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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Quality of biography: an injustice to the subject, December 26, 2005
This review is from: Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests--"Medieval Modernist, American, Ecumenical (Hardcover)
This book is saved from unreadability by the compelling genius of its subject and several important, skilled analyses. The danger of unreadability is a real one - Shand-Tucci's Volume I of Ralph Adams Cram's biography (Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900) was unreadable. The present volume examines the second half of Cram's life in terms of four artistic/social quests. The most valuable perspectives on Cram are found in the chapters not devoted to the quests. In general, the work is plagued by a distracting prose style, an excessive intrusion by the author and his questionable personal conclusions and an atrocious job of editing and production.
Volume I was mainly an attempt at identifying Cram with a homosexual sub-culture in late Victorian Boston. The prose was matched in awkwardness by the forcing of evidence into a questionable claim of Cram's homosexuality. Its unreadability finally overtook this reviewer before the two-thirds point. I abandoned it to a used book store to recoup some of its expense. It was with some trepidation, then, that I purchased Volume II.
Shand-Tucci's theme of four quests is certainly illuminating and wholly reasonable. Cram was a man of supreme talent, intellect and drive, who worked with a clear personal and societal vision. It is a disservice to him that the chapters examining his medieval, modernist, American and ecumenical quests are weak at best, tortured at worst.
At more than 500 pages, perhaps the author feared that a scholarly tone would put readers off the book. This would explain his adoption of the poorly executed conversational voice. In an attempt to take the reader into his confidence, he litters the text with personal asides that are too cute by half. "..is it so surprising..."; "was he, I wonder, the only one..." Shand-Tucci is obsessed with "emphasis added." If the publisher refunded a dime for every instance of italics added for emphasis, the book would be free. Is this the author's attempt to add inflection to an already too-chatty voice? Or is it evidence that he thinks the reader will be unable to discern the important part of a quote? His sentence structure is often so convoluted that re-reading is a necessary and odious chore.
Thankfully, this volume is not dominated by a crusade to place Cram and his creative colleagues in a homosexual context. Shand-Tucci, however, does pound this theme early and hard - but, then, returns to it only occasionally. Why Cram's sexuality is important (or that of the handful of others the author breezily identifies as homosexual) we do not learn. Why, then, is germane to report it? The author claims that the young Cram was enthralled by the Pre-Raphaelites, Wilde and Wagner at Trinity Church, Boston, under the auspices of H. H. Richardson and Phillips Brooks. Shand-Tucci then struggles to find Wilde there and abandons placing Wagner within these auspices.
The technical quality of this book does an injustice to a subject important as Cram and to the buyer who pays $49.95. The paper is unsuitable for reproducing photographic detail. The eight color plates are well done, but do little to advance the story. And while this is an architectural biography, not a monograph, the quantity of photos and illustrations seems meager. Shand-Tucci eschews the courtesy of referencing illustrations in the text, so much time is lost looking for an illustration of a building which, often as not, is not there. Upon finding them, the captions are as difficult to decipher as much of the prose. The chapter on Cram's architectural ecumenism is the welcome exception to the general paucity of illustration.
The grammatical and factual mistakes are appalling. We are told that "...Putnam was the man to whom Cram...would undoubtedly have gone to..." We are introduced to Stamford (sic) White and Audrey (sic) Beardsley. The possessive of the plural of Puritan is passed off as "Puritans's." On page 163, Shand-Tucci informs us that there is no record of Cram getting closer to the state of Wisconsin than Ohio. On page 175, he lists Cram's speaking tour itinerary as including Milwaukee and Madison. At long last, gentlemen, have you no editors?
Shand-Tucci does give some fascinating and insightful analysis of the man, his method of work and professional relationships, albeit in sections of the book subsidiary to the four quests. "A House Divided" is the chapter title of a skillful explication of Cram's partnership and break-up with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. A wonderful view of a maturing architect and his maturing practice emerges in "Churches Built in Time of War." For the student of architectural creativity, the chapter "Design Process" is captivating - to learn about Cram as well as for the similarities discernable to H. H. Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright (which similarities are not pointed out).
