tarmstrong112's review against another edition
3.0
This was an interesting novel. The plot is all over the place and the list of characters is so long, you basically have to give up on remembering everyone's name/situation if you want to maintain your sanity. Almost every character, no matter if they are a major or minor characters gets a full backstory which grinds the plot to a halt quite often.
And yet I enjoyed this book from time to time. I cannot in good faith say I enjoyed the entire thing and I truly believe the plot does not justify the length, but it was nevertheless entertaining enough for me to finish.
I can't imagine I'll ever think about this book or the story again (like I have done with other historical fiction epics) but I am ultimately glad I read it as I enjoy American Civil War era fiction and have grown to enjoy the genre of historical fiction epics.
And yet I enjoyed this book from time to time. I cannot in good faith say I enjoyed the entire thing and I truly believe the plot does not justify the length, but it was nevertheless entertaining enough for me to finish.
I can't imagine I'll ever think about this book or the story again (like I have done with other historical fiction epics) but I am ultimately glad I read it as I enjoy American Civil War era fiction and have grown to enjoy the genre of historical fiction epics.
daisyporter's review against another edition
5.0
It's 750 pages of dialogue with no quotation marks. It doesn't have any women other than one silly virgin and one wise whore. It's primarily about war and feces.....so much feces. Nevertheless, amazing and brilliant.
zena_ryder's review against another edition
5.0
This is on my list of all time favourite books. It's fantastic. It's very long, but I never felt it needed to be shorter. It's beautifully written, and the characterization is amazing. The author creates so many believable characters, and you feel that you get to know them, even though some are around only for a single chapter. In the book, many characters make short chapter-long appearances - long enough for us to get to know them before they die (usually) and leave the story. It's a very effective way of getting a feel for just how many people were imprisoned at Andersonville and how tragic all that suffering and death was.
If I had to come up with some criticisms, it would probably be these:
1. I didn't quite care enough about Ira Claffey and his family. I needed to love them more.
2. Slaves are largely ignored in the story. In a way, this is a virtue - because slaves simply were just in the background of the lives of many Southerners, just like tools and horses. However, I still felt a desire to hear more from them.
If I had to come up with some criticisms, it would probably be these:
1. I didn't quite care enough about Ira Claffey and his family. I needed to love them more.
2. Slaves are largely ignored in the story. In a way, this is a virtue - because slaves simply were just in the background of the lives of many Southerners, just like tools and horses. However, I still felt a desire to hear more from them.
bibliophiliac's review
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
cbs5678's review against another edition
5.0
My dad and I read this book when I was in high school. The characters are unforgettable as is the bravery and tragedy this book portrayed.
ncrabb's review against another edition
5.0
Some people will grovel in scary ways to get a tiny chance at a ten-dollar Amazon gift card. I'm chief among that crowd. When my public library instituted a winter reading program, entrants to which get a chance at a ten-dollar Amazon card for every entry submitted during a proscribed time, I jumped at it.
These are BINGO cards by reading books with specific categories. If you're familiar with the summer reading program done annually by the Books on the Night Stand podcast, you have a good idea as to how this works. You read books based on specific categories and genres. I chose a book that had won a Pulitzer, since that was a category that completed a BINGO card for me. I've had this book on my hard drive for some months, and since it won the Pulitzer in 1956, it was a great choice.
This is a book that, when you are 99 and tragically enshrouded in the thickest fog of dementia, one of the tiny crystalline tendrils of your memory that will remain is the fact that you read this book, so excellent is it.
Andersonville is arguably the most infamous of the Civil War prison camps on either side. Established in Georgia near the end of the war to hold only a few thousand prisoners, the camp would ultimately hold more than 33,000 who were housed in open-air conditions and guarded by the most evil men the Confederacy could puke up from its foulest darkest places.
Ira Claffey is a slave-owning neighbor to the prison. Three of his sons and his wife are either directly or indirectly killed by the war. Only a tiny handful of his slaves remain, as does a loyal daughter who has fallen in love with a surgeon who knew one of her brothers in the war.
Ira and Lucy watch in horor as prisoners are herded into Andersonville and forced to live in conditions tbat rival or are worse than any third-world slum we could dredge up today. Inside the prison, roving gangs form that strip fellow prisoners of valuables and take lives with abandon. Still other prisoners form a police force and manage to convince Confederate guards to allow trials of the gang members and hang them.
