"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Recently, the Civil War has been the subject of novels by Howard Bahr, Michael Shaara, Charles Frazier, and Robert Hicks, to name a few. Its perennial appeal is due not only to the fact that it was fought on our own soil, but also that it captures perfectly our long-time and ongoing ambivalence about race. Doctorow examines this question extensively, chronicling the dislocation of both southern whites and Negroes as Sherman burned and destroyed all that they had ever known. Sherman is a well-drawn character, pictured as a crazy tactical genius pitted against his West Point counterparts. Doctorow creates a context for the march: "The brutal romance of war was still possible in the taking of spoils. Each town the army overran was a prize... There was something undeniably classical about it, for how else did the armies of Greece and Rome supply themselves?"
The characters depicted on the march are those people high and low, white and black, whose lives are forever changed by war: Pearl, the newly free daughter of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, Colonel Sartorius, a competent, remote, almost robotic surgeon; several officers, both Union and Confederate; two soldiers, Arly and Will, who provide comic relief in the manner of Shakespeare's fools until, suddenly, their roles are not funny anymore.
Doctorow has captured the madness of war in his description of the condition of a dispossessed Southern white woman: "What was clear at this moment was that Mattie Jameson's mental state befitted the situation in which she found herself. The world at war had risen to her affliction and made it indistinguishable." And later, " This was not war as adventure, nor war for a solemn cause, it was war at its purest, a mindless mass rage severed from any cause, ideal, or moral principle."
As we have come to expect, Doctorow puts the reader in the picture; never more so than in recalling "The March" and letting us see it as a cautionary tale for our times. --Valerie Ryan
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 4JSXJ6000ILJ
Book Description Condition: New. . Seller Inventory # 5AUZZZ000ZR1_ns
Book Description Condition: New. . Seller Inventory # 52GZZZ00A58S_ns
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780812976151
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # BKZN9780812976151
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDWINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARDNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn 1864, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman marched his sixty thousand troops through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces, demolished cities, and accumulated a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the dispossessed and the triumphant. In E. L. Doctorows hands the great march becomes a floating world, a nomadic consciousness, and an unforgettable reading experience with awesome relevance to our own times. In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his 60,000 troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. Only a master novelist could so powerfully and compassionately render the lives of those who marched. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780812976151
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # WB-9780812976151
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780812976151
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0812976150
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0812976150