that, most of the time, the accoutrements of the upper crust leave me feeling a little cold. As impressive as is the workmanship and artistry required to make such items, to my eyes their aesthetic value is drowned by their proclamation of wealth. This collection, however, was more charming to me for being the accumulated possessions of one single family, displayed in what is still—to an extent, at least—their family home. There certainly is an anthropological value, at least, to seeing authentic examples of luxury in their original context.
Now it was time for the tour. (There are no photos allowed on the tour, but the website has photos of all of the major rooms.)
Once again, I normally find tours of aristocratic or royal dwellings to be kind of depressing. But the interior of Burg Eltz was unlike any other building I have seen. Even though it was obviously the home of a wealthy family, the furnishings of the room often struck me as being charmingly rustic. The roof timbers were visible and the supporting columns were irregularly carved. The Eltz were a family of knights, and their arms and armor form an important part of the decoration.
But by far my favorite aspect of the castle were the wall decorations. These include vegetable motifs vaguely reminiscent of Muslim decorative styles (possibly brought back from the Crusades). Yet compared to, say, the Alhambra’s elegant designs, those in Burg Eltz are sort of clumsy and clodish. I do not mean this as an insult, however, as I found the taste displayed in these decorations to be beguilingly foreign—that is, genuinely medieval, and alien to modern sensibilities of line and color. To repeat myself, a visit to this castle is the closest one can come to a trip back in time, so wonderfully does it preserve the flavor of the Middle Ages.
After an hour, I was back outside. I was both satisfied and exhausted. The only place to eat nearby is in the castle’s café, where I had—what else?—a plate of currywurst and pommes, along with a beer. Fortified, I decided that I ought to explore the lovely forest some more before venturing onward. Thus, I walked on a circular path that goes around the valley below the castle. The best part was the view of the castle from across this valley, its grey spires contrasting against the sea of green around it. By the time I circled back to the castle, I was convinced that this is one of the great destinations of Europe. The castle itself is first-rate. Its dramatic location in the middle of the woods pushes it into another realm entirely.
After another hike, I was back in Moselkern. (In retrospect, I think I could have taken the path instead to the neighboring town of Müden, just for the sake of variety.) Here, I caught a train to the biggest town nearby: Cochem. “Big” is, of course, a relative term here, as Cochem has just about 5,000 residents, making it about half the size of my own little hometown, Sleepy Hollow. Nevertheless, it is a very attractive place, with the local castle—the Reichsburg Cochem—sitting on a hillock overlooking the quiet houses below. This attractive castle, as it happens, is yet another example of Romantic reconstruction, as the original was burned down by French troops in 17th century.
(Cochem has a long history, but perhaps the most interesting thing about the town is that, during the Cold War, it was in this sleepy place that West Germany kept its emergency supply of currency. In a bunker located beneath some nondescript houses, 15 billion German marks were stored away, to be used in case East Germany started counterfeiting their money.)
The cellar of the wine bar.
There is, I am sure, a great deal of sightseeing to be done here. But I was quite saturated by this point in the day, and was far more interested in sampling the local wine. The seemingly endless vineyards surrounding the valley in every direction seemed to confirm this desire. Thus, I found my way to a wine bar on the side opposite the town center, sat down on a wooden chair outside, and had a drink. In fact, I have to admit that I had a few. It was just too pleasant to give it up. The weather was perfect, the wine refreshing, and I had nothing else to do. Also, the knowledgeable bartender was quite willing to explain German wines to a clueless foreigner. I listened intently and retained exactly nothing of what he said.
After I decided that I couldn’t have another glass without jeopardizing my return journey, I reluctantly made my way back to the train to return to Koblenz. I had one night left in Germany.
Koblenz is a proper city, with a population of well over 100,000. Like many places in Germany, Koblenz was bombed nearly out of existence during the Second World War, and had to be rebuilt. As a result, it is not exactly the stereotype of a charming European urban center. Nevertheless, I found it to be quite a pleasant place to relax after my journeys on the Rhine and the Mosel. It was quiet, convenient, and not entirely bereft of charm.
There is only one major tourist attraction in Koblenz, and that is the Deutsches Eck (literally the “German Corner”). This is the point where the mighty Rhine meets the charming Moselle, thus creating a cultural and a literal confluence. It was here that Wilhelm II—last king of Germany—decided to construct one of the many monuments to his grandfather, Wilhelm I. It seems to have been the younger Wilhelm’s object to elevate his grandfather to the status of national hero. He even demanded that Wilhelm I be referred to as “der Große” (“the great”). All over Germany, massive statues of the Kaiser were erected.
To be sure, the first Wilhelm was an important figure in German history, as it was during his reign that, with the help of Bismark, he achieved unification of the separate German states. Much like Italy, you see, for much of European history Germany was split into several dozen states, each with its own laws, currency, and ruler. During the 19th century, both Germany and Italy were unified in a wave of patriotic nationalism, thus allowing them to compete on an equal footing with France and England for domination of Europe. The symbolism of the confluence of these two rivers was surely not lost on those who built this monument.
Where the rivers meet.
The enormous equestrian statue that now rides atop the stone pedestal is, however, a reconstruction. The first statue survived the WWII bombing of Koblenz, but was hit by American artillery fire during the invasion of Germany (sorry about that). The pedestal was bare for several decades until the statue was finally replaced after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. Hoisting up the statue of a dead Kaiser may be an odd gesture to celebrate the end of communist rule, but it did help bring tourists to the city.
