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Dec 17, 2009

Bart rated it:

This was good, not great.

Such has been my feeling about all three of the Doctorow novels I've read, Billy Bathgate, City of God and The March. All of these novels are well-structured, technically proficient works, and all contain something that makes them above average.

But nothing quite makes them extraordinary.

Some credit has to go to Doctorow, however, just for picking Tecumseh Sherman's march as his topic. This is a controversial subject, even 140 years l More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

allison rated it:

Totally mesmerizing, hallucinagenic almost. Creates that feeling of being unmoored from the shore and swept along a in a current. At any moment, someone or something else can float by you as you're carried along by the water against your will, just hoping to keep your feet up so as not to get pulled under by a hidden rock or branch and drown. He's a really good writer.

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2010

Ed rated it:

A quick read and with so many characters and plot lines it is perfect if you like to channel surf or have ADHD. We follow these characters, from the lowliest freed slave to General Sherman, as they march through Georgia, South & North Carolina. A fascinating cross section of Northern and Southern society we see the Civil War through a very human perspective. Even Sherman emerges from the chiseled daguerreotype image we grew up with into a real human being. At times funny, at times heartbreaking, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Joy H. rated it:

_The March_ (2005) by E.L. Doctorow
"This is an historical fiction account of General Sherman's military march through the South during the American Civil War." (from a member review at LibraryThing)

Great read! Now I'm motivated to read Doctorow's other books.

I loved the characters in this book. I skimmed over the geographical details which mapped out the Civil War battle locations and the war strategies. I was mostly engrossed in the characters and their More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2008

Terry rated it:

I am proud to say that when this book was in hardcover, I was in a cable-access-type show about new books for Christmas available at your local bookstore! What did I say about this book? PRESERVED FOREVER ON CAMERA? "This book is excellent historical fiction, so if you're looking for excellent historical fiction, this is the book for you." Yes, yes I really said that. And I hadn't even read the book! But now I have.

It's beautifully written, I think, in Doctorow's usual three More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Mark rated it:

I kind of feel about this book the way I felt about the movie "The Departed". It certainly had the look and feel of a Scorsese movie, but without the heart; like he was going through the motions. This has the feel of a Doctorow book, it is historical fiction with real characters interspersed with imaginary ones, but it was vaguely unsatisfying. Stylistically he still creates an effective vehicle, and I read it from beginning to end fairly quickly; but very little in it either created r More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 21, 2008

John rated it:

I'm a big fan of Doctorow, and we go way back; he's probably the first serious contemporary novelist I read, thanks to a copy of Ragtime acquired when I attended Ragtime Night at Comiskey Park sometime in the late 1970s (I find the notion that copies of a Doctorow novel were given away by the thousands at a White Sox game only slightly more mystifying than the fact that I was attending a White Sox game to begin with). This, however, is not his strongest work. Doctorow used Sherman's March to t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2007

Sansanee rated it:

[Note: The following review was also published in the Georgia Library Quarterly.]

From the author of such acclaimed works as Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, The March is E.L. Doctorow's first full-length work in five years. Doctorow’s novel covers the Civil War march of General William Tecumseh Sherman and his soldiers as they move through Georgia and the Carolinas. The swath cut by Sherman's troops is an uprooting for everyone - black and white, young and old, North and South. With scant More...

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Dec 14, 2009

Janet rated it:

Well-written novel about Gen.Sherman's march through the Carolinas,after destroying the city of Atlanta.It validates Sherman's statement that "war is hell", not only for the soldiers on each side but also for the civilians,freed slaves,the wounded,the medical staff.
I'm planning to read more by this author.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 06, 2009

Lynn rated it:

Who knew Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea didn't stop there? Well, not me. This throng of soldiers -- encumbered by freed and confused slaves, starving camp followers and burned-out farmers -- turned north through the Carolinas, ending up near Goldsboro, N.C. about the time Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

I'd just finished ANDERSONVILLE which was so densely and authentically written, that this seemed a bit casual. There were deaths and rains and not enough food, but it did More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2007

Amy rated it:

