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The March: A Novel [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: The March, General Sherman, Stephen Walsh (more...)
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As the Civil War was moving toward its inevitable conclusion, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, leaving a 60-mile-wide trail of death, destruction, looting, thievery and chaos. In The March, E.L. Doctorow has put his unique stamp on these events by staying close to historical fact, naming real people and places and then imagining the rest, as he did in Ragtime.

Recently, the Civil War has been the subject of novels by Howard Bahr, Michael Shaara, Charles Frazier, and Robert Hicks, to name a few. Its perennial appeal is due not only to the fact that it was fought on our own soil, but also that it captures perfectly our long-time and ongoing ambivalence about race. Doctorow examines this question extensively, chronicling the dislocation of both southern whites and Negroes as Sherman burned and destroyed all that they had ever known. Sherman is a well-drawn character, pictured as a crazy tactical genius pitted against his West Point counterparts. Doctorow creates a context for the march: "The brutal romance of war was still possible in the taking of spoils. Each town the army overran was a prize... There was something undeniably classical about it, for how else did the armies of Greece and Rome supply themselves?"

The characters depicted on the march are those people high and low, white and black, whose lives are forever changed by war: Pearl, the newly free daughter of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, Colonel Sartorius, a competent, remote, almost robotic surgeon; several officers, both Union and Confederate; two soldiers, Arly and Will, who provide comic relief in the manner of Shakespeare's fools until, suddenly, their roles are not funny anymore.

Doctorow has captured the madness of war in his description of the condition of a dispossessed Southern white woman: "What was clear at this moment was that Mattie Jameson's mental state befitted the situation in which she found herself. The world at war had risen to her affliction and made it indistinguishable." And later, " This was not war as adventure, nor war for a solemn cause, it was war at its purest, a mindless mass rage severed from any cause, ideal, or moral principle."

As we have come to expect, Doctorow puts the reader in the picture; never more so than in recalling "The March" and letting us see it as a cautionary tale for our times. --Valerie Ryan



From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas produced hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold collateral damage. In this powerful novel, Doctorow gets deep inside the pillage, cruelty and destruction—as well as the care and burgeoning love that sprung up in their wake. William Tecumseh Sherman ("Uncle Billy" to his troops) is depicted as a man of complex moods and varying abilities, whose need for glory sometimes obscures his military acumen. Most of the many characters are equally well-drawn and psychologically deep, but the two most engaging are Pearl, a plantation owner's despised daughter who is passing as a drummer boy, and Arly, a cocksure Reb soldier whose belief that God dictates the events in his life is combined with the cunning of a wily opportunist. Their lives provide irony, humor and strange coincidences. Though his lyrical prose sometimes shades into sentimentality when it strays from what people are feeling or saying, Doctorow's gift for getting into the heads of a remarkable variety of characters, famous or ordinary, make this a kind of grim Civil War Canterbury Tales. On reaching the novel's last pages, the reader feels wonder that this nation was ever able to heal after so brutal, and personal, a conflict.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 363 pages
  • Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (September 20, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375506713
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375506710
  • Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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E. L. Doctorow
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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The March, General Sherman, Stephen Walsh, Colonel Teack, Wrede Sartorius, Josiah Culp, Mattie Jameson, Emily Thompson, Joe Johnston, Albion Simms, Calvin Harper, Sergeant Malone, Hugh Pryce, John Junior, Army of the West, Miss Wilma, Jake Early, Medical Department, Twentieth Corps, South Carolina, Jean Pierre, Coalhouse Walker, Moses Brown, North Carolina, Colonel Sartorius
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181 of 205 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war. , October 12, 2005
Mark Twain often blamed, not without some reason, the onset of the U.S. Civil War on the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Scott's romantic view (Twain called them Scott's enchantments) of war, chivalry, and honor colored southern culture to such an extent that war became inevitable. Any lingering romantic notions about war were put to rest by General William Tecumseh Sherman's march through the south. Sherman's view of war was simple: war is brutal and it must be fought with brutality and overwhelming strength if victory is to be achieved. Sherman's often brutal march through the south forms the centerpiece of E.L. Doctorow's "The March". Both havoc and the `dogs of war' form the underlying background against which the novel's plot plays itself out.

In a recent discussion about "The March" Doctorow stated that he intended to give the book a "Russian feel". In that he has succeeded. The broad canvas painted by Doctorow, a multitude of characters (both real and fictional) who meet, interact, and depart while war is waged all around them does contain stark similarities to Leo Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak, and Vasily Grossman. Doctorow's unique voice and style allows him to impart this "Russian" flavor to a novel about the Civil War without it seeming imitative or derivative. The March is an original and entertaining piece of work.

