T is for This is Really Sad . . .

. . . as I imagined when I bought it, that I would be able to give this book a glowing report/review here or on Amazon, from where I purchased it as a Christmas present to myself.

However, having dipped into it over the holiday, browsed it from cover-to-cover, reading all the picture captions as I went, looked-up a few specific 'test' things and carefully read the composition chapter (chp.11; Toy Soldiers March in Goose Step) in full, I am genuinely sad to report, that unless you are a hardcore library-builder/completist, you can save yourself forty-odd quid (+/- €50 or $60) by not buying this book.

Plastics' purists and war gamers can also keep their pocketbooks free of lightening by waiting for something more substantial in their chosen fields; Plastic Warrior magazine only gets a couple of mentions and is pluralised each time (warriors), so the author's obviously no aficionado of that publication?

It should be noted that some outlets are heavily discounting it already (I paid £26), possibly as a result of its initial reception, so there are bargains out there if you feel you must have it.

And the first thing I want to say is that I believe most of the problems with the work are down to poor translation, poor editing and no apparent proof-reading, so the bulk of the blame can be lain, solemnly, at the feet of the publisher, but some of it does, nevertheless, go back to the author.

The History of Toy Soldiers

by Luigi Toiati

After a series of forwards, prefaces and introductions (or - at least - one of each!) the book 'proper' starts around twelve-pages in, and immediately gets into difficulty with the definitions of 'Hunt' and 'Find' as applied to the acquisition of toy soldiers, the - quite laboured - point is repeated again further-on in the work, so it's clearly meant to be one of many theories espoused by the author, but I would argue the opposite meanings are the ones we work to.

The author suggests (pp. 5, 1st para.) you [we] find specifics and hunt for everything else; I would say that we understand the opposite; we hunt for the yellow-caparison, swoppet, mounted knight and find 'odd things' in rummage trays? Scientists find the properties of materials by accident, and hunt for the specific results that the found-properties say should be there.

Now, I know what you're thinking, having not read the work; Blimey Hugh, you're getting pretty bogged down in the semantic minutiae of a single paragraph, and so early-in, aren't you? Yeah - you all talk like that! But firstly it was going to be the only negative (to prove unbiased 'critique) in what I was still thinking would be a glowing review, and secondly, the same type of semantic rule-making or more general theorising is present, and problematical, throughout the work, so it became the 'sign of things to come'.

Likewise, the mention above of scientists is deliberate and due to the Authors use of his Sociology degree to try, throughout the work and through his various theories to read far more into the ["socio-semiotic" I kid you not] history of toy soldiers than is actually there.

Indeed, the use of heavily over-complicated prose (already highlighted by two other early purchasers as making the work 'difficult to read') is due in no small part to the author's attempts to over-intellectualise (in my opinion) the subject - ephemeral playthings.

While the switch from toy soldiers to space toys & action figures after 1977 might very-well be 'semiotic' (significant, sociologically) and worthy of further intellectual study, the differences between British and German toy production - decades before the invention of the 'global village' - is not.

On page 9 he over-justifies a couple of minor decisions on inclusion, namely of including Pharaohnic grave-goods while excluding the Chinese terracotta army as that would necessitate including sex-dolls! Simple; either exclude all grave-goods and start later, or include both, on the understanding you can ignore sex-dolls by simply not mentioning them . . . unless they are holding weapons!

But, to go through the whole book, would require a smaller book as the work is 600+ pages with ancillaries, so I will use the aforementioned chapter 11 (pp's. 321-368) as an example of the greater sins of the whole work.

We are immediately asked to accept some bullet-pointed 'facts', only the last of which is actually a fact (the others more or mere 'assumptions', but not flagged as such) and a fact which fails to include metal (still with us) in what was actually a three-way equation.

He then devotes two huge paragraphs (over two pages) to tying composition production tightly to the Nazi regime, but the fact is the companies already existed, making toy figures in composition, and while some of his later sociological points may well carry some water, to begin with they simply added the current uniforms of the day, as they were changed by the regime, purely for commercial reasons.

He over-eggs the porcelain-head thing and then fails to endear himself to the reader by describing today's anti-smoking drive as an "...irritating anti-cancer campaign" suggesting he'd prefer to see more cancer today? It's there (pp. 324), in black and white and should have been edited out.

The final paragraph on page 325 should have died before birth, the '...olins' are so named for oil of linseed (or linseed oil), not kaolin clay! The rest of the chapter (and the preceding four pages) are therefore written on at least one false premise; actually several once you've understood his theories on German Nazism and Italian Fascism, a semantic-wall he establishes early and sticks to throughout the book!

While kaolin is used in compositions, it's not the first or main ingredient in the camel-dung khaki mixture used by German and Belgian makers (Lineol, Elastolin, Marolin, Duralin, Dursolin et al) which was predominantly wood-flour (not sawdust - another error) and linseed oil.

A fundamental error carried through the whole chapter and which is only exacerbated when the author starts informing us some companies used crushed Linoleum ('lino') as an ingredient in their composition, Linoleum is itself a linseed oil-based composition and the idea you would make a cake by adding bits of broken cake-like ersatz-cake to your pure cake mix is - frankly - daft.

This is poor research convoluting two parallel or contiguous technologies, one in toys the other in soft-furnishings. Now, it may be that at some point a toy soldier manufacturer procured some unmixed or dry-mixed lino ingredients, but that's not what we're told by the author?

