Archive for the ‘Fiction: Historical’ Category

The March by E.L. Doctorow

ISBN: 0812976150
363 pages
published in 2005.

Ordinarily I would post a little synopsis of my own, but this one from the back is so, so good that I have to use it instead.

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 un unforgettable reading experiences with awesome relevance to our own times.

The part that gets me is the “floating word, a nomadic consciousness” bit because those are absolutely the best words there could ever be to describe the feeling that this ragged groupings of people come together brings.

On the one hand, you have Sherman himself, who although is absolutely behind the destruction his march is so famous for, is described as being uncertain and regretful in many ways – his preoccupation with how he is viewed by other generals and his men seems to extend to the south as well, as he is shown a few times as being concerned with showing at least some mercy and is of course horrified with what he sees having in the burning of Columbia.

Then there are other characters – Pearl Jameson, a former slave who is the daughter of a slave-owner/plantation-owner and one of his slaves and is quite frankly the best character in the entire novel next to Sherman. She is wily and adventurous and interesting. She seems to be the most fleshed-out character in the entire novel and you can’t help but admire her intelligence and determination throughout the story. Generals and officers and officials within the army itself – Lieutenant Clark, Wrede Sartorious (the surgeon, who honestly creeped me out a bit because he was that typical depiction of a creepy doctor who was willing to allow people to go through heinous things in the sake of learning but was somehow appealing because of this), Emily Thompson – whose father dies early in the novel and she is forced to leave her town after Sherman stomps through it and joins his march and helps out Sartorious and winds up having a “thing” for him, Arly Wilcox and Will Kirkland – two rebel soldiers who escape prison and execution by stealing dead union soldier uniforms and go out and try and make a dishonest way for themselves with Arly at the lead. They provided some comedy but were ultimately some of the more horrifying characters in the book.

Mattie Jameson, Pearl’s step-mother, Stephen Walsh, Pearl’s love interest!, Calvin Harper, Judson Kilpatrick, Hugh Pryce (who I found really interesting – a British journalist), Wilma Jones and Coalhouse Walker, two former slaves who want to make a life for themselves.

Doctorow does a really great job of doing that almost Shakespearian thing of pairing up characters to make powerful statements about their roles and these are interwoven throughout the book to build up story and plot lines. Even the less prominent characters help to flesh out the main characters. While the focus is definitely on slavery and the role of emancipation on his character’s lives (there is one incredibly compelling scene where the march comes upon a plantation where the owner pretty much uses these incredible psychological tactics to keep his slaves from running for freedom), the “character” of the march itself – and the way it fluidly moves across the land and seems to absorb people into it as it grows larger and larger – is almost mystical, like some sort of mythological entity. The way that Doctorow manages to portray this makes the story itself almost seem like a fantasy. It’s very unreal and ghostly.

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Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

ISBN: 0525950400
288 pages
published in 2007.

This book was such a sad let-down. It seemed like such an interesting read, and I was pleased that I was able to read it for the Jane Austen challenge I’m doing (of which this is the first book I’ve completed for it). This really just fell flat, due to the poor writing and what seemed like a serious lack of research on the part of the author’s. The only reason this got the carrot-and-a-half that it did was because the first quarter of the book or so was actually interesting. But it seemed after that it just went around and around in circles through a mix of incredibly exasperating and frustratingly stupid exchanges between half-developed characters.

Courtney Stone is surprised to find that she is not where she expects to be when she awakens one morning in a bed in the middle of Regency England, the time period of her favorite author – Jane Austen. And despite the fact that she is apparently a huge Jane Austen fan, she finds herself completely thrown by the life that the woman whose body she’s woken up in leads. Not only does she have her own thoughts, but she is increasingly remembering things from the life of this woman. Foremost in her thoughts is the relationship between Jane – the woman whose life she is living – and Mr. Edgeworth, a charming suitor who seems to have a complicated past with Jane. Having this going on while remembering the frustrating and disappointing relationship between her ex-fiance and her ex-best friend back at home in 21st century LA proves to be almost too much for her to handle. Courtney attempts to navigate her way through this strange and not always kind world in 19th century England while trying to figure out a way to get back into her own body and her own time.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

ISBN: 0375842209
576 pages
published in 2005.
You can buy this book at this link.

