A really delightful history of synchronized swimming (or, as it is now termed, "artistic swimming") which begins with Benjamin Franklin's experiments A really delightful history of synchronized swimming (or, as it is now termed, "artistic swimming") which begins with Benjamin Franklin's experiments in swimming and continues through to the present day. Of necessity it's as much a history of swimmers as it is of synchronized swimming, and Valosik spends a ton of time in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as women fought to be allowed to swim at all - somehow it's not easy to disport oneself gracefully in water when wearing an ankle-length wool outfit "for modesty." Valosik clearly did a ton of research, pulling together information on early Victorian "water queens" (women who made a living paddling around in tanks of water for the delectation of viewers), early women speed and distance swimmers, women divers, women's fight to get physical education approved in colleges, etc., and her writing is easy to follow and engaging.
Personally, I haven't been a swimmer since my high school days, but watching the last Olympics I was mesmerized by the artistic swimmers: talk about "backwards and in high heels" - "rhythmic gymnastics mostly underwater" takes athletic challenge to a whole new level. Valosik writes with an appreciation for what the sport requires and what it took for the men and women whose history she chronicles to move it forward as a sport and a recreational activity both.
I received an ARC of this book for free, but opinions are my own....more
I went back and forth on the star rating for this one because there was clearly a lot of research involved, but came down on two stars. The book couldI went back and forth on the star rating for this one because there was clearly a lot of research involved, but came down on two stars. The book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be the story of Roosevelt's quest (which it should have been) or a biography of Roosevelt during this period of his life (which it tried to do, but didn't do well), so it zig-zagged around. What took it down to two stars, however, were a couple of things: firstly, there were occasionally some glaring incidents of bad research; early on in the book the author, for example, uncritically repeats the (untrue) statement that Irish immigrant steerage had worse conditions than slave ships, and several times later in the book says that signs in Jewish immigrant neighborhoods were in Hebrew (they would have been in Yiddish). He also repeats ethnic slurs, sometimes with qualifications (although one wonders why they were necessary) although without much context, and sometimes just... there, with no explanation of their meaning or why they were there. Generally speaking this makes me suspicious of the quality of the research I don't know anything about. He also plays some word games that I don't like in a historical context, e.g. repeating Roosevelt's assertions that a political rival/enemy was "a queer fellow" in the same paragraphs as he emphasizes the man's bachelorhood and isolation - it felt like we were meant to assign a modern meaning to "queer" but he didn't want to actually make the allegation. ...more
As other reviewers have said, the author here had to create something out of virtually nothing, and while he did a good job overall, it still felt preAs other reviewers have said, the author here had to create something out of virtually nothing, and while he did a good job overall, it still felt pretty thin by the end. Interesting, but not something I'm going to re-read. ...more
A quick, easy, gossipy read, but unfortunately nowhere near as scandalous as the title (or a look at Margaret's Wikipedia page) would imply; I'm guessA quick, easy, gossipy read, but unfortunately nowhere near as scandalous as the title (or a look at Margaret's Wikipedia page) would imply; I'm guessing it was hampered by the simple fact that many of the principals, or at least their children, are still alive, so too much supposition and/or speculation would have been both unkind and legally unwise. Additionally, these weren't the kind of circles where anyone was writing tell-all memoirs - they were the circles where they were suing other people to ensure that nobody wrote tell-all memoirs. Finally, Margaret herself may have been interesting - it's kind of hard to tell actually - but she doesn't seem particularly witty or intelligent, which makes it hard to feel much for her - her personality doesn't really come across. ...more
Over all, the book suffered from the sheer scope; as other reviewers have mentioned, everyone was named Charlotte and Hannah and the men were all nameOver all, the book suffered from the sheer scope; as other reviewers have mentioned, everyone was named Charlotte and Hannah and the men were all named Mayer and Nathan and there really weren’t enough nicknames to go around. It occasionally got difficult to track. Moreover, the first few chapters suffered from a real dearth of information, leading to the kind of awkward non-expert extrapolation that, e.g., so-and-so “soothed herself” by having kosher food delivered to her husband, when pretty clearly it’s just that the kosher food delivery is the only thing Livingstone can be sure the current protagonist was actually DOING at that particular moment. Very small bits of information are invested with far too much significance and very little context.
Things improve rapidly once we hit the Victorian era, whose Rothschild ladies have left copious correspondence and whose family feuds, obviously, were somewhat epic. Once again, there are a lot of Rothschild ladies under discussion so tracking them is hard, but one is left in general feeling very sorry for all of them - married off (often to cousins) and kept in a somewhat insular world, in which they are educated and socialize with the upper classes… who are also extremely antisemitic. In essence they don’t have anyone “like them” besides other family members and a handful of other prominent European Jewish families - and then they’ve all intermarried so much that they’re constantly feuding over who stole which bride/dowry out from underneath whom. While some documents were destroyed, the constant interplay of communication between various members of the family means that Livingstone was able to unearth what was going on (or enough of it that her descriptions seem plausible).
As we head into the twentieth century, the book loses steam again - not that the women on whom the book focuses aren't interesting, but there is a lot going on and Livingstone speeds through the entirety of the twentieth century with astonishing rapidity. Additionally, the family isn't as much of a focus - Miriam Rothschild was a scientist; Nica Rothschild was mostly known for her involvement in the jazz scene (and relationship with Thelonious Monk) - making the group biography format rather clunky - there are at this point dozens, if not hundreds, of Rothschilds who only occasionally pop up and by this point Livingstone just describes them as being "from the French branch." The fact that they were Rothschilds wasn't really relevant to their lives, just that they were rich and Jewish. ...more
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