And this muddleheaded view of compositions continues over the page when we are told the mixture was porridge-like (it was probably more turgid or dough-like) and casein is introduced as a main component, again caseins are used in some compositions, but the makers being discussed used linseed oil as their mixer/binder.

In the same paragraph (pp. 326, 2nd para.) he also states that plaster was used instead of animal glue at one point, but plaster is a bulking agent (alternate to wood-powder (or kaolin clay)), animal glue is an alternative mixer/binder (to linseed oil (or casein!)), the two have different properties/jobs to do and couldn't substitute each other?

A very convoluted third paragraph on page 328 starts with Hitler and [nearly] ends with a list of Pfeiffer's relatives, then an orphan sentence claims "They then went back to the Czechs in 1946" but to whom - in the preceding list of seven makers - he's referring, is not even slightly clear and the publisher should have excised the line in editing.

The same paragraph - already half-a-page then turns to tin-plate AFV's and Gescha is typo'd as Gesha which is equally close to an registration-abbreviation found . . . err . . . on tin-plate vehicles! Only a typo, admittedly, but a bad one, really, and representative of the rest of the book.

Pages 332/333 delivers some more cod-theorising on Nazism, occupation and 'focus groups' which just doesn't stand-up to scrutiny. Civilians get almost their first mention in the chapter as a core of the theory (Nazi influence verses pre-or-post-Nazi influence) despite the whole chapter barely mentioning the varied output of civilian figures for model railways, or by model-railway makers. There's more on page-336 where we also get the Linoleum references!

On page 341 we get the following line "...some curious oversized 10cm wedding figures similar to those of a wedding cake," . . . err . . . because they are for wedding cakes, perhaps?

At which point - halfway through the chapter - I lost the will to carry on! I won't subject my loyal plastics' readers to many of my thoughts on the plastics section, but suffice to say, he quotes Garratt a lot (and others, throughout the work) and appears to have inherited Garratt's opinion of most plastics, lording Britains Herald's early work and Elastolin's late production and having little to say about the other hundreds of makers!

The chapter gets less of the cod-sociology (his lack of knowledge of the core subject of the chapter precluding social commentary or conclusions) thankfully, but it's really not worth reading even with that minor blessing.

For instance he accredits Hausser to production of WHW's (blaming Fontana) when we don't actually know, and they are - if anybody - more Siku-like, and so it goes on, that the penultimate major movement in toys soldiers (before the current 'New Metal') get only the one chapter is telling.

While the war-games section has a problem with captions for missing images attached to images for which the correct captions are missing - EDITOR!

Apart from the smoking comment and his constant attempts to separate and justify Italian 'Fascism' from German 'Nazism' while seeming reluctant to condemn the latter out of hand either (although he does), there are other moments of personal/political commentary which make some of my rants look tame'ish. Indeed; the amount of time the author spends (through the whole work) on that thirty-year Axis period out of a five-hundred-odd-year toy soldier history is itself concerning.

At one point he seems happy to tell us his father was active against Yugoslavian partisans, that is; he was helping the Nazi-colluding Chetnicks hunt-down Tito's resistance, carrying out reprisals and laying down the bad-blood which then burst forth again, at the turn of this century - I would have kept that to myself, or been less complacent with the fact!

In summery;

At 600+ pages, this work represents the equivalent of half a year's output from a prolific Blog, and several years output from a 'standard' Blog, and had it been issued as bite sized pieces, on a Blog, it would have been perfectly acceptable as a fine body of work, with some interesting theories to develop in the comments, and others; to ignore as nonsense, all for free.

But it's not a Blog, it's a book, it costs a fair-whack of one's dosh and needed to be a darn-sight better than it is. It's a very personal work and represents a massive undertaking, but it would have been better as a Blog; instead - written to deadline - it's sputtered under the weight of the text, not packed, but 'stuffed' into it, often incoherently and with no self-control.

He has over-intellectualised the book, tried too hard to cover everything, including facets of the hobby he clearly lacks knowledge of. Long, rambling, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes muddled paragraphs are the result. There is far too much reliance on borrowed images and quoting previous authors yet wanting that collated (and sometimes mixed) opinion to back-up the authors own socio-semiotic cod-theorising.

The work is episodic without obvious order beyond a vague chronology (and I mean vague!) yet neither does that episodic-nature encourage 'dipping-in'; because of the writing style. It can be/is repetitive and has been poorly translated, poorly edited and I can't believe it ever saw a proof-reader.

In the acknowledgements at least four individuals are named as having had a hand in editing this manuscript, I'm not sure any of them did their job or earned their money, maybe they didn't get paid? But 'Philip' should lose some sleep!

They should have dropped the composition, plastic's and war gaming chapters, edited until their eyes hurt, getting it down to 380-odd pages on the history of metal 'toy' soldiers, and it might have been useful to those collectors? Although the latest feedback on Amazon would suggest the metal sections suffer all the same faults?

But as it stands it's a curate's egg wrapped in a dog's dinner and wearing odd, often Nazi, socio-semiotic theory as a hat . . . a big dud.

Now - I know the guy, I recognised his picture, I think I used to chat to him at the London Toy Soldier Shows in Russell Square fifteen-odd years ago, he's a perfectly reasonable, nice, personable, intelligent, polite, knowledgeable man, and I hate that I've done such a hatchet-job on his book, but it's such a weird book (it is weird) people need to know that, before they buy it.

The 30-odd chapter-heading cartoons are funny and the 'Cameos' written by his friends are fine! But they are less than 25 pages out of 600?