Last of their Kind (Ezras Eagles Book 2)

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Admiration for the man and his adventures is boundless. Fell in love with his wife several times. Author makes fact come alive.

This was the third mountaineering book devoured This is a great biography of the early days of Alaska Climbing. Brad Washburn was a true 20th century explorer. His first ascents of the Alaska's peaks paved the way and set the standards for all of those who followed.

This is a must read for people who enjoy following the evolution of climbing. He totally fulfilled his mission in life as no other human will ever do You don't have to be a mountain climber to get thoroughly involved with this story. It's like no other. This is a very interesting and well written biography. Washburn lead a compelling life and through the telling of his life experiences you learn about the history of American mountaineering. I think that this is a good read and worth your time. See all 48 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.

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Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Also, she wished she had lived George's life, not realizing that if she actually had, she would really wish her life were different. At the same time, Ann's authenticity unfolds during the book and she won me over, but in a very uneasy kind of way.

She was so extreme, especially later in the story, that I almost thought she had a mental illness at times. But then I realized that many people who change the world are very extreme and obsessed -- often not healthy, balanced human beings. So there was a real tension in her extremism and it made me extremely uncomfortable, but I also couldn't quite dismiss the necessity of it for Ann.

George was a great character, too. Her closeness and then great distance from Ann helped me to understand Ann better. I saw how Ann was alienated from both her own class and the people she was wanting to support. But George made me realize that throughout everything, Ann was being utterly authentic. Does that excuse all her behaviour? Maybe the bottom line is that I'm left "not knowing" whether to admire Ann or not, whether to think she's a hero or not The uneasiness I'm left with is still bubbling inside me, seeking a resolution that may never be really possible.

May 22, Robert Blumenthal rated it it was amazing. The first line of the Library Journal review for this book is "Every so often you close a book, and the only word that comes to mind is Wow. I had never had much curiosity about Sigrid Nunez as a writer, and I don't remember what led me to read this one. Once I read the description, however, I was sold.

I would say that this novel might be the best and most truthful depiction of the s in America, showing all the good peace, love, caring and bad The first line of the Library Journal review for this book is "Every so often you close a book, and the only word that comes to mind is Wow. I would say that this novel might be the best and most truthful depiction of the s in America, showing all the good peace, love, caring and bad Weather Underground, class hypocrisy, emotional apathy.

It is the story of an intense friendship between two college girls who are from very different upbringings--Ann is from a very classy wealthy family in Connecticut, while Georgette is from a violent blue collar upbringing in upstate New York. They become besties, but then drift apart and go on very different paths after dropping out of college. Ann remains a highly focused radical, while Georgette begins to embrace the mainstream culture that Ann continues to rage against.

In addition, this is the story of sisterly love as well. Georgette's younger sister Solange runs away at the age of fifteen, then eventually ends up reunited with her sister in New York City. Solange has mental problems and Georgette spends years tending to her needs and maintaining a deeply caring and loving relationship with her. This relationship was just as important to the story as the one between Georgette and Ann. Georgette marries twice and divorces, has two children she adores, and has a surprise intense romantic affair with another man.

And although her deep friendship with Ann fades over time, her memories of their time together never do leave Georgette completely. This book is very strongly and intelligently written. I would compare it to the works of Lorrie Moore or Grace Paley. It has great character development, and, as stated earlier, is a wonderful exposition of a very memorable time of our lives.

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I lived through the sixties, and I am sure that this helped greatly in appreciating this book as much as I did. Feb 18, Lauren rated it really liked it. I have to admit that this book is full of things I love: While there was a romance that I felt was a misstep, I thought that the author made such interesting choices in the way she chose to structure and reveal her story that I was won over in the end. Utterly moved, I became way too involved with this story. In a lot of ways, Georg I have to admit that this book is full of things I love: In a lot of ways, George reminded me of Lee from "Prep;" not terribly likable, the epitome of the failed, unremarkable scholarship student whose achievements pale in light of her more well-rounded, wealthy, experienced peers.

But Nunez gives George the space without inflicting some awful forced sympathy on the reader to be a sympathetic character even though she's in no way heroic and she will never be anything like her flawed foil, Ann. This book made me think about the way we measure our lives and kindness we should offer each other and ourselves.

Aug 27, Karen rated it really liked it. It took me a long time to read this book, but that shouldn't be misconstrued as negative criticism. I liked this book quite a lot, enough to give a copy to my mother for her birthday. Though I normally blow through a book, I took my time with this novel. I wanted to think about the things the main character experienced, especially the disintegration of her friendship with her unusual college roommate,Ann, and her ina It took me a long time to read this book, but that shouldn't be misconstrued as negative criticism. I wanted to think about the things the main character experienced, especially the disintegration of her friendship with her unusual college roommate,Ann, and her inability to forget Ann.

