Average customer rating:
- Civil War: historical fiction
- A fragmented soap opera
- Very readable.
- Character vignettes, but depth
- A Story of the Effect of War on the Participant
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The March: A Novel
E.L. Doctorow
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Binding: Paperback
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Doctorow, E.L.
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ASIN: 0812976150
Release Date: 2006-09-12 |
Amazon.com
As the Civil War was moving toward its inevitable conclusion, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, leaving a 60-mile-wide trail of death, destruction, looting, thievery and chaos. In The March, E.L. Doctorow has put his unique stamp on these events by staying close to historical fact, naming real people and places and then imagining the rest, as he did in Ragtime.
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
Book Description
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“E. L. Doctorow [is] always astonishing. . . . In The March, he dreams himself backward from The Book of Daniel to Ragtime to The Waterworks to the Civil War, into the creation myth of the Republic itself, as if to assume the prophetic role of such nineteenth-century writers as Emerson, Melville, Whitman, and Poe.”–John Leonard, Harper’s
In 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. Doctorow’s hands the great march becomes a floating world, a nomadic consciousness, and an unforgettable reading experience with awesome relevance to our own times.
“An Iliad-like portrait of war as a primeval human affliction . . . [welds] the personal and the mythic into a thrilling and poignant story.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Splendid . . . carries us through a multitude of moments of wonder and pity, terror and comedy . . . with an elegiac compassion and prose of a glittering, swift-moving economy.” –John Updike, The New Yorker
Download Description
Praise for E. L. Doctorow
“E.L. Doctorow is a national treasure.”
–
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Beautifully written, meticulously plotted, scrupulously imagined.”
–
The New York Times Book Review, about Sweet Land Stories
“In the assured hands of Doctorow, City of God blooms with a humor and a humanity that carries triumphant as intelligent a novel as one might hope to find these days.”
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Los Angeles Times, about City of God
“A ferocious feat of the imagination . . . Every scene is perfectly realized and feeds into the whole–the themes and symbols echoing and reverberating.”
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Newsweek, about The Book of Daniel
“One devours it in a single sitting.”
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The New York Times, about Ragtime
“Marvelous . . . You get lost in World’s Fair as if it were an exotic adventure. You devour it with the avidity usually provoked by a suspense thriller.”
–The New York Times, about World’s Fair
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Civil War: historical fiction.......2007-08-24
This was an excellant depiction of life as it may have been seen at the time of the Civil War, and most particularly during Sherman's march thru the south. The use of fictional characters gave the story a vibrancy and realism that probably could not have been portrayed thru fact alone. My book club loved it, and, we rarely all love the same book.
A fragmented soap opera.......2007-08-23
A psuedo-romance novel set inside Sherman's march to the sea and beyond. The disjoined story lines lead to a fragmented novel that reads like the script from a daytime TV soap opera. There is little historical insight or significance; in fact, quite the opossite, with the fabrication of events that didn't happen(assination attempts of Sherman??). Not recommended for fans of the civil war.
Very readable........2007-08-03
"The March" is a very readable account of Sherman's march through the South at the end of the civil war. The focus is on what it meant for the soldiers and civilians, not the politics or the strategy. At the same time, the characters are well drawn as individuals. Doctorow maintains an emotional distance from the horrors; while the reader is made aware of them, none of the characters followed as individuals in the novel starve, or suffer unbearable pain (one Southern woman is driven to the edge of madness, and several die). There are some powerful passages, but for the most part the writing does not draw attention to itself. It captures the March in a book of modest size, has interesting sub-plots, and I would highly recommend it. For a very different, but very good and more powerful take on a March, read Patrick Rambauds "The Retreat", on Napolean's retreat from Moscow.
Character vignettes, but depth.......2007-07-22
I'd echo the well-written review from Debra Crosby, but acknowledge that the book is a departure from normal form. It is not a traditional plot-driven novel and it is not really about Sherman's march. Instead, it is a collection of character vignettes, with "The March" the unifying thread.
There are a lot of characters, and it can take some time to get oriented. However, I believe Doctorow manages to create depth in each character despite each character being dedicated fewer pages than in a typical novel. Occasionally I felt like a character disappeared from the book before I expected, but this was a mild distraction because there were so many other characters to latch onto.
The novel is powerful, and in no event sanitizes the Civil War. You cannot read the book without wondering what it must have been like for north and south, civilian and soldier, black and white.