Of the "quest" chapters, the medieval and the modernist are most valuable. Here, the author is discerning, demonstrates a deep understanding of architecture and society and writes relatively cogently. Much the same can be said for the latter portion of "The Ecumenical Quest." But, while Trinity, Boston's chancel by H. H. Richardson for Phillips Brooks is key to his story, he devotes over seventy pages to it with scarcely a mention of Ralph Adams Cram. Shand-Tucci, in this long, long passage, demonstrates a thoroughgoing knowledge of the architecture and theology of liturgy. Then he does little to connect the chancel to Cram, except to point to the irony of Cram's flip-flop on its appropriateness. Does the disproportion of the treatment's size hint at showing off?
"The American Quest" begins well the important task of debunking stereotypes which have caricatured Cram, the philosopher. By holding up the ostensibly contradictory view of Cram as both a conservative and a liberal, Shand-Tucci demonstrates the complexity, nuance and brilliance of his subject. His success at the task might have encouraged him to extend this chapter beyond thirty pages - less than half the space devoted to the development of Trinity's chancel.
What has happened here to degrade the work of a knowledgeable author on an important biography of a compelling man? He has not disciplined his prose, his focus or his personal interjection. Had the publisher exercised reasonable editing and sympathetic production, the excellence of this book might have approached the standard always demanded by Ralph Adams Cram. The publisher is more to be faulted for not reigning in the enthusiasm and carelessness of Shand-Tucci. I am, however, pleased to have the book in my library. Had I known the book's flaws, I would have curbed my impatience to read it and reversed my procedure of Volume I: I would have purchased from a used book store.
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11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb, comprehensive biography!, January 7, 2006
This review is from: Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests--"Medieval Modernist, American, Ecumenical (Hardcover)
I have never reviewed a book on Amazon.com before, but after reading Douglass Shand-Tucci's Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests, I am compelled to put in my two cents. I have read both volumes of Shand-Tucci's biography of Ralph Adams Cram, and I agree with that they are likely to remain the definitive biography of Cram for decades to come.
Shand-Tucci presents overwhelming evidence of Cram's homosexuality, particularly in Boston Bohemia. There is really nothing "questionable" about it. Understanding the role of the homosexual community within Anglicanism at the turn of the last century is essential to understanding Cram's spirituality, his philosophical and theological views, and his artistic temperament. Shand-Tucci is absolutely correct in identifying this strain within Anglicanism with the "Anglo-Catholic" or "High Church" wing of the church. It is well documented at least as far back as the thirteenth century, and it has been a source of conflict between the "Catholic" and the "Puritan" parties in Anglicanism since the Reformation. When Henry VIII (that paragon of virtue) dissolved the monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century, his commissioners ridiculed many communities of monks and friars as "effeminate" and "full of sodomites." The Cavaliers of the 17th century and the Tractarians of the 19th century received the same treatment from their opponents. The controversy occasioned by the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire is only the most recent skirmish in a battle that goes back centuries. The conflict is basically between those who see the Church as the exclusive company of "the Elect" and those who see it as an inclusive community for "all sorts and conditions of men." In keeping with Calvinist theology, the "Puritan" wing of Anglicanism has tended to embrace the former point of view, while the "Catholic" wing has tended to embrace a more inclusive view of the Church. This is probably why "High-Church" parishes have always attracted a large share of eccentrics, oddballs and misfits, while "Low-Church" parishes are often perceived as "the Republican Party at prayer." As my father, who was a priest, often said, "The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints." This neatly summarizes the traditional Anglo-Catholic point of view.
I also need to add that Cram's homosexuality has always been something of an open secret within the Episcopal Church. When I was a teenager I had many conversations with Canon Edward N. West of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, who knew Cram and worked closely with him in the years leading up to World War II. Canon West spoke openly of Cram's homosexuality; the devastating effect that his breakup with Betram Goodhue and Goodhue's subsequent death had on him; and his guilt over his troubled marriage and the pain he had caused his wife. While these were personal reminiscences, obtained second hand, they do support Mr. Shand-Tucci's thesis. Furthermore, nobody I knew found them at all surprising or out of character. Growing up in Anglo-Catholic parishes in the 1960s I was quite used to hearing people referred to as "confirmed bachelors" or "an elderly gentleman couple." Even my "Aunt Julia" and "Aunt Poppy," who had shared their lives with each other for nearly sixty years, were completely open about the nature of their relationship. In those pre-Stonewall days the language used was perhaps more circumspect than it is today, but I knew what these terms meant, even as a nine-year old, and I don't remember anyone ever having to explain them to me.
