Book Review: Achtung Schweinehund!, Harry Pearson

[major_clanger]

Achtung Schweinehund! A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat, Harry Pearson, Abacus, £7.99

Remember Francis Spufford's The Child that Books Built? Well, Achtung Schweinehund! might be summed up as The Child (And Adult) That Commando Comics, Action Man, Airfix Kits, Sven Hassel Novels And Miniatures Wargaming Built. Pearson chronicles his progression through all these obsessions (and more) before reaching his final, and ongoing one: collecting vast numbers of model soldiers, painting them, and re-fighting historical battles with them. He sometimes worries that he takes his interest too far, but as one of his friends notes, how can you have too much of something you don't actually need at all?

The first half of the book is very much a reminiscence of Pearson's childhood enthusiasms, which seem very typical for a boy growing up in the 1970s: fighting World War II over and over again, in any medium possible. Must of it is taken up with nostalgic anecdotes that will bring back memories to anyone familiar with the toys of the time, such as regarding the various incarnations of Action Man, with all his strengths and weaknesses - not least of which that he was so expensive you could usually only have one, meaning that any battle required a lot of very quick costume changes. However, Pearson also manages some at times thoughtful reflection as to just why war toys were so popular; I am quite taken with his theory that Britain, having escaped the warfare that wracked the Continent for the 18th and 19th centuries, found itself twice in close succession having major wars with a real domestic impact, and like a previously quiet individual who suddenly has a life-changing bout of excitement hasn't been able to stop going on about it since.

The second half concentrates far more on Pearson's adult obsession of miniatures wargaming. It is here that he moves away from autobiography and gives instead more of a discursive, whilst still humorous, introduction to the hobby. Whilst you won't learn how to wargame from this book, you will glean a lot about it, and Pearson drops in some fascinating anecdotes; the history of the huge model recreation of the Battle of Waterloo, for instance, that fell foul of Wellington because it made it clear how much his victory had depended on the Prussians, or the way in which wargaming bordered on becoming fashionable in the late 1960s, even being shown as the eponymous secret agent's hobby in Callan.

In between these we see snapshots from the lives of Pearson and his wargaming mates, often as they encounter gamers even more obsessed than themselves. Revealingly, like revolutionaries who hate marginally-dissenting factions far more than their nominal enemies, they often show their suspicion or outright horror at encounters with exponents of such allied hobbies as costume re-enactment ("There's even a bunch who dress up as a U-Boat crew." "Do they have a submarine?" "No, I think they just re-enact shore leave."), boardgame players, fantasy role-playing gamers, or - worst of the worst - LARPers. There's a wonderful cartoon by muskrat_john in Dork Tower: Understanding Gamers depicting the Gamer Spectrum of Derision; Pearson et al embody it to a T.

Reading the above I realise I've probably made Achtung Schweinehund! sound rather more obsessive and grumpy than it is. Quite the opposite, in fact - I was snorting with laughter (much of it of the guilty self-recognition kind) every five minutes as I read it, and I'm sure many I know will do likewise. Even as someone whose limited experience of wargaming - rather than the RPGing or boardgaming that Pearson so gleefully disdains - is of the abstracted card-counter and hex-grid map variety, rather than the miniatures and terrain kind, I found it an enjoyable and often surprisingly insightful reflection on typical obsessive-male hobbies and the sort of childhood that leads into them. Very fun and highly recommended.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

You've made it sound like a book I want to *read*.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Remember Francis Spufford's The Child that Books Built?

No, but I imported The Back Room Boys on the strength of your review and autopope's, and was not disappointed.

My own teenagerdom was dominated by the smell of turpentine and Testor's paint. Made plenty of trips to the bigger hobby shops, which carried Airfix and Tamiya kits, because (as our beloved model magazines informed us) models from U.S. manufacturers were just not as good. So I carefully recreated the North African campaign in 1/76th and 1/35th scales.

I might enjoy this book. Not likely to turn up in this country, though.

[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

I read this a few months ago, and thought it was brilliant. I liked his point about how [obsessive] male hobbies used to be seen as a good thing that kept a man from drinking, gambling, and chasing after women, but were now seen as suspicious and geeky.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Terrific review! I'll be passing this along to similar obsessives of my acquaintance.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well, I've loaned it to swisstone, so if you can prise it off him...