This was the most devastatingly beautiful book I have ever read. I mean it. I’ve certainly read better books, maybe, but not one so horrifically sad and gorgeous at the same time. The Book Thief is a story about a little girl who is taken in by foster parents in Germany during World War II. The story itself is narrated by a personification of Death. The little girl, Liesel, begins her love affair with books after finding one in a cemetery after her brother, who has died, is buried. Later on, her foster father teaches her to read and from then on she steals books whenever she can. She eventually uses words to find out how much she has in common with a Jew her foster parents keep hidden in their basement.

The writing is unique and engaging. It’s a long book but it’s one of those books that are impossible to put down, to use a cliche. Death spares no one’s feelings in his descriptions, yet you come to develop a relationship and understanding of the narrator in the same way that you begin to love and care for the characters he describes. On each page is a sentence or a word or a description that you second guess and wonder at. How many meanings are there? What message is being hidden? It’s so interesting to discover.

The book itself was utterly perfect. I couldn’t imagine any improvement on it. How good must a writer be in order to make you forget that what you are holding in your hands is not actually written by Death? This is a story that is literally impossible to forget. Furthermore, you’ll never wish to. It’s worth reading and even then still worth owning to come back to later on in life and share with people that you love. Honestly, buy it, read it.

A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali by Gil Courtemanche

ISBN: 1400034345
258 pages
published in 2000.
October 11th – November 18th.
You can buy this book at this link.

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a love story that takes place during the Rwandan genocide between an older Canadian man from Quebec and a young woman from Rwanda. The novel sort of traces the timeline of the genocides using their romance as a constant throughout it. The scenes in it are bleak – the story itself is bleak and the writing is abrupt and cold (although I’m not sure if that is because it was intended to be that way or whether it is just the fact that it was translated from French).

It’s actually quite good. I think of myself as kind of jaded and very rarely find stories difficult to stomach, but I had to put this book down a couple of times. That alone sort of compelled me to finish it. The people in the book are likable in their own ways – very identifiable personalities, characteristics – three-dimensional and interesting. Each death described in the book in its brutal, honest way is uniquely painful and saddening. (Although I found the main character to be something of a DOUCHEBAG.) This is a good book. It’s worth reading, especially for people like me that beforehand knew about the genocide but aren’t particularly well-educated about it. I’ve been doing some aimless internet research due to the book which is always a good sign. I can almost guarantee I’ll continue to read and learn about the subject.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

ISBN: 0375707972
224 pages
published in 1995.
October 11th – November 11th.
You can buy this book at this link.

This book = eh.

I’m really sure how much I liked it. I know that I DID like it, but I suppose I just didn’t find it as compelling as a lot of other reviewers do. The book starts out explaining a meeting 15-year-old Michael Berg has with an older woman when he becomes sick walking home from school one day. She finds him and helps him. After he recovers, he tracks her down to thank her and eventually forms a sexual relationship with her. Later on, she leaves him behind, he grows up and becomes a law student and the next time he encounters her it’s in a trial that he is watching for a seminar.

The story is well done. The characters are interesting and unique. The writing, though not complex (actually very simple) is appropriate to the story and it IS well-written. However, I just wasn’t able to get very emotionally involved in the story. I understand the parallel Michael and Hanna’s relationship is at with the gap between pre and post-WWII German generations, and I find that interesting and all. I just don’t know. The end was very sad in a satisfying sort of way. It would be interesting to have read this book in the context of a larger group of people reading it at the same time to generate discussions (there is a LOT that involved in this novel that could evolve into some very interesting discussions!).