When I visited, the place was full of locals and tourists alike. The huge pedestal is a pleasant place to sit and enjoy the river, or for kids to climb and play on. Nearby, one can see the Koblenz cable car, which takes riders over the Rhine (sadly, I didn’t make time to go). The journey ends on the other bank of the Rhine, on the hill upon which sits Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. A real modern fortification rather than a romantic faux-medieval castle, this fortress is not exactly beautiful, but it is perhaps worth visiting for the view alone.
On my first night in Koblenz, I was so tired that I just peeked into a Lidl for a premade sandwich and some chips and ate this paltry dinner in my Airbnb. On my second night, after a day of exploring the Rhine, I made the mistake of choosing a fast food place in the old city center (overpriced and unsatisfying). Finally, on my last night in Koblenz and in Germany, I had the good sense to find a biergarten. There is an excellent one—enormous, with hundreds of outdoor seats—right beside the Deutsches Eck.
Here, I ordered some sausages and potatoes and a large mug of German beer and sat down on one of the wooden chairs under the shady plain trees. Now, there is something that foreigners ought to know when drinking at a biergarten. The lovely glass mugs (or “steins,” as they are called in English, but not in German!) have proven to be so tempting that many people simply walk off with them as souvenirs. To combat this, one must often pay a deposit, called the “Pfand,” which is normally a euro or so. This amount is then returned to you when you bring the mug back to a special window.
I am clearly not a food photographer
Well, there I was, enjoying the fading light of my last evening on the Rhine, sipping an excellent beer and savoring the full feeling in my stomach, when I heard people talking right behind me. It was a couple, and they were wondering how they could use the bathroom. The door, you see, had a lock on it, and you had to put in a euro to open it. However, I had just found out that, if you asked one of the cashiers, they could give you a key to open it without paying. I turned around and conveyed this information in my best German, for which I was heartily thanked.
The interaction then took a strange turn. The female half of the couple spoke quite decent English and started asking me polite questions about myself. I did the same, and found out that they were young newlywed Germans on a little vacation. She then left (to go to the bathroom, naturally) and I was stuck chatting with the male partner. He was quite drunk and for some reason was convinced that he was able to speak English. What came out of his mouth, however, was a totally incoherent series of sounds with the occasional English word thrown in. I tried telling him that I could understand German, but it was of no avail, and I was subjected to a stream of literal nonsense until his partner returned. Hastily, I made my exit, and walked back to the monument.
I sat on the steps and looked out. The Rhine and the Moselle were beautiful in the sunset, and I felt very sad that I had to go. It had been an absolutely wonderful vacation. One day, I am sure, I will come back.
There is probably no landscape so evocative of Germany as the Middle Rhine. It is as if everything from the water to the trees were composed by Richard Wagner. With its rolling green hills, the river bustling with barge traffic, the quaint villages and innumerable castles, the whole place is like the fever dream of some 19th century romantic poet. This is what I was here to explore.
I had traveled from Düsseldorf that morning (nearly a two-hour trip) and arrived in Koblenz—the largest city in this section of the Rhine—by noon. There, I dropped my big backpack in a storage locker and then immediately hopped on another train.
In just another 15 minutes, I was in Braubach, a sleepy little town on the eastern bank of the river. But I was not here for the village. Instead, I walked straight to the top of the hill that overlooks the town, rushing so as to catch the first possible tour. I was going to visit the Marksburg. (Some people say “Marksburg Castle,” but “burg” already means “castle.”)
Now, the Rhineland has been an important territory since Roman times. Simultaneously a geographic division (near the border with France), as well as a major artery of trade, the river is a key to political and economic dominance. As a result, it is densely packed with castles and fortifications, from those hoping to defend from invasion or extract tolls. Most of these castles have been destroyed in one war or another. The castles standing today are, most of them, reconstructions dating from the 19th century, when the Rhine became an epicenter of the Romantic movement.
But the Marksburg is one of only two castles which was never burned down or blown up (though it was severely damaged by the Americans in 1945—sorry). For that reason, it is one of the jewels of the river.
You can only visit the Marksburg on a tour, and most of these are in German. Yet anglophones need not fear: non-German speakers are given a little information card to read along as the tour guide explains what’s what. I optimistically thought that my German might be good enough to catch at least some of my guide’s explanation (which sounded very engaging), though I quickly had to admit that I was in over my head. Still, it was a fascinating visit.
We began by entering the main gate. Immediately I was given a sense of how difficult it would have been to actually conquer this castle, for we found ourselves in a kind of narrow stone passageway with a wooden platform above us. For any archers—or even for a boy with a heavy rock to throw—we would have been sitting ducks. On the wall were the coats of arms of all of the noble families who once controlled this castle. At the top there was a battery of cannons pointed out towards the Rhine. Looking out, I could see that any ships on the river below would be in much the same position as a soldier storming through the gate—proverbial fish in barrels.
Now, because the castle fell into neglect before its acquisition by the German Castles Association, none of its original furnishings remain. Thus, the interior of the castle is more of a museum than a time-capsule. There is, for example, a room dedicated to the different types of arms and armor used by soldiers throughout history (a bit corny, to be honest), and a garden full of plants important to the medieval herbarium. I particularly liked the kitchen full of period utensils; it put me in the mood for a kingly feast (though I had to settle for currywurst in the castle’s café). But the most beautiful thing to see were the romanesque frescoes on the wall of the chapel.
