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The March: A Novel
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The March: A Novel
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The March: A Novel
Audiobook11 hours

The March: A Novel

Written by E.L. Doctorow

Narrated by Joe Morton

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

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 dispossessed, and the triumphant. Only a master novelist could so powerfully and compassionately render the lives of those who marched.

The author of Ragtime, City of God, and The Book of Daniel has given us a magisterial work with an enormous cast of unforgettable characters-white and black, men, women, and children, unionists and rebels, generals and privates, freed slaves and slave owners. At the center is General Sherman himself; a beautiful freed slave girl named Pearl; a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius; Emily Thompson, the dispossessed daughter of a Southern judge; and Arly and Will, two misfit soldiers.

Almost hypnotic in its narrative drive, The March stunningly renders the countless lives swept up in the violence of a country at war with itself. The great march in E. L. Doctorow's hands becomes something more-a floating world, a nomadic consciousness, and an unforgettable reading experience with awesome relevance to our own times.


From the Hardcover edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 20, 2005
ISBN9780739321362
Unavailable
The March: A Novel

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Reviews for The March

Rating: 3.6798507462686567 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Various characters stories intertwine during General Sherman's march through the southlands. Pathos and comedy mix to create an enjoyable tour through this era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting piece of historical fiction - "The March" is Sherman's March through Georgia (Part One), South Carolina (Part Two) and North Carolina (Part Three). For the most part I like how Doctorow crafted this story. It is fragmented (we don't follow some characters for long stretches) but it worked. There's maybe a bit of oddness to part of it, but emotionally it captured me. There is a rotating cast of main characters. I'd read a chapter, think about it, and then tackle the next. I've read a fair bit of Civil War history and a handful of Civil War fiction. Reading this novel let me see and think about Sherman's march in a way I probably never would have otherwise.This novel doesn't rise to the "great" level, yet it seems that it could have because parts of it are magnificent. I liked the first half of the novel where we meet each of the characters in various situations. I became interested and invested in the story arc of several characters. However some of those disappeared and the playing out of the story in the second half just did not have the energy of the beginning of the book. In particular I thought the story of one of the primary characters, Pearl, was just odd. When I think about it, I was disappointed with the story arc of virtually every character, none moreso than a young Johnny Reb named Arly.Slightly surprising to me, Sherman was my favorite character of the book and the only character who did not disappoint.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The March is classic Doctorow, starting with a notable historic event (in this case Sherman’s march to the sea during the Civil War) and a handful of historic characters (Sherman, Grant, the Lincolns, Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, Confederate General Joseph E Johnston). On this framework, Doctorow hangs a wild assortment of fictional characters, who do whatever is necessary to survive under the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves.The book is in three parts, covering Sherman’s progress through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Most characters are described in the third person, but Doctorow attempts to get inside Sherman’s head, treating him more sympathetically than most portrayals. Doctorow takes a few liberties with the facts - misplacing in time Sherman’s breakdown earlier in the war, referencing the wrong Confederate general in the defense of Atlanta, and inserting a fictional account of an assassination attempt on Sherman. These diversions cause unnecessary distraction to a reader who expects the segments involving real characters to be reasonably factual.Other than these minor faults, the story rolls along inexorably, with freed slaves, displaced Southern belles, deserters, Army surgeons, wounded soldiers, British observers, and others following in Sherman’s wake. Although the story is awful, Doctorow is brilliant in giving the reader a real sense of the horror of war.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I seriously need to read more of [author:E.L. Doctorow's|12584] books. I read [book:Ragtime|175675] back when it was fairly new and was totally blown away by it. This is my second reading of [book:The March|24914] and I was swept up by the story both times. Doctorow had an incredible knack for making American history come alive for his readers. He will be sorely missed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shows war from the individual point of view. A number of characters are put in focus for a chapter and then either die or show up in another chapter. If you are reading this over a length of time, it's easy to forget all the details of who these people are, but if you stick with it you see the trajectory of their lives as they try to survive the chaos. From Rebel soldiers to a Federal surgeon, General Sherman to newly freed slaves, they all are marching through the South. Some will surprise you with their humanity, others with their insanity. War is not glorious, war is bogged down in rain and mud, starving, and insane. Doctorow holds it all together.I had heard his name before but this is the first book of his I've actually read. I'm impressed enough to look up some of his other works.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A pleasant read with pages of death and dismemberment thrown in. The good characters do well (mostly) The bad ones get it (mostly). A 21st century imagined look back at race and the Civil War built with the famous Doctorow cast of a thousand characters (It seems that way). But (good news) the cast is memorable (they fit old stereotypes or seem modern) so unlike in War and Peace, you can remember who's who without much trouble.