You will be moved to tears numerous times so excellent is Kantor's writing. There are poignant scenes throughout this book, and many of them will remain in your memory long after you finish. You see Georgia through Ira's eyes as he journeys to Richmond to get help for the prisoners. The breakdown of society is much in evidence. Mayhem and refugees are the order of the day, and he ultimately realizes he can't even leave the state, let alone get anywhere else. Dejected by what he sees of a once impressive state and population now broken, he is forced to walk back home over miles having accomplished nothing and yet having accomplished moch. He gives what help he can to the broken and battered refugees he encounters.
The descriptions of the maggot-infested vermin-filled conditions of the camp are neither exaggerated or sensationalizet to titillate the reader, but nor are they reported as merely boring numerical statistics. Instead, they are given human faces and names.
You see the irrelevance of religion in such a place in some ways, and you see how religion actually uplifts a small devout cadre of men in another place. You will be touched by the contrast of the humanitarian Ira and his Confederate neighbors who callously guard the Union soldiers. Kantor creates a rape scene here that is far more remarkably written than any I've seen from more modern authors. You know exactly what happened, but you are left without the mind-numbing brutality that a lesser writer would resort to when describing the event.
There is another incident here in which a Confederate amputee and a Union escapee who lost a hand in the same battle that robbed the Confederate soldier of his foot come together to assist one another as the war draws to its inevitable close. The scene is unforgetable.
I fear I don't always pay attention to awards that books win, partly because there are so many excellent ones out there that don't win awards. But I can understand perfectly why this book was worthy of a Pulitzer. The author put nearly two years of research into the book, and it shows. He quotes from primary sources whenever and however he can. Civilians like Ira and his daughter, Lucy, are fictional. But the hoorors and accounts of the lives needlessly lost and callously taken are real enough.
These are BINGO cards by reading books with specific categories. If you're familiar with the summer reading program done annually by the Books on the Night Stand podcast, you have a good idea as to how this works. You read books based on specific categories and genres. I chose a book that had won a Pulitzer, since that was a category that completed a BINGO card for me. I've had this book on my hard drive for some months, and since it won the Pulitzer in 1956, it was a great choice.
This is a book that, when you are 99 and tragically enshrouded in the thickest fog of dementia, one of the tiny crystalline tendrils of your memory that will remain is the fact that you read this book, so excellent is it.
Andersonville is arguably the most infamous of the Civil War prison camps on either side. Established in Georgia near the end of the war to hold only a few thousand prisoners, the camp would ultimately hold more than 33,000 who were housed in open-air conditions and guarded by the most evil men the Confederacy could puke up from its foulest darkest places.
Ira Claffey is a slave-owning neighbor to the prison. Three of his sons and his wife are either directly or indirectly killed by the war. Only a tiny handful of his slaves remain, as does a loyal daughter who has fallen in love with a surgeon who knew one of her brothers in the war.
Ira and Lucy watch in horor as prisoners are herded into Andersonville and forced to live in conditions tbat rival or are worse than any third-world slum we could dredge up today. Inside the prison, roving gangs form that strip fellow prisoners of valuables and take lives with abandon. Still other prisoners form a police force and manage to convince Confederate guards to allow trials of the gang members and hang them.
You will be moved to tears numerous times so excellent is Kantor's writing. There are poignant scenes throughout this book, and many of them will remain in your memory long after you finish. You see Georgia through Ira's eyes as he journeys to Richmond to get help for the prisoners. The breakdown of society is much in evidence. Mayhem and refugees are the order of the day, and he ultimately realizes he can't even leave the state, let alone get anywhere else. Dejected by what he sees of a once impressive state and population now broken, he is forced to walk back home over miles having accomplished nothing and yet having accomplished moch. He gives what help he can to the broken and battered refugees he encounters.
The descriptions of the maggot-infested vermin-filled conditions of the camp are neither exaggerated or sensationalizet to titillate the reader, but nor are they reported as merely boring numerical statistics. Instead, they are given human faces and names.
You see the irrelevance of religion in such a place in some ways, and you see how religion actually uplifts a small devout cadre of men in another place. You will be touched by the contrast of the humanitarian Ira and his Confederate neighbors who callously guard the Union soldiers. Kantor creates a rape scene here that is far more remarkably written than any I've seen from more modern authors. You know exactly what happened, but you are left without the mind-numbing brutality that a lesser writer would resort to when describing the event.