The medieval kitchen
The chapel with Romanesque frescoes
My next stop was a town bearing the attractive name of Sankt Goarshausen. This town is yet another fairly nondescript village on the Rhine. Its main claim to fame is being next to the Lorelei—a huge rocky cliff at a pronounced bend in the river. For centuries, this was a perilous point of navigation for water traffic on the Rhine, and so various legends have grown up to explain the numerous shipwrecks. The most famous of these involves a kind of blond siren who distracts sailors with her beauty. This legend was put into verse by the famed poet Heinrich Heine, whose poem has been set to music by several composers. Here are a few lines:
Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt
Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar
Ihr Goldenes Geschmied blitzet
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar
In English this goes something like this:
The air is cool, and darkness comes
And quietly flows the Rhine
The mountain peaks are glistening
In the rays of the evening sun
There sits the beautiful maiden
Up there, wondrous
Her golden jewels are shining
She combs her golden hair
You get the idea. Well, beautiful maidens notwithstanding, the Lorelei is indeed a navigational hazard. As recently as 2011, a barge met its demise at this place. And as with seemingly all capsized boats, this one was carrying an environmental hazard—in this case, several thousand tons of sulphuric acid. Sorry, fish.
I was here because I wanted to climb up to the top. The path was short but steep, consisting of one staircase after another. On the way, I passed a sign that told me not to “desecrate this holy place,” as it was meant to “honor German heathens.” Duly warned, I arrived panting and sweaty at the top, where there was a small park with an excellent view of the river. When I caught my breath and got my fill of the scenery, I decided that it was time to return to Sankt Goarshausen. Instead of going straight back down the way I came up, I followed another path on my map that seemed less steep. Soon I found myself in the middle of a field of wheat. I kept going, and soon the Burg Katz (“Cat Castle”) came into view. This is more of a mansion attached to a derelict turret than a proper castle, and in any case is now privately owned and not open to visitors. But it does make for a good photo.
(A bit upriver is the humorously named Burg Maus, or “Mouse Castle,” which was built by the rivals of the Counts of Katzenellenbogen.)
At Sankt Goarshausen I had a beer to cool off and then caught the train back to Koblenz. That was it for my first day on the Rhine. I had been moving nonstop since the early morning, and I needed dinner and a shower. But I still had the next full day to explore.
Early the next morning, the train left me in Sankt Goar. This town is directly opposite where I was the day before, visiting the Lorelei. Indeed, Sankt Goar is the sibling town of Sankt Goarshausen, the two being named after Goar of Aquitaine, who served as bishop in Trier, over 100 km to the west. For many years now, a bridge has been proposed to connect these two estranged sisters (which would be the first bridge to cross the middle Rhine), but it has yet to be built. Instead, a ferry runs back and forth a few times a day.
I was here to see yet another castle, one of the biggest on the Rhine: the Rheinfels. In its prime, the fortress must have been enormous and formidable. Much of the structure was built under the auspices of the awesome Count of Katzenelbogen (“Cat’s Elbows”), of Katz Castle, who wanted to use the two castles to extract tolls from river traffic.
Burg Rheinfels before it was destroyed.
Unfortunately for us, during one of the many wars between the Germans and the French (this one during the French Revolution), invading troops decided to make an example of the iconic castle and ruined it (in technical terms, “slighting”). This was something of a scandal. Although the castle had, in previous conflicts, proven its ability to withstand attacks and sieges by far superior forces, the aging commander Philip Valentin von Resius, upon hearing that a huge French army was approaching, abandoned the castle in great haste. The keep was thus taken without a fight, even though it may very well have withstood the attack. As a result, the French walked right into the abandoned castle, and decided to demonstrate French might. Now only a fraction of the original building remains.
In my enthusiasm to take full advantage of my day on the Rhine, I arrived at the castle gates right as it was opening. I was the first and, for most of my visit, the only visitor in the enormous compound. If memory serves, I was given a little information card that had information about what each section of the castle used to be. But to be honest, I am not particularly interested in castle architecture nor in medieval warfare, and this was of scant interest to me. Instead, I savored the atmosphere of quiet ruin that hung about the place. I walked into one of the intact chambers, in the basement, and whistled—the echo ricocheting like a pinball off the walls. Then, after strolling through the ruins, I sat on a bench overlooking a valley behind the castle. It was a perfect summer day, and I felt that surreal sensation of being absolutely relaxed in a place which you have only ever seen in pictures.
My reverie was broken by a sound. The scream of an airplane engine caught my ear. And although I assumed it would naturally die down, the sound instead quickly increased into an overwhelming roar. For a moment, I panicked. Was a plane about to crash into the castle and incinerate me?
Then the sound suddenly died away. Curious, I ran towards where it had come from, the river, but there was nothing to see. So I asked the man at the ticket booth, who told me that it was an American fighter jet, from a nearby military base. Sometimes they fly low over the valley in training flights. War is still close at hand in the Rhine Valley. (The town was occupied by the French again in World War I, and then taken by American troops in World War II.)
My castle quota reached for the day, I decided to have a little snack. My original idea was to walk into town and have a quick sandwich. Aside from the Rheinfels, there is very little to do or see in Sankt Goar. But its central street is attractive and charming. Though normally I don’t have a sweet tooth, a display of cakes and pastries caught my eye, and I decided to change my plans. Instead of a sandwich, I had a slice of Black Forest Cake (Schwarzwald Küchen). Very satisfying.
