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Ambrose Bierce didn't just write about the Civil War, he lived through it--on the battlefields and over the graves--and in doing so gave birth to a literary chronicle of men at war previously unseen in the American literary canon. The fact that some of these stories verged on the supernatural, others on factual reporting, and others on the fine line between humor and morbidity in no way detracts from their resonance to both the history of the war between the states and the imaginative historical literature in the tradition of Washington Irving.
Shadows of Blue & Gray collects all of Bierce's Civil War stories (twenty-seven in total) with six of his memoir pieces on his own experiences on the front lines.
This collection includes such classics as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "A Horseman in the Sky," "Parker Addison, Philosopher", and "A Bivouac of the Dead"; as well as lesser known stories and sketches such as "The Mockingbird" and "Two Military Executions" and memoirs of his experiences at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Franklin.
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It's easy to look back and view wars as things of glory - the history books tend to lead us in that direction by viewing the action from lofty heights, speaking in terms of armies and strategies and generals. The reality - as those who have `been there' know too well (and no, I'm not claiming to be a veteran) - is that the old adage is all too true: war is definitely hell, and we should never, ever forget that fact. Ambrose Bierce is known today mainly through his fiction - many fine examples of which appear in this collection - and through THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. He `might or might not' be the subject and/or inspiration for Carlos Fuentes' novel THE OLD GRINGO, also made into a film. His stories have a decidedly `creepy' feel to them - he was no Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps, but he was a talented writer nonetheless...and as not only the short stories, but also the non-fiction pieces collected here demonstrate, he was a careful and articulate observer. We are truly blessed that he chose to recount what he had seen, both in the form of short stories and memoirs. His disappearance in 1914 in Mexico has added to his mystique over the ensuing years. The most famous of the short stories contained in this volume is undoubtedly `An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'. I remember reading it in high school (NO, I won't say how long ago that was...) - and it was filmed to great effect by director Roberto Enrico in 1962, and was subsequently aired in the US as an episode in the last season of THE TWILGHT ZONE on CBS. It won an Oscar in 1964 as Best Foreign Short Film. The story is a masterpiece of suspense - it's a great literary epitaph for Bierce. Bierce served in the Civil War - he enlisted at its outset and saw quite a bit of action. He rose through the ranks to lieutenant and served on the staff of various high-ranking officers. It is his observations and experiences - and his empathy with the troops, the enlisted men, the common man - that lend such a value to his writings. Too much `Hollywood-izing' has been forced upon the truth - about the Civil War and almost everything the film industry touches. It's a treasure to have the pieces here to vividly remind us of what the experience was really like. There is humor here as well - Bierce's wit was an acerbic sword, and he unsheathed it on the high and low alike, without sparing himself in the process. His characterizations of the generals under whom he served, as well as the enlisted soldiers, the post-war opportunists, and the intellectual crowd with whom he mingled both in the US and abroad, are rich indeed. The language is understandably a bit archaic in places - but I found myself getting used to it pretty quickly. As a result, the book took me a bit longer to read than the contemporary fiction I normally favor - but it was definitely worth the time. I can recommend this collection to aficionados of fiction and history buffs alike - a great read. |
