A new biography of the remarkable writer Lesley Blanch suggests that living well—which may be the same thing as living passionately—is the best way of blunting the force of time’s arrow.
Lesley Blanch’s “The Sabres of Paradise” tells the illuminating story of Shamyl, the Imam of Daghestan, whose 25-year fight against the Russian empire left a half-million dead, and lessons still to be learned in wars from Chechnya to Afghanistan.