My stomach pleased, I walked over to the riverside, where I bought a ticket for the only operating ferry on this part of the Rhine: Köln-Düsseldorfer. I acquired my ticket and noted down the departure times. It was going to leave in just over an hour. This left me with enough time to visit the wine bar across the river from the Lorelei. It was a long walk and I had to rush; but as I knew from my trip to Vienna that Germanic white wine is delicious, I decided that it was worth it. I arrived sweaty and parched, which made the wine especially good but difficult to savor. I wished I had more time, but the ferry was approaching and I couldn’t risk missing my boat.
The ferry pulled into the harbor and I climbed up to the top floor, where a bunch of other sunburnt tourists were baking under the sun. The ride was slow and scenic, reminding me of the ferry I had taken the previous month in Lago di Como. Every little town seemed to have its own castle, and much of the remaining land was given over to vineyards. The most impressive sight was the ship-shaped Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, which has been built in the middle of the river. It used to work with the nearby Gutenfels castle to extract tolls from passing ships. Unlike so many other fortifications on this martial river, the Pfalzgrafenstein has never been seriously damaged. However, as it was only a military bastion and never the home of a nobleman, its interior is quite spartan. (You can take a tour from nearby Kaub, but I read that it wasn’t worth it.)
Pfalzgraben and Gutenfels
The boat deposited me in Bacharach, one of the most famous villages on the river. The town is full of delightful half-timbered houses—one of them goes all the way back to the 1300s century—giving it a kind of stereotypical German quaintness. Yet as soon as I got off the boat, I decided to walk up into the vineyards on the hill surrounding the river, in order to get a better vantage point. There, I climbed up one of the old watch-towers of the medieval town, the Postenturm, to get a wonderful view of the Rhine valley beyond. After getting my fill of the scenery, I walked up the main road to the Steeger Tor, a gate from the old medieval walls.
Bacharach from the water. On the left, on the hill, is the Stahleck. On the right is the Postenturm.
The town of Bacharach is crowned with yet another impressive castle, the Stahleck. I decided not to make the trek up to visit, however, as it is now used as a youth hostel. (In any case, like many of the castles on the Rhine, this one is a reconstruction of a previous castle destroyed in war.) But I did walk up to appreciate the Wernerkapelle. This is a beautiful gothic ruin on a hilltop—a perfect romantic combination of medieval mystery and desolation. Unfortunately, the story of this chapel is not so pleasant. It is named after a young boy who was murdered in the 13th century. The townspeople blamed the local Jewish population (with no evidence, of course), which led to a massacre of 40 people. The past can be very inconveniently ugly.
After getting my fill of the sights and views, I decided to kill the time remaining for my return ferry journey by sampling more of the local wine. The typical wines of the region are all white wines, crisp and fresh. Very refreshing. I lapsed into a kind of half-drunk, half-dehydrated reverie.
Finally it was time to return to Koblenz. Luckily for me, the return journey happened to be on the most famous boat on the Rhine, the RMS Goethe. The largest side-paddle steamer in the world, this boat began sailing back in 1913. After being hit by a bomb in the Second World War, it sat for some time on the bottom of the Rhine, until it was finally restored in the 1990s. Nowadays, it is floating nostalgia. I nabbed a seat on one of the side decks and enjoyed a final beer as we crawled up to Sankt Goar. It was the golden hour and the river was especially beautiful. I could see why so many countries and leaders have spent so many centuries fighting over it.
I had loved my time on the Rhine. In many ways, it reminded me of my home in the Hudson Valley—small towns nestled along a picturesque river. Even the verdant landscape was reminiscent of upstate New York. But of course, there are no castles where I’m from (or, at least, no real ones), and our wine is not nearly as good. At least we have better pizza.
I saw my first Werner Herzog film in my final year at college. I found out at the last minute that, to graduate on time, I needed to take some kind of history class. For some reason that I don’t remember (maybe cultural aspirations), I chose an introduction to Art History. It was taught by an unenthusiastic and disgruntled graduate student (by the end of that semester he would quit his program to become a chiropractor), yet it somehow left a deep impression on me. I had very limited knowledge of ancient and medieval art, and I can still vividly remember first seeing photos of the Book of Kells and the Boudreaux Tapestry.
But probably my most intense experience of art came early in the semester, when we were learning about prehistoric art. In the middle of class, the professor mentioned, offhand, that there was a recent documentary by Werner Herzog about the caves of Lascaux. I had never heard of Herzog, but I decided to look for the film anyway. It was not at all what I expected. Rather than a standard overview of what we know about cave paintings (which is not much, anyway), the film is an attempt to come to terms with the painters as artists. I felt cheated at first—thinking the film unscientific and wishy-washy—but, by the end, I was convinced that Herzog had indeed taken the right approach. For he does the most important thing, which is to try to recreate with his camera the actual experience of being in the caves.
Later on, I saw Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo—probably his two most famous films, both with the unstable actor Klaus Kinski—though I have to admit that neither of them left a particularly deep impression on me. It was only this past summer that I fell completely under Herzog’s spell, when my friends invited me to watch Grizzly Man. I was completely transfixed by it, and (as is typical with me, when I find something I really like) I found myself bringing it up in conversation months afterwards. And so I fell down the rabbit hole—or, to put it in more Herzogian terms, I plunged headfirst into the abyss.