    I have trouble with the imaginings of authors trying to sell books to middle-class, book-reading suburbanites, imaginings of slaves, masters, strong women, and horses of another era. (OK the horses seem real) The characters sound like something to please us present-day bookpeople.

    Also,it helps a bit to know the geography of the Carolinas and GA too.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Wishing I could say I loved this one, but ultimately it fell a bit flat. It's an account of Sherman's march to the sea through the eyes of a couple of former slaves, including one that could pass for white if her speech did not betray her, the daughter of an important judge who died as the march reached his home, and some minor characters whose stories are brief and not carried throughout the book. I listened to the book and that may hav been the biggest problem. It plodded along too slowly for me. The stories that comprise the novel appear well-written, but the pace made my mind wonder to other things and did not maintain my interest.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    General Sherman as Doctorow portrays him is determined, although not eager, to perform his directive -- to destroy and pillage the South's war-making capabilities, including destroying Confederate cash hordes, weapons ditto, cotton manufacturing material, railroads, plantations, and to occupy Southern cities and towns, substituting military directorship for the existing civilian governments.The novel describes the Western Army's march from Atlanta, through the Carolinas, and into Virginia in time for Lee's surrender to Grant. Sherman negotiated very liberal terms of surrender with Confederate General Johnston that were later revised to more severe terms when Secretary of War, Stanton, reviewed them.A secondary duty of Gen. Sherman was to spread the news of Emancipation.Doctorow peoples his novel with characters representative of both sides of the conflict: Union and Rebel soldiers, a "white"(light skinned) slave girl, two Southern women who with the girl, become volunteers in the medical corps under the aegis of the revolutionary and controversial but highly respected army surgeon. War takes its toll without prejudice on soldiers and civilians, whites and blacks. The horror and brutality that are its signature also impacts all equally.Doctorow deftly handles battle scenes; the endless stream of soldiers marching; intimate moments between fighting men, eager freedmen, and courageous women; and private solo ruminations of major characters, some reliable assessors of their circumstances, others not.The story moves inexorably forward as the foot soldiers and the camp followers (mostly freed slaves) march inexorably to their fates, traveling into their rendez-vous with history either as survivors or casualties.This novel is mostly an action novel that does not vilify General Sherman as a brute. It's also a cautionary tale about the endlessly ugly and miserable aspects of military expeditions; there is no glory for any soldier, regardless of side. And it succeeds in being a saga of resilience and the redemption of human character through the good deeds that people encumbered by the unremitting evil and ghastliness that surrounds them can effect. Much more realistic and totally lacking in the mythical romance of Margaret Mitchell, The March matches that novel as a memorable epic of the Civil War.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Enlightening historical fiction that reads like a movie. It takes little imagination to see the absolute hellishness of war, and specifically what the Civil War did to the southern states. Fascinating. Loved it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had never read a fictional account of the Civil War. While the battles were done well enough. The novel's main concentration were its characters. The tale of a freed slaves, southern deserters and disposed former slave owners. Here the Doctorow did an execellant job of making their minor struggles seem important. I did not like the choices that Doctorow had his cast of characters make. In the end the book ends on a low note.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Entrancing fictional account of the march of Sherman's army from Georgia through South Carolina into North Carolina in the final months of the Civil War. We get to see the events through the eyes of several persons, ranging from a German-born Union Army surgeon, a 15 year old girl who's a freed slave but whose color (she was fathered by Massa) permits her to pass for white, a Confederate soldier who was freed from the his own army's stockade during Sherman's attack, a despicable Union general, Sherman himself, and others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love history, especially the Civil War. This is a fictional account of using actual historical events and people to create a realistic account of General Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas at the end of the War Between the States.