There are a host of characters in the book. Some, like Sherman, appears throughout. Others, who shall remain nameless, make an impact on the reader and advance the story but suffer untimely fates. As with any war untimely deaths are the rule rather than the exception. The other major characters include: Pearl, a newly freed slave who father was her former plantation master; Colonel Wrede Sartorius, a German born army surgeon; Arly and Will, two Confederate soldiers whose appearance and reappearance in Union and Confederate uniforms is both amusing and ultimately suspenseful; Stephen Walsh, a Union soldier who finds himself spending a lot of time with Pearl; and Emily Thompson, a southern woman who ends up as a nurse to Dr. Sartorious.

Doctorow devotees will recognize Dr. Sartorious as the evil Dr. Sartorius featured in Waterworks. They will also recognize the freed slave Coalhouse Walker as the father of jazz pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. from Ragtime. These `coincidences' are not central to the plot but does engage the reader with background information about the characters not readily apparent from the reading.

The book progresses along with Sherman's march. We see southern cities burnt down at the least sign of resistance and we see captured Union soldiers executed without cause. War is indeed hell and the havoc of war is omnipresent. Doctorow is unstinting of his portraits of all his characters be they northern or southern. There is no such thing as a romantic hero; there is simply brutality in the name of survival and accommodation to the dogs of war barking at everyone's feet.

One noticeable element of The March is the easy transformation of the characters into different versions of themselves. Will and Arly's rapid changes are the most evident of them. So too is Pearl's transformation from a timid slave girl into a Union drummer boy and then a nurse. All around the novel such changes abound. The war, for all its brutality, provides many of the characters in the novel with the freedom to change themselves and society's perception of them. The boxes to which we are consigned are put aside and we are then free to create our own version of ourselves free from a peacetime society's constraints.

The novel ends as the war ends. The end of the novel is as ambiguous as the end of the war itself. There is certain optimism that freedom (whether from slavery or society's pigeonholing) gained will not be lost once the fog of war lifts. The reader may know better than the characters how unfounded that optimism was but the characters do not and their naïve hopes makes them all the more poignant.

The March is a fine book.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars I'm Sorry To Say I Expected More From This Literary Master., January 18, 2006
E.L. Doctorow is a genius and I have great respect for his skills as a storyteller. Considering that virtually all of his previous output was set in New York City, past and present, writing a novel that takes places in 1860's Georgia seemed a surprising move for Doctorow to make. I have been mesmerized time and again by this man's talent to draw a reader deeply into the rich worlds he creates in his tales, and I must say, sadly, this is the first time I've read Doctorow in which I felt that capacity of his to be absent. I don't know what drew E.L. Doctorow to compose a novel about Sherman's campaign in Georgia but after reading this book, I rather wish he hadn't. The letdown, I think, came from the fact that Doctorow got so much wrong. Oh, not in his historical facts. No, in that respect The March was sound, much in the way his magnum opus Ragtime got its era right. What I mean is Doctorow crafted, for instance, in General Sherman a shallow madman who seemed to broil in his internal war with his own self-doubts, even as he took on an "I'll show them all" pose toward his US Army staff members, and all the while waged a dreadfully efficient though decidedly unheroic conflict with the civilian populace of his southern foe. But it was more than just this frustrated Sherman that drew The March from greatness to near mediocrity. This book came off under my examination as a slightly hollow example of a history novel, when Doctorow shines brightest as a writer of character studies. I think had he invented more of his cast and made less effort to comprehend actual individuals, his story might have had more room to expand and would have been much better for it. In conclusion, The March is weak for a Doctorow book but neither particularly dull nor impressive when taken on its own merits and its author's demonstrated capacity to achieve greater things is removed from the evaluation.
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96 of 119 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Sweeping Portrait of the Civil War, October 8, 2005
By Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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Throughout his literary career, E. L. Doctorow has perfected the art of the literary historical novel, a genre that invents as much as it recreates. In The March, he leaves his beloved setting of New York (Ragtime, The Waterworks, World's Fair, City of God) for the South during the end of the Civil War. General Sherman has begun his often ruthless march through the South, burning towns and cities. An ever-growing group of freed slaves who have nowhere to go follow the army with the hope they will find, somehow, a better life. In the midst of this, Doctorow creates his characters, both real and imagined: Pearl, a freed and fiercely independent slave who looks more white than black; Arly, a former soldier who takes the uniform or identity of whomever is most advantageous to him at the moment; Wrede Sartorius, a Union field surgeon whose interest in the war is mostly scientific; Emily Thompson, a Southern belle who switches sides after her father's death to attend to the sick and wounded; General Sherman himself, whom Doctorow portrays as an aloof leader who turns away from the atrocities committed by his men because he knows he cannot stop them and have them remain loyal to the Union; and many others, some of whom act as protagonists for a single passage. Even Coalhouse Walker, also a character in Ragtime, appears in a few scenes that illuminate his background.

