Golo Mann: Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts

The world is a complex place. It is impossible to understand its present to any degree of completeness, still less to predict its future. Yet people must live in the present and make choices that end up determining which of the infinitely many possible futures will actually unfold.

History, the account of events and choices which happened before now, and how they influenced the subsequent times and eventually the present, may be a helpful but not dependable guide, as it needs to be rewritten in the light of which past choices actually turned out to be significant and which did not. In this sense, not only does the past determine the future, but also the future determines the past.

It is with this mindset that I read Golo Mann's German history of the 19th and 20th century. One cannot even begin to comprehend the present world and Europe without understanding Germany and its history, even though Germany at least for the time being has ceased to make history in the same sense it did for some 80 years after its unification.

I read the book in the original language; I don't think it has been translated in English. The author is a member of the talented but troubled Mann family: born in 1909, he was the third son of Thomas Mann. His siblings Klaus, Erika and Monika were also known authors, as was his uncle Heinrich. The book was first published in 1958 and became highly successful. The expanded version which I read was published in 1966, including a new chapter of post-WWII Germany up to the then present time. Golo Mann lived to see the reunification of Germany; he died in 1994.

The heritage of the author led me to expect a history written in beautiful, polished, and expressive German, which indeed turned out to be the case. I do not think it could be satisfactorily translated: its distanced, melancholy tone is not easily expressed in any other language.

Even if translated, I am unsure if, say, British readers would appreciate Golo Mann's historiography. Not only it is written from German viewpoint for German-speaking audience; also the meditative style that does not attempt to give easy explanations or clear answers might not be to the liking of readers who prefer to stick to the facts. For Golo Mann, factual happenings are just the overgrowth of history, unfolding as the chance result of multiple and mostly unknown undercurrents, some of which may make themselves visible in, say, culture and art. Still, he is no Marxist: it is people, their minds, and the choices that their minds make them to do, that make history happen.

Of course, German history of the period covered - roughly from the end of Napoleon wars in 1815 to the end of Adenauer regime in early 1960's - is in many ways a tragedy, bearing the question: where did it all go wrong? could it have been otherwise? At some critical points, Mann indeed stops to investigate these questions - but generally gives no answers. Yes, things might very well have gone otherwise - Bismarck's Germany might have lost to Austria in the decisive battle of the 1866 war (it was a close call), and subsequent events would have unfolded differently. How differently? Ich weiss nicht, writes Mann simply.

At the start of the book, Germany and the German nation (like everybody else) had been thoroughly shaken by the great events launched by the French revolution, including the dissolving of the Holy Roman Empire and the rearrangement of its myriad little constituent parts. Things were set in motion towards a future where the German nation would presumably organise itself in a state similar to France or England.

Yet this did not happen until the 1860's, and it finally happened in a fashion that proved to be disastrous. Bismarck's Reich was a haphazard creation that tried to preserve the privileged position of Prussia, itself not being a nation-state, in a larger national context. While he was himself able to control the forces unleashed by his creation, his successors were not: German Reich turned out to become an unstabilising element in the European system that radiated around itself a web of alliances set to contain its power, eventually leading to the disaster of WWI. Just how total the failure of Bismarck's creation ultimately was is tragically displayed in the fate of the widow of Bismarck's third son, as told by Mann: she committed suicide in the East Prussian family manor in 1945, hours before the Red Army troops reached it.

WWI was desired by nobody (except perhaps by Serbia) and ended in armistice that could not satisfy anyone. The Weimar democracy founded on the smouldering ruins of the Hohenzoller Reich never won the hearts of the nation, and did not stand the shock of the Great Depression. The way was paved for Hitler and his Nazi followers to gain power.

In recounting the following 12 years, also a part of his own memory, Golo Mann's tone becomes even more muted and melancholy. In much of the text, it is as if he can't bear to use Hitler's full name: the text calls him Der wilde Mann or Der Mensch or simply "H.". He reserves the use of "Adolf Hitler" in very few, significant contexts, as if he forces himself to look the monster in the eye and see it for was it really is. This is the case, for instance, when Mann recounts Hitler's last wish for the German nation in March 1945: that it should vanish, having proved itself incapable of fulfilling the destiny he had tried to lead it to.

