On "The March"

(reflections on E. L. Doctorow's novel THE MARCH, ch. I-VII.)

I keep a pen in hand to track the characters through THE MARCH. I also trace the lines that tie disparate events together as one evolving story.

The novel starts at the Jameson's plantation, already braced for the onslaught of Sherman's army. Getting her last glimpse of her home, Mrs. Jameson glances at a slave girl named Pearl. Another chapter brings us US soldiers who pick up Pearl; and another introduces a comic pair of hapless CSA deserters who will be caught up in the violence that overtakes the soldiers who took Pearl. . . and so on. It's sort of a relay, with a character or object or home being the baton passed from chapter to chapter.

We might predict that Georgians would perceive Sherman's men as wanton and cruel, and some do, but others are impressed by how orderly, ordinary, or even admirable they are:

As Northerners these soldiers were far from their homes and families. Yet they persisted and walked the earth as if the earth were their home.

By the same token, we see the Georgians pig-headed about their slaves, or regretful about what they've lost, but also we see the old coot who realizes he's "Pharoah" and that this destruction is the Lord's judgement, using the Union army as His instrument (end of ch.VI). Tears in his eyes, he lets his one remaining slave go.

Doctorow eschews quotation marks, and I don't miss them. The dialogue, the thoughts, the narration all seem more of a piece, as in this passage from chapter VII:

They stood for a moment on the landing.
We return-march to the corps before dawn, Wrede said. He looked at his pocket watch. I'm sorry, I should have released you hours ago.
I've done nothing to compare with what has been required of you this day.
He smiled and shook his head. We know so little.

"We know so little." Is that the author's comment, or the doctor's thought, or something he says aloud to the woman? In fact, it's all three.

Though I know Doctorow only through reviews I've read of his earlier works and through the splendid musical made of his first big success, RAGTIME, I recognize a couple of common techniques. He interweaves large casts of characters who represent diverse types from a certain historical place and time. And he allows for the intrusion of the future through a prophet. In RAGTIME, it's the little boy disturbed by a premonition of an assassination leading to world war, and here, it's that doctor who off-handedly remarks that there will one day be "botanical molds to reverse infection" and a way to "photograph through the body to the bones."

Still have three hundred pages to enjoy.

On "The March" | Category: Fiction