There is a fair amount of military strategy. Hard core Civil War buffs (e.g., fans of Shelby Foote) will not find enough detail regarding troop movements to satisfy them. I've read Foote's three-part Civil War narrative, but I would not describe myself as hard core. In my view, there is just enough to make it real without distracting from the characters. If you despise descriptions of "flanking maneuvers" and cavalry, however, there may be too much here for you. Of course, that's probably going to be true with respect to any historical fiction centered around a war.
Doctorow is a talented writer. If you are looking for a repeat of Ragtime or World's Fair (one of my favorite books), you will likely be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a well-written, sophisticated novel that evokes the power of civil war through several characters, I believe you will be happy with your read.
A Story of the Effect of War on the Participant.......2007-06-09
This is E L Doctorow's fictionalized story of "Sherman's March to the Sea". In late 1864 Sherman was give command of the 60,000 man 'Army of the West' and told to march through the heart of the Confederacy and bring it to its' knees. Sherman did just that by marching through Atlanta Georgia, Savannah and Columbia South Carolina and up through North Carolina through Raleigh to the Virginia border. Along the way his men foraged through the countryside while destroying cotton, railroads and anything else of use to the CSA.
Our story follows groups of people, including Sherman and his command as they travel through the South, we learn about the battles they fought and the losses they suffered. Along the way we also follow a rebel deserter, a freed slave (who can pass for white), an Irish volunteer from NYC (who is really a replacement for a wealthy man who paid him $300), an Army surgeon, the daughter of a southern Judge, and others.
Doctorow does a find job in presenting the death and destruction that was rained on the South by Sherman but he also give a human face to the people who fought and died for their convictions. He never misses a chance to make the Civil War as bloody as it was, nor does he ever put a shining smile on those who were in Slavery.
How true to life his description of Sherman is, is up to debate, but he makes the man human and though he was 'Uncle Billy' to the men who served under him and idolized him. He talks about how the pain of sending men to their death is never easy but is a trade-off for ending the War as fast as possible. The most startling thing that Doctorow found in his research was that Sherman, Confederate General Hardy and President Lincoln all lost sons named Willie during the war; one in battle (Hardy) and the other two to disease. All of them were under seventeen years of age.
The March shows that war is not a pleasant diversion and spending your days killing other men is not the 'glorious' ideal it is sometimes made out to be (just ask any combat veteran).
Customer Reviews:
Epic Fables Tale.......2007-08-11
The fourth volume of Bill Willingham's Fables sees the pace of the story pick up significantly. Once again Fabletown is in jeopardy, this time by mysterious black-suited agents. At the same time a refugee arrives from the Old World: Red Riding Hood. No Fable has escaped from the Empire in centuries, so her arrival stirs tensions in the community. In addition we learn more about Boy Blue's past, the last days of the Fables in the Old World, Pinocchio, and the witches. This is bar far the most action-packed storyline so far.
Bill Willingham's re-imaging of classic fairy tale characters continues to amaze and avoids becoming stale. Another great entry in what is already a phenomenal series.
Demented fairy tales, but in a good way.......2007-06-11
The premise of this wonderful series is to rewrite and expand the world of fairy tales. They characters of which has entered our world fleeing a great evil. Lost of fun, smart and witty, typical american style illustrations for the most part, but nice. Some similarities of premise to the Sand Man series, but not quite as inventive or as extensively research and deep. Start at #1 for the best read.
Excellent Book.......2007-05-13
This was just as advertised and an excellent book. I would purchase from this seller again.
Best volume in the series.......2007-02-26
This volume of Fables is the best in the series. I've read through volume 7 and love the series, but this is the one stands out and is the volume I chose to review. The artwork was fabulous, some editions of Fables have semi-cartooning work and there is a hint of that here, but I found the artwork perfectly matched that of the subject matter. The story arc here hits on several levels, there is the big fight/war sequence which all of us, with the heart of a teenage boy, have been waiting for. The series has been building up to a big battle, and this isn't the big one, bit it'll hold us over until that comes. There is also an emotional element behind each side of the battle, maybe even more so the side of the wooden soldiers.
I find the writing in this series to be unbelievably great. I know some people are turned off because of the subject matter and find themselves lost in the due to unfamiliarity, but I haven't written a thesis on the Brother's Grimm or Mother Goose and I still find the subject matter deep and refreshing and continually interesting.
Long live Fables!.......2006-10-02
This is definately a great volume in one of the best comics series I've read.
In this one, the fables are attacked an army of wooden soldiers sent by the enemy that forced them to leave their fairy tale world and reside our world. A battle is fought, I won't give away much else, but it definately seems that a larger story is developoning in the series. I definately feel the suspense to check out the next volume.
Book Description
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history.
From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father—a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.