It is in the Götterdämmerung of 1945 where Golo Mann initially ended his story. It was a logical end; for the Germany that emerged from the ruins was profoundly different from the one(s) that preceded it. Germany was no longer an independent force of world history, but a part of the emerging united Europe, tightly bound with the United States through a web of alliances and economical links.

No one really desired that the post-WWII Germany would become divided in two, least the Russians who would have preferred a unified Germany on which they could have inflicted their influence. Yet the forces that Hitler expected to throw his enemies at each other's throats, and allow his regime a miracle recovery at last moment, ripped the country asunder, giving birth to Adenauer's Bundesrepublik strongly oriented to the West, and eventually becoming with France the cornerstone of the EEC; and to its unhappy mirror image, the DDR, lacking any real cause of existence except its sibling.

Mann ended his expanded book at a point of time where no real possibility of reunification of the two could be foreseen. That world, as we know, is now already history: forces not anticipated in the book eventually led to its collapse, and the emergence of a new Europe where Germany again undisputedly is the strongest country.

I often wonder what Adolf Hitler would think if he were to raise from ashes and peek into the present map of Europe, with states such as Belorussia and Ukraine on it, and most of Eastern Europe countries belonging to a European Union with Germany at centre. He might wonder whether his suicide decision was too hasty: while Germany's boundaries would tell him that the great war was indeed lost, the rest of the map suggests that Patton did not stop on Oder, but continued all the way to Moscow as indeed he would have loved to do. Be that as it may, I think that the present state of matters only shows how strong the underlying processes of history really are. Even two lost world wars could not stop Germany becoming what it was destined to be: the leading European country, and the only true match to Russia.

On the last pages of his book, Golo Mann expresses his thoughts about possible futures. Shocking and sad as the divided state of Germany must have been for him, he dreaded the thought of reunification. What if the whole bloody movie would be rewound and replayed again, after the re-emergence of a unified German nation-state?

Fortunately, though, the unified German Federal Republic today is a successor of Adenauer's creation and as such discontinuous to Bismarck's or Hitler's Reich. It has little incentive to making world history again, having actually won the Cold War, and still having a lot to do to fully exploit its loot. Bismarck thought that his Reich had filled the appetite of Prussia; but he was proved wrong. The present Germany presumably has its stomach full. Or does it? History won't stop, and forces not presently understood are in effect, making future happen before our eyes.

Erich von Manstein - Verlorene Siege

Erich von Manstein was one of Germany's most famous field marshals during the Second World war. He participated in several of the major campaigns: the conquest of Poland in 1939, the second stage of the French campaign in 1940, and several battles on the Eastern Front during from 1941 to 1944, when he was ousted from his position by Hitler. Published in 1966, Verlorene Siege is his account of war as directly perceived by him in the various positions he had from division commander to army group commander.

Von Manstein contributed considerably to the planning of the 1940 campaign, suggesting that the main attack should take place through the Ardennes woods, a wholly unexpected direction that led to the rapid collapse of the entire northern wing of the Allied forces. After commanding a panzer group in the Leningrad front, he led the campaign on the Crimean peninsula in 1941-1942 that culminated in the capture of Sevastopol and led to his nomination as Field Marshal. He became commander of the Don Army Group right after the siege of Paulus' Sixth Army in Stalingrad, and led the desperate and ultimately futile attempts to rescue it. He also participated in the Kursk battle in 1943, the last attempt of the Germans to capture the initiative on the Eastern front.

It is this direct experience and viewpoint that makes this an interesting book. At the same time, it also defines its limitations. As the descendant of a long line of Prussian generals, von Manstein regards himself as a technician of the war whose mission is to conduct it with the most effective means possible towards concrete and reachable objectives. While he cannot completely disentangle himself from "the political aspects" of war - as he expresses it - he draws a tight boundary around his mission and stays within it. His task was to win the war - or at its later stages, at least create a situation where if might have been ended in a stalemate situation - and he pursues that with single-minded precision and determination. He laments the total lack of real German war strategy - telling just how it could have been won in the political arena - but leaves it at the doorstep of Hitler's. There is not a drop of remorse to be found in the book, except for its title: "Lost Victories".

Much of the later parts of the book tell a story of the relationship of von Manstein and Hitler, who had taken the leadership of German armed forces to himself in 1940 and did not restrict himself from interfering directly in details of troop deployments and other operations. Von Manstein obviously loathed this situation and spares no effort to describe how it led to bad leadership. Still the limits he had imposed to himself made him unable to resist; when asked to take part in the 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, he replied "German Field Marshals don't mutiny".

