Mémoires by Farah Pahlavi
2004 J'ai lu
415 pages
This is the first completely real autobiography that I've read. It was how I imagine most autobiographical works are: concentrated on a positive self-portrayal throughout the exciting saga of her life. How, then, does the ex-empress of Iran want us to see her? The devoted and intelligent third wife of a reformist Shah, a loving mother and a compassionate queen are probably the three most distinctive self-images she portrays. Another common characteristic of autobios is the selectiveness of events retold. (Charlie Chaplin's is even notorious for being partly a work of fiction.) Omitted, of course, are any confessions of past errors, replaced by praising citations from the memoirs of others. I have to admit, she has a knack for persuasiveness, mainly because of the emotion she pours into every memory she recounts for her readers.
Born Farah Diba, she met and married the last Shah of Iran at 21 when she was studying architecture in Paris. Personally, I found the story up to there the most interesting section of the book, probably because it felt more honest -- she isn't afraid of revealing her youthful insecurities. But, assuming the role of queen undoubtably changed her life and cut her youth short in the face of serious responsabilities towards developing her country. While her empathetic and compassionate "human touch" is most likely sincere, many of her political comments reveal her shortsightedness concering the overthrow of the monarchy. It is probably historically common for deposed monarchs to accuse their subjects of ingratitude? Since the French Revolution, history has seen the final stands of most monarchies, or at least seen their powers hollowed to mechanical ceremonial functions. Indeed, the alternative to this degradation is peril, and not realising the anachronism of autocracy, that is precisely what the Shah's regime succumbed to. It is a shame that a historical witness and participant of such intelligence and high stature fails to comprehend the revolutionary phenomenon.
However, Queen Farah has a clear understanding of the political problems within the Iranian elite, and provides interesting first hand, inner circle accounts of the international relations of the time. As I mentioned earlier, I truly believe that she felt strongly for the people of her country while in power, despite not having the socio-political understanding to properly address the suffering she witnessed. She was, for example, a leading force in advancing the rights and position of women in Iran in the 1960s and 70s (only to be reversed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979). Also, on the personal front, she has had a very emotional life, from becoming a queen at such a young age, to wandering around the world in the first years of exile to any state who would take her in, the pain of watching her husband die slowly from an excruciating illness and her daughter's tragic death. To her credit, she remains faithful to the memory of her husband the Shah throughout, no matter how history judges him.
(NB: English translation also available as: An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah)
Monday, August 15, 2005
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"Speer: The Final Verdict" --Joachim Fest
Speer: The Final Verdict by Joachim Fest
2001 Weidenfeld & Nicolson
417 pages
This is a superb study of Albert Speer. It is the story of a young, ambitious and highly intelligent architect who was hand-picked by Hitler in 1933 to realise his dreams of architectural gradeur. Speer's complex and often contradictory character is carefully and intricately deconstructed by Third Reich- historian Joachim Fest. He does it marvellously.
Speer's youth is a fascinating read. Fest captures the reader into the excitement of the times, albeit into the sense of opportunity and success that accompanied the rise of the Nazis. Speer was an unpolitical member of the elite in the 1930s. The regime gave him the power to realise his monumental architectural visions, encouraged by Hitler to build a 'World Capital Germania'. Only photographs remain of his work -- for example the Nuremberg rallies and the new Reich Chancellery -- but even on paper they are remarkably impressive. Fest believes Speer when he once said that he would have taken the opportunities he was given, whatever regime was in power.
The shadow is gradually cast over his life when Hitler, who had embraced Speer as an inimate friend in the 1930s, promoted him to Minister of Armaments in 1942. He succeeded in multiplying arms production efficiency simply by reorganisation. It is here when he started playing the power game, gradually swallowing up most production sectors into his ministry. Yet, he stayed clear of the rest of the Nazi elite, not succumbing to their tricks and corruption. What incriminated him at Nüremberg then, was the use of slave labour. He did not advocate it, but did not object to it when it was pressed upon him. What probably saved him, in turn, was his staunch disobedience of Hitler's "scorched earth" retreat policy that would have mercilessly obliterated an already devastated Germany. It is a difficult period to read, just like Greek tragedies. The hero's hubris has led him into an inevitable downfall. You want to yell out to tell him to escape, but even then it is no longer possible from such a trap. Fest does this captivatingly.
