I finally read Wilhelmine's Memoirs start to finish! From what Mildred and Cahn had been saying, I expected the second half to be a bit of a slog, but I have to say that I thought it was fine. Probably because I did know a lot of the people and background by now, but I was prepared for way more endless court intrigues and got through it pretty easily.
My main take-away, though: I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse. Now I really understand why during the Wusterhausen argument, everyone voted for the parent they had to spend the most time with. Poor kids. On the other hand, those instances of Sonsine bodily blocking FW from getting at Wilhelmine and hitting her? Damn.
After that one, I also read Fahlenkamp and as far as Fritz/Fredersdorf letters go, yay! I'd mostly read Fritz ones before*, so I was particularly happy to get to all the Fredersdorf ones. But the rest of the book? Not impressed with the writing (a lot of superficial stuff, bad grammar) and now I'm not surprised anymore that Fahlenkamp used wiki as a source. Have to say, I prefer the chronological Richter approach with actually helpful footnotes to Fahlenkamp's thematic one.
* These kept being very endearing indeed, spelling and all, and it really struck me a) how patiently he repeated the same things over and over again, and b) how often he resorted to outright begging when it came to Fredersdorf's penchant for medical charlatans. And on the other hand, Fredersdorf's gave me an inkling for why he was so impatient and resorted to them, because I got the impression that he was genuinely upset that he couldn't be with Fritz and get his work done and was at times somewhat worried that he might lose Fritz' esteem. (Still shipping them, is what I'm saying.)
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Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-14 05:34 pm (UTC)My main take-away, though: I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse. Now I really understand why during the Wusterhausen argument, everyone voted for the parent they had to spend the most time with. Poor kids. On the other hand, those instances of Sonsine bodily blocking FW from getting at Wilhelmine and hitting her? Damn.
After that one, I also read Fahlenkamp and as far as Fritz/Fredersdorf letters go, yay! I'd mostly read Fritz ones before*, so I was particularly happy to get to all the Fredersdorf ones. But the rest of the book? Not impressed with the writing (a lot of superficial stuff, bad grammar) and now I'm not surprised anymore that Fahlenkamp used wiki as a source. Have to say, I prefer the chronological Richter approach with actually helpful footnotes to Fahlenkamp's thematic one.
* These kept being very endearing indeed, spelling and all, and it really struck me a) how patiently he repeated the same things over and over again, and b) how often he resorted to outright begging when it came to Fredersdorf's penchant for medical charlatans. And on the other hand, Fredersdorf's gave me an inkling for why he was so impatient and resorted to them, because I got the impression that he was genuinely upset that he couldn't be with Fritz and get his work done and was at times somewhat worried that he might lose Fritz' esteem. (Still shipping them, is what I'm saying.)