When I first opened Shades of Gray, I must admit I wasn't expecting anything amazing. I haven't read much historical fiction since middle school, and what I have read in recent years has been easier to enjoy because it's easy to make fun of than for its quality (Unholy Fire by Robert J. Mrazek comes to mind). But I wanted to give Jessica James's new novel about the Civil War in Virginia a shot.
In the first chapter, I was introduced to the two main characters: Andrea Evans, a strong-willed and dedicated young lady who spends her days dressed as a boy in order to act as a courier. Unofficially, she spies on Alexander Hunter, the Mosby-esque Confederate cavalry officer.
I expected the plot to take the cliché route, but the more I read on the more exciting and complex it became. I grew attatched to the characters, felt for them and wanted things for them. I am not exaggerating when I say that I became obsessed with Shades of Gray. I stayed up past 3 AM multiple nights in a row (all school nights, too), reading as many chapters as possible. When my friends at school inquired as to why I was a zombie, I was only too happy to share with them the cause. But falling asleep in Spanish class... and calculus... is a very bad thing, and so I forced myself to refrain from reading for a few nights until I could catch up on my sleep. On a Friday night I finally allowed myself to read more and actually finished the book.
This is embarassing for me to admit, as it's something I rarely do - and never have with books - but I cried. I bawled like a baby for two chapters straight. I could not avoid getting caught up in it all. If cliché at that point, I no longer cared nor noticed.
Jessica James has a way with words. Her ability to speak metaphorically is unprecedented. She not only makes it easy to picture the beautiful locations in Virginia, but makes you want to be there. Even if you dislike the plot, I think Shades of Gray is worth reading for the style in which it's written.
Shades of Gray affected me greatly. Not only emotionally, but it made me realize something. I think as historians we (I'm going to include myself in the historian category for these purposes) forget about emotion. Everything is all facts and figures and tactics. Even when we do venture into the realm of personal histories, what we find are just stories to us. It's difficult to focus on how the people felt (unless perhaps they've left a diary or letters behind). I think film and even historical fiction are more important than we generally accept. Not only can they inspire an interest in history that was never there before in some viewers/readers, but I think they can also bring us historians back to what's really important, make us focus on the feelings instead of the numbers, the people instead of the tactics. Don't tell me you didn't cry (or at least want to) when you saw Glory. This kind of thing has a major impact, something I'd forgotten thanks to my arch enemy, Jeff Shaara, who told me once that historical fiction (other than his) is worthless because it's too easy to make up characters and throw them into a story. No research involved, he said. Thus, worthless.
I want to challenge all of you manly historimen who read my blog to read Shades of Gray. Do you have what it takes to read something fictional and involving romance? Any of you who decide to take me up on this challenge will be handsomely rewarded... somehow or another (still need to figure that out). And if you cry and admit it... well that will have to earn you an even greater reward, I guess! Or if any of you happen to be married to someone who isn't quite into the Civil War thing, this would be a very good way to spark their interest.
Go here and order yourself (or your loved one) a copy. Go go go.
Showing posts with label i am anti-jeff shaara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i am anti-jeff shaara. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Anger
I've mentioned before that I have an intense dislike for Jeff Shaara. I was looking through today's Civil War news and saw mention of a new addition of Shaara's battlefield guidebook and it refueled my anger. So I decided that perhaps I would take this time to explain my reasons for being so very anti-Jeff Shaara.
Jeff Shaara is a pretty horrible writer. His sentences are incredibly long, comma-filled ramblings. Take this excerpt from Gods & Generals:
She walked out to the back, down the porch steps, looked across the yard, the new furrows in the clean brown soil, the bed of the new spring garden, waiting for the seeding, the new crop, and she knew he would not be planting it, that he would not be working his beloved field outside of town. She looked up to the porch, saw the cloth bags, the seeds. She had just bought them this week, had hoped to sit with him, to poke small fingers into waiting dirt, the beginnings of the new life, and she thought of him, the look of pure joy, sitting in the dirt, part of it, brown smudges all over his clothes and face; thick, caked dirt on his hands. He loved it, would ask her to sit with him, share the feeling, the good work with God's earth.