One reason that I became so enamored of his films is because Herzog captures images on film that I’ve only dreamed about: What is it like to swim under the ice, or to get lost in the desert, or to walk inside a volcano, or indeed to be in a cave full of prehistoric paintings? The human experiences that Herzog likes to explore also attract my morbid imagination: living on death row, being attacked by a bear, surviving in the jungle after falling from the air (both Dieter Dengler and Julianes Sturz). And I find Herzog’s manner of approaching these images and experiences to be wonderfully human—perhaps, because he is such a pedestrian filmmaker. I mean that literally, in that his films always convey a kind of physical closeness, as if you are there walking beside him. His most characteristic touch as a filmmaker, I’d argue, are his shots in which the footsteps of the cameraman are palpable.
But above all, I appreciate his films and documentaries because they are not about the interpersonal struggles that characterize so much of Hollywood—between children and parents, or between friends, or above all between couples. Granted, this means that his work generally has little value as social commentary, in the way that, say, a classic Victorian novel has. Yet it makes up for it by being about what is, for me, the ultimate theme: the doomed struggle between humanity and the universe. This is summed up in what is arguably the central image in his entire oeuvre, the challenge of Fitzcarraldo: lifting a boat over a mountain in the middle of the jungle. Indeed, the making of the film itself became such an impossible task that it is doubly metaphoric.
Well, I have gone on about Herzog’s work as a filmmaker, but this is a book review, after all. Yet it is apropos, my reaction to this book only makes sense if you know that I am in the midst of a Herzog obsession. And I would only recommend the book to people in a similar predicament. That is, it is difficult for me to imagine someone with only a casual interest in Herzog, or perhaps just wishing to read a good book of memoires, really enjoying the book. Yet if you are a fan, this is wonderful reading.
Or listening. It was an easy decision to experience the book in audio format, narrated in Herzog’s iconic voice. It is certainly good practice for my Herzog impersonation (though it’s still mediocre). Also, it was constantly amusing whenever Herzog pronounced any sort of foreign word—be it German, Spanish, or Nahuatl—as his voice became inundatingly phlegmy.
While Herzog is an extremely thoughtful person—indeed, he seems to be one of the last living examples of the twentieth-century European intellectual, full of strange opinions and oracular pronouncements—while that is true, as I was saying, he is not particularly introspective. To the contrary, he declares himself the enemy of psychoanalysis, and says that there are parts of the human psyche which should remain shrouded in darkness. It is this aversion to delving emotional depths, I think, which makes him spurn human relationships as the focus of his work—and, it seems, as the focus of his life, for he does not seem to be principally motivated by his family or friends.
What motivates him artistically and personally are, rather, what you might call miniature obsessions. The geneses of his films seem to take the following form: He hears a piece of music (such as the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo) or a story (such as about the simultaneously-speaking twins, Freda and Greta Chaplin) or sees an image (such as man in a protective suit battling an oil fire) and then decides he must make a film about it.
This tendency to get completely lost in a temporary fixation is another quality I share with Herzog. But the big difference between him and sorry devils such as myself is that Herzog is not content to read a book or watch a movie about his latest mania. He actually travels to the ends of the earth to explore it himself.
His absolute determination to see his projects through, regardless of the hardships or the risks, is perhaps his most admirable (and frightening) quality, and the one I identify with the least. I am a soft person who likes comfort, while this book is full of hardship after hardship and injury after injury. It is sometimes difficult to escape the conclusion that the man is a masochist. But I think it is more accurate to say that he has a philosophic attitude to pain. It is woven into his worldview, as something he simply expects to receive from the universe.
Now, I do have to confess at the end of this review that, now and then, I do get a faint whiff of charlatanism. Herzog seems to like telling stories about himself, and he also seems to have a flexible attitude towards the truth (as explained in his theory of “ecstatic truth”). There are precious few flashes of, say, self-deprecating humor to puncture the popular caricature of himself. But even if Herzog the man does not quite live up to Herzog the character, the artistic persona is so compelling that I think we would have to invent him ourselves if he did not really exist.
Düsseldorf is not on many travel agendas. Indeed, it doesn’t even merit a mention in the copy of Rick Steves’s Germany travel guide that I had brought with me. For my part, I knew close to nothing about the place. And yet this was my destination.
As it happened, a friend of mine from Spain, Sai, had moved here (for work), and offered me a place to sleep on his sofa. Another coincidence: my German conversational partner, Karen—whom I had met in Scotland—lived quite closeby, and offered to show me around. So Düsseldorf it was.
Düsseldorf is named after the river Düssel, a tributary of the nearby Rhine, which flows through the city. (“Dorf” means town or village.) While the Rhine Valley is famous for its dramatic hills and castles, at this point the land is extremely flat and highly urbanized. Not for nothing does Steves call it the “unromantic Rhine.” With over 600,000 inhabitants, Düsseldorf is a medium-sized city, somewhat smaller than nearby Cologne (with which it has a fierce rivalry). Despite this, it is Düsseldorf, not Cologne, which is the capital of the region.
Sai was busy at work, so it was Karen who showed me around the city. First, she took me to Königsalle, the widest boulevard in the country. It is so wide because a large landscaped canal runs through the center of it, with bridges covered in ornamental statues crossing the water. But Kö (as the locals call it) is mainly famous for its upscale shopping, with luxury store after luxury store. Each of these locales, as Karen pointed out, has a kind of bouncer out front, controlling access to the expensive goods within. It was a slightly sickening sight.
After that, Karen took me to the marina of the city, where a few dozen smaller, private boats are docked. There, we sat on a park bench and admired the Neuer Zollhof. These are a group of three buildings designed by Frank Gehry, which feature the characteristic twisting architecture familiar to anyone who has seen, say, the Dancing House in Prague or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Each one is made out of a different material—brick, plaster, and reflective stainless steel—but when I visited, the plaster was in poor shape.
