Al, Antietam, and Alec September 18, 2021 Al Franken on how being a Nazi in America was less acceptable in the Fifties. Five minutes. Heather Cox Richardson on Antietam. Is the battle over? I had actually never read Maurice (pronounced: MORE-iss), E.M. Forster‘s famous pre-World War I novel about the love that dared not speak its name (published only after his death, in 1971). What got me to read it was Alec, a novel written by William di Canzio a century later that tells the exact same story — but from the young game keeper’s point of view. When I finished, I could not fail to go back and read Maurice. It’s hard to imagine that things were ever such. But for the longest time they were — and in much of Africa, the Muslim world, Russia/Chechnya/Belarus and red-state America still are . Alec adds years to the story, up through and beyond World War I. That makes reading it perhaps even more compelling than reading Maurice, if you have time for just one. How little most of us know of World War I. Compare the sacrifice and suffering di Canzio describes (or that of Antietam) to the sacrifice involved in getting two shots of vaccine. Imagine if those wars could have been fought and won so easily. Have a great weekend!