April 4, 2015

Finest Hour 133, Winter 2006-07

Page 37

By Manfred Weidhorn

Winston Churchill’s Imagination, by Paul K. Alkon. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 268 pages, $55, member price $44.

In the initial stage of a scholarly project, one reads laboriously all available sources and highlights the key passages. When the subject is the ambidextrous Churchill, a division of labor takes place: Historians single out sentences that shed light on events and motives, and literary scholars focus on sentences that reflect the manner of expression. Material that is not highlighted by either type of researcher tends to be dismissed as trivial.

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It is Professor Alkon’s fine idea to apply to Churchill the idea that, when dealing with outstanding personages, nothing is trivial. The result is a book that, while usually steering away from standard Churchillian topics, manages to be interesting nonetheless by taking the reader into the byways and crannies of Churchill’s capacious mind.

Though not arranged in an inevitable sequence and lacking an overarching theme (other than that Churchill had a rich imagination which wandered far afield), these six essays offer in-depth readings of portions of the canon. Alkon thereby carves out a niche of his own in Churchill studies.

An example of the exploration of the offbeat is the first essay. In seeking a way out of the never-ending Iraq war, we are oft reminded that Iraq is an artificial construct glued together eighty-five years ago by Churchill and other British notables, including T. E. Lawrence. Alkon ignores the wellknown public events to dwell rather on the high regard these two adventurous and articulate writers had for each other—despite the curious contrast between Churchill’s irrepressible ambitiousness and Lawrence’s latter-day desire for anonymity.

Another little known topic is Churchill and the movies. We learn that in the 1930s Churchill was tempted by the art of documentary scriptwriting. Though little came of these forays, Alkon brings to light many interesting twists in the functioning of Churchill’s agile mind in matters not associated with him.

Better known is Churchill’s painting. Besides reminding us that, surprisingly, nearly all the 500 or so paintings by this alleged war-lover are of peaceful, serene settings, Alkon traces the painterly effects in Churchill’s early books, written long before he took up the hobby. The analysis is thorough, though it does leave the reader wondering whether such a careful scrutiny of passages by other great authors would not show similar results. Especially well done is the thorough examination, in the Malakand, of Churchill’s sympathetic word painting of an evening scene among Afghan natives (135-37).

Another at first glance unprepossessing topic is Churchill’s frequent recourse to counterfactual history, or speculations along the lines of “What if?” The last three essays explore the ramifications of this habit of mind.

Showing how the maneuver can be related to science fiction, Alkon discusses the possible influence of the socialist science fiction writer H. G. Wells on Churchill—on his imagination, of course, not on his politics. Also important here is Churchill’s ambivalence about the impact of science on modern life, as well as his occasional agnosticism about the existence of “progress.”

In the fifth essay, Alkon rejoins the school of literary critics by providing a standard—and excellent—analysis of temporal perspectives as part of the narrative art in the Marlborough. The last essay contains a brilliant analysis of the alienation effect in one of Churchill’s most poignant pieces of writing: the short, deeply personal, posthumously published gem of a story, The Dream.

This book is a must for Churchillians. Among its strengths is the close textual analysis of both well and little-known passages and the drawing of parallels with major literary works (whether or not read by WSC) in order to provide a context for Churchill’s achievement. Intelligence, erudition, and scholarship are firmly in control and in balance. The writer is focused, the style is crystal clear, the analysis is subtle, and the results are consistently enjoyable and enlightening.

• Prof. Weidhorn is the dean of authors on Churchill the writer, with four books on the subject; author of the recently published The Person of the Millennium: The Unique Impact of Galileo on World History; and his forthcoming book, An Anatomy of Skepticism.