The March: A Novel
by E.L. Doctorow
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Book Summary Information
Author: E.L. DoctorowEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2005-09-20
ISBN: 0375506713
Number of pages: 363
Publisher: Random House
Book Reviews of The March: A Novel
Book Review: "It is an immense organism, this army, with a small brain."
Summary: 5 Stars
When the huge Union Army of General William Tecumseh Sherman burned its way from Atlanta to the Carolinas in 1864 - 1865, it was accompanied by a motley group of freed slaves, entrepreneurs, the dispossessed wives and children of landowners, and even a few turncoats, all of whom saw this army as their protection from the hostile unknown. E. L. Doctorow, in his absorbing novel about this march, focuses on the marchers themselves--their varied interests, conflicts, fears, and goals--creating a powerful and panoramic vision of how civilians, as well as soldiers, responded to the devastation of this terrible war.
Through a series of dramatic vignettes, Doctorow reveals the characters' family lives and stimulates reader interest. Mattie Jameson, the wife of a cruel slaveowner, has closed her eyes to the horrors of slavery, but when her estate is burned, her husband killed, and her 14- and 15-year-old sons conscripted to fight for the Confederacy, she has nowhere else to go. Pearl, whom Mattie describes as "that horrible child," is the mulatto child of her husband John Jameson and one of his slaves, and Pearl, too, becomes a marcher, disguised at a drummer boy.
Emily Thompson, the elegant daughter of a Georgia Supreme Court Justice, helps Dr. Wrede Sartorius, a Union regimental surgeon, renowned "for removing a leg in twelve seconds [without anesthesia]. An arm took only nine." Two turncoats, the devious Arly and the naïve Will, serve as the primary comic relief, opportunistically trading uniforms to suit their circumstances.
Real people mix with fictional characters, giving life to the narrative and a sense of immediacy to the action. General Sherman--"Uncle Billy," to the troops--is the unifying element of the novel, and he comes to life, his own family suffering as much personal hardship as the families he meets on the march. Cameos of Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln enhance the conclusion of the novel, and even Coalhouse Walker makes an appearance. The cast of characters is fluid, with some characters disappearing during the narrative, as they would in reality. Doctorow's eye for detail and ability to convey sense impressions--a severed leg so heavy it has to be carried by two people, or a soldier catching an enemy on his bayonet and being unable to shake it free--create both an atmosphere and the harsh realities of war.
Focusing on the march itself, Doctorow explores broad themes--the human costs of this war and its aftermath throughout the South: the thousands of displaced people, the loss of traditional ways of life, the economic disasters, the cultural shocks, the lack of opportunities for freed slaves, and their need to be taught how to be free. Showing the terrible universality of war, Gen. Sherman notes, "our civil war..is but a war after a war, a war before a war." n Mary Whipple
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