A Train of Powder

"Rebecca West is one of the most stimulating and brilliant writers living today. Nothing that she writes can be ignored or treated other than as a major pronouncement on its particular subject. Wit is characteristic of her style; her mind is richly stacked with ideas; she seems to have at her fingertips a wealth of historical allusion; to the reader she appears an expert on politics, sociology, and all the humanities. She is a novelist, poet, critic, historian, political commentator; and above all, a shrewd and lively judge of human nature". (Author profile, from the dustjacket of my 1955 edition of A Train of Powder).

Rebecca West (1892-1983) was indeed an extraordinary writer. Her first novel was The Return of the Soldier (1918, see my show more review) and she went on to write prolifically in both fiction and non-fiction. A Train of Powder — a collection of major essays on the nature of evil — was her ninth book of non-fiction and its account of the Nuremburg Trials is justly famous. 'Greenhouse with Cyclamens', I, II and III was originally written for the New Yorker, and it is magnificent.

But there's also a quietly devastating report called 'Opera in Greenville', about a trial of a lynch mob in the American South, and how for reasons we all now know, there was no hope of a conviction. She delivers a powerful analysis of proceedings, without a word of anger and looking at everything from everyone's point-of-view, to expose the appalling racism on public display almost as if to say, well, it can't be helped, this is how it is. And that is shocking, as it is meant to be.

But then — having exposed the violence and the extreme cruelty of the crime, committed by otherwise unexceptional men, mostly taxi-drivers of varying ages — she concludes that this public exposure has served a purpose despite the acquittals.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/12/21/a-train-of-powder-by-rebecca-west/ show less

A collection of articles written for The New Yorker covering the Nuremberg Trial and other trials in American and England. Great writer who is difficult to read, long sentences that I had to go back and read again to understand the meaning. I took my time reading this book as it had such insight into that time in history. West reported the story as it unfolded with some incredible observations into human behavior

Essays about the Nuremburg trials; Rebecca West covered these for a magazine at the time and used this experience to write 'A train of Powder'. This experience gives her a particular persepctive. An excellent and interesting account.

Includes several essays from Rebecca West's days as a journalist. The essays covered the Nuremberg trials, a lynching trial in South Carolina, a murder trial in the UK and a treason trial in the UK. Very interesting reading!