The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War
Book Review: A Definate Winner
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know how the world survived before this book was written. This literary success is very worthy of every award it receives. The author's success is furthered by his son's books Gods and Generals & The Last Full Measure. Highly Recommended.Book Review: A Digestable Gettysburg Account
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was absolutely fantastic. I do not know as much about the Civil War as I would like, but even so, this story about the Battle of Gettysburg was written in a way that made it easy to understand. The numerous tales that are told are each gripping in their own ways. Michael Shaara brings them all together in a way that is elegant- but knowing what end the soldiers are approaching, the author also provides the momentum of the tragedy of Gettysburg.
In addition to great style, the story is very even-handed in its protrayal of the soldiers. Often, war stories are told from the point-of-view of one side. The Killer Angels is very balanced in its political portraits and creates a sympathy for nearly all of the soldiers not often found in war novels.
Book Review: A Grand Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Sometimes it feels futile to write a review of a book so beloved by so many people, especially when all I'm going to do is agree. But, nevertheless... These reviews are pretty much a love in here for Mr. Shaara. I'm not going to buck that trend in the slightest. This is a wonderful novel of war and a touching look at the humanity of those who nonetheless orchestrated so much death. Three things really struck me about this book.
First, it's absolutely not dated in the slightest. It feels as fresh and accessible as if it had been written yesterday, just as beautiful, graphic, brutal. It's easy to see why they made a movie of this one.
Second, the battle scenes are so vividly rendered. I read them at the edge of my seat, awed and horrified by the violence and yet not able to turn away until resting after each day's battle.
Third, I really appreciated how much the novel got inside the major characters. I don't care at all if the author humanizes some of them too generously, gives them dead children or old friends to ruminate about. All the main characters have such baggage with them, and all look with sad eyes on the carnage they're about to inflict on their men. This interiority has to be invention by the author, and it's tricky ground to give intimate thoughts and feelings to such well known historical figures. But Shaara does it so very well. It's powerful stuff, brilliantly written. I recommend it to everyone.
Book Review: A Grand Tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
As the existence of 259 reviews and a close to 5-star rating indicates, this is a book that will just blow you away. It's hard to imagine that anyone who reads it could fail to be deeply moved. It is quite simply one of the finest works of historical fiction ever written by any author.The best historical fiction can convey insights that may prove elusive for even the best writers of straight history, who are limited to what can be definitively known about the thoughts and motives of historical actors. One of the most impressive aspects of Shaara's book, for me, was the persuasive way he recreated the process by which Robert E. Lee convinced himself that the ill-fated assault history knows as Pickett's Charge had a reasonable chance of success. Indeed, the Confederate side of Shaara's novel reads like a Greek tragedy. General James Longstreet plays the role of chorus (or perhaps Cassandra), while Lee is the noble hero, but with an unusual twist: for his tragic flaw is not personal hubris or overconfidence in his own ability, but his fierce belief in the ability of the men he led to do more than what was humanly possible.
The book rests on four great characters. In addition to Longstreet, Lee's key subordinate, the others are Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who commands a regiment of Maine volunteers; the Union cavalry General John Buford, whose stand west of Gettysburg on the first day of battle critically shapes the course of events that follows; and Lewis Armistead, an older Virginian who commands one of the brigades of Pickett's division. It is a tribute to the power of Shaara's characterizations of the latter three men that he has done much to rescue them from the historical obscurity into which they were fading. Now, there is a new statue of Buford on the field at Gettysburg west of the Lutheran Theological Seminary; Chamberlain's life has been chronicled in a major new biography, and his own war memoirs are back in print; and more visitors to Gettysburg undoubtedly make a point of seeking out the humble monument along Cemetery Ridge that marks the place where Armistead fell mortally wounded at the climax of Pickett's charge.
This is a book of great set-pieces -- Chamberlain's defense of Little Round Top, the final Confederate assault on Cemetery Ridge -- but the genius of Shaara's writing lies in its basic elements. His pacing is brilliant: alternating sentences of Proustian length with mere fragments, subordinate clause marches after subordinate clause, as the following excerpt from his legendary description of Pickett's Charge demonstrates:
"Kemper's men had come apart, drifting left. There was a mass ahead but it did not seem to be moving. Up there the wall was a terrible thing, flame and smoke. [Armistead] had to squint to look at it, kept his head down, looked left, saw Pettigrew's men were still moving, but the neat lines were gone, growing confusion, the flags dropping, no Rebel yell now, no more screams of victory, the men falling here and there like trees before an invisible axe you could see them go one by one and in clumps, suddenly, in among the columns of smoke from the shell. Far to the left he saw: Pettigrew's men were running. . . . Armistead moved on, expecting to die, but was not hit. He moved closer to the wall up there, past mounds of bodies, no line any more, just men moving forward at different speeds, stopping to fire, stopping to die, drifting back like leaves blown from the fire ahead."
Once you've read Shaara's fictional account of Gettysburg, I also recommend the treatment of the battle by Shelby Foote in the central chapters of the second volume of his Civil War trilogy. The Gettysburg chapters have also been published as a separate book, "Stars in Their Courses." It is as moving and beautifully written as Shaara's book, and has an equivalent ability to surprise you with fresh information and insights. If you haven't previously understood why the Battle of Gettysburg has the hold it does on America's historical imagination, these two books will make it clear.
Book Review: A Great American Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Killer Angels" is a moving, accurate, human account of the battle of Gettysburg. But more, it liberates history from the academy and gives all who read it the opportunity to "know" the events and the people who were there. I guess one could call Michael Shaara's work "The Great Gatsby" of American history. Though the film "Gettysburg" has some fine moments, it cannot convey the detail of the book. I have read both follow-on novels by Michael Shaara's son, Jeff, "Gods and Generals" and "The Last Full Measure." However, those efforts, while providing additional background and color to the characters in "The Killer Angels," do not have the divine spark provided by the elder Shaara (I would still recommend them.) The most compelling portraits drawn by M. Shaara are those of Longstreet and Chamberlain. General Longstreet is finally revealed as the victim of R.E.Lee's recklessness. Chamberlain ! is the quintessential citizen soldier; an ordinary academic forced by circumstances to extraordinary acts of courage. I can only praise "The Killer Angels." It is a great pity that it took so many years for Michael Shaara's work to achieve the recognition t deserves.