    I listened to the audio book which made the dialogue come alive between the actual and fictional characters as they lived and died during this tragic conflict.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The war is the protagonist. The story is told through the lives of the characters rather than the battle. Critic Circle Award and #1 National Book Award.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shernan's March to the Sea -- this novel tries to portray its human side rather than its strategic importance to the Civil War. With civilization collapsing all around, a host of people, from slaves to civilians even to southern soldiers attach themselves to Sherman's Army. It's the only oasis of order and hope of survival. I liked the large number of characters that weave in and out of the story, with their varied backgrounds and motivations. Sometimes you can only roll your eyes at their assumptions, like, for example, they could keep their furniture and belongings safe by storing them in a Savannah warehouse. Sometimes you share their horror at the destructiveness of the war machines and the inadequacy of medical care. It's a vibrant, colorful depiction of war, without much of the romanticism we attach to the era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Enojyable, no "Ragtime" but better than "Homer and Langley".
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is a fictional account of General Sherman’s march through the South during the Civil War. It covers the issues of freed slaves, captured Confederate soldiers and abandoned plantations. The main problem I had with the book is that there’s no grounding center to the story. We get a glimpse at the lives of many people in the south, but we don’t really get to know any of them. We spend the most time with Pearl, a young African American girl named Pearl whose skin was so light that she passed for a white drummer boy. She’s an interesting character, but I never felt like we got to know her or any of the other characters very well. BOTTOM LINE: I wanted more, more depth in the characters, more historical details, etc. The book felt like it barely skimmed the surface and I was never invested. “The wretched war had destroyed not only their country but all the presumptions of human self-regard. What a scant foolish pretense was a family, a culture, a place of history, when it was all so easily defamed.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There's no one main character, and the third person perspective shifts frequently. I think one of my favourite characters is Arly, because of his straightforward, adaptable nature and the unexpected profoundness of his monologues -- specifically on women and sex.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I don't like the vagueness of Doctorow's character development or, if you can call it this, plot. It was an interesting and I think honest attempt to portray what the end of the Civil War was like for most of the participants and interested parties.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I always seem to find myself enjoying Doctorow's technical proficiency and his beautiful writing, but his character writing falls flat. They almost seem cliched, which is a shame and they stand out horribly against the realities of war and the beautiful writing. It's a shame. I want so much to like Doctorow, but something keeps me from it each time I try.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    General Sherman leads his troops through the South. Much is non-pretty on both sides in the war. Politicians and generals do not think the same way, but are dependent on each other. Listening to Sherman it is easy to take his point of view, but also in these cases there is a question of how much to delegate to a narrow expert, maybe the politician sees more.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In looking at other reviews of this novel, I am struck by how many people focused on the characters and their seeming lack of development as a flaw in the book. The fact is the "March" was the lead character. Doctorow's inclusion of so many characters and his dipping into their minds helped create a large canvas for his book. He gives us an opportunity to see the impact of the war on so many different characters so we see the large effect. A focus on one character would have been a different story than the one I think Doctorow wanted to present. This is a great book and splitting hairs over fact versus fiction misses the feel of the story. As a result of this book I will spend more time learning about the Civil. A must read