Spanning the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott's optimistic children's tale to portray the moral complexity of war, and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism—and by a dangerous and illicit attraction. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks's place as an internationally renowned author of historical fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Pulitzer's Reliability.......2007-10-10
As usual, any book selected by the Pulitzer Committee is a reliable horrible read. Too boring to waste my time on. . . Alcott would be mortified!
An ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times!.......2007-08-27
Geraldine Brooks has produced an ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times and has successfully drawn some of her principal characters from Louisa May Alcott's classic, 'Little Women,' creating in the process an elaboration of the life of the Revd. Mr March, father of the little women, who, whilst being an aggravating and hypocritical Yankee clergyman, nevertheless leads an extraordinary life, both in Connecticut and in The South during the American 'Civil War' (or 'War for Southern Independence,' depending upon personal preference: I prefer the latter). The fact that the author cleverly introduces Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and even John Brown (he of the body and the soul that marches on), all most effectively but without particular surprise in the context, is a tribute to her story-telling skill. The fact that Mr March learns a lot of the complications of that frightful conflict of 1861-1865 is a reflection of the author's fine research and scholarship. The fact that the mid-19th-century language seems to be 'spot-on' to one who reads and enjoys such stuff also reflects well on Ms. Brooks: she has produced another riveting tale, which I could not put down, and I congratulate her!
Sometimes a Good Man Is a Weak Man.......2007-08-11
March is told largely in the words of Mr. March, father of all those "little women," and it encompasses the year that he spent as a Union chaplain during the early part of the Civil War. Ever the idealist, one who at times refused to recognize the demands of the real world or to compromise his principles in order to better get along with others, March quickly managed to get on the bad side of both the men to whom he hoped to minister and that of his superior officers. As so often happens during war, March lived a lifetime during his one year of service, a year in which he learned more about himself than he really wanted to know. He came to realize that his ideals and principles did not necessarily come with the courage to do the right thing when to do so put him in personal danger. He ended his year a broken man, one barely alive and, more importantly, one who considered his year of service to have been a disaster for himself and everyone he tried to help.
Along the way, March unexpectedly finds himself revisiting a plantation he remembered from his days as a young traveling salesman trying to build the nest egg he hoped to invest for the remainder of his life. Some twenty years after his first visit, the home is now an emergency hospital for Union troops and life there is nothing like the one he remembered from before. But one thing has not changed. Grace Clements, the mulatto slave woman he was so attracted to on his first visit, is still there and he is still powerfully attracted to her. Grace Clements comes to be one of the two most important women in March's life, in fact.
Having so consistently irritated the troops to whom he was assigned, March is assigned to spend the bulk of his war at a cotton plantation teaching liberated slaves to read and write. This is my one quibble with the book. While, in fact, some southern cotton plantations were leased to northern entrepreneurs during the war so that much needed cotton could be brought to market for benefit of the North, this did not occur nearly so early in the war as portrayed in March. Despite the fact that the heart of the story takes place on this plantation, I could never completely forget just how unlikely it would have been for March to find himself on such a plantation during his particular year of the war.
But that's a minor thing because March has so much to offer. It is filled with the kind of period detail that marks the best historical fiction and fans of Little Women will very likely find it to be the perfect companion piece to one of their favorite novels.
This isn't The Year of Wonders.......2007-08-08
I read The Year of Wonders and loved it. I bought this book specifically because it's the same author, and with high hopes. Unfortunately, this book is boring and slow moving. It could not hold my attention at all, and I didn't get engrossed with the characters like in her other book. I would not recommend this book.
An absorbing read.......2007-08-06
Mr. March is often exasperating but always believable in this vivid Civil War novel. Not so much about battles as about how the hardship of war shapes families. Chapter 2 involving Grace the beautiful slave reaches near perfection. Longer review available on my website Impatient Reader. Also available at Impatient Reader: a chapter-by-chapter summary of March. See My Amazon Profile for URL.
Book Description
Ex Machina, the Eisner Award-winning series that Entertainment Weekly voted "One of the 10 Best Fiction Books of 2005," tells the story of Mitchell Hundred, who becomes the Great Machine, America's first superhero, after a strange accident gives him amazing powers.Eventually tiring of risking his life merely to maintain the status quo, Mitchell retires from masked crime-fighting and becomes the mayor of New York City. In this volume, a shocking tragedy strikes an Iraq War protest in downtown Manhattan, and Mayor Hundred must choose between the liberty of his constituents and the security of his city.Plus, a tale from the past finally reveals the origin of his mysterious archenemy, Jack Pherson.