It is this mindset, often only readable between the lines, that gives this book its significance and explanatory power. As a history of the great war it is limited and biased. As a story how the minds of high German commanders worked, and why the war played out like it id, it is unique.

Cohíba Coronas Especiales CLE FEB 01

Two blog entries in a single day, why not?

Today was my 52nd birthday. To celebrate the event, to the extent that it deserved to be celebrated, I decided to smoke a cigar that somehow felt right for the moment. I had already removed the Cohíba from the humidor some days ago, and placed it into my traveldor, so I expected it to be in a perfect condition for smoking.

And indeed it was. The cigar was a joy to eyes: it is just as perfect a case of workmanship as one can hope to emerge from the El Laguito factory where Cohíbas are made. The roll density was uniform and firm, the wrapper seemed perfect, and the signature pigtail cap was just as cute as always. I almost felt sorry that I had to cut it.

The draw was just right, a bit resistive. After lighting, the cigar started its work in low key, but became alive after just a few puffs. I will not try to describe the sensations it launched: my mind was blown away, and I just sat and indulged. The aroma was discreet and intensive at the same time; dignified and sensual.

This CCE was dangerously close to being a perfect cigar. It gave me a good one hour cigar experience, spent in contemplation of the passage of time and life. For some reason, extremely good cigars often make me melancholy: perhaps it is triggered by the thought of how this small thing in my hands, made lovingly and with great skill by an unknown master of his or her art, is slowly turned to ash and a memory. Or is it just the extravagance, and ultimate uselessness, of the act? I don't know.

Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red

To most of us, an "artist" is a person who can express his or her individuality in some tangible and aesthetically pleasing form, be it painting, music or piece of architecture. Yet this need not be so.

Nobel price winner Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red is set in a world where individuality is not the norm, but rather a flaw in artist's expression. The novel is set in late 16th century Turkey. Its characters are miniature painters, who painstakingly create pictures for their wealthy patrons, in this case the Turkish sultan.

As good moslems, the artists do their work in a contradictory setting: depicting humans is considered a grave sin according to their religion. The solution is to paint not as the human sees, but as God sees the world. God sees all things: therefore, perspective is not needed, and in fact its use would be regarded a sinful attempt to place the painter in the centre of the world. The picture of a horse should not represent a living animal, but rather an ideal horse existing in artist's mind, painted from memory in a style indistinguishable from any other artist, living or dead. The ideal fate for an artist is to become blind at the end of his career, so finally becoming able to see God's world unclouded by the normal vision.

Unfortunately, in what sets the stage of the novel, this world is coming to an end. To impress Venetians, the sultan has commissioned an unusual work from his miniature artists: a book where western style painting is to be used to show off the skill of Turkish artists and the accomplishments of the Ottoman empire. The chain of murderous events that emerges forms the bulk of the story.

Thus this book is a story of several levels: it can be read simply as a "whodunit" thriller, and the reader can indeed test his wits by venturing guesses of the killer as the story enfolds. It is also a philosophical text on the nature of art and the role of the artist as its creator (or is it only God who creates art, and the artist just conveys it for others to see?). It is also a story of people and how they perceive the world and what happens it: Pamuk switches the perspective of story-telling from chapter to chapter, even letting inanimate things such as pictures and colours to have their say.

I read the book as translated in Finnish; I am hopeful that also English readers will have an equally gripping reading experience as I had. I recommend the book for anyone who wishes to contemplate the topic matter of the novel.

Robert Bartlett - Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change 950-1350

Why did Europe, originally a small backward corner of the Eurasian land-mass, spring to world dominance in a few centuries roughly beginning in 1450 and ending in the 1700's?

The short answers usually tell a story commencing from the Black Plague, then outlining the birth and rise of the Renaissance, and often also mention things such as Gutenberg's printing press, the myriad improvements of unknown artisans to the construction and rigging of sailing ships, or similar improvements in the technology of war. Longer answers trace the development of centralised states that made it possible to focus the resources of people more effectively to whatever purposes the princes of state desired, or the development of more efficient trade methods invented by the ingenious Italian merchant houses.