The novel's strength is also its greatest weakness. Doctorow's technique of using numerous points-of-view gives a sweeping picture of all sides of the war, from foot soldier to general to war correspondent to grieving mother, but it also dilutes the emotional impact of the events he describes. Some characters, such as Emily Thompson, occupy a large segment of the novel, only to be dispensed with halfway through. The only character who remains from start to finish is Pearl, whose vibrancy drives the beginning of the novel; however, even in Pearl's case, she ends up as more symbolic than flesh-and-blood, not because of any flaw in Doctorow's treatment but because he does not get deep enough into who she is. The author's main concern seems to be not the people, but the Union army itself, which he describes as "a nonhuman form of life . . . (that) consumes everything in its path." In this, Doctorow succeeds admirably since, by the end of Sherman's march, the distinction between sides falls away so that those consumed by it (the Confederate soldiers) become a part of the camp, with gray and blue uniforms eating together, thus symbolizing the reestablishment of a single country. Notably, the freed slaves remain as a separate "army" encamped alongside the white one.

Surprisingly, Doctorow often relies on passive language, which contributes to the impersonal feel of the narrative, although certain memorable images linger: Emily trapped in a single room with her dying father while the Union soldiers take over her house; Arly propping up his dead comrade, as though he were alive, for a photograph; the final act of a man living with a metal spike through his head; the Union generals and officers assembling for a photograph to document their meeting. When Doctorow focuses on the individual details of a scene, his writing illustrates the humanity of inhumanity, and the effect is powerful.

As a literary overview of the last days of the Civil War, The March is an exceptional novel that expertly melds history with fiction. Its flaws, while significant, don't lessen the importance of this ambitious work. Although not Doctorow's best novel, The March should be read by those with a strong interest in contemporary literature.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars For Civil War Buffs
I thought this book was beautifully written. Gave me a sense of actually being in the South during the horrible devastation, and a lot of the emotion of the southern people,both... Read more
Published 27 days ago by Kathryn M. Brookover

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Latter day Huck Finn Tale"
This is a wonderfully parodic view, not of war itself, but of the various characters who are swept along or aside by Sherman's March. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ellen Halter

3.0 out of 5 stars Doctorow Addresses Sherman's March
The story of General William Tecumseh Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to the sea is an American epic, with elements of tragedy and heroism strongly intermingled - all the greater... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Robert Mosher

3.0 out of 5 stars Competent
Many other reviewers have given details of the plot. Basically, it is the story of Sherman's March during the Civil War. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Richard Pittman

4.0 out of 5 stars A swath of destruction cut for a good cause...
This is the first--and only--Doctorow novel I've read and I only read it because I wanted a book on Sherman's march through Georgia and *The March* appeared as if by magic in one... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mark Nadja

5.0 out of 5 stars Characterization is key
The March is a cinematic novel with an ensemble cast that is touchingly drawn and achingly familiar to the human condition. Read more
Published 10 months ago by B. Wilfong

5.0 out of 5 stars Near the end
A character driven example of great historical fiction. This novel is not overly long like much of the genre (if in fact it is in a genre). Read more
Published 12 months ago by Russell T. Wright

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as any of Doctorow's great works
I've been a huge, huge fan of Doctorow since university, some 25 years ago. Since then I've read Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, World's Fair, Loon Lake, Billy Bathgate, and Welcome... Read more
Published 12 months ago by a reader

5.0 out of 5 stars History Illuminated
This book is so well written, with the fictional and historical so effortlessly seamed, that you are glued to the plots and sub plots and graciously enlightened on the history of... Read more
Published 13 months ago by An admirer of Saul

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Snap Shot of the Civil War
This book gives a good snap shot of the impact of the Civil War on civilians as well as the line of thinking of the generals and the common soldiers. Read more
Published 15 months ago by C. Blair

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