The next years of his life are described by Fest with an atmosphere of the dreariness and depression in which he survived. The torment of failure and shame haunted him in the post-Nazi era, making his life thereafter a very pitiable read.
One thing I particularly enjoyed about Fest's accomplishment were the small anecdotes, for example those about life in Hitler's inner circle. What social torture they all had to endure! Another surreal note was about how in even in the Spandau prison years after the regime had fallen, the former Nazi leaders obstinately continued to treat each other according to their previous ranks! In this ghostlike world, Speer kept mainly to himself and concocted (creative yet sometimes awkward) activities to keep him from falling into despair.
Fest, summing up, says Speer had four lives: the young visionary architect, the turbulent Armaments Minister period, the subsequent 20 years of imprisonment as a hermit, and the years after his release as a writer and eye-witness to the Hitler-era until his death in 1981. In each one he was, in essence, a different individual, having to readapt to the circumstances. Fest nonetheless delves deep in order to explain this most fascinating and inexplicable figure.
2001 Weidenfeld & Nicolson
417 pages
This is a superb study of Albert Speer. It is the story of a young, ambitious and highly intelligent architect who was hand-picked by Hitler in 1933 to realise his dreams of architectural gradeur. Speer's complex and often contradictory character is carefully and intricately deconstructed by Third Reich- historian Joachim Fest. He does it marvellously.
Speer's youth is a fascinating read. Fest captures the reader into the excitement of the times, albeit into the sense of opportunity and success that accompanied the rise of the Nazis. Speer was an unpolitical member of the elite in the 1930s. The regime gave him the power to realise his monumental architectural visions, encouraged by Hitler to build a 'World Capital Germania'. Only photographs remain of his work -- for example the Nuremberg rallies and the new Reich Chancellery -- but even on paper they are remarkably impressive. Fest believes Speer when he once said that he would have taken the opportunities he was given, whatever regime was in power.
The shadow is gradually cast over his life when Hitler, who had embraced Speer as an inimate friend in the 1930s, promoted him to Minister of Armaments in 1942. He succeeded in multiplying arms production efficiency simply by reorganisation. It is here when he started playing the power game, gradually swallowing up most production sectors into his ministry. Yet, he stayed clear of the rest of the Nazi elite, not succumbing to their tricks and corruption. What incriminated him at Nüremberg then, was the use of slave labour. He did not advocate it, but did not object to it when it was pressed upon him. What probably saved him, in turn, was his staunch disobedience of Hitler's "scorched earth" retreat policy that would have mercilessly obliterated an already devastated Germany. It is a difficult period to read, just like Greek tragedies. The hero's hubris has led him into an inevitable downfall. You want to yell out to tell him to escape, but even then it is no longer possible from such a trap. Fest does this captivatingly.
The next years of his life are described by Fest with an atmosphere of the dreariness and depression in which he survived. The torment of failure and shame haunted him in the post-Nazi era, making his life thereafter a very pitiable read.
One thing I particularly enjoyed about Fest's accomplishment were the small anecdotes, for example those about life in Hitler's inner circle. What social torture they all had to endure! Another surreal note was about how in even in the Spandau prison years after the regime had fallen, the former Nazi leaders obstinately continued to treat each other according to their previous ranks! In this ghostlike world, Speer kept mainly to himself and concocted (creative yet sometimes awkward) activities to keep him from falling into despair.
Fest, summing up, says Speer had four lives: the young visionary architect, the turbulent Armaments Minister period, the subsequent 20 years of imprisonment as a hermit, and the years after his release as a writer and eye-witness to the Hitler-era until his death in 1981. In each one he was, in essence, a different individual, having to readapt to the circumstances. Fest nonetheless delves deep in order to explain this most fascinating and inexplicable figure.
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