Robert Bartlett's The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change does not tell either of these stories. Instead it makes an attempt to answer the questions looming behind them: Why was Europe capable to launching these transformations? Why here, why not elsewhere?

The story Bartlett tells is a colourful account of a transformation equally fundamental and deep as Renaissance, the transformation of Latin Christendom that took place over the four centuries before the Black Plague. During those centuries what became Europe expanded from its core areas - Northern France, Rhine valley, England - to more than double in size; it developed a joint identity of Christendom; it started to see itself equal in comparison to the neighbouring Moslem world; all in all, it planted the seeds that would start to flourish later.

I am not a historian, merely an interested reader who is fascinated by history and wants to understand it. Thus I cannot comment on the scientific merit of Bartlett's work. Nevertheless, I believe that professional historians are not the primary audience Bartlett has aimed his work to. This became clear in comparison with another book on medieval history I read in parallel with this one, Malcolm Barber's The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050-1320 that clearly is intended for (aspiring) professionals.

If so, I think Bartlett has reached his goal admirably. This is a nice book to read, with a good balance of detail and general outline. The individual stories of enterprising and mobile French nobility; the spread of new cities (and their legal systems) in all parts of Europe; the commercialisation of Europe's economy; the adoption of Christian names by people whose grandparents were pagan; or many others are each fascinating in their own right, and together they paint a rich and compelling total picture.

Of course, my own home country enters this story at the latest stage, and just barely. Nevertheless, in Finland as well, once the "winning formula" was introduced, the transformation was rapid and total, even if the implementation was shaped by the local conditions just like Bartlett explains in other cases.

In sum, this is a nice book that I recommend to anyone interested in the roots of things.

Salman Rushdie: Shalimar the Clown

Salman Rushdie's latest novel bears the fingerprint of its author: like his previous works, it is an expertly implemented, well paced story that swings dexterously between different times, places, and people, and yet maintains a continuity. I read the book quite rapidly, in a few long sessions. The novel certainly grips the reader.

Like always, Rushdie has done his homework well: the book is full of minute detail and paints a vivid and life-like picture of its multiple scenes. Yet, after completing the book I was dissatisfied. Why is that?

At surface, the book is a story of a triangle of people: a man, his daughter, and the mother's deceived and furious husband, Shalimar the Clown. A bit deeper it is a story of India and Kashmir, a lost paradise utterly devastated by both external and internal actors.

The man is one of the forces: while acting as the USA ambassador to India, he meets a Kashmir dancer and falls in love with her; thus, the daughter is born. Of cosmopolitan middle-European origin, the ambassador is painted a man of many admirable qualities: he is a hero of French resistance during WWII, he is an accomplished economist connected with creating the post-war western world from ashes, he is a star diplomat, he is a spy-master par excellence. Yet he also is an amoral womaniser whose love to the Kashmiri woman rapidly causes her ruin.

The subtext of the ambassador as a representative of the entire Western world is easy to read: his compassion and love to India and Kashmir, even if genuine, is shallow and ultimately empty. What puzzles me, nevertheless, is why the author chooses to call him Max Ophuls. I know who the real Max Ophüls was, and I know some of his work. I expect that those readers who are not movie freaks will not know the late 40's-early 50's movies of the German-French director, semi-obscure if influential as he was. So why this name? Is Rushdie under-estimating, or over-estimating the reader? I cannot see his point here, unless it is to create confusion in some readers.

The deceived husband, Shalimar, is the bête noir of the story. The actor-acrobat turns to an international terrorist who kills his targets with skill and vengeance. He is pictured as the mirror image of the ambassador, his eventual victim. He is fanatical, skilful, strong and dangerous. In his single-minded devotion, he is more like the Terminator character than a real human being. All in all, Rushdie makes little attempt to explain or understand Shallimar. Perhaps this would have been too much to expect from an author who was himself for years a living target of religious fanatics.

In my reading, the daughter, India Ophüls. also becomes more an amalgam of ideas than a real novel character. Cast in Los Angeles, the city with no center or sense of proportion, she is depicted as rootless and uncertain of what she is. Only after she reaches out to her hidden past, to her mother and Kashmir, does the find the strength to face Shalimar in the eventual and predictable showdown. To underline this, Rushdie makes her adopt the name her mother had whispered in her ear after birth, Kashmira.