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fictionalised account of the great march of Sherman; a journey, a breaking-free; a discovery of the soul.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have found myself spending considerable time in hospital waiting rooms of late, and in situations like these I’m always thankful for a good book. So I have spent my waiting hours reading E.L. Doctorow’s The March, which was released in 2006 and hit the New York Times Bestseller list without any problems. Though not to be confused with Geraldine Brooks’ March, Doctorow’s novel also deals with the America Civil War as we follow Sherman’s troops through Georgia and into the Carolinas. This band of Union soldiers gathers as it goes, a virtual grab bag of individuals that I became completely besotted with. There are freed slaves, turn-coats, young orphans, southern belles and defunct doctors along with the usual rabble we’ve learnt of time and again.Politics aside, Doctorow puts a human face on this war which is refreshing. There are badies on both sides and it’s a good idea not to get too attached to any one character. Doctorow is as brutal with them as the war was to all. It is a moving and honest portrayal of the times and if you have a mild to moderate interest in the Civil War I would suggest you find a copy.But don’t stop there. Earlier this year I read Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker. This was released some years ago, but is definitely one not to miss. Set in New York City, it is a fictional account of the riots (the worst in US history) caused by the establishment of the draft to man troops fighting the South. It caused a rebellion amongst the poor and working class simply because $300 you could buy your name out of the draft. See … they were even doing it back then! Personally, I had never read any fiction or otherwise on this topic and I found it completely enthralling. The characters are perfectly believable and the events well researched and from what I could discover, true to historical fact. I devoured this book in record time and found not only was it utterly enjoyable, but I actually learnt something new in American history. As a Canadian I was exposed to more than enough American history at school, but someone left this little morsel off our plate (or maybe I wasn’t listening that day). Either way, this is a great book for modern history buffs, and I recommend it for one of those compelling reads we are always looking out for.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "I don’t know what to think. I’ve lost everything to this war. And I see steadfastness not in the rooted mansions of a city but in what has no roots, what is itinerant. A floating world.” (page 61)The March is, quite simply, exactly what historical fiction should be. It brings alive a specific time and place, creates characters that are complex and reflective of their period, and brings to the reader the sights, smells and sounds of that period. Doctorow tells the story of Sherman’s March to the Sea and the end of the American Civil War through numerous characters – white, black, free, slave, army, civilian, rich and poor. The sheer number of characters and stories could be overwhelming but they are connected by the March itself, a shared experience, and really the central character of the book. Through a kaleidoscope of images and stories, Doctorow pieces together a portrait of war, death, brutality, kindness, hope and redemption.One of my favorite parts was the brief glimpse we are given of President Lincoln very near the end of the war. Wrede, a doctor observes: "His affliction might, after all, be the wounds of the war he’d gathered into himself, the amassed miseries of this torn-apart country made incarnate. Wrede, who had attended every kind of battle death, could not recall having ever before felt this sad for another human being.”This book sucked me in, both as a very good, well-told story, and as a fictionalized account of a part of American history I am not deeply familiar with. My one complaint would be that a map of Sherman’s route through Georgia and the Carolinas would have been helpful, as would some indication – perhaps in an afterword – of what characters were real or based on historical figures and which were purely fictionalized (some are obvious, but I now have a lot of Googling to do).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    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 along the way. There are some excellent passages and writing about the march itself as living organism that has to feed and tamed in order to achieve it’s ultimate goal. Also, the dialogue between characters is spot on, making the character to character interaction seem natural and fluid. Match that with an obvious desire to present the history accurately and you’ve got the raw materials for a great novel. However, perhaps that book’s greatest short coming was intended to be its greatest strength; the vast array of characters.Although I can see why Doctorow would want to include such a wide array of perspectives of such a grand event, individually the characters are not given an enough space to be fully developed and flourish. I think the incomplete realizations and disjointed/abortive storylines are meant to emphasize the chaos of war; if so, it didn’t work for me. Another issue I had with the book is that sometimes the characters didn’t seem like characters at all instead they are used to represent larger historical forces that are not necessarily at work in the micro-stories that are the focus of the narrative. It seems like Doctorow is trying to pull all these individual stories together in order to lecture to the reader about the injustices of the time. It seems to me that the best historical fiction allows the reads complete entry into another time and place with all the prejudices and limitations of that experience. Perhaps if the a few of the characters were given more space, more depth, and more nuance there wouldn’t be this issue of distance between the reader and the events.In the end, I’m not sorry to have spent time reading this novel, there is plenty of good writing in the various individual stories to recommend it, but falls a bit short of my expectations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of Sherman's march to Atlanta. Doctorow's usual wonderful multi-layered tale.