I know I'm spending too much time reading about the Blitz relative to the amount of space it's going to occupy in A Tapestry of Fire, but all the first-person narratives I've found are fascinating, as are the historical overviews that put them in context. How do I know I've been reading too much about the Blitz? Not only do I now have a very black sense of humor, but the other day I was reading a novel set in London in 1940 and as the date of December 29 approached I started talking to the characters, telling them, "For God's sake, stay away from St. Paul's and the financial district tonight!"
Okay, time to pull back and get to work on the sagging middle of the outline again. But first I do want to gloat a bit about the wonderful book I've acquired. It's big, it's heavy, you need a good light and a magnifying glass to make out anything... and it's well worth the trouble. It's a reprint of pre-war large-scale Ordnance Survey maps that were hand-colored to show bomb damage on a scale from Minor Blast Damage (yellow) to Total Destruction (black), and it shows the damage to individual buildings. If I set up at a table with good lighting and a magnifier, I can read an account of the bombing and fires in the Elephant and Castle area on the night of May 10-11 and, as particular landmarks or streets are mentioned, find them on this map with an estimate of the degree of damage.
I like maps.
I learn something new reading each of your posts...you do expand my horizons!
ReplyDeletePhysical maps, they do help me get my bearings better than step by step written directions. How much more you can glean about what you've been reading about with these particular maps (wow, that was a rather poorly constructed sentence but I know you'll forgive me. No wonder you are excited!
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