THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120525
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JAMES E. PERSON JR.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
THE PATTONS
A Personal History of an American Family
ROBERT H. PATTON
Crown. 320 pp. $25.
GEORGE SMITH PATTON JR., the U.S. general known as ``Old Blood and Guts'' during World War II, was not only a fighter but a poet. He once wrote: ``Through the travail of the ages/ Midst the pomp and toil of war/ Have I fought and strove and perished/Countless times upon this star.''
Explaining this seeming dichotomy, author Robert H. Patton, a grandson of the general, writes in The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family: ``The Pattons were an ethereal bunch, God-haunted, often psychic, their eyes turned constantly heavenward, as if scanning for angels or, just as likely, for a thunderbolt headed their way.''
``The Pattons,'' he adds, were both idea and family.
Patton's book traces his family's history from 17th century Scotland to present-day America. And a colorful, interesting history it is. Drawing on many published historical sources and letters saved for centuries, Patton recounts the lives of his peculiar family, its men drawn to soldiering, with the skill of a practiced storyteller. Having come of age in the anti-military atmosphere of the United States in the late '60s and early '70s, the author writes with quiet pride, yet with a certain detachment, of George S. Patton III, his father, who served in the U.S. Army in both Korea and Vietnam.
At the book's end, George Patton III's young son appears, watching George C. Scott in the film ``Patton'' on home video. Scott's portrayal of the great general - aggressive, foul-mouthed, quirky and brilliant - is all that many people know of the man called ``Georgie'' by his family and by the author. ``Georgie'' is at the center of Robert Patton's book, a man at once intriguing and mildly revolting.
Born into wealth, inheriting the ethnic prejudices of his class and time, and raised on stories of his soldier-ancestors' heroism, Georgie Patton believed that his family lineage culminated in him. He believed that he had been singled out by God, the gods, fate or his long-dead ancestors to serve a mighty purpose in time of war. His entire adult life was spent preparing for that time of conflict and triumph.
A man of war, he could be a selfish, high-living blowhard in peacetime, verbally abusing his wife and children. His behavior was a study in psychological contradictions. He believed that he had been reincarnated many times throughout the centuries (``Countless times upon this star''), always as a soldier, always doomed to die in battle. He was disappointed that he was not killed in Europe during the final months of World War II.
Robert Patton seems of two minds about his grandfather: He is disgusted with his bigotry and the mental cruelty he inflicted on his wife and children, yet approving of his beliefs and policies, viewing him as ahead of his time.
Colorfulness and eccentricity seem to have run in the family. Georgie's great-grandmother, the mother of eight sons, all of them Confederate soldiers, was an almost cartoonishly unreconstructed Southerner. One Sunday after the war, Peggy Patton struck a Confederate veteran in the face with a buggy whip after learning that the man had prayed in church for the U.S. president.
Georgie's mother, Ruth, had her moments, too. As a ``natural remedy'' to treat her arthritic joints, she would periodically direct her gardener ``to collect a bagful of honeybees and then open the bag around her stiff knees, letting the insects sting her until they died.'' Georgie's wife, Beatrice, normally a long-suffering, not-easily-roused woman, once angrily confronted a younger woman with whom Georgie had had an affair and proceeded to place an ancient Hawaiian curse on her. (The ``other woman'' took her own life within a week.)
The Pattons possesses several considerable strengths. It is a well-woven story told in a straightforward, clear and compelling manner. Its flaws are few. Foremost among them is the recurrent sense that Patton holds his grandfather's beliefs and prejudices accountable to today's standards, rather than to the standards of his own time. This tendency comes to the fore on the few occasions when Patton attempts informal psychological analysis. In one such instance, Patton reads a great deal of significance into a coltish poem on knighthood that Georgie wrote at age 7.
The ``ideal'' called ``The Pattons,'' writes the author, ``had less to do with family than with individual conduct. Its origins, its rules, its effect on the lives of family members, is the story I have to tell.'' Part history, part fable, it is a fascinating story, one well-told and well worth reading. MEMO: James E. Person Jr., a native of Virginia who now lives in Michigan, is
the editor of ``Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Robert H. Patton recounts his family's history with the flair of a
longtime storyteller.
by CNB