Customer Reviews:
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Mayor Hundred has some serious political stuff to deal with as he has to allow protesters to demonstrate about Iraq, and deal with the flak he gets from their political opposites at the same time.
An interview also sparks thoughts of an old enemy, and hence the writers delve into the backstory of this bloke.
Bouncing Back.......2007-02-25
After a disappointing volume 3 'Ex Machina' is back in top form with Volume 4 'The March to War'. The Iraq war was a subject that Vaughan would have to tackle eventually in this series and here he does it with a fine even-handed approach.
One of Mayor Hundred's staff resigns to participate in an anti-war demonstration and Hundred is left to figure out how to provide security for the city while not trampling on the rights of free speech of the protestors. The ending of this story leaves Hundred at his most disheartened about his ability to change the world through public service.
A second story that includes the 'Ex Machina' special flashes back to Hundred as he is campaigning for the Mayor's office. In an interview he is asked about the death penalty which prompts a flashback to a fight with a super villian who Hundred is locked in a battle to the death with. Both stories together make for the best trade so far for this series and a must read for fans of intellegent and sophisticated comics.
Best volume yet.......2007-02-01
This book has never been able to fully engage me, yet I always pick up the trades. While the writing has never really sold me, there has always been obvious potential and the art by Tony Harris is very nice. So even if the book has failed to live up to expectations set by others, it is still better than a large number of other books that I buy (I'm not a very hard guy to sell a comic book to), so I continue to support the book.
This volume experienced a noticeable and substantial improvement - particularly over the third volume (which I didn't care for). There are essentially two stories in this trade. The first deals with Mayor Hundred trying to support the rights of protesters of the Iraqi war while at the same time trying to keep them safe from terrorist themed attacks. I thought Vaughn did a fine job of playing with the balance between these two sometimes conflicting goals (political freedom and physical security) without sinking to the use of clichés.
The second story gives us some back story on Hundred's nemesis. This portion of the trade was not as strong as the prior story arc, but still did an excellent job of tying together Hundred's super-hero exploits with his subsequent political career.
Either the book spiked in quality, or I'm just finally coming around - but I really enjoyed this trade paperback. I hope the next volume continues in the same direction.
Quite excellent........2006-12-12
I finished this book less than eight hours after it arrived at my door and immediately after reading the last page, I checked to see when the next volume of this series will be published. That should say all that needs to be said about the quality of this work.
i'd recommend this book heartily to my enemies..........2006-12-08
so they could be bored to death by this poseur.
Average customer rating:
- rhoda is FABULOUS - - period.
- The murderous preteen has unfortunately become a banal headline
- An enduring classic of suspense
- Devilish kids are freaky
- Creepy. Disturbing. Unsettling.
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The Bad Seed (P.S.)
William March
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0060795484
Release Date: 2005-06-28 |
Book Description
Now reissued – William March's 1954 classic thriller that's as chilling, intelligent and timely as ever before. This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.
What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William march's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million–copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine–tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before.
Customer Reviews:
rhoda is FABULOUS - - period........2007-08-21
i got this book at noon the other day and finished it by eight that evening - - a page turner, gripping, gothic, yet campy and with a sense of irony about that campiness that endeared the book to me.
eloquently written, his language is engaging yet elegant, revealing and graphic, yet dark and mysterious, like sinister housewife gossip and whispered rumours.
if you root for the anti-hero (and believe me this book has one HELL of a little anti-hero to offer), this is definitely the book for you. i found myself time and again reading it, eyes wide, mouth open... "oh my god. she's the devil... she's FABULOUS!!" Rhoda is an utterly timeless character, and you can tell the author cares about her a lot; she's a little machine, a robot with no soul, she plays back what you want to hear like a broken record and kills without a second thought, but somehow you admire her, even begin to be taken in by her.
this book captures the feeling of the time it takes place, i see some incredibly caucasian small southern/east-coast town, a nightmare of whitewash, green grass, sunshine and trees and bushes bursting with flowers.
i would like to say how mortified that i am that Eli Roth is helming the (surprise!) REMAKE of this story... hollywood. rotters. yech.
so before the whole franchise becomes tainted with modern horror dreck of the ilk of hostel and saw, READ THIS BOOK and fall in love with it.
The murderous preteen has unfortunately become a banal headline.......2007-01-21
As with many authors and artists William March's work was rejected and he died a broken man. Publishers told him that The Bad Seed lacked verisimilitude. The truth is there have always been sociopathic children among us, but today the headline is all too common. I was inspired to read this classic after reading Dr. Robert D. Hares Without Conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. Even though The Bad Seed is a work of fiction March had some really good insights that Dr. Hare quoted.
