March by Geraldine Brooks Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of March
Book Review: A good read
Summary: 5 Stars
Just finished "March" by Geraldine Brooks. It's an excellent book and a nice companion piece to "Little Women". Gives a whole new outlook on the Civil War.Book Review: A good read with an interesting spin on an old story
Summary: 4 Stars
As others have said this is the story of the father of the Little Women girls. Not a character I had ever thought much about but I have to admit that I liked this book very much. It was an easy read that really captured an interesting time in history. Brooks is a good writer whose prose vividly paints Civil War battlefields, Washington D.C. during the war and the gruesomeness of battle. It's also short enough to read on a long flight or a weekend vacation.Book Review: A man of conflict
Summary: 3 Stars
I keep my pile of "to reads" next to my bedside. There are usually three or four romances/fantasy/vampire/mind candy books, a juvie fiction or two, a non fiction book I feel I *should* read, and one or two "real fiction". March sat on my pile of "real fiction" for about six months before I got to read it.
For those who are unaware, this is Little Women fanfic. It's the story of what happened to Mr. March - ostensibly during the war, but with enough story told by flashback to fully flesh out his character.
He is, simply put, a man. He is neither a villain nor a hero. He's just a man, full of passion and vivre, doing his best to live by his conscience. He gets tangled up sometimes; he stumbles sometimes. His beliefs go contrary to those around him, from his family to his fellow officers, but his intent is always good.
This book is gently but powerfully written. You will know the man, with all his flaws, when you read it. It is not captivating, though. I read it because I like Little Women. I feel no compulsion to read anything else by this author.
(*)>
Book Review: A powerful, moving book about the human heart
Summary: 5 Stars
Everyone should read this book. It opened up my eyes to the realities of war. It also made me think about the suffering that occurred during the Civil War and how this still affects modern society. This book made me think about what it means to be human, what it means to demonstrate true courage, what it means to love, and what it means to hurt. I highly recommend this book to everyone.Book Review: A short but deep reflection of the Civil War.
Summary: 4 Stars
March is Geraldine Brooks' take on what Mr. March, the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, was doing while the women awaited his return. The answer: quite a lot.
Mr. March is an idealistic cleric who joins the Union army as chaplain in a moment of self-righteous rapture. As we shall see, Mr. March's idealism presents many problems for him. After a hard battle in which a man Mr. March tries to help cross a river is born away by it, this idealism, which aggravates the soldiers in his unit, wins him re-assignment as a teacher on a cotton plantation. Though at first Mr. March is quite distressed by his rejection, the idea of being a trailblazer in the job of teaching slaves soon takes hold of his idealistic mind.
Taken over by the Union Army, the plantation is run by a Northern business man tasked with operating it as a business of profit and loss while treating the slaves as employees, which included paying them salaries. But when March arrives, he finds many of his idealistic notions about the experiment disabused. He finds that the businessman doesn't treat the slave much better than their owners had. He finds slaves stuck in their previous world, scared or unwilling to learn anything from him or break free from their bonds. He even finds slaves who are resistant to the Union's aims and stick with their owners rather than help the plantation. In fact, these conflicts finally come to a head when one such group of Rebels and former slaves invade the plantation and wreak havoc. In the end, Mr. March finds himself unable to protect those he wants so badly to help, and he ends up in a Washington hospital.
The structure of this novel is interesting. The majority of the book is from Mr. March's perspective. We see his letters home to his family, which are less than honest about the horrors he sees. We are the only witnesses to that. Chapters are also interspersed that tell us of March's past. We see him in his early twenties as a guest on a plantation he'd tried to peddle his wares to and where he sees slavery up close for the first time. In his typically romantic way, he even falls in love with one. Then we also see him years later, meeting his future wife, Marmee, and raising his family amidst an absolitionist fervor that bankrupts them.
When March ends up in the Washington hospital, Brooks changes to Marmee's perspective and we learn the differences in how they see the things that have happened in the past. For example, in March's version of his decision to join the Union Army, he interprets Marmee's muted reaction as one of support. It is only from Marmee that we learn that she was in fact aghast at his idea and angry that he left her alone to run the family. It wasn't necessary for the story, but I thought adding Marmee's POV was a nice trick by Brooks that added depth.
Her prose is also quite good, especially the evocative images she conjures of war and its horrors. She's drawn some great character here too. March seems simple at first, but we learn over time how conflicted he really is. He is a man of good faith and intentions, rattled by guilt. For example, later he feels so much guilt for the man he let float down the river that he imagines he let the man go rather tried to help with all his might. Later inaction in a similar situation feeds this illusion until he's in agony. It would be hard not to see the humanity in him.
I found some of the dialect of the time to be a little stereotypical and some parts can be slow moving, but overall this is a great book. I would definitely recommend it to fans of Little Women, but also to anyone looking for a short but deep period piece.