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is an historical fiction account of General Sherman's military march through the South during the American Civil War. Filled with a tightly bound cast of characters (which have an annoying tendency of trickling into the story even until the book is almost over), the story moves along but does not wow. Perhaps more well written than Doctorow's City of God, The March is inferior to Billy Bathgate and Homer & Langley.Fortunately in this novel, Sherman is included in the cast, however other famous notables like Lincoln and Grant only make cameo appearances. Other characters include a naturalized German Union surgeon, a couple of requisite Southern Belles, a Rebel criminal duo posing as Union soldiers more for survival than espionage, and a mulatto daughter of a plantation owner. Perhaps typecast and typical, there are superior Civil War historical fiction accounts, although perhaps none so dedicated to painting Sherman and his effort so singularly.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story of General William Tecumseh Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to the sea is an American epic, with elements of tragedy and heroism strongly intermingled - all the greater a story because it is a true piece of history from the conflict that had the greatest impact on the American nation and people. E.L. Doctorow's novel is but the latest attempt by writers of fiction to capture this narrative from the historians for their own genre.Such an endeavor is not new to Doctorow who has based a number of his novels upon historical events, places, and times. In this work, as he has often in the past, the great event of Sherman's march becomes background and context within which his characters move, act, talk, and attempt to survive the experience of the march. The author's narration brings together individuals and stories from within the ranks of the armies contending with each other as well as from the civilian population, both white and black, through which the armies moved.This is not "War and Peace" and the cast of characters is not vast, focusing on about a dozen individuals. Given that a number of them are clearly also iconic representations of the soldiers of both armies, the Southern civilians, and the freed or soon-to-be freed slaves - it is not surprising that the character development is sometimes uneven, but those individuals whose stories form the backbone of this novel are not so disadvantaged. The result is a rather picaresque adventure for all of the characters lives are traced against the overall progress of the march. This focus upon the stories of these characters prevents the book from becoming the epic novel of the war, but it held my interest to the end, even knowing how the story ends. Doctorow offers something for everyone - skirmishes and battles; clashes between Sherman's foraging and marauding 'bummers' and Southern soldiers, militia, and civilians; slaves dealing with the approach of liberation and defining its impact on their futures; and the struggles of Confederate civilians to survive and find a new way of living in war's aftermath. I do not think that this the great novel of the American Civil War, though it should rank among the recommended ranks of fiction on the war (though I'm likely to reread "Killer Angels" before I have another go at Doctorow).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I approached this book with mixed feelings. I've loved the previous Doctorow books I've read, but having been raised in the South knew that the story was likely to be painful.I should have known that I could trust Doctorow to create fully-realized characters on both sides of this terrible conflict . This is a beautifully written, important book for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the impact this event in American history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have read most of Doctorow's books (all but his first two, and one later one), and this one is I'd say one of my least favorite. It lacks something that the others have, though I am hard pressed to say what that is exactly. Doctorow often writes about historical events, but typically those events are just backdrops or settings that allow for interesting situations and speculations. Here though, the background events are, I think, too large to just stay in the background, and the foreground characters and events are never as interesting as those in, say, "Billy Bathgate," "The Book of Daniel," or "Ragtime."The only compelling thing that I really found here was the doctor. The character seemed to know more than he could possibly know - not in a bad storytelling way, but in an uncanny metaphysical way. I wish that there had been more of the doctor, but at the same time, I think that if the character had been more drawn out, whatever it is that makes him uncanny and compelling would likely be lost.That being said, it was certainly an enjoyable read. A only halfway decent Doctorow novel is still a very good book.