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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bitterness As Beauty,
By High Duke (Zagreb, CROATIA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Devil's Advocate:Ambrose Bierce (Hardcover)
I first came across the writings of Ambrose Bierce in the AMOK Fourth Dispatch catalogue back in 1990, where it contained one of the most cynical quotes I'd ever read by that point in my life. Bierce wrote of how man was not the most dominant species on the planet and one only needed to look at how the Earth was set up for definitive proof. Most of the world is under water, another huge chunk is either frozen tundra or desert wasteland, and the parts that are habitable are the most susceptible to natural disasters, dangerous animals and deadly diseases. I was hooked and it took me 14 long years before I finally got a hold of this book. I must say that I am not dissapointed. I usually have trouble reading 19th Century writers, but Bierce is, surprisingly, very accessible. His is an acerbic wit and his tongue is lined with acid. Bierce has tendency of most writers from the 1800's to get a little long winded and is too easily impressed by his own skills with wordplay. In spite of that, however, his stories still connect and his venomous jabs at his opponents (pretty much anyone and everyone) still sting. His best works are his supernatural and Civil War stories. There's only about 15 in all contained withing the book, but, man are they awesome. Chikamauga resonates most, with its tale of a young boy who gets caught up in a Civil War battle, only to think that it's play-time. As Bierce was actually involved in the Civil War, his stories carry the weight of authenticity and the settings are evoked to perfection. Also included are his collected short pieces, The Devil's Dictionary, best described as a cynic's definition of common words, and Write It Right, Bierce's satirical asides on common improper usages of language (Bierce was a bit of stickler for such things.) One flaw I found in the book was with the editor, Brian St. Pierre, who seems to not take Bierce seriously enough and whose own dull, politically-correct opinions, pepper his prefaces to each chapter. Moving along, Bierce's short essays and articles on everything, from politicians to lawyers to religion to women, are the next best section of the book. Some of it is a little hard to relate to as most of the figures he attacks are long forgotten, but the sentiment is still there and well understood. Appearantly, there's a biography out, entitled Ambrose Bierce: Alone In Bad Company that is probably a great companion piece to this book, except I can't totally recommend it, as I haven't read it yet, but it may be of great interest and easier to find than this book. In a nutshell, there's one nugget of writing that carries more insight into what Bierce is about than I can possibly explain here and it reads like a parable: ''You are a beast of war'', said the Sheep to the Lion ''yet, men go gunning for you. Me, a believer in non-resistance, they do not hunt.'' ''They do not need to,'' replied the son of the desert; ''they can breed you.''
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