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The March
A Novel
by E.L. Doctorow


7.3

based on 28 reviews
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based on 16 votes
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Sweet Land Stories

Official Publisher Site

This Civil War novel chronicles General William Tecumseh Sherman's infamous and destructive march through Georgia to the sea.

Random House, 384 pages
09/20/2005
$25.95

ISBN: 0375506713

Fiction
Historical Fiction

NOTES:
Winner of the 2006 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

[A] vast yet compact, contemplative yet unfailingly urgent chronicle of the great and hated general's scorched-earth campaign across the collapsing Confederacy. [23 Sep 2005, p.92]

Houston Chronicle Fritz Lanham

Hewing closely to historical facts, The March emerges as a powerfully affecting novel, rendering the absurdities and horrors of war and the capriciousness with which it snuffs out some, spares others.

Kirkus Reviews

Doctorow's previous novels have earned multiple major literary awards. The March should do so as well. [15 Jul 2005, p.752]

Los Angeles Times Richard Eder

"The March" is jangly, loose-jointed and an almost unqualified triumph; it is closer in spirit to "Ragtime"--even in its near-musical vignette form--than to the author's other novels. [18 Sep 2005]

Publishers Weekly

Doctorow's gift for getting into the heads of a remarkable variety of characters, famous or ordinary, make this a kind of grim Civil War Canterbury Tales. [18 July 2005, p. 177]

Boston Globe Madison Smartt Bell

[This novel] is a mosaic composed of ''little" lives, each with its uniquely human value, destroyed or saved by the hazards of war.

Chicago Sun-Times Lloyd Sachs

A connivingly understated work that at times suggests a meeting of Catch-22 and The Red Badge of Courage.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Ken Babstock

This is a compelling, complex and unsettling novel, featuring a vacuum of moral ambiguity where we'd normally expect a protagonist. [24 Sept. 2005]

The New Yorker John Updike

Doctorow here appears not so much a reconstructor of history as a visionary who seeks in time past occasions for poetry

USA Today Dierdre Donahue

For the many Americans who want to understand this profound experience that continues to shape our attitudes and actions today, The March offers stunning insight.

Washington Post John Wray

It's a credit to Doctorow's skill -- both as a writer and an entertainer -- that the task of following the narrative through so many loops and curlicues comes to seem, as the book twists willfully toward its end, something like a privilege.

Chicago Tribune Art Winslow

History has always been Doctorow's muse and his playground... In "The March," however, he may have found his apogee.

The Nation Vince Passaro

The March is a very fine, robust and deeply intelligent novel. The only novels of the Civil War that rank with it, to my knowledge, are Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

The Economist

Mr Doctorow's writing here is magnificent, the details he selects unerringly trenchant.

Daily Telegraph David Flusfeder

[Doctorow] has produced an almost entirely convincing recreation of a violent, frantic time, in which his cinematic technique of rapid, short scenes populated by crowds of characters, many of whom have their own points-of-view, works wonderfully.

Daily Telegraph Matt Thorne

The March is a stunning achievement, and deserves to repeat its American success here.

The Spectator Alan Wall

A vivid sense of the morality and immorality of war informs Doctorow’s latest novel.

London Review Of Books Amanda Claybaugh

The March brilliantly revises the received view of Sherman.

The Guardian Jay Parini

[An] ample, poetic novel.

The Onion A.V. Club Noel Murray

This isn't one of those sprawling, multi-part books where everybody has a rich backstory and a neat arc to follow. The March is messy, relentless, and essentially unchanging. It begins in chaos, and ends with the chaos momentarily abated.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Nawotka

With "The March," E.L. Doctorow makes a fine contribution to the Civil War bookshelf, one that offers a panoptic view of one of the most notorious military campaigns in U.S. history

The New York Times Michiko Kakutani

It is Mr. Doctorow's achievement in these pages that in recounting Sherman's march, he manages to weld the personal and the mythic into a thrilling and poignant story.

The New York Times Book Review Walter Kirn

Yes, war is hell, and ''The March'' affirms this truth, but it also says something that most war novels leave out: hell is not the end of the world.

Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp

While none of his characters is as indelible as Scarlett O'Hara, it is a testament to the strength of his writing that Tara never casts its shadow over The March.

New York Observer Lee Siegel

Mr. Doctorow's decency might paradoxically be a mild curse on his art. But it is a blessing on the reader's humanity. [19 Sep 2005, p.18]

New York Review Of Books Christopher Benfey

Like all Doctorow's work, The March is stylishly written--his model, here as elsewhere, is F. Scott Fitzgerald--but it seems, despite its considerable length, a smaller, less ambitious book than one might have expected in view of his subject.

Salon Laura Miller

"The March" lacks a central consciousness for the story to constellate around. In a way, it's not quite a novel, and if you come to it expecting a novel's pleasures, you're likely to be disappointed.

Library Journal Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

Doctorow's fictional re-creation of the event lacks compelling characters, forceful structure, and dominant themes and so fails to make it much more than a romp in the park. [Sep 2005, p.363]

The average user rating for this book is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Michael A gave it a5:
There are fine descriptive narrative passages here and about, however as the characters develop - like cretins- there is a lapse of creditiability especially with the Pearl , the albino negress, who is left the burden of heroine to this second Gone with the Wind. Really , Doctorow actually sinks in my overall assessment as a writer. Hitherto, I was a great admirer of his earlier work

michael s gave it a10:
All I am going to say is Good Job Doctorow!

Mark G gave it a9:
Those not familiar with Doctorow’s style may have an initial problem with this book. Doctorow is infamous for paragraph-long sentences and multitudes of characters (both factual and fictional). Once the appreciation is realized that the author’s style is more impressionist than photographic, The March becomes a moving picture in words and provides the reader a sensual experience, bringing the reader into the story as a participant in events, rather than an observer. Having read and enjoyed some of his other works, Ragtime (The March’s Coalhouse Walker’s son featured as a key character), Billy Bathgate, Loon Lake and World’s Fair, The March is far less ‘difficult’ a read. Doctorow remains true to using words as Renoir brush-strokes, myriad touches of color that together make an amazing picture, but moves the story more quickly. The March is the blur of experience one might have had being part (or a victim) of Sherman’s march to the sea. This is a great read for Doctorow or Civil War fans.

michele m gave it a9:
my book club is reading The March and we are really caught up in the story. Our book club has been reading books for 41 years; we pick a list by committee and they chose The March. Good choice.

John B gave it an8:
I enjoyed the book. Quotation marks were not needed after I got the idea and it read more like a diary. I did not think history and precise fact was the point here. Rather, I got the feel of being on the march, meeting different people at diffierent times. I got the sense of actually participating in the events which must have occured including murder and killings on both sides. I read a great deal about the Civil War era and found this very different and very enjoyable. Especially the view from the newly freed slaves and the rank and file soldier. In the end do you really care what happens to each and every character in a book? This was like life where people come into your life sometimes and then move on never to be heard from again. I highly recommend the book.

CJ gave it a5:
I guess making things tough on the reader is "art". Some passages are very nice but the whole is a mess.

Judy J gave it a6:
I was reading for more history; I got fragmented characterization. Sometimes I had to reread just to find out who said what. I viewed most of the male characters as insensitive and ruthlous. What horror that must have been!

The March A Novel by E.L. Doctorow

The March
A Novel
by E.L. Doctorow