To find that excerpt, I just hit "Surprise Me!" on the Amazon look-inside-the-book thing and found a perfect example. Number of sentences: 4. Total comma count: 22!
It bothers me that Jeff Shaara has made money off of his father's name. His father was much more talented. And he acts as if he's carrying on the legacy when in reality he's just capitalizing off of it.
Then there's the ego. The tooting of his own horn and crazy self-importance really, really bothers me. When I used to work at the museum and he was doing the book signing, I was sitting nearby for most of the day and the whole time he just told everyone about how great he is. "My father wrote this book," he'd say, pointing to The Killer Angels. "And I wrote all of these other ones." About his battlefield guidebook, he said something about how he tried to recommend the more unknown ones so that people would go see them. Because, you know, if Jeff Shaara didn't recommend them, there'd be no point in going. Then his speech at the cemetery on Remembrance Day this year was so offensive to me that I have still not gotten over it. If you do not remember my post mentioning it, Jeff Shaara basically said "Today is not about me. So let me tell you about how great I am. History is boring, but I make it worth learning. Kids would hate history if it weren't for me. Who wants to memorize dates and stuff? Oh and by the way, when Lincoln spoke here on this day, he didn't know what he was saying." To top it all off, he got the casualty figures wrong.
As I've stated before, for some reason people do not feel like they can publicly state their dislike for Shaara. And it's not that people do not dislike him; so many people I have talked to (including historians) feel he is overrated and simply riding his father's coattails. Perhaps my age/inexperience in the "real world" is making me blind to some sort of unwritten rule stating that one cannot say anything negative about Jeff Shaara or else. Once again, I inquire as to why this is. Why are we so afraid of Jeff Shaara? Or why is the history community so afraid of him? I know I'm not.
Jeff Shaara is a pretty horrible writer. His sentences are incredibly long, comma-filled ramblings. Take this excerpt from Gods & Generals:
She walked out to the back, down the porch steps, looked across the yard, the new furrows in the clean brown soil, the bed of the new spring garden, waiting for the seeding, the new crop, and she knew he would not be planting it, that he would not be working his beloved field outside of town. She looked up to the porch, saw the cloth bags, the seeds. She had just bought them this week, had hoped to sit with him, to poke small fingers into waiting dirt, the beginnings of the new life, and she thought of him, the look of pure joy, sitting in the dirt, part of it, brown smudges all over his clothes and face; thick, caked dirt on his hands. He loved it, would ask her to sit with him, share the feeling, the good work with God's earth.
To find that excerpt, I just hit "Surprise Me!" on the Amazon look-inside-the-book thing and found a perfect example. Number of sentences: 4. Total comma count: 22!
It bothers me that Jeff Shaara has made money off of his father's name. His father was much more talented. And he acts as if he's carrying on the legacy when in reality he's just capitalizing off of it.
Then there's the ego. The tooting of his own horn and crazy self-importance really, really bothers me. When I used to work at the museum and he was doing the book signing, I was sitting nearby for most of the day and the whole time he just told everyone about how great he is. "My father wrote this book," he'd say, pointing to The Killer Angels. "And I wrote all of these other ones." About his battlefield guidebook, he said something about how he tried to recommend the more unknown ones so that people would go see them. Because, you know, if Jeff Shaara didn't recommend them, there'd be no point in going. Then his speech at the cemetery on Remembrance Day this year was so offensive to me that I have still not gotten over it. If you do not remember my post mentioning it, Jeff Shaara basically said "Today is not about me. So let me tell you about how great I am. History is boring, but I make it worth learning. Kids would hate history if it weren't for me. Who wants to memorize dates and stuff? Oh and by the way, when Lincoln spoke here on this day, he didn't know what he was saying." To top it all off, he got the casualty figures wrong.
As I've stated before, for some reason people do not feel like they can publicly state their dislike for Shaara. And it's not that people do not dislike him; so many people I have talked to (including historians) feel he is overrated and simply riding his father's coattails. Perhaps my age/inexperience in the "real world" is making me blind to some sort of unwritten rule stating that one cannot say anything negative about Jeff Shaara or else. Once again, I inquire as to why this is. Why are we so afraid of Jeff Shaara? Or why is the history community so afraid of him? I know I'm not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
