matthew mckeon
Guest
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
There was a recent thread on listing titles that each poster found personally shaped their understanding of the Civil War. I thought I'd list a few of the fictional treatments of the War I've loved and encourage other posters to do the same. Maybe someone will find something worth reading in our plague year.
Killer Angels Of course.
To Play for a Kingdom. A novel where a platoon of the 14th Brooklyn fights and between battles, plays a series of baseball games with a Confederate unit during the Overland Campaign
Miss Ravenel's Conversion Written a couple of years after the war by former Union officer, its a fascinating account of battle, freedpeople, Confederates, Unionists, heroes, heroines, anti-heros, femme fatales, double dealing and generally a good read. Needs its own mini-series.
Little Women The war is very much way in the background, like a novel set on the homefront in WWII. Still good. Read March and found it too modern in tone.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Tangled Victorian prose and plots to be sure. But very good in places. George, Eliza and her baby must flee the United States to Canada, like East Germans coming over the Berlin Wall in the Cold War, slave catchers at their heels. Tom's battle of will and faith with the evil Simon Legree, a black Christ dying for America's sins
John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its an epic poem, very much of its mid 20th century time. I read it in the 1970s first and loved it. I reread part of it when I found it in a library booksale.
Red Badge of Courage This needs a new movie treatment.
Here is where I make the confession that will sink me in the estimation of my fellow posters: I haven't read Gone With the Wind. Yet.
Killer Angels Of course.
To Play for a Kingdom. A novel where a platoon of the 14th Brooklyn fights and between battles, plays a series of baseball games with a Confederate unit during the Overland Campaign
Miss Ravenel's Conversion Written a couple of years after the war by former Union officer, its a fascinating account of battle, freedpeople, Confederates, Unionists, heroes, heroines, anti-heros, femme fatales, double dealing and generally a good read. Needs its own mini-series.
Little Women The war is very much way in the background, like a novel set on the homefront in WWII. Still good. Read March and found it too modern in tone.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Tangled Victorian prose and plots to be sure. But very good in places. George, Eliza and her baby must flee the United States to Canada, like East Germans coming over the Berlin Wall in the Cold War, slave catchers at their heels. Tom's battle of will and faith with the evil Simon Legree, a black Christ dying for America's sins
John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its an epic poem, very much of its mid 20th century time. I read it in the 1970s first and loved it. I reread part of it when I found it in a library booksale.
Red Badge of Courage This needs a new movie treatment.
Here is where I make the confession that will sink me in the estimation of my fellow posters: I haven't read Gone With the Wind. Yet.