There is another incident here in which a Confederate amputee and a Union escapee who lost a hand in the same battle that robbed the Confederate soldier of his foot come together to assist one another as the war draws to its inevitable close. The scene is unforgetable.
I fear I don't always pay attention to awards that books win, partly because there are so many excellent ones out there that don't win awards. But I can understand perfectly why this book was worthy of a Pulitzer. The author put nearly two years of research into the book, and it shows. He quotes from primary sources whenever and however he can. Civilians like Ira and his daughter, Lucy, are fictional. But the hoorors and accounts of the lives needlessly lost and callously taken are real enough.
jfl's review against another edition
4.0
I am curious how a work enters the Contemporary Canon. Who or what decides if any given literary piece survives beyond its publication as some type of icon, valued for its uniqueness or literary strength? And indeed, how is “uniqueness” determined or defined and by whom?
McKinley Kantor’s “Andersonville” was a hit in the wake of its publication in 1955. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956; was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, was well-reviewed and long remained on the best seller list. I remember when it came into our house as a hardcover that prominently weighted our bookshelf after my parents devoured it and invited extended discussions about the Civil War. It was Kantor’s masterpiece, prepared over 25 years of research and investigation. Bruce Catton called it "the best Civil War novel I have ever read."
Although it long enjoyed both popularity and financial success in the wake of its publication, my sense is that it is not considered today as a part of the Contemporary Canon. It certainly does not figure in any of the more common lists of notable fiction from the XX Century and I would be surprised to find it listed in a major bibliography of selected, fiction works dealing with the Civil War.
Perhaps one reason why it has slipped into oblivion is that its structure is antithetical to contemporary tastes. The current age is mesmerized by hagiographies infrequently written by professional historians. In both histories and historical novels, preferences run to a central figure whose actions or inactions thread dominantly through the work. Biographies, for example, of the Founding Fathers are today’s rage. In “Andersonville”, there is no central figure outside the prison itself. The plantation owner, Ira Claffey, opens and closes the novel, but he does not control the action. Rather, the work is a collection of vignettes of a large number of ordinary people (some historical but most fictional) of whom Claffey is merely one. It resembles more closely the work of the social historians who might seem uninterested in sketching for the reader a broader narrative synthesis and thus are less attractive to the general public.
There is also the length of the novel. At 760 word-packed pages, it probably tries the patience of readers who prefer tighter editing. Also, several reviewers have been negatively critical of Kantor’s failure to mark dialogue clearly. Exposition and conversation run together, without identifying punctuation, causing frustration and confusion among some readers.
Yet, although the novel may have escaped a place among the XX Century American Canon, it is still an engaging and informative read, stylistically strong. It captures in effortless prose the Nation toward the latter part of the armed conflict when the Union’s defeat of the Confederacy is all too apparent as are the horrors of the unexpectedly lengthy war.
Andersonville the prison, run by the Confederacy to hold captured Union soldiers, is the scene of human depravity both inside the stockade and outside. And Kantor captures that depravity in its full dimension. You see it, feel it, hear it, taste it and smell it. During the 14 months of its existence (1864-1865), more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined there and some 13,000 died, wasted away from starvation, exposure to the elements, overcrowding and disease.
In Kantor’s telling, death stalks life; the strong pray on the weak; humanity is redefined without redemption; indifference replaces compassion. It is the story of ordinary people mutating into animals during uncommon times.
Although Andersonville prison—its community of guards, prisoners and neighbors—is the focal point of the novel, Kantor gives each of the people he highlights deep histories. His people come from rural and urban roots: farmers, landowners, artisans, professionals, slaves, vagabonds, seamen, ruffians and hooligans, traders and merchants. In their composite, they and their families are a microcosm of American society of the 1860s, mutilated and depressed by the barbarity of war.
While evil infuses the novel, it is not a hopeless world. Some humanity does survive. A physician labors to alleviate suffering even though his efforts are inadequate and unsuccessful; a handful of prisoners organize an internal policing effort to permanently stop a cadre of bullies and thugs (fellow prisoners themselves) from wanton exploitation. Toward the end of the novel, an escaped prisoner is befriended by one of the prison guards, forming, in the process, an ultimately deeply emotional and liberating friendship. But the examples of humanity and civility only underscore the basic brutality of Andersonville and, ultimately, of the Civil War itself.
