The March: A Novel [Rauer Buchschnitt] [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Mark Twain often blamed, not without some reason, the onset of the U.S. Civil War on the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Scott's romantic view (Twain called them Scott's enchantments) of war, chivalry, and honor colored southern culture to such an extent that war became inevitable. Any lingering romantic notions about war were put to rest by General William Tecumseh Sherman's march through the south. Sherman's view of war was simple: war is brutal and it must be fought with brutality and overwhelming strength if victory is to be achieved. Sherman's often brutal march through the south forms the centerpiece of E.L. Doctorow's "The March". Both havoc and the `dogs of war' form the underlying background against which the novel's plot plays itself out.

In a recent discussion about "The March" Doctorow stated that he intended to give the book a "Russian feel". In that he has succeeded. The broad canvas painted by Doctorow, a multitude of characters (both real and fictional) who meet, interact, and depart while war is waged all around them does contain stark similarities to Leo Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak, and Vasily Grossman. Doctorow's unique voice and style allows him to impart this "Russian" flavor to a novel about the Civil War without it seeming imitative or derivative. The March is an original and entertaining piece of work.

There are a host of characters in the book. Some, like Sherman, appears throughout. Others, who shall remain nameless, make an impact on the reader and advance the story but suffer untimely fates. As with any war untimely deaths are the rule rather than the exception. The other major characters include: Pearl, a newly freed slave who father was her former plantation master; Colonel Wrede Sartorius, a German born army surgeon; Arly and Will, two Confederate soldiers whose appearance and reappearance in Union and Confederate uniforms is both amusing and ultimately suspenseful; Stephen Walsh, a Union soldier who finds himself spending a lot of time with Pearl; and Emily Thompson, a southern woman who ends up as a nurse to Dr. Sartorious.

Doctorow devotees will recognize Dr. Sartorious as the evil Dr. Sartorius featured in Waterworks. They will also recognize the freed slave Coalhouse Walker as the father of jazz pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. from Ragtime. These `coincidences' are not central to the plot but does engage the reader with background information about the characters not readily apparent from the reading.

The book progresses along with Sherman's march. We see southern cities burnt down at the least sign of resistance and we see captured Union soldiers executed without cause. War is indeed hell and the havoc of war is omnipresent. Doctorow is unstinting of his portraits of all his characters be they northern or southern. There is no such thing as a romantic hero; there is simply brutality in the name of survival and accommodation to the dogs of war barking at everyone's feet.

One noticeable element of The March is the easy transformation of the characters into different versions of themselves. Will and Arly's rapid changes are the most evident of them. So too is Pearl's transformation from a timid slave girl into a Union drummer boy and then a nurse. All around the novel such changes abound. The war, for all its brutality, provides many of the characters in the novel with the freedom to change themselves and society's perception of them. The boxes to which we are consigned are put aside and we are then free to create our own version of ourselves free from a peacetime society's constraints.

The novel ends as the war ends. The end of the novel is as ambiguous as the end of the war itself. There is certain optimism that freedom (whether from slavery or society's pigeonholing) gained will not be lost once the fog of war lifts. The reader may know better than the characters how unfounded that optimism was but the characters do not and their naïve hopes makes them all the more poignant.

The March is a fine book.

E.L. Doctorow is a genius and I have great respect for his skills as a storyteller. Considering that virtually all of his previous output was set in New York City, past and present, writing a novel that takes places in 1860's Georgia seemed a surprising move for Doctorow to make. I have been mesmerized time and again by this man's talent to draw a reader deeply into the rich worlds he creates in his tales, and I must say, sadly, this is the first time I've read Doctorow in which I felt that capacity of his to be absent. I don't know what drew E.L. Doctorow to compose a novel about Sherman's campaign in Georgia but after reading this book, I rather wish he hadn't. The letdown, I think, came from the fact that Doctorow got so much wrong. Oh, not in his historical facts. No, in that respect The March was sound, much in the way his magnum opus Ragtime got its era right. What I mean is Doctorow crafted, for instance, in General Sherman a shallow madman who seemed to broil in his internal war with his own self-doubts, even as he took on an "I'll show them all" pose toward his US Army staff members, and all the while waged a dreadfully efficient though decidedly unheroic conflict with the civilian populace of his southern foe. But it was more than just this frustrated Sherman that drew The March from greatness to near mediocrity. This book came off under my examination as a slightly hollow example of a history novel, when Doctorow shines brightest as a writer of character studies. I think had he invented more of his cast and made less effort to comprehend actual individuals, his story might have had more room to expand and would have been much better for it. In conclusion, The March is weak for a Doctorow book but neither particularly dull nor impressive when taken on its own merits and its author's demonstrated capacity to achieve greater things is removed from the evaluation.

Throughout his literary career, E. L. Doctorow has perfected the art of the literary historical novel, a genre that invents as much as it recreates. In The March, he leaves his beloved setting of New York (Ragtime, The Waterworks, World's Fair, City of God) for the South during the end of the Civil War. General Sherman has begun his often ruthless march through the South, burning towns and cities. An ever-growing group of freed slaves who have nowhere to go follow the army with the hope they will find, somehow, a better life. In the midst of this, Doctorow creates his characters, both real and imagined: Pearl, a freed and fiercely independent slave who looks more white than black; Arly, a former soldier who takes the uniform or identity of whomever is most advantageous to him at the moment; Wrede Sartorius, a Union field surgeon whose interest in the war is mostly scientific; Emily Thompson, a Southern belle who switches sides after her father's death to attend to the sick and wounded; General Sherman himself, whom Doctorow portrays as an aloof leader who turns away from the atrocities committed by his men because he knows he cannot stop them and have them remain loyal to the Union; and many others, some of whom act as protagonists for a single passage. Even Coalhouse Walker, also a character in Ragtime, appears in a few scenes that illuminate his background.

The novel's strength is also its greatest weakness. Doctorow's technique of using numerous points-of-view gives a sweeping picture of all sides of the war, from foot soldier to general to war correspondent to grieving mother, but it also dilutes the emotional impact of the events he describes. Some characters, such as Emily Thompson, occupy a large segment of the novel, only to be dispensed with halfway through. The only character who remains from start to finish is Pearl, whose vibrancy drives the beginning of the novel; however, even in Pearl's case, she ends up as more symbolic than flesh-and-blood, not because of any flaw in Doctorow's treatment but because he does not get deep enough into who she is. The author's main concern seems to be not the people, but the Union army itself, which he describes as "a nonhuman form of life . . . (that) consumes everything in its path." In this, Doctorow succeeds admirably since, by the end of Sherman's march, the distinction between sides falls away so that those consumed by it (the Confederate soldiers) become a part of the camp, with gray and blue uniforms eating together, thus symbolizing the reestablishment of a single country. Notably, the freed slaves remain as a separate "army" encamped alongside the white one.

Surprisingly, Doctorow often relies on passive language, which contributes to the impersonal feel of the narrative, although certain memorable images linger: Emily trapped in a single room with her dying father while the Union soldiers take over her house; Arly propping up his dead comrade, as though he were alive, for a photograph; the final act of a man living with a metal spike through his head; the Union generals and officers assembling for a photograph to document their meeting. When Doctorow focuses on the individual details of a scene, his writing illustrates the humanity of inhumanity, and the effect is powerful.

As a literary overview of the last days of the Civil War, The March is an exceptional novel that expertly melds history with fiction. Its flaws, while significant, don't lessen the importance of this ambitious work. Although not Doctorow's best novel, The March should be read by those with a strong interest in contemporary literature.