This pretty much concluded my first tour of the main sights of Düsseldorf. From there, we walked along the river Rhine. It was a hot day, and I wondered why nobody was swimming in the water. But I quickly gathered that that would be a bad idea. For one, the current is surprisingly fast and strong, easily able to sweep you downstream. I also doubt that the water is particularly clean, considering the constant traffic of barges passing up and downstream. Even now, the Rhine is a major artery of commerce. I enjoyed watching them go by, wondering at their cargo. The captains and crew must live a good chunk of their lives on these ships, which sometimes had the appearance of mobile homes—with their cars parked on the back and, in some cases, their kids playing on a swing set as the boat drifted downstream.
In Germany, drinking in public is perfectly legal (a wonderful state of affairs!). Thus, we bought beers at a stand and sat down on some beach chairs facing the river. This was my first taste of Altbier, the local beer of Düsseldorf. It is sort of rust colored and has a strong, hoppy taste. (It is called “old beer” because it is fermented with yeast that floats on top, which is older than the bottom-fermenting yeast used to make lagers.) Despite being brewed like ales, however, its taste is quite distinct, and significantly lighter. As I discovered later, Altbier—like Kölsch, its rival from Cologne—is typically served in small glasses, which are circulated by the waiter on a tray. When you take a glass, the server puts a mark on your coaster, thus keeping a tally of your drinks.
Altbier
We finished up the day by going to dinner in a Japanese restaurant. It was excellent. Düsseldorf, you see, has one of the largest Japanese populations in Europe. Indeed, Düsseldorf is a highly diverse city in general, with a substantial Chinese population and a great many immigrants from within Europe. Shortly after I arrived, for example, Sai took me to one of the Asian supermarkets near his apartment, and I was astounded at the selection of available foods and ingredients. A few days later, Sai invited me to a picnic in the park with some friends of his, most of whom were of Chinese extraction. We had a veritable feast of non-German foods.
Sai has a demanding job, but he found the time to show me around the city a bit. We took a walk towards the Kö-Bogen, a large and flashy complex of office buildings near the Königsalle. Nearby is the Hofgarten, Düsseldorf’s central park. It was a beautiful day and the park was full of strolling families and youngsters lounging on park benches. Soon, we came upon an impressive neoclassical statue, consisting of a perfectly muscular young man who is dying on his bed, accompanied by a sympathetic lion. This is a war memorial, but not one dedicated to either World War. Instead, this commemorates the dead of the German wars of independence as well as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Since that time, war memorials have become less beautiful and more anguished.
My friend Sai having fun in Düsseldorf
As it happened, the day of the picnic with Sai was also some kind of museum day. This meant that many of the city’s museums were free to visit and open late. Many of these institutions are probably well worth a visit, but I had other plans. I wanted to go out to the city’s Altstadt (Old Town) to enjoy some of the famous nightlife.
A blury photo of the festivities
This proved to be a mistake. Sai and I arrived shortly after dinner, and the entire neighborhood was completely overrun. There were bachelor and bachelorette parties, and groups of university students on the prowl. Every single one of the seemingly innumerable bars was packed. I was astounded that such a seemingly sleepy town could turn into what struck me as a giant frat party. During the day, Düsseldorf seemed so perfectly bourgeois; but at night, it was overtaken by a kind of adolescent, macho drunkenness. Sai and I had a few of the Altbiers at a bar, but quickly retreated from the noise and chaos. Instead, we got some beers at a corner store and walked along the Rhine. Even here, it was scarcely quieter. For me, being stuck in the middle of so many drunk young people made me distinctly uncomfortable, and it was a relief when we called it a night early.
Such was my experience of Düsseldorf, a city that perhaps deserved more of my time and attention. My brief impression was rather confused. With its high-end shopping, large immigrant community, and raucous night-life, the city seemed to have a split personality. Next, it was time to visit its rival.
Köln
Cologne is in every way a bigger city than Düsseldorf. With over a million inhabitants, it feels properly urban. Whereas the Düsseldorf train station makes very little impression, for example, Köln’s enormous Hauptbahnhof immediately conveys to you its size and importance.
I visited on a tight schedule. This was several days after my visit to Düsseldorf. That morning, I had left my Airbnb in Koblenz (in the Rhine valley, to be related in a future post) in order to return to Düsseldorf for my evening flight back to Madrid. Cologne was one of the major stops on the commuter train from Koblenz, so it was easy to get off and see this famous German city as a final sightseeing stop.
Indeed, Cologne seems custom-made for day trippers. The train station is full of automated luggage storage lockers, which bring your baggage to the basement via an elevator. It was easy to use, cheap, and worked perfectly.
Right next to the station is Cologne’s principal tourist attraction: the Kölner Dom, the city’s magnificent gothic cathedral. Like many European churches, it took several eras to complete. It was begun in the 1200s, in a pure gothic style; but construction was stopped in the 16th century, the Renaissance, with still half of the church unbuilt. For centuries, the half-built cathedral stood in the city, with the medieval wooden crane still mounted atop one of the towers. Finally, in the 1800s, when a romantic passion for the medieval past was sweeping over Europe, it was decided to finish the building according to its original plans. Its completion in 1880—632 years after it was begun—became a national celebration for the relatively new nation of Germany (unified on January 1, 1871).