This relationship forms the major plot of the book. I found that I liked spending time in the world of this novel, even if--often--the details of that world were difficult, heartbreaking or depressing for the main character.

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Characters make this novel. That and the author's ability to evoke the era of the 60s. I could see, and understand thanks to Nunez, how some of the things taken for granted as normal in the 60s came to be viewed as absolutely bizarre only a few years later. I also learned the term "balling" which I will now try to work into all of my low-brow conversations. On a more serious note, Nunez shows her reader a world of immense idealism coupled with sometimes shocking selfishness.

How does altruism become selfishness? Her idealism becomes mania. Her unbending principles really ruin her life, and those of the people who love her most. And yet Ann never lets go her ironclad idealism and the price it demands. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I found it absolutely horrifying. And I couldn't stop reading. This was a wonderful read, and my mother clearly knows nothing! And on that note, there was a great quote towards the end of the book, something along the lines of, "Parents will do anything for their children, and their children will step right over their parents' bodies and walk on" or something like that.

I've pretty much mangled that. Go read it yourself! Dec 25, Donna rated it it was ok. The plot of this novel seemed so interesting; two college freshmen from opposite backgrounds becoming friends during a very turbulent time in American history. Author Sigrid Nunez tries so hard, a little too hard, to include every event, stereotype, and social issue that occurred in the s and s that it comes across at times as a sort of social studies project rather than novel.

There is just too much going on, too many points of view, too many sad cases, too many lost souls, too much cli The plot of this novel seemed so interesting; two college freshmen from opposite backgrounds becoming friends during a very turbulent time in American history. There is just too much going on, too many points of view, too many sad cases, too many lost souls, too much cliche. There is no reality, no sympathy to be felt, no love here.

Everyone is a disappointment to George: The first two chapters kept me going, and a need not to give up The worst part of the novel for me was the inmate's essay about "Orphan Annie" towards the end of the book. George had no way of knowing what Ann's day to day life in prison was like, so the author invents this convenient way to describe this portion of Ann's life.

But it just does not ring true! It is written in the same voice as George, and the prison inmate writer is obsessed with Ann, in the same way George is; the immense detail and insight It doesn't read like an essay, more like a laundry list, and a jumbled summing up. The tangents of Mick Jagger, and George's husbands were also disjointed and depressing. There were very few people in the novel who actually liked Ann, and Nunez seemed to use her as a strange caricature of extreme radicalism, a selfish martyr, leaving little for readers to care or be interested in.

Tried to do a LOT, not sure if they pulled it off. Aug 05, Wendy added it Shelves: Somehow this book manages to be very readable yet horrible. The storyline does not match up with the blurb; only peripheral characters are interesting and sympathetic; the whole thing was like like this character Georgette's journal - except that Georgette is the kind of shallow person that I run far from.

There is no depth to this character. I can't help but think that in the tangent where Georgette talks about her second husband, a critic, it's like the author is daring the audience to critici Somehow this book manages to be very readable yet horrible. I can't help but think that in the tangent where Georgette talks about her second husband, a critic, it's like the author is daring the audience to criticize her.

It's very easy to be critical, Georgette says about her husband's profession. Harder to be kind. I suppose because Georgette is the narrator and Ann ends up in jail and neither of them are speaking, the author has sort of written her way into a hole. Presuming the audience wants to know what happens to Ann, she has one of Ann's friends from jail write a story about Ann and send it to Georgette's husband's literary journal. All neat and cozy -- and seems too pat. True enough that real life sometimes ends up this way, and maybe I could be more forgiving the characters had more redeeming qualities.

I do find that I'm more sympathetic to Georgette when the story of her relationship with a man twice her age is told in third person, so perhaps it's the first-person persona that's so grating to me. I will say the book does a good job of showing a fraction of the ideals of the radical student left at Columbia in the late 60s, but unfortunately this book is only vaguely about that, and I had thought that was the main crux of the story.

In the end I wanted to run this book over with my car. Dec 15, AJ Conroy marked it as to-read. This was the best book I read in , and for a long time it was my favorite novel. Two roommates meet at Barnard in — Ann comes from a wealthy family and Georgette is working-class. As Ann becomes a radical and gets deeply embroiled in the racial politics of the s, Nunez examines her activism through the eyes of Georgette, to whom it sometimes seems like a luxury.

Ann turns out to be disturbingly committed to her cause, but the position of a privileged pers Recommendation from Jezebel: Ann turns out to be disturbingly committed to her cause, but the position of a privileged person fighting for the underprivileged remains a fraught one. Nunez doesn't pull emotional punches — Georgette's narration sometimes simmers with resentment, and her observations exist outside polite American discourse in a way that makes the way we talk about "political correctness" seem restrictive and misguided. Nunez's writing, too, is beautiful, but what made me love this book was the way it managed to portray the ambivalence we feel in a world where all politics is personal.

