NF Excellent article about Shelby Foote

[Georgia Sixth]

I know a great many of us love Shelby Foote's 3 volume narrative of the war. I find it absolutely spellbinding. Other actual historians have more "meat" in their accounts, but nobody has ever made it come alive to me like this man. (And that includes Mr. Bruce Catton, and that's saying alot!)

Jon Meacham, former editor of Newsweek, has written a fabulous piece on the author and his work of enduring fame. Here's how it concludes:

At the end of the drafting of the third and final volume, in July 1974, twenty years to the season after Foote first went to New York to talk over the project, Walker Percy finished reading the proofs and sat down to write his friend. "Dear Shelby," he wrote, "Yes, it's as good as you think. It has a fine understated epic quality, a slow measured period, and a sustained noncommittal, almost laconic, tone of the narrator. I've no doubt it will survive; might even be read in the ruins." It might indeed.

You can read the piece here:
Shelby Foote's War Story | Garden and Gun

 

[Patrick H]

Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed reading the article. I recall seeing Mr. Foote interviewed on television and saying that he did all of his writing with a "dip" pen and an inkwell. For him, it was apparently a more direct and immediate way to transfer the words in his head to the paper on his desk. There, in the younger photo, we see him doing just that. I still have not read his CW trilogy, but I knew it was a twenty year project. I was somewhat stunned at the sheer volume of paper required to write three volumes in that manner. Thinking of it now, I am also stunned at the effort it must have taken for someone to transcribe it all, typeset it all, index it all, and so forth.

 

[diane]

You'll enjoy Shelby Foote's work when you read it! He's telling the story of the Civil War - he's mentioned that in various interviews. He was approached by a publisher to do a Southern answer to Bruce Catton's epic work, which does lean decidedly toward the North, and protested that he was just a novelist not an historian. Still got the job! Kind of reminded me of Dr McCoy in Star Trek: Jim, I'm just a country doctor!

 

[Georgia Sixth]

Kind of reminded me of Dr McCoy in Star Trek: Jim, I'm just a country doctor!

My all time favorite trek character. You hit my sweet spot.

 

[diane]

My all time favorite trek character. You hit my sweet spot.

He's my favorite, too. He was stuck in villain roles for a long time but sort of fluked into Dr McCoy! He was from Georgia and I got a kick out of one episode where he was mixing a mint julep - to Spock's mystification - and the more he drank of it the more Georgia sneaked into his speech! Died of stomach cancer but kept his sense of humor - said he was afraid his tombstone would read: He's dead, Jim.

 

[Northern Light]

He's my favorite, too. He was stuck in villain roles for a long time but sort of fluked into Dr McCoy! He was from Georgia and I got a kick out of one episode where he was mixing a mint julep - to Spock's mystification - and the more he drank of it the more Georgia sneaked into his speech! Died of stomach cancer but kept his sense of humor - said he was afraid his tombstone would read: He's dead, Jim.

Oh my, that is TOO funny!

 

[Elennsar]

"elevating journalism, history, and biography to the level of literature."

I'll freely admit I like Foote's way with words, but the attitude that history should be written in the style of Homer is at best "Sometimes that works well, sometimes not so much." and at worst why history is written "academically" - because the former is more concerned with powerful imagery than powerful facts.

Color me gruntleless.

 

[nitrofd]

That was a really pleasant article to read.as I am a fan of Shelby Foote I am now a fan of this article.

 

[Allie]

"elevating journalism, history, and biography to the level of literature."

I'll freely admit I like Foote's way with words, but the attitude that history should be written in the style of Homer is at best "Sometimes that works well, sometimes not so much." and at worst why history is written "academically" - because the former is more concerned with powerful imagery than powerful facts.

Color me gruntleless.

I think there's room in the world for both, surely? As long as the two aren't mistaken for each other.

 

[Elennsar]

I think there's room in the world for both, surely? As long as the two aren't mistaken for each other.

That's the thing. My favorite book - if I had to pick one, for some reason like "Or else we kill children!", would probably be comparing The Last Unicorn to The Legend of Deathwalker as among the finalists.

But saying that "literature" is on a higher plane than history is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Foote's work is well written and far from all bad, but it does not make "history" something better than it was before he put pen to paper.

 

[Georgia Sixth]

T
But saying that "literature" is on a higher plane than history is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Foote's work is well written and far from all bad, but it does not make "history" something better than it was before he put pen to paper.

I could not differ with you more. Facts capture some of the truth, not all of it.
And I suspect that Homer is read far more widely than Thucydides.

 

[Elennsar]

I could not differ with you more. Facts capture some of the truth, not all of it.
And I suspect that Homer is read far more widely than Thucydides.

"Whatever lack of nerve or ingenuity had been demonstrated in Mississippi throughout the long hot hungry weeks that Vicksburg had shuddered under assault and languished under siege, there had been no shortage elsewhere in the Confederates States of America of either of these qualities on which the beleaugred city's hopes hung. Indeed, a sort of inverse ratio seemed to obtain between proximity and daring, as if distance not only lent enchantment but also encouraged boldness, so far as the western theater was concerned. A case in point was Beauregard, 650 air-line miles away on the eastern seaboard. Charleston's two-time savior was nothing if not inventive, especially when he had time on his hands, as he did now. In mid-May, with the laurels still green on his brow for the repulse of Du Pont's ironclad fleeet the month before, he unfolded in a letter to Joe Johnston - with whom he had shared the triumph of Manassas, back in the first glad summer of the war, and to whim, under presusre from Richmond he had just dispatched 8000 of his men - a plan so sweeping in its concept that the delivery of the Gibraltar of the West, whose plight had started him was finally no more than incidental fact of a design for sudden and absolute victory over all the combinations whereby the North intended to subjugate the South."

Page 428, Fredericksburg to Merridan.

I have no intent of disparaging Foote's skills as a writer. But to say that this is "elevating journalism, history and biography to the level of literature" deserves no more respect than saying that unicorns belong only in children's stories, preferably with small words and lots of pictures.

 

[War Horse]

I myself really enjoyed all three volumes. Shelby does a nice job of keeping dry subjects somewhat entertaining. I also enjoy the way he goes into great details at the fall of my favorites like Jackson, Stewart, Little Powell. He may have enjoyed a good story more than historical accuracy, but he certainly kept it interesting.

 

[Bowen]

Some reviewer once wrote that his trilogy is "An American Iliad" - I cannot disagree. I have read all three volumes but not in order and that is ok. It is the type of work that you can pick up and just start reading at any point.

 

[dlavin]

I didn't read the volumes per se. I listened to them on Audible. But by far the third was my favorite, and I found they got better as they went on.

And I'll be honest, there were times when the way to story was read and the words used caused me to pause and reflect on the emotion of the account. In many cases I was saddened listening to the book. And any book that can elicit emotion while reading means the book is exceptional.

I have debated purchasing the set (used) simply to have it. I may or may not ever open them, but I thought it was so good that it was worthy of a physical purchase.