McKinley Kantor’s “Andersonville” was a hit in the wake of its publication in 1955. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956; was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, was well-reviewed and long remained on the best seller list. I remember when it came into our house as a hardcover that prominently weighted our bookshelf after my parents devoured it and invited extended discussions about the Civil War. It was Kantor’s masterpiece, prepared over 25 years of research and investigation. Bruce Catton called it "the best Civil War novel I have ever read."
Although it long enjoyed both popularity and financial success in the wake of its publication, my sense is that it is not considered today as a part of the Contemporary Canon. It certainly does not figure in any of the more common lists of notable fiction from the XX Century and I would be surprised to find it listed in a major bibliography of selected, fiction works dealing with the Civil War.
Perhaps one reason why it has slipped into oblivion is that its structure is antithetical to contemporary tastes. The current age is mesmerized by hagiographies infrequently written by professional historians. In both histories and historical novels, preferences run to a central figure whose actions or inactions thread dominantly through the work. Biographies, for example, of the Founding Fathers are today’s rage. In “Andersonville”, there is no central figure outside the prison itself. The plantation owner, Ira Claffey, opens and closes the novel, but he does not control the action. Rather, the work is a collection of vignettes of a large number of ordinary people (some historical but most fictional) of whom Claffey is merely one. It resembles more closely the work of the social historians who might seem uninterested in sketching for the reader a broader narrative synthesis and thus are less attractive to the general public.
There is also the length of the novel. At 760 word-packed pages, it probably tries the patience of readers who prefer tighter editing. Also, several reviewers have been negatively critical of Kantor’s failure to mark dialogue clearly. Exposition and conversation run together, without identifying punctuation, causing frustration and confusion among some readers.
Yet, although the novel may have escaped a place among the XX Century American Canon, it is still an engaging and informative read, stylistically strong. It captures in effortless prose the Nation toward the latter part of the armed conflict when the Union’s defeat of the Confederacy is all too apparent as are the horrors of the unexpectedly lengthy war.
Andersonville the prison, run by the Confederacy to hold captured Union soldiers, is the scene of human depravity both inside the stockade and outside. And Kantor captures that depravity in its full dimension. You see it, feel it, hear it, taste it and smell it. During the 14 months of its existence (1864-1865), more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined there and some 13,000 died, wasted away from starvation, exposure to the elements, overcrowding and disease.
In Kantor’s telling, death stalks life; the strong pray on the weak; humanity is redefined without redemption; indifference replaces compassion. It is the story of ordinary people mutating into animals during uncommon times.
Although Andersonville prison—its community of guards, prisoners and neighbors—is the focal point of the novel, Kantor gives each of the people he highlights deep histories. His people come from rural and urban roots: farmers, landowners, artisans, professionals, slaves, vagabonds, seamen, ruffians and hooligans, traders and merchants. In their composite, they and their families are a microcosm of American society of the 1860s, mutilated and depressed by the barbarity of war.
While evil infuses the novel, it is not a hopeless world. Some humanity does survive. A physician labors to alleviate suffering even though his efforts are inadequate and unsuccessful; a handful of prisoners organize an internal policing effort to permanently stop a cadre of bullies and thugs (fellow prisoners themselves) from wanton exploitation. Toward the end of the novel, an escaped prisoner is befriended by one of the prison guards, forming, in the process, an ultimately deeply emotional and liberating friendship. But the examples of humanity and civility only underscore the basic brutality of Andersonville and, ultimately, of the Civil War itself.
gguerra8225's review against another edition
5.0
The glorious writing! Horrifying and transcendant at the same time.
wathohuc's review against another edition
3.0
Done! Phew! This was a difficult one for me to finish. First off, I’m not really keen on Civil War historical fiction to begin with, so there’s that. Second, it’s a thick book of 760+ pages of relatively small print. Third, it’s dreadfully grim. Lots of horrific suffering, illness, inhumanity, and grisly death. Fourth, it suffers from a lack of a coherent storyline and plot. All 61 chapters are independent vignettes. Some of them are repeat characters, some are connected characters, but many of them are not. Some of it is flashback, most is contemporaneous to the moment. And this gives it a chaotic feel and makes the reading harder for lack of a driving narrative. The only constant in the vignettes is the presence of the Andersonville prison. Now, all that said, I do think the writing is good. Kantor is definitely a talented writer. I could see how this could appeal to the Pulitzer Committee, but I would probably not have awarded it the prize. I’m just glad to be done with it. Not for the feint of heart. If you tackle this book, prepare yourself to be depressed and spiritually diminished for the duration.