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The Splendid and the Vile: A Review




I just finished Erik Larson’s book The Splendid and the Vile. I would have to say that it is much more splendid than it is vile. The book is subtitled: “A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz.” I have read several books about Churchill. Many of them touch upon his quirks, his temper and his fabulous oratory ability, and all that is to be found in Larson’s book as well. But Larson delves more deeply into Churchill’s family and personal relationships.

The book focuses on Churchill’s first year in office as Prime Minister. And what a terrible first year it was for Britain. The lion’s share of Nazi bombing raids on Britain took place during that first year.  The enormity of the Blitz is something that I don’t think anyone can really grasp if they didn’t go through it. And the people of England, especially London, went through it night after relentless night. I was reminded of Connie Willis’ science fiction novel Blackout which lets you feel just an inkling of what it must have been like to live in London during the blitz.

During this same year, the British military suffered defeat after defeat.  Hitler really didn’t want to bother with England. He wanted a peace treaty with the British so he could go after Russia. But those pesky British just wouldn’t give in (this delayed his timetable and was probably good for Russia). Very few people (if anyone else) could have withstood the continuous barrage of bad news day after day and still kept their seat as Prime Minister. That Churchill did, shows just what a force of nature he was.

I don’t want to give the impression that Larson gives us nothing but gloom and doom. This is an eminently readable book. In fact, it reads almost like a novel. There is a defined cast of characters that we follow. Some of those characters we root for and are keen to find out what happens to them. Besides Churchill, there is his daughter Mary who is just seventeen as the book begins. She has the joie de vivre that many seventeen-year-olds have. We follow one of Churchill’s secretaries, John Colville, who was not a fan of Churchill at the beginning, but we watch as his admiration grows. There is Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela, who had the misfortune to be married to Churchill’s hard drinking, hard gambling son Randall. We see Churchill’s relationships with his friends, both personal and professional. He put his friend Lord Beaverbrook in charge of aircraft production. Despite much ill feeling toward Beaverbrook, this turned out to be absolutely the right move. Another friend of Churchill’s “the prof” Frederick Lindemann became his scientific advisor. We follow love lives, ambition, frivolity, envy; in short, all the things that make up the human condition, which continued to happen even in the throes of a terrible war.

I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by Erik Larson.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).


Link to Star Liner

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