Indeed it may be that Kashmir itself is the only genuine character of the novel: her nature and landscapes; her trees, flowers, and animals; her villages and customs; and her suffering people. Only here Rushdie is expressing real compassion and warmth towards his creation.

Perhaps there are more sophisticated ways to read Shalimar the Clown; I don't know. For me, nevertheless, the shallowness of its characters left a unpleasant feeling. They did not stand for themselves; instead, they stood for something else. I felt manipulated, and I do not like that feeling, irrespective of the direction I'm manipulated to.

I could not help comparing this reading experience to the recent novel of another popular and skilled author, the Until I Find You by John Irving. Like Rushdie, Irving too is a story-teller who likes to spread his novels over wide distances in time and space. However, Irving's characters, even if fantastic, are more complex and less easy to explain. More than that, I sense more warmth and compassion in his work. He likes his characters, and wants the reader to like them too.

Punch Churchill FR OCSU

Measures: 175 mm x 18 mm

Age: The boxcode dates the cigar to July, 1998. It came from the cigar stash of another Finnish cigar lover.

Setting: Today was the date of Finnish parliament elections. The day started sunny and mild: a perfect early Spring day. By noon, however, the skies had become cloudy, and by mid-afternoon the first snowflakes started to fall. Soon this developed to a snowstorm.

I was glad that I had cast my vote before the snowfall. So my resolve to celebrate the occasion by smoking a good cigar was firm. Therefore, I placed myself on the covered balcony, with plenty of coffee, one-and-half fingers of Larsen VSOP cognac, and the Punch Churchill I had received from trade with a Finnish cigar lover. As things turned out to be, it was actually quite nice to watch the snowfall and puff away, and contemplate how the election results may turn out given that due to the weather some voters will elect to stay home and watch TV instead of voting.

The cigar I had chosen was clad in very smooth and tender colorado wrapper. It exhibited a clear box press. The cigar felt quite light and supple in my hand: somehow it did not feel the big cigar that it actually was. The cigar had a strong rustic and pleasant smell. I cut the cigar and found the draw to be fairly light. The cold aroma matched the smell of the cigar: ripe tobacco with a hint of sweetness.

The cigar launched surprisingly strongly. The first puffs released a concentrated "meaty" flavour that reminded me of a 2001 Punch Punch 2001 I had smoked just recently. After the first inch this nevertheless receded, and the cigar became more creamy and integrated. By the time it was reduced to corona gorda size, the aroma had become very pure and dry tobacco flavour with a nice bite. After half-way, the grassy sharpness of the taste nevertheless increased, and I found that I had to pace myself to keep it it bay: the cigar was burning a bit too fast. Slow smoking kept the cigar in balance and I was able to enjoy its integrated, pure flavour all the way to the end. At the final stages, some of the "meatiness" came back and gave the final inch depth and strength.

All the way, the draw of the cigar was a bit on the light side. Nevertheless, the cigar burned perfectly: I just had to rotate it while smoking. The ash was light and surprisingly brittle: it fell off after every inch, leaving flat surface instead of the more familiar conical shape.

This was a fine cigar that presented the qualities expected of the marca: pure and clean tobacco flavour in an expertly realised package. It appealed to me in a quite different manner from the RyJ Churchills that I have from the same period: instead of the noble finesse of the RyJ, I had the overall impression of a straight-talking, direct cigar that did not speak to me in allusions and subtext.

I believe that this particular cigar, fine as it was, probably did not give its absolutely best performance: it must have been a bit too dry. I still have a cabinet version with almost the same age waiting for a good moment, and I expect it to confirm the high expectations this experience created.

El Rey del Mundo Petit Corona EAT CCUA

Measures: 125 mm x 16,5 mm

Age: The boxcode dates the cigar to April, 1999.

Setting: During a recent visit to Stockholm, I had the opportunity to visit one of the nice cigar shops that the city is blessed with. I had come by the ferry boat from Helsinki, and the shop was just a 10 minutes walk away, and along a path I was taking.

It's not a large shop, but the atmosphere is nice, the shopkeeper knows his business, and usually they have something that makes the visit worth making. This time an open box of El Rey del Mundo Petit Coronas caught my eye. The box code dated the cigars to 1999. More than that, they looked nicely aged and felt good in my hand with just the right amount of suppleness. So I bought three of them.

Later the same day, already on board of the ferry en voyage back to Helsinki, I felt lucky and decided to smoke one of the cigars. While cigars straight from a shop often are too humid for best enjoyment, these cigars had felt just right. So why not?