Like Ragtime, The March portrays a historical episode through a diverse group of characters (including Coalhouse Wallker, Sr.). In this case, the piece of history is centered around Sherman's Union Army following the burning of Atlanta. Characters include Union Officers, confederate soldiers, former slaves, and Southern women who join the march as nurses. Although it was well-written, I found that the number of characters made it a little difficult to follow, and I didn't really get attached to More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2010

Joyce rated it:

This novel revolves around William Tecumseh Sherman's march to the sea, from Atlanta to Goldsborough, N.C. the story is told in the 3rd person from different points ov view; the participating characters range from Pearl, a half-black child of a Georgia plantation owner to her former mistress to soldiers from both Union and Confederate armies to Sherman himself.[return][return]Doctorow's treatment of Sherman, which is hostile, depends heavily on Sherman's high-strung temperament, his restless ac More...

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Sep 30, 2008

Paige rated it:

Civil War setting. Lots of colorful, concrete details about general Sherman's march after the burning of Atlanta. Brings alive a messy, pivotal moment in American history. The soldiers on the march were joined by a rag-tag group of freed slaves and white women and children who had become refugees. The narrative is like a vast river pulling you along (long sentences, almost stream of consciousness). The scale is both "epic" (momentous history) and "personal" (love story). More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Bill rated it:

This brilliant but flawed work of historical fiction chronicles William Tecumseh Sherman's storied march to the sea and its aftermath until the end of the Civil War. The book is brilliant in its insight but flawed by an almost Dickensian sentimentality at times; for example, the noble African American photographer Calvin Harper is afflicted by blindness after he tries to foil an assassination attempt. Although there is death aplenty in this story, the way it is meted out suggests a poetic just More...

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Apr 17, 2011

Glorialaihuang rated it:

The March is another historical fiction (I don't know why I keep accidentally reading historical fictions). This one takes place during the Civil War. A bit of background - when I was, like, 7, I discovered Gone With The Wind, which I proceeded to read 50 billion times over the next decade or two. (In my defense, when I started reading it, I had no idea what was going on in it, race relations-wise, and it was years later that I realized that the supposedly-innocent organization mentioned in t More...

3 comments like

Jan 04, 2011

Derek rated it:

A Civil War novel second only to Charles Frazier's impeccable Cold Mountain, E.L. Doctorow's The March follows William Tecumseh Sherman's rampage through Georgia and the Carolinas in harrowing and hallucinatory detail, weaving multiple narratives (sometimes overlapping, sometimes not) and delving into the morality, contradiction, and horror of America's arguably darkest moment.

What works so well is not only Doctorow's clear gift for economical and poetic description of war's terrible More...

0 comments like

Oct 11, 2010

Linda rated it:

William Tecumseh Sherman’s storied march through the south to free the slaves is wonderfully told by E.L. Doctorow in his The March, richly and clearly illustrated by various persons and stories, placed together, sometimes harshly, sometimes gently, never without us caring about each, giving us yet another view of another war and its hideousness, compassion, wildness and death.

Pearl, a white slave, is particularly fascinating character as is Sherman himself. So are many, many other More...

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Jun 24, 2009

Bill rated it:

Doctorow is best known for Ragtime. He is also the author of several other historical novels including Billy Bathgate and The Book of Daniel. The March another historical novel describes Sherman's march at the end of the Civil War.

Writing an historical novel is difficult because, by definition, the author must stick closely with the historical facts and develop characters. The best historical novels also provide an excellent picture of the times. Without doing further research it More...

0 comments like

Feb 07, 2009

Chris rated it:

I have never been a big Civil War buff although I have read several novels set in that period. The best of those novels examine the difficult personal relationships between people at the heart of the conflict. A civil war is unlike any war between countries in its emotional intensity. E.L. Doctorow captures those relationships perfectly in "The March".

General Sherman's march from Atlanta north is famous in history for the path of destruction it left behind and for helpin More...

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Jan 26, 2012

Roger rated it:

The "march" alluded to in the title is Union General William T. Sherman’s infamous trek east across Georgia and north up through the Carolinas during the latter stages of the Civil War. Sherman serves as one of many prominent, historical figures explored throughout this sweeping, capacious novel. Doctorow’s recounting of the ravishment of war shows Sherman’s military campaign growing into a kind of massive organism of incalculable human suffering as free slaves, wandering vagabonds, an More...