The only thing I found slightly corny about the book was that March tried to incorporate a fictional encounter with the real psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Also the book is much better than the original movie version. [...]
An enduring classic of suspense.......2007-01-07
To all outward appearances, little Rhoda Penmark is every parent's dream. Quiet, neat, studious, and polite, the eight year old easily charms most adults. But lurking under Rhoda's pleasant facade is a ruthless, calculating sociopath who is willing to kill to get what she wants. Her first victim is an ex-landlady who promised her a pretty bauble in her will. Her second victim is a classmate who wins an award Rhoda covets. The third, a janitor who makes the mistake of threatening to expose her.
This thin volume is so chilling because March portrays Rhoda so realistically. Like most eight year olds, Rhoda can be willful and selfish, but where most children would probably throw a tantrum, Rhoda takes deadly action. The horror is increased by her mother's complicity in her daughter's crimes--Christine Penmark's failure to accept the truth, and her failure to take action against Rhoda once the seeds of doubt have been planted in her mind, frustrate and frighten the reader. Eventually, Christine does react, but is it too late? Can a force of nature like Rhoda be stopped? You'll have to read the utterly absorbing The Bad Seed to discover the surprising and disturbing answer.
Devilish kids are freaky.......2006-05-26
A very disturbing tale, not only regarding the child but the generational "curse" the story depicts. Good for a weekend scare!
Creepy. Disturbing. Unsettling........2006-04-21
The Bad Seed, a 1954 best-selling novel by William March, is a psychological thriller that leaves you with mental goose bumps at the end. Taking place in a small, socially rigid town in the seemingly blah era of post-WWII , the story tells the tale of eight-year-old serial killer Rhoda Penmark and the fatal effects of her evil on family and friends.
As the novel progresses, Rhoda blooms into an experienced and successful murderess while Rhoda's mother, Christine, struggles passionately between her love for her daughter and the horror of what her daughter really is - all while uncovering her own terrifying past.
If you are looking for a quick, suspenseful read, the Bad Seed is for you. While the book does have a slightly dated feel, and sections of Christine Penmark's dialogue screams with cliches, The Bad Seed remains a good choice for reading during a weekend at the beach or on a rainy Saturday. The ending is satisfying, and you'll discover after you finish that somehow during the novel, William March successfully planted a seed in your mind - the seed that it is possible for pure evil to appear in the form of a child.
Book Description
Drawing on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, journals, and selections from the extensive annotations Wilder made years later in the margins of the book, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this internationally acclaimed novel.
The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities.
In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar -- Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero, and others. All Rome comes crowding through these pages -- the Rome of villas and slums, beautiful women and brawling youths, spies and assassins.
Customer Reviews:
Caesar's last months.......2006-11-27
The structure of this novel, made up of letters written by different persons, allows us to examine Julius Caesar from multiple points of view. Undoubtedly a man of enormous energy, ambition, intelligence and the will to exercise power, Caesar is different things to different observers. Dictator, traitor, military genius, great politician, depraved soul. Who exactly is Caesar? Through family and political gossip, a tight web is being formed around this titan of history, until the final stabbing in the Senate. A fascinating counterfactual question is: What would have happened had Caesar survived the attack? But he didn't and civil war ensued, ending with the death of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Empire. Some of the best parts of the novel are Caesar's own letters, especially those adressed to Lucius Mamillius Turrinus, where Caesar develops his views on politics, power, and government, as observed by a natural born leader, a ruler of soldiers and politicians; a vain and authoritarian man, but also extremely conscious of his mortal human nature -he was exasperated by omens and superstition- as well as of the immense responsaibility that power brings upon rulers. Jumping in time, this novel takes us by the hand towards the tragic end of one of the most important and enigmatic characters of history.
Fascinating novel about Caesar.......2006-07-17
This excellent novel, Wilder's masterpiece, is set during the last 17 years in the life of Julius Caesar in Rome. In it he attempts to answer the following: "What sort of person was Caesar and why was he assassinated?" Told mainly through letters and documents of people who knew him, from the famous - Cleopatra, Catallus, Cicero, Brutus - to the lesser known - Cytheris, an actress; Turrinus, a friend; Cornelius Nepos, a political observer - and including such sources as Caesar's commonplace book and journal, broadsides, and various official memoranda, Wilder creates a brilliant picture of the man and the people who surround him. We learn of Caesar's great love for Rome, but his disdain for those who populate her. In a magnificent observation by his physician Sosthenes, he says, "Caesar does not love, nor does he inspire love. He diffuses an equable glow of ordered good will, a passionless energy that creates without fever, and which expands itself without self-examination or self-doubt....I could not love him and I never leave his presence without relief." Those few sentences speak volumes. We see in Caesar's own (private) letters how different the public figure (lofty, dictatorial, the great warrior) is from the private man (amused by human folly, lonely, sensitive to those who have been injured by life's cruelties). Yet the book is not just a history lesson, despite its appearance, but a moving novel that builds masterfully to a stunning climax on the Ides of March with his murder. The book is truly magnificent, filled with much insight into human motivation and observation. Definitely worth looking into.