I cut the cigar and tried the draw: it turned out to be just right. Even more encouraging was the cold aroma I sensed: nice sweetness over aged tobacco.

I lit the cigar and started to smoke away. I was rapidly immersed in the aroma of the cigar: surprisingly intensive honey-like sweetness over aged tobacco. But what really caught my attention was the sense of quality and style that the cigar emitted: while this was not a strong cigar by any means, it conquered my attention quite completely. I found it useless to try to read the book that I had taken along, and decided to focus on the cigar and its story instead. So I and the cigar immersed in a conversation for a full hour.

I have smoked several aged ERdM's before. Still this may have been the first time that I realised just how fine these cigars indeed can be if caught at the right moment. I should have bought the whole box. Fortunately, another Stockholm visit is just around the corner.

H. Uppman Coronas Major tubos, late 1990's

The first full box of cigars I ever bought was a box of H. Uppman Coronas Major. I acquired them in early 2000, from the tax free shop of some or other European airport that has escaped my memory in the way airports do. The cigars therefore must have been late 1990's make.

The cigars came in nice tubos with crisp green text on them. I suppose I selected tubos cigars because I did not plan, green newbie as I was, to buy a humidor. The memory of the first tries has it that the cigars were quite tight. Therefore, I bought some others and put these aside. And soon a humidor followed.

Today I decided to smoke the last survivor of the set. It had escaped the aluminium container already years ago. The sample looked pretty wild: wrinkled and multicoloured, with the oils having partly vanished from its thickish wrapper. The cigar felt light and firm in hand.

I was unsure of what to expect from the cigar. The next to last - that I had more than a year ago - had been quite disappointing. Very light flavour, very light draw. The little what remained of the flavour nearly vanished around 2/3 of the cigar and the rest was almost like sucking air with a straw. The cigar must have been much too dry.

So I cut the cigar and tried the draw. This time it felt nicely resistive, and the cold aroma was good: bit of burnt sugar over tobacco. So I lit the cigar with heightened expectations.

The change from the previous encounter turned out to be significant indeed. The aroma was rich, deep, and satisfying. Molasses and cacao, even chocolate. It blended perfectly with the coffee I was drinking. I couldn't help thinking that the cigar tasted "warm" and "brown": for some reason these adjectives seemed a perfect fit. It was in perfect harmony that smoked the cigar to the nub.

So it turned out that the cigar's last year of rest had been spent in attractive conditions that made the old-timer bloom again.

It is satisfying that the last cigar from a box leaves a good memory. Perhaps I should buy a few more. Or perhaps not; one can have the first kiss just once.

Six times ten

It's mid-winter in Finland, and lately it has been quite cold - too damn cold for cigar smoking. This has cut down my smoking (and posting) quite a lot. Despite this, my cigar log shows that this year I have still managed to smoke six cigars that deserve the perfect score of 10/10 in my totally subjective scale:

* Cohíba Lancero (2000): This comes from a fiver I bought in a well-known Geneva shop about a year ago. It was the third of the set; each has hovered close to the perfection in performance and style. Fine start of 2007.

* Trininad Fundadores (1998): Another classic, but oh so totally different from the Lancero in its extravagant opulence. These too seem to be getting better and better.

* Montecristo No. 3 (1998): I never realised just how good Montes can be before getting this box. Super smooth, silky, creamy. I'm glad I bought a second box of these too.

* Punch Super Selection No. 1 (2001): This cigar comes from an American cigar friend's lot. Strong full aroma from the start, and then some more and some more ... all the way to the very end, and it's a long way. Incredible crescendo that left me nearly speechless. Thanks!

* Cohíba Coronas Especiales (2001): I thought I was no big fan of Cohíba, but this cigar proved me wrong. Perfect construction, burn, and draw. Fine and intensive aroma. If 2001 was not stellar for some Habanos, that surely does not apply to this El Laguito product.

* Vegas Robaina Famosos (1997): These cigars have been an enigma to me. They have quite light draws and must be smoked very carefully. So perhaps giving perfect score is too much, but the aroma ... Strong, pure tobacco par excellence. To bad that I did not get more than one box when they still were available.

Not such a bad year so far, eh? "Smoke less, smoke better" is sage advice indeed.