Novels and short stories, blogs and essays, academic lectures and casual conversations — they’re all somehow rooted in, or unabashedly celebrating, one of the great loves of my life.
Courtesy of David D. Robbins Jr.
Earlier today, the Washington Examiner posted a story taking a look at Maryland’s Civil War scholars and how they became the academics they are today. One of them, Naval Academy professor Mary DeCredico, was a little girl when she first saw photos of Robert E. Lee. He looked so sad, DeCredico said. She felt sorry for him. She wanted to know what happened to him. Another historian, Craig Symonds, said reading about the war in his teens inspired him. The president of the Civil War Trust, O. James Lighthizer, said he was hooked when he read “The Killer Angels,” Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Civil War has enthralled me for most of my adult life. My childhood had basked in my family’s white hot passion for its own Spanish imperial history, in Peru and throughout the Caribbean, and so most of my knowledge of U.S. history came from my school textbooks. I was primarily interested in the history of World War II. The battles, the commanders and the consequences invariably led me forward into the Cold War, the Korean War, the civil rights movements, and Vietnam. Attempts to understand the root causes of the Second World War led me backward to the first World War. Anything before Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the doomed RMS Lusitania were merely answers to the questions on next Wednesday’s third-period quiz. My interests grew like green vines, toward film school, toward astronomy and psychology, toward the tantalizing prospects of a military career and a college teaching career … vines that maybe someday, I secretly hoped, would even lead me into a career as a great writer and intellectual, whatever that was. It sounded good.
So, as I eased into college, torn between becoming an engineer who imagined and built cities on the moon and becoming the next Oliver Stone or Francis Coppola, I sensed that the kind of films I wanted to make — political and historical pieces no one would ever see — needed a solid grounding in genuine U.S. history. A casual knowledge of brutal military tactics, intransigent Wilsonian idealism and genocidal Spanish conquests would never be enough. I realized that my restless mind wanted to know more about an incredible era in America, a time that saw it fight its bloodiest battles, produce some of its greatest statesmen, and ravage regions only a few hundreds of miles from where I stood. At that time in my life, I walked past a doorway I had never considered before, turned around, walked back to the threshold, and crossed it, entering a new era.
“Gettysburg” is an amazing film. Few recent films are as ambitious in scope, as beautifully filmed and scored, with as outstanding acting and stunning battle sequences. So few films are able to bring so many of these elements of greatness together, but “Gettysburg,” certainly at times a ridiculously flawed film, succeeds with an elegant force that never fails to deeply touch me emotionally and intellectually. I’ve seen that film at least one hundred times, and I could watch it another thousand times and still find something new and inspirational.
This film came along at the perfect time in my life, just as I was stepping through that doorway. I didn’t understand the obsession with the 1863 Pennsylvania battle, the adoration of Robert E. Lee, the brutal scale of the engagements, the significance of Little Round Top, or why Grant wasn’t involved in the battle. I couldn’t chart an intellectual course through the period, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox. I didn’t understand why people hated Grant so much, why no one ever spoke about Jefferson Davis, or even what happened in Texas during the Civil War. I think I had to forcibly accept the fact that I was absolutely ignorant of the Civil War in general. As embarrassed as I felt about that, I knew that if I was committed to teaching myself the essentials — at least up to a point where I could speak about it intelligently — then ignorance was OK for the moment. I was willing to improve and grow, and that‘s all that mattered. That would be my salvation. I would parachute onto that spot on the Civil War timeline, and, as I had done with the history of the two great world wars, I would work my way backward and work my way forward.
It was at that time that I learned that a massive new Civil War film was about to premiere in the summer of 1993, about 130 years after the Battle of Gettysburg. Relaxing one day in my college library, I flipped open a magazine and saw a short feature story about “Gettysburg.” I learned that Martin Sheen (of all people) and Tom Berenger would star in it, and that it would be FOUR hours long. What a hell of an endeavor, I thought to myself. I read a little further and learned that much of the screenplay would be based on Shaara’s novel, “The Killer Angels.”
“Interesting,” I thought. “I wonder if the library has that book?” So I put the magazine down, headed over to the card catalog (again, this was 1993) and looked up the novel. Sure enough, it was in the library. I tracked it down. It hadn’t been checked out for about ten years. It was a lazy summer afternoon. I had finished my philosophy class that morning, and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I took the book to a quiet corner of the library and opened it up.
