March

With its mixture of the heroic and the cowardly, the idealistic and the base, Geraldine Brooks fine novel "March" reminded me of why the Civil War continues, and rightly so, to fascinate many Americans. The novel presents a picture of the ravages and effects of the War upon our country and upon a small family in Concord, Massachusetts. The novel is nominally a sort of follow-up to "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, with a Bronson Alcott-like character as the hero. But this framing of the story is, for the most part, of little relevance to the theme and power of the book. At the outset of the Civil War, March the primary character of the story, is a 39-year old minister of highly unorthodox religious views. He is also an idealist and an abolitionist who has lost his wealth in support of John Brown and who is a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. The other two primary characters in the story are Marmee, March's strong-willed and proto-modernist wife, and Grace, a former slave. At the age of 18, March had met Grace when he journeyed though the South as a peddler. The two are attracted to each other, and March sees Grace receive a terrible whipping as a result of her efforts in assisting March teach other slaves on the plantation -- Grace is literate -- to read and write. The book turns on March's war experiences during the first year of the struggle with flashbacks to his early life, including his early encounter with Grace and with Southern plantation life, his unusual courtship of Marmee, his loss of his fortune in support of John Brown and his friendship with Emerson and Thoreau. The descriptions of the intellectual millieu of early Concord, particularly of Thoreau, are among the best parts of the book. Quotations from Thoreau's "Walden" are quietly weaved into the text of "Marsh". Even though he is 39 years old, Marsh's idealism and commitment to the end of slavery make him rush to enlist and leave his family when the Civil War breaks out. During his period in the service, Marsh sees much that is evil in the conduct of the war and he witnesses slaughter in the small but terrible early battle of Ball's Bluff. He is soon transferred to teach newly-freed slaves at a plantation along the Mississippi River called Oak Landing which has been leased by a young Northerner named Canning. He learns for himself the great difficulties that will be involved in teaching the freed people. Following an encounter with Confederate irregulars, March becomes gravely ill, and Marmee is called to the fetid hospital in Washington, D.C. to which he has been brought for cure. Grace has become a Union nurse and is helping in Marsh's recovery. Ultimately, Marsh returns home to Concord to face his wife and four daughters in what will be an uncertain future. The book shows eloquently how Marsh's idealism is tested by his experience of combat and by the immensity of the Civil War. Indeed, it shows Marsh's awakening to the ambiguities of the conflict and its

I was prompted to read "March" by Geraldine Brooks when the novel recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and I'm sure glad I did! It's a remarkable novel, beautifully written, interesting, educational, emotional, thought-provoking, riveting and it has that wonderful and comforting touch of the familiar because just about every woman and girl (and even some males!) in America already knows the March family. I won't re-hash the plot; suffice it to say that Brooks offers us a unique view of the Civil War and one that will stay with the reader long after the last chapter. I'd love to see this novel taught in schools along with "To Kill a Mockingbird", I hope some forward thinking teacher will try it. In addition to this exceptional story, I recommend "The March" by E.L. Doctorow, which was short-listed for the Pulitzer and provides another riveting look at the Civil War with vivid and varied characters from both sides and from both races and ways of life. And just one last, quirky recommendation; for a work of juvenile fiction that touches on the transcendentalists of Concord, Mass., (Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau) I recommend with joy "The Swing in the Summerhouse" by Jane Langdon. It was my first glimpse into that world and it's a story that is loved by at least two generations now.

I loved this novel, and could not put it down. Itl chronicles the experiences of the "Little Women's" absent father, providing accounts of his travels in antebellum Virginia, his courtship of the intense and rebellious Marmee, his love for a slave woman, his attempts to retain his ideals as a soldier during the Civil War, and the difficulties of adjusting to life in Concord after he is discharged from the army. The characterizations are complex and multi-dimensional; readers of Alcott's works will particularly enjoy the portrayal of Marmee as an independent thinker. Ms. Brooks was a war correspondent in Somalia and Bosnia, and spares nothing in her narrations of the battle for the bluff, guerilla attacks on camps of "contraband slaves," and the horrendous conditions of wartime hospitals. However, none of these descriptions are gratuitous. Rather, they serve to a)educate the reader on how unprepared--ideologically, materially, and logistically--the United States was to receive former slaves into society and b) remind us of how fortunate Americans are not to have experienced war on our soil in 140 years. Highly recommended.

This recent novel by Geraldine Brooks displays her passion for journalism. Here, the fictional character from Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women", the absent father, Mr. March, who is off fighting in the Civil War, is given center stage. Coupled with scrupulous research of the time period and her wildly creative imagination, she fashions a riveting tale. She captures the sights, the sounds and the smells of a long-gone period of time that has shaped America forever. Some of it is based on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau who were friends of Louisa May Alcott's father. And I do believe she encapsulated perfectly the historical realities of the time, especially in Concord, where abolitionist families hid runaway slaves in an underground railroad and there was constant intellectual discussion about the politics around them. We get to meet Mr. March as a young itinerant Connecticut peddler in the South years before the Civil War. He's in the bloom of youth and attracted to a slave girl. Inevitably, he gets to sees first-hand the injustices of slavery. Later, we watch him romance and eventually wed the outspoken Marmee. We see his joy at the birth of his four daughters, and watch his faith rise as his fortunes get fritted away with misplaced investments in John Brown's failed ventures, cumulating in the tragedy at Harper's Ferry which was supposed to be a slave rebellion. All this is told in flashback, as he writes letters home to his family, hoping to spare them the horrors that he sees every day during the War. There were aspects of the Civil War story I had never heard of before. For example, as a Union Chaplain and teacher, Mr. March was sent to a plantation that had been abandoned by its Southern owner and became a refuge for runnaway slaves. A northerner had leased it and was actually paying the former slaves a wage although their treatment under this new plan was not much better than under the old system. Also, the man who had leased the plantation seemed at first to be cruel and unjust, but as the book continued, we soon learned of his hard choices and he turned into complex and interesting character. I was totally swept up in the story and couldn't put the book down despite the occasional feeling I had that some of the history was a little too revisionist. But this is a novel and not a true story, and the writer's view of the world is through modern eyes. I understand and do forgive her for this just because the story was so good. In spite of its faults, I loved this novel and was sorry to see it end. Recommended, especially for history buffs and fans of Louisa May Alcott.