REFLECTED GLORY

Rating:
Summary: Haughty, Smarmy , Preachy , Holier than Thou.
Review: From the first page of this book it was obvious that the author had some deep-seated resentment of Pamela Churchill Harriman. Bedell-Smith seemed to seek out only those who did not like her. The author also contradicted her facts on more than one ocassion. The first one I noticed was about her father, she said he never leared to drive, two pages later she has him driving to deliver milk after the war. There are many other misstatements like this in the book.

I also wonder why Pamela was so bad. Men have repeatedly reinvented themselves over the years and people think they are great. Pamela did what she had to do to get ahead and more power to her.

Rating:
Summary: Author Poorly Reflects Glory
Review: From the first page of this book it was obvious that the author had some deep-seated resentment of Pamela Churchill Harriman. Bedell-Smith seemed to seek out only those who did not like her. The author also contradicted her facts on more than one ocassion. The first one I noticed was about her father, she said he never leared to drive, two pages later she has him driving to deliver milk after the war. There are many other misstatements like this in the book.

I also wonder why Pamela was so bad. Men have repeatedly reinvented themselves over the years and people think they are great. Pamela did what she had to do to get ahead and more power to her.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but disappointing!
Review: I finished this scintillating book with one BIG unanswered question - what did this woman have or what did this woman do- that attracted so many rich,powerful men! The author certainly spent a great deal of time researching the life of Pamela Harriman. The book at times reads like a chronicle of daily events, But it never answers the BIG question. Maybe there is no answer. Maybe Pamela Harriman's free spirit was what attracted her list of men. The one insight that the book did provide was the corrupting nature of money & contemporary politics. This part of the book made me angry & just reinforced my cynicism about politics in general. Maybe, for me, this was the redeeming feature of the book. But I still am left with my BIG unanswered question. Maybe someone out there can provide the answer for me. Review of REFLECTED GLORY by Sally Bedell Smit

Rating:
Summary: 20th century female version of the vintage Machiavelli
Review: I have not read such a good biography in a long time. Ms Bedell is neither enamored nor appalled with her subject (a sin that many biographers commit). Her well-researched book has a good balance between the broader historic narrative and the focused portrait of the controversial individual.

Rating:
Summary: Haughty, Smarmy , Preachy , Holier than Thou.
Review: If you like to read a book that assumes you are an inferior dolt who can't possibly comprehend the life of this presumuptious social climbing political opportunist, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Serial Bride
Review: Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was a serial bride, and she interspersed her marriages with conspicuous love affairs. She was a 20th century courtesan who, apparently, chose her men for the money and gifts that they would lavish upon her.

In REFLECTED GLORY, Sally Bedell Smith has done a scholarly and thorough job of researching and reporting the story of this rapacious woman. The only liason that Harriman had had with a man who was not wealthy was with her first husband, but he was the son of Winston Churchill, England's Prime Minister, at the time that they wed. For the rest of her life, Pamela used her Churchill connection as her entry to all things important--and, to Pamela, the only things that apparently seemed to have been important were rich men.

She slept with English nobility--her own father was an obscure English nobleman--French aristocrats, Arab oil sheiks, South American polo players, Italian car manufacturers and filthy rich Americans. And she was an equal-opportunity mistress; she didn't care whether they were married or not.

Decades after they first began their affair, Pamela got Averill Harriman to marry her. Thoughtfully, he died soon after, leaving her the bulk of his huge estate.

She used some of those funds to underwrite America's financially insolvent Democratic Party, and a young politician named Bill Clinton. After he became President, Clinton rewarded her generosity by named Pamela Harriman as his Ambassador to France.

Sally Bedell Smith has written an excellent biography of a woman who truly was fascinating, albeit in a horrifying kind of way.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing and enthralling account
Review: This biography separates itself from other Pamela Churchill Harriman tomes in that it reads almost like a fiction novel. Some of the salacious and outlandish goings-on seem almost implausible, if not absurdly bizarre. Harriman proves to be the most singularly opportunistic individual that I have read about - possibly ever. Although she does have her good points(although even her philanthropy seems perfunctory at best), Harriman(or should I say Digby, Churchill, or Heyward?) comes across as the most devilishly clever courtesan of the 20th Century.

I recommend this account as one that makes for a most compelling, if not a trifle unnerving, read. From her days as a seductive young debutante to her days as the wily big wheel of Democratic Party fundraising and later as the U.S. Ambassador to France, you'll find yourself intrigued as you read about this incredibly shrewd seductress.

Rating:
Summary: Good for What it Is
Review: This book is the type that I begin reading, and by the end am angry with myself for wasting the time.

I purchased this book out of curiosity about Mrs. Harriman's life. Certainly the author dug up sufficient dirt on the subject to satisfy the most 'enquiring' minds.

As with another reviewer, I am still mystified as to what so many famous men saw in this women. Not particularly attractive for most of her life, she apparently had a female magnetism that escapes the written page. No surprise, many women have had that ability. It doesn't read well for the male of the species, many of whom appeared as pawns to this woman's machinations.

Ultimately this is a rather depressing book. Like others, Mrs. Harriman is in the end old, alone and a rather pitiful character. What a ride while it lasted, though!

Rating:
Summary: Good for What it Is
Review: This book is the type that I begin reading, and by the end am angry with myself for wasting the time.

I purchased this book out of curiosity about Mrs. Harriman's life. Certainly the author dug up sufficient dirt on the subject to satisfy the most 'enquiring' minds.

As with another reviewer, I am still mystified as to what so many famous men saw in this women. Not particularly attractive for most of her life, she apparently had a female magnetism that escapes the written page. No surprise, many women have had that ability. It doesn't read well for the male of the species, many of whom appeared as pawns to this woman's machinations.

Ultimately this is a rather depressing book. Like others, Mrs. Harriman is in the end old, alone and a rather pitiful character. What a ride while it lasted, though!