First a little general business - if you want to skip to the review just jump down to where it says "The March."
Whew! This has been a tough week. I decided to take a couple of classes, and both of them started on Monday. The first is a literature course that I alluded to in an earlier post, the second is a political science course on American National Politics. So in addition to my reading this week, I've had stuff to read for school. This will ultimately contribute to the challenge, as I have to read a number of books for the classes.
The American Literature Course of course will add several books to my upcoming list. Moby Dick is already on there. I will be adding the others shortly. I won't be counting my Political Science textbook, I don't think, but there are two other books for this class. One is on the New Deal, and one is about the Reagan Revolution. They are short books, about 150 pages each, but I don't see why I shouldn't count them.
The March - E. L. Doctorow
The March is a fictionalized account of General William Tecumseh Sherman's famous march to the sea following his taking of Atlanta late in 1864. Sherman ran a rather brutal and unorthodox campaign. Deep in the South, he relied not on supply lines, but instead he looted the rich southern plantations and towns in order to get the supplies to keep his army going. If the people offered resistance, he would take what he wanted anyway and burn their houses to the ground.
The March tells its story through the eyes of many characters. General Sherman is the closest we come to a main character because his campaign is responsible for setting the stage, but many other characters are of equal importance. Emily Thompson is a displaced southern belle who finds herself in love with a Union surgeon, who allows her to tag along with his mobile hospital as a nurse. Pearl, the daughter of a white landowner and a slave woman, passes as a white drummer boy for a time, and finds herself in the camp of Sherman, as well as in the Surgeon's hospital. Will and Arly, a pair of misfit Rebel soldiers, are introduced as prisoners of the Confederate army, one for desertion and the other for dereliction. They manage to escape and find themselves changing uniforms when it suits them to stay alive. These are but a few of the characters that find themselves caught up in Sherman's army as it marches from Atlanta to the sea, and then on up into the Carolinas.
The story therefore winds up being less about the march and more about the people it affects. Doctorow shows the war through many eyes: southern landholders, freed slaves, Union and Rebel soldiers and the officers that command them. The characters while powerful, seem not so much to drive the action as to be caught up in it, powerless to stop the onslaught of Sherman's army.
I believe this book was a runner-up for the Pulitzer a few years back. Again, another good read, and a strong recommendation!
The March sounds really interesting. I'm getting more and more into historical fiction. Doctorow is a good author with a diverse range of books. Good luck with your literature and political science classes. My next class will probably be Nobel literature. Have a good week!
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