Some time, (I think?) after midnight, last night, I finally finished volume three of Shelby Foote’s whopping great three volume The Civil War.
Wow! What an epic read. But, as he says at the end. All things must and indeed do pass. Rather like reading Delderfield, I feel almost obliged to note that Foote is – or was, before this twenty year work – primarily an author of fiction.
He’s also been criticised for romanticising the South. Personally I don’t have a beef with him on that. He is, after all, a Southerner himself. Considering that is so, he’s remarkably balanced about things.
But it does mean you have to bear that in mind a bit. In terms of a bias, or a tendency to romanticise things – he has a definite thing for the ‘ghostly halloo’ of the legendary ‘Rebel Yell’ – you can definitely feel it.
For example, he ends the book with what amounts to – or can easily be construed as – a slightly hagiographic defence of Jeff Davis.
But I don’t mind that. History will always have multitudes of voices, saying slightly (sometimes wildly) differing things. I’m not a big fan of Napoleon’s alleged remark that history is merely lies agreed upon. One hopes there are truths of sorts that can and should be ‘dug up’.
But the main thing is, this is dramatic, exciting and compelling. The kind of history that might inspire a lifetime’s dedication to the subject. And as long as one has the critical faculties to detect and discern bias, and treat it appropriately, then in itself it’s not a deal-breaker.
I have really enjoyed reading this monumental work. And I’m almost sad it’s finally ended. It’s like travelling to another time and place. A holiday for the mind/soul. Beneficial even to the body: reading this has been both calming, generally, and has helped me sleep without the chemical crutch of zopiclone.*
But I’m also happy. I’ve travelled far and wide, from knee deeps muds, sloggng along ‘bottomless’ rain-drenched roses, across rivers with magical American names – from the Appomattox to the Yazoo – with shot and shell whistling around my ears. From the reduction to rubble of Fort Sumter, and elsewhere, to re transutions into defensive trench warfare on land, and the birth of the ironclads on river and at sea, it’s been truly epochal.
Utterly absorbing. I honestly can’t recommend this enough.
* And not by boring me to sleep. Far from it.