A 1950's Book, set in 44 BC, and perfect for 2006.......2006-02-21
The year? 44BC. The secret police are rifling through an artist's dresser. An emperor's mistress from the Middle East has come to pay him a visit in Rome. Soldiers are mobilizing for another assault on Persia. Senators are plotting against Caesar. His scatterbrained wife is worried about dresses while the great Cleopatra plays her for a fool. Poetry, assaults, poisonings, decadant parties, price fixing, and intregue. We all already know about ancient Rome. The question is, how could Thornton Wilder predict 2006. Ah, the more things change... the more they stay the same. What a fun read for the average guy, like me!
A unique historical novel of the last year of Julis Caesar.......2004-03-26
I think most people know the story of Julius Caesar's death: stabbed 23 times on March 15th during a session of the Senate. What Thornton Wilder has done with his novel is to give the reader a glimpse in to the human side of Caesar, through journal entries and correspondence from him and those surrounding him. We learn of the statesman, who tries his best to govern his people; of his "divinity" and his tolerance of the belief in gods and goddesses; of the family man living in a tepid marriage with his wife Pompeia; and of his attraction to intellectuals, whether if be the poet Catullus, whose poetry he highly regards even if it mocks him, and the beautfiul Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, whom he considers almost an equal in terms of ability to rule. Wilder also lets us in on public opinion concerning the Dictator, as Caesar was also known, through intercepted correspondence of Clodia Pulcher and others. Caesar becomes more of a human figure in the hands of Wilder. He has his foibles and his share of indecisions, just like any other person. He also tries to do what he believes to be the right thing in terms of treating others. A unique historical novel.
A different historical novel.......2003-01-25
Contrary to what we could think, this novel is not dedicated to Julius Caesar's death, as Shakespeare did in his tragedy. It does not talk about his life, either. It just tells us about his last eight months.
He does it with a tecnique different from tradicional historical novel from the XIXth century and it's different, too, from the pseudo-memories, which is the favourite form of historical novel in the XXth century. Thornton Wilder prefers to juxtapose in four books a series of documents from different sources: letters, political pamphlets, inscriptions, poetry... He does not follow a chronological order but, as a kind of consecutive focusing, each book starts before and ends later than the previous one. And the very core, the central point, is September 45 BC, when an attempt against Julius Caesar's life was made. This way of telling the story is very pleasant but it asks a little effort from the reader to organize those materials in his mind.
Anyway, Thornton Wilder is not strictly historical, and he tells us beforehand. Some events happened years before 45 or 44, some characters were already dead. I think he does not really want to talk about Caesar or his time. He prefers to talk about loneliness: of a ruler that can trust no one, of man in front os his own mortality, of the absence of gods (lived not dramatically but with no consequence, either).
In the last part of the book I think he tells exactly what he's worried about: the mistery of life is very huge. It's so big that we have not a definitive idea about it, is life good or bad? tidy or chaotic? To sum it up, has it got any sense at all?
It looks as if Caesar was only worried about posthumous glory, the way future generations were going to remember him. It sounds a very poor reward, but it is more that what the majority of us will achieve.
I liked some femenine portrays in this book. Not Cleopatra or Clodia Pulcher, the first one is a mistery in herself (a Greek princess in an Egyptian kingdom), the second one so evilishly depicted by Catullus poetry that we could never get what she really was. The great women are the Roman matrons, the ones that had such a big influence in the Roman Republic, and the respect towards them as the real shadow cabinet.
Why should anyone read this book? Because it's very entertaining and you could learn some philosophy and a little bit (not too much, really) history.
Book Description
"Spiegelman's drawings are like demonic woodcuts: every angle, line, and curve jumps out at you. Stylishness and brutishness are in perfect accord."
-- The New York Times
Art Spiegelman's sinister and witty black-and-white drawings give charged new life to Joseph Moncure March's
Wild Party, a lost classic from 1928. The inventive and varied page designs offer perfect counterpoint to the staccato tempo of this hard-boiled jazz-age tragedy told in syncopated rhyming couplets.
