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i am a wee behind on reviews for the 2008 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge. this year i am focusing on reading the gamut of Civil War fiction (not that i didn't read a lot of it last year, but i guess i'm making a real effort to tackle some of the books i just seem to perennially put off).
like those written by Howard Bahr. i couldn't get past page one of his first two books, but am having a very different experience so far with The Judas Field. maybe it's because the stumbling block of a name like Gawain isn't tripping me up in this one (though i confess "Cass" isn't much of an improvement). if i have bothersome names for main characters in my books, i pray to God people will tell me.
anyway, The Judas Field is so far surprisingly fresh. the story is pretty simple: dying woman enlists the help of ruined ex-confederate to dig up her father and brother where they were buried during the war and bring them home so she won't be lonely in the graveyard. then they set off on a trek to try and recover the bodies, slipping into the obligatory flashback to tell the story of their demise (with some apparent promises that their death might not have been all that it was made out to be twenty years before). anyway, i've been reading slow, but really digging Bahr's writing. it's very detailed and nuanced, his characters are not cloying, and the battlefield stuff is gruesome without being utterly gratuitous. much to admire there. i'm hoping it holds together to the end, but so far i feel pretty good about it.
i guess the point of me writing this is that i generally complain a lot about Civil War fiction and lately i am looking to suss out the good in it.
i'm feeling sort of wogglish and the weekend will do me good. might try to see There Will Be Blood tomorrow. possibly. you'll hear about it if i do.
50bookchallenge. this year i am focusing on reading the gamut of Civil War fiction (not that i didn't read a lot of it last year, but i guess i'm making a real effort to tackle some of the books i just seem to perennially put off). like those written by Howard Bahr. i couldn't get past page one of his first two books, but am having a very different experience so far with The Judas Field. maybe it's because the stumbling block of a name like Gawain isn't tripping me up in this one (though i confess "Cass" isn't much of an improvement). if i have bothersome names for main characters in my books, i pray to God people will tell me.
anyway, The Judas Field is so far surprisingly fresh. the story is pretty simple: dying woman enlists the help of ruined ex-confederate to dig up her father and brother where they were buried during the war and bring them home so she won't be lonely in the graveyard. then they set off on a trek to try and recover the bodies, slipping into the obligatory flashback to tell the story of their demise (with some apparent promises that their death might not have been all that it was made out to be twenty years before). anyway, i've been reading slow, but really digging Bahr's writing. it's very detailed and nuanced, his characters are not cloying, and the battlefield stuff is gruesome without being utterly gratuitous. much to admire there. i'm hoping it holds together to the end, but so far i feel pretty good about it.
i guess the point of me writing this is that i generally complain a lot about Civil War fiction and lately i am looking to suss out the good in it.
i'm feeling sort of wogglish and the weekend will do me good. might try to see There Will Be Blood tomorrow. possibly. you'll hear about it if i do.
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i will definitely give bahr's other two books a second chance after this one. but i still think his names are bad ~ hahahahahaha.