It was beautiful, moving, and absorbing from the very beginning. Shaara gave us a fascinating introduction to the situation and to the characters, understanding that someone opening this book — like me — may not be entirely familiar with the battle or with the history in general. “So,” Shaara seemed to be saying to me, “Here’s a little primer for you. I’m writing it intelligently, because I know you can follow what’s about to happen. And here’s what I’m going to do with the characters and what I want you to understand about them before you meet them, before you follow them into the worst battle in the history of the Western Hemisphere.” And it worked so well. I was hopelessly entranced.
Shaara also had broken the chapters down into perspectives — the days and nights before and during the battle from the vantage points of Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet, etc. What they felt, what they saw, what they thought — not necessarily what Shaara felt, saw, or thought. Not exactly. “What a great, smart idea,” I thought. I read on and on and on, captivated by Shaara’s prose, his confidence, the details he threw into the story, the nuances that made it all come alive like nothing else I had ever seen before.
Courtesy of John Bruce
There were moments that I laughed. There were moments when I wiped away tears. There were moments when I started to write down the names of characters so I could research them later — Winfield Scott Hancock, Lewis Armistead, James Longstreet, John Reynolds, John Buford, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Shaara had brought them to life so vividly that it fired off something in my starved, simpleton mind. “These people really existed. Even if they weren’t exactly as Shaara writes them to be,” I thought to myself, “here is the ticket to the ride. Here is the key to the treasure chest.” It wasn’t just Shaara saying to me, “Welcome to Civil War history.” He was also saying, “Someday you’re going to write beautiful historical novels. This is how you do it.”
There are two simple passages that I have never forgotten, either as a writer or as a historian. Even now, as I wrote them into this blog, they brought tears to my eyes, the way Mozart‘s or Beethoven‘s perfection shatters my heart into a million pieces and then gently pieces it together again.
The first excerpt is from the prologue.
“Late in June, the Army of the Potomac, ever slow to move, turns north at last to begin the great pursuit which will end at Gettysburg. It is a strange new kind of army, a polygot mass of vastly dissimilar men, fighting for union. There are strange accents and strange religions and many who do not speak English at all. Nothing like this army has been seen on the planet. It is a collection of men from many different places who have seen much defeat and many commanders. They are volunteers: last of the great volunteer armies, for the draft is beginning that summer in the North.
“They have lost faith in their leaders but not in themselves.
“They think this will be the last battle, and they are glad that it is to be fought on their own home ground. They come up from the South, eighty thousand men, up the narrow roads that converge toward the blue mountains. The country through which they march is some of the most beautiful country in the Union.”
The second is from later in the narrative.
“Lee started to rise. A short while ago he had fallen from a horse onto his hands, and when he pushed himself up from the table Longstreet saw him wince.
“Longstreet thought, go to sleep and let me do it. Give the order and I‘ll do it all. He said, ‘I regret the need to wake you, sir.’
“Lee looked past him into the soft blowing dark. The rain had ended. A light wind was moving in the tops of the pines — cool sweet air, gentle and clean. Lee took a deep breath.
“ ‘A good time of night. I have always liked this time of night.’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘Well.’ Lee glanced once almost shyly at Longstreet‘s face, then looked away. They stood together for a moment in awkward silence. They had been together for a long time in war and they had grown very close, but Lee was ever formal and Longstreet was inarticulate, so they stood for a long moment side by side without speaking, not looking at each other, listening to the raindrops fall in the leaves. But the silent moment was enough. After a while Lee said slowly, ‘When this is over, I shall miss it very much.’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘I do not mean the fighting.’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘Well.’ Lee said. He looked to the sky. ‘It is all in God’s hands.’ ”
How many volumes of Civil War history had Shaara condensed into these two passages? I can’t imagine. But it’s thrilling to think about it.
As my heart and mind absorbed these words, the silly dreams of being a filmmaker, an astronaut, an admiral, or an engineer all faded away. History — its drama, violence, romance, inspiration, lessons and characters — was all I needed to satisfy my intellectual hunger and my determination to lead a noble, dignified, and strenuous life. Novels and short stories, blogs and essays, academic lectures and casual conversations — they’re all somehow rooted in, or unabashedly celebrating, one of the great loves of my life.
One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning.
That’s Latin for “universal man” or “man of the world,” if Wikipedia can be relied on for a proper translation.
I glide through a small, comfortable life — trying not to bother anyone, trying to be pleasant and polite, non-judgmental and sympathetic, charming and humble, trying to be intellectually honest and self-aware of my limits and flaws, every day edging closer to fulfilling all my ambitions.