As a religious, I found Shand-Tucci's description of the Benedictines of Caldey appalling, not because I think there is anything inaccurate in his research, but because the life lived by Abbot Aelred and his brothers was a gross distortion of the religious life. It is an unfortunate example of what can happen when Anglo-Catholicism goes off the deep end and instead of being inclusive becomes precious and ghettoized. The externals of worship, ritual and lifestyle become ends in themselves rather than a means to an end. This is perhaps the besetting sin of Anglo-Catholicism and I am disappointed, though not overly surprised, that Cram was attracted to it. Fr. Benson and the Cowley Fathers were absolutely correct when they warned their directees away from Fr. Ignatius, Abbot Aelred and their ilk.
Shand-Tucci's chapter on "The Ecumenical Quest" is wonderful! In his early days Cram could be pretty rigid and doctrinaire, as many young men are. I was gratified to learn that his vision became much broader and more inclusive as he matured. He began to realize that tradition, ethnicity and culture, as well as individual temperament, will affect the way people live, work and worship. He became willing to accommodate these sorts of contradictions even when they led to such incongruities as a Presbyterian Church with liturgical arrangements more suited to a Tridentine high mass than the simple liturgy of a Scottish kirk. I doubt that Cram would have tolerated this contradiction as a young man. Perhaps with age he realized that institutions change and evolve, just as individuals do, and that the East Liberty Presbyterian Church had the right to a cathedral-like sanctuary as much as any Episcopal church did.
Shand-Tucci's essay on Phillips Brooks and the chancel of Trinity Church, Boston, occurs in this chapter. I agree that it seems somewhat misplaced. Chronologically it belongs in Boston Bohemia, and its influence on Cram seems somewhat tenuous. However, in and of itself this essay is magnificent. Latitudinarian or "Broad Church" theology and practice, such as that espoused by Phillips Brooks, is too often couched in terms of compromise. It is neither too "High Church" or too "Low Church," but some sort of muddled middle way. Shand-Tucci presents Phillips Brooks' thinking in a far more positive light - not a compromise between High Church and Low Church ideas, but as an inclusive, liberal, universalist embrace of the best of many traditions. This is by far the most comprehensive exploration of Broad Church theology, liturgy and practice that I have read, and it was worth the price of the book in and of itself.
Whenever I read the biography of an architect I wish there were more illustrations. Mr. Shand-Tucci includes more than most authors, but I was still left wanting to see more, and I do wish the photographic reproductions were of a higher quality. This is perhaps an inevitable consequence of publishing a book with admittedly limited appeal. As for Mr. Shand-Tucci's writing style, I found it a little annoying in a few instances, but writing styles are very much a matter of taste, and Shand-Tucci's certainly does not make the book "unreadable." Furthermore, I did not find Shand-Tucci's personal reflections "intrusive." Too many academicians pretend to a kind of objectivity that they do not in fact posses. I far prefer an author who is honest and forthright about his or her personal views and conclusions so I know exactly where he or she stands. Masking personal opinions behind scholarly conventions make it more difficult to disentangle the personal views of the author from the underlying research - not less.
There are minor inconsistencies in the text and a few passages that are grammatically incorrect or at least unnecessarily complex, so the book could have benefited from another detailed review by an editor. However, these are minor quibbles. In Boston Bohemia and An Architect's Four Quests, Mr. Shand-Tucci has presented a comprehensive biography of one of this country's most influential architects and thinkers and the milieu in which he lived, worked and worshipped. I highly recommend it.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Second Volume in the Definitive Biography, September 23, 2005
This review is from: Ralph Adams Cram: An Architect's Four Quests--"Medieval Modernist, American, Ecumenical (Hardcover)
Ralph Adams Cram was one of the pre-eminent architects of the early twentieth century. His work spanned the full range from spectacular houses, to churches (both small and St. John the Divine in New York City), to the university campus (Rice, Princeton, West Point). This book is the second in a two volume biography (the first volume is called Boston Bohemia, 1881 - 1900). It covers from 1900 to his death in 1942.
Compared with most biographies, this book is profusely illustrated. There are some 130 photographs and drawings included along with eight pages of full color plates. These are of Cram's work, the churches, houses, buildings that Cram designed. Noticably missing are the usual pictures of his father and mother, wife and kids. The author understands that the story of an artchitect is in the things he designs, not the old, musty looking family members.
This will almost certainly remain the definitive biography of Cram.
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