An unusual vantage point on the cathedral
Since I had recently visited Italy, it was natural to compare the Kölner Dom to that other massive gothic church which took 600 years to finish: the Duomo of Milan. For my part, the German church is the clear winner. Whereas the Duomo is a confused mess of spikes and statues, the Cologne Cathedral has a unified and coherent aesthetic. Its first and last impression is of overwhelming verticality, as if the church is a kind of spiritual rocket about to take off towards heaven. Indeed, even today Cologne Cathedral is among the tallest church buildings in the world, stretching up 157 meters (or over 500 feet). Even its bell is big. The enormous Petersglocke (affectionately called “Fat Peter”) is the second-largest swinging bell in the world, weighing one ton more than the massive Pummerin in Vienna.
Like so many churches and monuments in Europe, the Cologne Cathedral was badly damaged during the Second World War. On a wall near the cathedral, you can see photos of the destruction. The entire city of Cologne was turned into rubble from Allied bombing raids, but the towers of the cathedral remained standing. In the final battle for the city, a German Panzer tank fought a rearguard battle against advancing Allied armor, disabling two Sherman tanks in the process. It was finally destroyed by one of the new American Pershing tanks—an event captured on video by an attached American cameraman.
The still-standing cathedral amid the ruined city and the collapsed bridge.
Right across from the cathedral is (or was, it seems to have been moved) the Roman-Germanic Museum. Cologne, you see, was originally a provincial outpost of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the name of the city comes from the Latin colonia. As a result, the area is abounding in Roman ruins, many of which are collected in this museum. Right nearby is the Ludwig Museum, the city’s premier institution of modern art.
But with my limited time, I decided to go slightly further off and visited the Wallrat-Richartz Museum. Its clunky name notwithstanding, this is a fantastic painting gallery, with a collection that spans from the gothic to the early 20th century. The medieval section is likely the strongest, as the museum has many excellent examples of gothic paintings, some of the best I have ever seen. But with Rembrandt, Monet, and Van Gogh in attendance, there is no lack of quality in the other departments.
Right across the street is the Farina Fragrance Museum. It was here that the Italian Giovanni Maria Farina (whose name is often Germanized to Johann) produced his famous eau de cologne (“water of Cologne”); and they are still in business to this day. (Curiously, although in English cologne is normally marketed for men, in Spanish “colonia” does not have such gendered connotations.)
From there, I went back in the direction of the cathedral. From there, I walked across the Heinrich-Böll Platz, where I noticed a strange sign in French. Apparently, the city’s concert hall was constructed under this square. But it was not well-conceived, for the sounds of people walking could be clearly heard in the Philharmonie. Thus, every time there is a performance, the plaza must be closed to foot traffic. Lucky for me, there was no symphony going on, and I could cross without issue.
I climbed up some stairs, onto the Hohenzollern Bridge. This is the busiest train bridge in Germany, constantly rumbling with traffic. It is also a landmark for lovebirds, who leave locks on the bridge’s railing. The bridge is named after Germany’s erstwhile royal family, and statues of the old kings guard the four corners of the bridge.
Across the bridge is one of the tallest buildings in the city (though still considerably shorter than the cathedral’s towers), the Kölntriangle. Situated on a little hill, this building is known for its viewing platform on the top floor. I paid and took the elevator to the top, where there is a 360-degree view of the city. Frankly, Cologne is not the most beautiful city to see from the air, but you do get a classic photo of the cathedral next to the bridge.
Finally, it was time to have lunch. My roommate at the time had a German boyfriend who was from Cologne, and he kindly sent me a long list of things to see and do. Unfortunately, I hardly had time to scratch the surface, but I did follow his advice as to where to have a good German meal. Früh am Dom is a traditional beer hall right near the Cathedral. Outside the place was bustling with activity and I was afraid I wouldn’t be seated; but as soon as I walked in, I saw that the beautifully furnished space was half empty.
To eat, I ordered Himmel und Ääd (the Rhinish dialect for “heaven and earth”), a formidable dish consisting of blood sausages over mashed potato and apple sauce. It was delicious—especially, when washed down with the city’s typical beer, Kölsch. Compared to Düsseldorf’s Altbier, Kölsch is much lighter in color and flavor. Though mild, I found it to be delicious and extremely refreshing. As in Altbier, the Kölsch was served in little glasses, and the drinks marked on your coaster. I believe I had three before the end of my meal.
Stuffed, I now had just a bit of time to kill before my train to the airport. To enjoy Germany’s lax laws, I got a Kölsch from a corner store, walked to the park along the Rhine, and drank it slowly in the sunlight. It had been a wonderful trip to Germany.
Epilogue: Travel Troubles
But my voyage was not to have such a tranquil end. For one, the train was absolutely packed. I quickly gave up on finding a seat and resigned myself to standing with my heavy backpack near the doors, as the crowd surged in and out. We passed stop after stop, with the train only growing more and more crowded. After a little more than an hour, the train was full almost to bursting, and I was very eager to get off.
Yet that was not to be. On the tracks between Düsseldorf and its airport, the train came to a halt. Then, a crackling and muffled voice came over the loudspeakers, and made a brief announcement. My German was good enough to get the basic message. My heart sank: the train was not going to stop at the airport, but would bypass the stop and go to the next town over, Duisburg. Full of anxiety now, I got off and looked for the next train back to the airport. It was supposed to arrive in just 10 minutes. But after more than a week in Germany, I knew that this was unlikely. (The trains in Germany are famously unreliable.)