Jul 11, Heather rated it liked it. I like it but was a bit confused at times about who the book was actually about. So far all the attempts to assign the wings to different sides or to have them considered in pairs have been unpersuasive. The sequence of rule having been established at As for the theories of right- side and left-side wings, see n.

The exact terminology employed varies throughout these two chapters and the manuscripts. So Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. In the interpretation there is an additional morsel of information concerning the six anti- wings: The four anti-wings that had remained in their stations then plotted to seize the rule: The final two of these four anti-wings also schemed to gain power themselves27 Even as they plotted, though, the middle head which was larger than the other two [ Moreover, there is a sense of summation at The text does not provide the noun.

See also Violet, Die Apokalypsen, pp. For a wide range of candidates for these and the following anti-wings, see Appendix. Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. Et uidi quomodo complexa est duo capita secum. The next thing that Ezra observes is the disappearance of the middle head The two remaining ones will then hold sway over the earth31 The interpretation again elaborates: It is at this point that the sequence of events in the vision and the interpretation differ enough so as to require separate accounts. In the vision, after the right head devoured the left, a voice spoke to Ezra demanding that he regard and reflect upon what he was about to witness So Knibb, Books of Esdras, p.

The cause-and-effect relationship explicit in See Violet, Die Apokalypsen, pp. Recall the previous note on the sequence of rule of the vision and the inter- pretation. What does our author wish to say about the nature of these three heads? There is also another connexion in their acting together to destroy the last two stationary anti-wings By the same token, the sequence of rule of the heads implied at Note well also the qui cum eo of On the relationship between the two lesser heads, see the previous note.

Not the voice of While the lion spoke to the eagle, Ezra saw the remaining head disap- pear Finally, the entire body of the eagle was burned and the earth was in great fear In the interpretation, however, the information that the two lesser heads will die by the sword is presented first It is only after this statement that the figure of the lion is interpreted: Audi [tu] , as is the tenor of the content.

For the second time the talons are mentioned in the vision but not in the interpretation. The origin of these talons presumably is to be found in the vjnAyd hyrpf of the fourth beast of Dan. Myers suggests that they might represent the imperial armies, which in light of Dan. The Latin reads hoc erat regnem exile et turbationis plenum; does our author mean that they ruled together cf. The text at One cannot fail to notice the amount of specific detail accorded to certain elements of the Eagle Vision, especially in regard to the overall sequence of rule and to the descriptions of the reigns of the three heads and the later anti-wings.

Although this disagreement between vision and interpretation does not in itself allow one to posit all sorts of textual interpolations and redactions, it does force us to consider the evidence in its entirety. Also, neither the vision nor its interpretation enjoys automatic priority on the basis of its content.

Chapter Two – Ezra’s Eagle

The Historical Allusions of the Eagle Vision Having isolated the constituent elements of the Eagle Vision, the next task is to discover which one of the Flavian or Severan theories pro- vides the most convincing identification of these elements with histori- cal figures and events. This brief summary of these four and a half verses cannot do justice to their richness and complexity, nor can it even hint at their importance to the understand- ing of the book as a whole.

See Stone, Fourth Ezra, passim. Because the Flavian theories date the Eagle Vision to the time of Domitian on the basis of its internal historical allusions, it is perfectly appropriate to attack them on these grounds. The evidence of the citations of 4 Ezra by other ancient writers is in itself extremely slim; as noted, such evidence is also meaningless to the Severan theory if one holds the present Eagle Vision to be the product of redaction.

But even that figure may be typological. For the mod- ern presentations and evaluations of the evidence for the dating of the book, see Myers, I and II Esdras, pp. In its present form, Dan. The metals, representing kingdoms, are accorded relatively short shrift in the interpretation and are almost folklore-like in their generality the second kingdom is inferior, the fourth strong as iron.

The period of Antiochus also receives the bulk of the attention at Dan. In both cases, the majority of the concrete details of the vision is reserved for the time immediately before the imminent future-time events. The only exception to this pattern is at Dan. Moreover, the characters from the age of Anti- ochus IV are far and away described in the greatest detail vv. While the bulk of the historical review of this chapter is telescoped into a few general statements vv.

For its part, 2 Bar. Part I As mentioned, the defining characteristic of the Flavian theory is that it identifies the three heads with T. Flavius Vespasianus—known to us as Vespasian—and his two sons, Titus and Domitian. On what basis is this identification made? The middle head, be it Vespasian or Severus, is described in each half of the Eagle Vision as being larger or greater than the other two.

