Jennifer Dustin read and liked brian's review of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War:

"you know that very un-scientific statistic that says that the average male thinks about sex once every two minutes? well, if you triple that and replace 'sex' with 'death', that's me. at the age of twelve, i considered suing woody allen for using me ...more you know that very un-scientific statistic that says that the average male thinks about sex once every two minutes? well, if you triple that and replace 'sex' with 'death', that's me. at the age of twelve, i considered suing woody allen for using me as the basis for his character in Hannah and her Sisters. while other kids were stroking it to penthouse, i was rocking back and forth in fetal position from having re-read (for the 50th time) the Grand Inquisitor section of The Brothers Karamazov and re-watched (for the 100th time) The Seventh Seal. fuck.

so when i discovered this book i was pretty certain i was gonna love it about as much as any book i've ever read.

well, i certainly admire it. conceptually it's pretty amazing and the amount of research? fuck. drew faust is a madwoman. but i didn't really love it. the 'fact' chapters (chapters on aspects of death: burying, naming, numbering, etc...) start with a big premise and then kinda proceed with dozens of tiny examples to bolster the point. it just gets repetitive -- without going deep enough into the individual stories to truly illustrate a point or establish a connection, i found myself skimming example after example after example...

and those other chapters, those that assess the spiritual and existential changes that occurred as a result of the Civil War just aren't probing and/or interesting enough. faust does a good job of examining Bierce, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson in an effort to understand the post-war spiritual upheaval through the eyes of writers/poets, but is far too general when addressing the nation as a whole.

the strength of this book, as has been mentioned in other reviews (hey Sandra and Ginnie!), is faust's thorough explanation of how the U.S. government was forced to act and intervene, and in doing so, forever shaping the nation's relationship to its government...

the final test, i guess, is that this book did not throw me into a severe existential panic, my angst/anguish/fear/trembling levels didn't significantly rise... and that's a major disappointment.



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