As predicted, the train was delayed. Indeed, it was so late that it had not arrived by the time the next train to the airport was supposed to come. That one was delayed, too. Then this happened again with the next train, so I was waiting on three. I began to grow very panicked, since now I couldn’t tell which train would arrive first or what track it would be on. I was so frantic that I jumped on the first train appearing to head in the right direction, without even being quite sure what train it was.
I had chosen well, and after a delay of about 40 minutes I was at the airport. But my travel stress was not at an end. As I walked into the main lobby, I noticed two enormous lines stretching through the airport. After some reconnaissance, it dawned on me that these were the lines for security. I had given myself a large margin to arrive for my flight, so even with the previous delay I still had almost two hours. But as the line edged forward, I realized that I might be cutting it close.
An hour passed, and we were finally in view of the metal detectors and luggage scanners. Then, behind me, a frazzled woman started making her way through the line, explaining to each person that she was going to miss her flight if they didn’t let her through. Finally, she made it to me, and I let her pass me by (I still had about 45 minutes). But the main in front of me adamantly refused.
“Please, sir, I’m going to miss my flight,” she said, holding her hands in a gesture of supplication.
“That’s not my problem!” he shouted back.
“Please, it doesn’t affect you.”
“You think you’re the only one who’s going to miss their flight?” he snapped. “I’m going to miss my flight, too!”
The argument went on for about ten minutes, with the woman pleading and the man growing more enraged, until finally, exasperated, he let her pass by. (Later, I heard him talking to a colleague on the phone, reporting that he did indeed miss his flight. I don’t know if the woman made it.)
I made it to my gate with just twenty minutes to spare, feeling immensely relieved. I’d had a wonderful time in Germany. But I must say, the country’s reputation for efficiency is rather unmerited.
I remember learning about Columbus when I was in elementary school. The story was simple: he was a daring, visionary man who set out to prove that the earth was round, heroically defeating the nay-sayers who thought that he would sail right over the edge of the earth. To the mind of a child, it is a compelling tale. It is also, of course, complete fantasy (to use a polite word). Since those Edenic days of unproblematic national heroes, Columbus has become a much more divisive figure. So I decided I ought to get the real story, hopefully from somebody without an ideological axe to grind.
As I knew from his books on Marco Polo and Magellan, Bergreen is in the business of writing popular histories of famous explorers. This book is up to his usual standards, though the raw material he had to work with is naturally somewhat messier. Both Polo and Magellan were famous for one iconic voyage, while Columbus travelled to the “New World” on four separate occasions. Instead of one grand adventure, then, we get a series of expeditions, each one drearier than the last. By the fourth voyage, I was quite ready to be done with the Genoese explorer.
But I did learn. For example, Bergreen makes it clear that the competing narratives of Columbus have existed from almost the very beginning. There were rumors and accusations regarding his cruelty and incompetence during his lifetime (which resulted in his imprisonment); and not long after his death the great Spanish anti-colonialist, Bartolomé de las Casas, skewered Columbus for his role in the destruction of the native peoples. In short, he was never a universally beloved hero.
Furthermore, Columbus only became a cornerstone of patriotic ideology centuries later. He started to be celebrated in North America, for example, after the Revolutionary War, as the young nation searched for a founding myth that wasn’t so tied to England. In Spain, October 12th (when Columbus “discovered” the New World) did not become a holiday until 1892, as part of the conservative restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. In the United States, it was not made a holiday until 1937.
So, should Columbus Day be celebrated? Insofar as celebrating Columbus is merely a way of celebrating European colonization of the Americas (which certainly seems to be the case), then I think the answer must be a clear no. I don’t think it is possible to learn about the cataclysm that engulfed the native peoples of the Americas—which resulted in millions dead and the disappearance of so many cultures and languages—and think that worth celebrating. Granted, there is a kind of paradox for European Americans in this, since if there had not been a Columbus we would not exist; and it is difficult to wish oneself out of existence. Even so, celebrating the enslavement and elimination of whole peoples does not seem quite right.
Yet what about celebrating Columbus himself? Well, he does not exactly make a good impression in these pages. Certainly he was a bold and determined man, willing to risk his life for an idea (as well as for gold and glory). And his talent as a navigator is impressive. But these positive qualities seem rather pale when compared with his narrow-mindedness, his incompetence as an administrator, his cruelty to others, and his messiah complex. In the course of these voyages he combats several mutinies (with varying degrees of success), strands his own men (to be used as a bargaining chip), and has untold numbers of people enslaved. And even if you focus exclusively on his role as a “discoverer,” it is difficult to celebrate a man who steadfastly refused to acknowledge the truth of what he, in fact, had stumbled upon.
The truth is that Columbus, contrary to what the legend says, did not have a more accurate notion of the earth than the experts of the time. Precisely the reverse: Columbus’s voyage was based on a profound underestimate of the size of the earth. Indeed, it was pure luck that there was an unsuspected continent in the middle of the ocean. If America did not exist, and there were nothing but open sea between Europe and Asia—as he thought—Columbus would almost certainly have died in the enormous expanse of water. And he never even had the good grace to admit his mistake, insisting to the end that he had found a route to Asia, despite the very clear evidence to the contrary.
Of course, the fact remains that Columbus thought to do something that nobody (to his knowledge) had ever done before, and in the process inaugurated a new period of history. Indeed, given the tremendous importance of his voyage, we ought to do our best to understand both the man and the colonial undertaking he stands for. And I don’t think that is accomplished with myths and unreflecting celebration.
Lotz in Translation 