Violet Press, , p. This telescoping of history is by no means limited to kings and kingdoms; cf. Moreover, much of these data periodized or not are only fully intelligible in the light of whatever future-time predictions are made; in other words, the presentation of the distant- and near-past history is both shaped and is intended to give shape to future expectations.

The Last of Her Kind

Where Trajan and Hadrian were emperors who each enjoyed long reigns, Quietus never held the imperial power, nor was he even considered to have been an emperor by any of the classical histories. While it true that Quietus was active in suppressing Jewish rebel- lions in Mesopotamia and Judaea, he quickly fell out of favour with Hadrian and shortly thereafter was put to death for his role in a plot to murder the emperor HA, Had.

On a general level the parallels between these alternatives are strong. Both Vespasian and Severus were field commanders who took the throne not through a praetorian coup but on the strength of the acclamation as emperor awarded them by their legions. After having dealt with their rivals, both men very much restored domestic tranquility and the pax. Finally, the reigns of Domitian and Caracalla were similarly terminated by assassination.

The Folio Society, ], I, p.

Box identifies these men as the four anti-wings of Lusius Quietus cannot be both a head and one of the anti-wings whom the heads destroy. Concerning the Historia augusta for many years known as the Scriptores histo- riae augustae , many questions remain unanswered with respect to its date, prove- nance, redaction, and the nature of the documents it claims to have used. Still, much of it remains a very valuable account of the events of the second and third centuries. Oxford Uni- versity, ; and Anthony R. Yale Uni- versity Press, , pp.

Violet, Die Apokalypsen, p. For the period of the Flavians, see Tacitus, Ann. The Second Pair of Anti-Wings Before the middle head awoke, the first two of the four anti-wings that had remained stationary plotted to seize the rule Recall that six of the eight anti-wings are preserved until the disappearance of the twelve wings, four of which remain inactive until the time when the end of the eagle approaches, while two move over to the right-hand head to wait until the very end. The first of these plotters held sway very briefly and the second vanished even more rapidly. Supporters of the Flavian theory either offer a host of nominees for these two roles or decline to render a decision on the basis that the text does not provide enough information.

There are a host of difficulties with all these suggestions. There is no indication that the appendages of the eagle are meant to represent anything but Roman kings or usurpers. As for proposals that would identify the two anti-wings with figures prominent during the troubled years of 68—69, the major objection is that there were three men Galba, Otho and Vitellius who gained the throne before Vespasian. Such evi- dence cannot be ignored.

Citations will be henceforth reserved for specific historical details. Here and wherever the Flavian theories cited , see Appendix for the full range of possibilities. For the numismatic evidence, see H. Lastly, since nothing in the evidence suggests that this second figure did not hold power, identifications with Piso or any other claimant to the throne must be considered suspect. Is it necessary to agree with most modern commentators and to assign question marks to the identities of these two anti-wings, or can a rea- sonable solution be gleaned from a much later time, in the period imme- diately prior to the reign of Severus?

In fact, there is a better solution, and the agreement here is much more concrete. After the mad emperor Commodus was strangled on the last day of the year , the praetorian prefect Laetus offered the throne to P. Helvius Pertinax, a former general who was at the time both praefectus urbanus and consul.

As emperor, however, Pertinax soon lost the support of Laetus and the praetorians and was himself assassinated in a palace coup on 28 March. He had reigned for 87 days. Didius Severus Julianus and T. Flavius Sulpicianus, whereupon Julianus emerged triumphant, having offered the praetorians per capita HS 25, Charges were brought against Julia- nus by hostile senators, and some time around 1 June he was killed, Museum Publications, , II, pp.

While it is true that coin types and legends are at some level the products of the imperial bureau- cracy and that stock terms like concordia and pax are to be found on the issues of most emperors, the Flavians could make a real claim to having saved the empire from a succession of barracks-emperors. Sutherland, Roman Coins New York: As they were not forgotten by the authors of the Sibylline Oracles. If the middle head is assumed to be Severus, the internal evidence of the Eagle Vision concerning these two anti-wings plainly fits the historical figures of Pertinax and Didius Julianus.

Once again the partisans of the Flavian theory either offer what amounts to be a galaxy of candidates for these two positions or resign themselves to the conclusion that such precise identifications are im- possible. In contrast, Severus had to put down two dangerous rivals during the early years of his reign, C. Niger had much support in the Near East, and the nine eastern legions declared for him at Syrian Antioch while Severus was still busy seizing Rome.

The next two years saw a series of battles waged throughout Syria and Asia Minor, wherein Severus slowly but inexor- ably threw back Niger and his supporters. It had taken two long years for Severus to quash this rebellion, but no sooner had he finished with Niger in the eastern provinces than another threat emerged in the person of Albinus, the governor of Britain.

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