THE WAR YEARS 1939 - 1945: Volume II of The Diaries & Letters of Harold Nicolson. [Hardcover]

Nigel (Ed) Nicholson (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Atheneum; Book Club edition (1967)
• ASIN: B000IO8QEK
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,096,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 stars Alas, Poor Harold, July 11, 2010

By	Sylvia Weiser Wendel (North Hollywood, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Pity poor Harold Nicholson, more in need of serotonin than any man alive during the Second World War ... too bad it took fifty more years to invent Prozac. Nicholson is an excellent writer, but his emotional dithering wears thin. Those who peruse these pages because they are intrigued by the Bloomsbury set's sexual scandals will be disappointed; the temperature seldom rises above tepid. He is horribly depressed, and the diaries would make good reading for psychologists/psychiatrists interested in the anatomy of that condition. Still, for the historically inclined this volume is invaluable. Nicholson appears to have been somewhat of a bit player at that time, but he was close to those who had the bigger roles and he reports their doings faithfully. Clearly he loved his wife and family, and was at heart a decent, if deluded, human being. The delusion came of his believing -- as so many more were to do in future years, to their and cilivization's detriment -- in "nontraditional" relationships and the bogus need to cast off -- what exactly? Excess money? Nicholson felt really, really guilty about almost everything. Here was a man for whom the lack of need to do anything -- because he already had almost everything -- was a lifelong handicap. I enjoyed the diaries nonetheless, in particular for their portrait of Churchill.