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Jan 21, 2010

Tony rated it:

"In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking cattle and crops for their own, demolishing cities, and accumulating a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the uprooted, the disposses More...

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Jun 05, 2007

Nigel rated it:

Sherman seems to get a pretty bad press for his destructive rampage through Georgia and the Carolinas. This book does manage to humanise him and his cohorts somewhat, though doesn't give much historical background to the Civil War. It is more a series of perceptive vignettes of soldiers, freed slaves and displaced civilians caught up in the chaos and misery of the unrelenting campaign. Vivid and immediate, but an easy, pleasurable and rewarding read despite the subject matter.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 12, 2012

David rated it:

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's practice of scorched earth warfare in his march across Georgia is an example of humiliation beyond defeat. Absolutely punitive, the practice sought to reverse the arrogance of secessionism and the crime of shattering the union by destroying the economy, transportation, class, culture, and cities of the Confederacy. We feel the effects still, recognizing the difficulty of renewal and recovery after thorough defeat. As it is with other firestorms, landsc More...

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Jan 04, 2012

Karen rated it:

This is the first Doctorow book I've read...it's not going to be the last. I thoroughly enjoyed this ficitonalized look at Sherman's march through Georgia after the taking of Atlanta, the subsequent march of his army to Savannah, along with the thousands of freed slaves and white women and children who joined the army, having nowhere else to go. While Sherman didn't authorize a scorched earth policy, drunken soldiers do terrible things after three and a half years of war, and the army did surv More...

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Apr 26, 2011

Kevin rated it:

The March is a dramatization of the devastation wrought from total warfare and emancipation of the slaves of General Sherman’s and the Army of the West campaign through the south. Rather than focus on the historical events themselves E. L. Doctorow weaves a narrative of the march from multiple perspectives including well known generals, rebel turncoats, freed slaves, a British war correspondent, a photographer, dispossessed plantation owners, a surgeon, and a few soldiers who meet their ends alo More...

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Sep 01, 2011

planetkiller rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 10, 2011

John rated it:

I really liked this, very good piece of historical fiction. I think this would be a good choice for someone who doesn't like non-fiction but wants to get a little Civil War history lesson out of his or her reading. Doctorow keeps most of the important facts straight on this sweeping narrative of Sherman's march, but manages to work in some believable romance and comedy and pathos and all kinds of nice drama. I will say that I thought there was a little bit of cringe-worthy dialogue early on in t More...

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Jul 30, 2011

James (JD) added it

Doctorow faced a dilemma when he chose to describe an epic march of this scale. If he was true to the march, he couldn't use one character to describe it. If he selected multiple characters, he would miss out on essential element of any great epic.

Doctorow went with the latter choice, and the book is a fascinating retelling of Sherman's debilitating march through Georgia and the Carolinas. Don't expect this to be an Atlanta-to-Savannah story--Savannah is taken before the halfway mark of the b More...

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Mar 15, 2011

Geologe rated it:

Der Amerikanische Bürgerkrieg kurz vor der Entscheidung -
im Jahre 1865 führt DER MARSCH von Georgia über South Carolina nach North Carolina.
Den Unionstruppen schliessen sich immer mehr (dann ehemalige) Sklaven an und es wird nur zu deutlich, dass dies nur der Schwächung der “Rebellen“ diente und kein hehres Ziel der Nordstaaten war (nachher wurde es dann so “verkauft“).
Letztlich sind sie nur zusätzliche Mäuler, die kaum gestopft werden können und es gilt sie loszuwerden.
More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2011

Baseni rated it:

Der amerikanische Bürgerkrieg geht in sein 4. Jahr und William Tecumseh Sherman, General der Unionstruppen, beginnt nach der Eroberung Atlantas den langen Marsch durch Georgia, South und North Carolina. "Der Marsch" beschreibt dieses Unternehmen ohne direkte Hauptpersonen. Ineinander verwobene Handlungstränge und die unterschiedlichsten Charaktere zeigen die ganze Grausamkeit dieses ersten "modernen" Krieges. Soldaten die für ihre Ideale kämpfen oder auch solche, die nur 300- More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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