Here is a poem that can make even readers with no time for poetry stop dead in their tracks. Once read, large shards of this story of one night of debauchery will become permanently lodged in the brain. When
The Wild Party was first published, Louis Untermeyer declared: "It is repulsive and fascinating, vicious and vivacious, uncompromising, unashamed . . . and unremittingly powerful. It is an amazing tour de force."
Customer Reviews:
lost classic found.......2007-03-11
Dark, seductive and brilliantly written, Joseph Moncure March's The Wild Party offers up a cautionary tale in the key of jazz and debauchery. Highly recommended. One of my favorite pieces of literature.
Worth the read.......2006-11-03
I greatly enjoyed this book, complete with wonderful illustrations!
It was a quick read and it was the exact text thrust into Andrew Lippa's musical by the same name! Wonderful history and research for the musical!
Excellent!.......2006-08-17
I decided to buy this book for no other reason than that I loved the 1949 Robert Wise film, "The Set-up", and wanted to check out the other book written by the original story's author, Joseph Moncure March. Certainly the brief description of the book made it even easier to buy.
But now having read it in one sitting, I was blown away at how brilliant it was! The poetic style is very easy to get into, and its use to tell this gripping tale was amazing. It never seems forced in the least, but flows well and succeed's in pulling the reader into the party itself.
The characters are great, the kind that one wishes to know of some more. Queenie remains the center of the story, and rightfully so, she is the most developed and most fascinating.
Apparently this book was banned in Boston, and I guess it is understandable given the times. Still, even today the story maintains a kind of rawness and edge that stays with the reader.
I have not seen the move or the Broadway plays, and chances are won't, the original poem is more than satisfying enough for me.
Very very hghly recommended.
Powerful narrative, but I can do without the illustrations.......2003-06-21
My interest in THE WILD PARTY started with the flop American-International Picture of 1975, a Merchant & Ivory production, with James Coco, Perry King and Raquel Welch. THE HERBERT HOOVER DRAG "stayed with me" for years, to the extent that I expect to perforate a Pianola roll of this music, using the soundtrack of the out-of-print Embassy VHS tape for the source.
Few reviewers have probably seen the original 1928 book, which I have, in my player roll Studio, here in Maine. Thus, I can compare the 1999 revival version with what was sold (quietly, or under the table) in the late 'Twenties.
The illustrations destroy my images of the narrative, since they remind me of a 'Forties "noir" film and not a 'Twenties apartment, which the author vividly describes, in his engaging minimalist poetic epic (or whatever this prose is called). The few pen-and-ink illustrations show Burrs as a James Coco type, physically ... and the text for Black (the Perry King character, in the film: Dale Sword) sounds not unlike a thumbnail bio for him, as well. Far better to have drawn from images of old MacFadden magazines (the sleazy publications of that day) or stills from silent movies, for the modern illustrations.
The 1928 book has only a few drawings, and - perhaps - for good reason. As with radio, in the days of drama (before television), the theater of the mind conveys the major impressions.
Sans serif type and the lack of "word clusters", plus spaces, which pepper the original volume, are also a downer, for me. The power of the raw story is heightened by the dignity of the Garamond (or whatever) typeface, in the 1928 book.
Having said the above, this book is better than none, so I would recommend it. Only 750 copies were printed, of the first edition, by Pascal Convici (mine being #459). As with the other reviewers, I kept being drawn back to the narrative, repeatedly. No pictures were necessary!
Regards, Douglas Henderson
ARTCRAFT Music Rolls...
Brilliant.......2001-06-07
A brilliant piece of writing. I truly enjoyed this book.March has created a vivid world with a minimal amount of words and a very interesting style of poetry. I don't know that I've ever read an extended poem (for lack of a better word, it doesn't really qualify as an epic) that had me so involved and so interested in the story being told. The illustrations are amazing in this edition of the book as well. Highly recommended!
Average customer rating:
- The opening novels of an American Master
- Cannot Recommend as a Starting Point for Bellow
- "The Victim"
- Undisputably worthy of recognition and respect
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Saul Bellow: Novels 1944-1953: Dangling Man, The Victim, and The Adventures of Augie March (Library of America)
Saul Bellow
Manufacturer: Library of America
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1931082383
Release Date: 2003-09-11 |
Book Description
Saul Bellow's rare talent has not only earned critical accolades, including the Nobel Prize, it has also made his books perennial bestsellers. Now, in a historic collector's edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the classic The Adventures of Augie March, readers will rediscover the novels that laid the foundation for Bellow's towering career.
The comic tour-de-force The Adventures of Augie March (1953) introduced to American literature a startlingly original expressiveness-uninhibited, jazzy, infused with Yiddishisms and Depression-era voices. Ebullient irony bears Bellow's prose aloft. March comes of age in a Chicago bustling with characters as large and vital as the city itself, and his travels abroad lead him through love's byways and the disappointments of vanishing youth. Martin Amis calls it "the Great American Novel" for its "fantastic inclusiveness, its pluralism, its qualmless promiscuity. . . . Everything is in here."
Bellow's sparer first two novels possess a more Flaubertian precision. Dangling Man (1944) penetrates the psychology of a jobless man's anxiousness as he awaits draft orders. The Victim (1947), an increasingly nightmarish story of one man's extraordinary claims on a casual acquaintance, explores our obligations to others and the unfathomable workings of chance. After a half century, Bellow's earliest novels remain as fresh, incisive, and entertaining as ever. Included in this edition are helpful notes and a chronology of the author's life.
Customer Reviews:
The opening novels of an American Master .......2007-03-25
The 'Library of America' has wisely chosen to present the reader with the major works of Bellow.The three works presented in this opening volume are his first novels, and include his breakthrough book. "The Adventures of Augie March". This is the book which put Bellow on the literary map in a big way. Its famous opening," I am an American, Chicago born" was the introduction to a long vital comic romp in which the adventures of character and plot are complemented , or rather invigorated by the play of ideas.
My own preference is not for the works presented here, but rather for the middle aged Bellow of "Seize the Day" and "Herzog".
Yet for anyone interested in tracing the overall development of Bellow these novels are essential.
Cannot Recommend as a Starting Point for Bellow.......2005-12-18
I am a Bellow fan and have read most of his novels.
In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male, usually a writer but not always, and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels plus other works. Bellow progressed a long way as a writer over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written 25 years before his peak. Those were heavy slow reads. "Dangling Man" is often boring, and Bellow was in search of his writing style in that period of the 1940s. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit boring.
That brings us to the present book: "Novels from 1944-1953." I am a Bellow fan, and when I started I bought the present book first. In retospect that was a mistake, because this collection has his two worst novels. "Augie March" is his first big novel, but "Dangling Man" - is among his worst. Even Bellow himself was critical of that novel in later years. I prefer almost any of the later novels such as the masterpiece "Herzog" or "Humbolt's Gift" or "Mr. Sammler's Planet" or his last book and light read "Ravelstein." Some disagree and think that his early works are compact, well written, and his finest works. As a general reader, I thought the 1960s and 1970s works were much better and so did most critics. Bellow thought his best and most difficult to write book was his 1964 masterpiece "Herzog."
This is not the starting point for a Bellow reader.
"The Victim".......2005-10-16
Bellow, Saul, The Victim. 1947. New York: Library of America, 2003.
This novel, Bellow's second to be published, is more of a "head" piece than "Dangling Man" or "Augie March." Asa Leventhal, the thickset, serious-minded copy editor whose wife is seemingly forever out of town, has a weak ego and an even weaker coping mechanism for stress. He is talked into believing that he once injured a now-drunken friend of a friend while at a party, a character named Allbee, who stalks him, accuses him of ruining his life, belligerently invites himself into Leventhal's apartment, and demands all sorts of favors to "clear the slate," all the while slinging anti-Semitic shots from his supposedly superior social position as a descendant of the New England Puritans. Why Leventhal puts up with this is the problem of the novel, and none of his friends can figure him out. A subplot concerning the illness of a young nephew, and some back story, fills out the book. I sympathized with Leventhal but criticize Bellow for never bringing him really to life. What I found more enjoyable were the descriptions and scenes of New York in the 40s, set in a Gatsby-like unending heat wave and bringing back memories of my first trip there in 1949. But that's just something that satisfied me and it isn't enough.
Undisputably worthy of recognition and respect.......2003-10-08
Bellow: Novels 1944-1953 collects three novels by renowned author Saul Bellow: "Dangling Man"; "The Victim"; and "The Adventures Of Augie March". These three literary works distinguished Bellow as a great writer of the postwar era and set the groundwork for his intellectual pursuits. Exploring the human psyche, the brutal vagaries of chance, coming of age in the harsh Depression era, and more, these enduringly popular novels have stood the literary test of time and are undisputably worthy of recognition and respect. Published on non-acid paper specifically necessary for a "shelf life" of many decades, Bellow: Novels 1944-1953 is an essential part of any academic or community library collection.
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