One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning. I’ve always been blessed with a hunger for knowledge, a curiosity that often flares into full-blown passion for new arenas of experience, a curiosity perhaps sparked by a bittersweet frustration that I don’t know as much about literature, science, mathematics, history and culture as I think I should.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve always embraced wholeheartedly people like Theodore Roosevelt and Michelangelo, those who lived their lives desperately hungry for more of the world to absorb into their hearts and minds, constantly reaching out to make more of it their own.
A friend once called me a polymath. Other friends have called me a Renaissance man. I politely laughed off both compliments. I’m certainly no genius. I’d hardly consider myself intelligent, compared to the accomplishments and capabilities of the other men and women in my life.
As I understand it, polymaths and Renaissance men and women possess an immensity of talent to complement that fiery passion to achieve great things in multiple fields, professions, etc. As my quiet life sadly illustrates — in which I’ve been not much more than a minor writer, historian, editor, painter and arts critic — I have very much of the latter and very little of the former.
Perhaps later life will prove otherwise, as I’m slowly exploring how to become a proper pianist, an amateur boxer, an effective apiarist and gardener, an expert numismatist and philatelist, a stellar professor of American Civil War and Roman and Spanish imperial history, a sympathetic and effective psychologist, an historical novelist, a decent speaker, writer and translator of Spanish and Latin, and a less-than-atrocious golfer, photographer, and salsa dancer. My mandate is to be more than a simple-minded, well-meaning hobbyist.
But if none of that works out, perhaps this particular man of the world will be content being someone who’s fun to spend time with, whose passion for history is inspiring, whose writing makes the heart soar, who’s always interesting, always relaxing, always enriching. Always happy.
I’d settle for that last one, above and beyond all the rest.
I write simply because I love to write, and in my words — and probably only in those words — are found my purest passions, desires, fears, loves and ambitions. They’re preserved forever, like a tall tree growing from my grave, infused with my nutrients, gently comforting those who sit under its dark, cool shade. There’s something so comforting about that.
As a composer and voracious reader of short stories, I was amused, intrigued and inspired by a few items that drifted through my news feeds.
The One Story blog recently posted their list of “‘classic’ stories; stories we’d read again and again and still learn from every time.”
One Story made a good dual list of “classic stories” — a top-10 list plus a longer list of generally great pieces. Unfortunately, I didn’t see one of my favorites — Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Also, I’ll admit, there are few stories I’ve never even heard of. Time to get to work. Writer Jim Breslin will certainly be of great assistance. He’s using his blog to review every story on One Story’s long list.
I discovered One Story only a few months ago, and I fell in love at first sight. Instead of publishing a standard journal with several short fiction pieces, the editors select and focus on the no-frills publication of a single story. As they wrote recently, “our goal was to celebrate the form of the short story and support the authors who write them. Now, with over 10,000 subscribers, One Story is more than just a literary magazine — it’s a community of writers and readers that feels like a close-knit family.”
Indeed. I’m very happy to be a part of that family. It’s a good deal. Just $21 for 18 issues a year. I never thought I’d be providing free advertising on this blog, but I’ll make an exception for them. Check them out.
Naturally, reading the completed work of others eventually requires me to ask the reflection in the bathroom mirror: “Where’s my work? Where’s the long promised first, second and third novel? What’s holding me back? Are short stories enough, or I am strong-willed enough, confident enough, and intelligent enough to write the long-ago-conceived yet not-yet-born novel? I have plenty of ideas, but will anyone care about them? Will anyone want to read it?”
In April, GrubDaily posted these concerns from a writer: “I’ve always been a short story writer, but I recently made the plunge and started writing a novel. At first, I thought: ‘Oh, this isn’t going to be that hard. It’s like writing 15 short stories that are all about the same people.’ But of course as I’ve been working on the book, I’m finding it to be much harder than I thought it would be. Do you have any tips for the short-story-writer-turned-novelist?”
Novelist Jenna Blum provided a reassuring response: “As long as your 15 stories are about the same people, the same world, the same subject, you could just group them together and call it a day. But you want to write a more traditionally structured novel from your stories. The good news is, you already know how to do this. If you can write a short story, you can write a novel — because both of them have beginning, middle and end. … The short story contains its own arc. The novel imposes its arc on a series of chapters — or stories.”
Her first big tip: Have a theme. “What are you trying to SAY with what you’re writing?” Check. All of my novel ideas have an overarching message. Her second big tip: Make an outline.
Another piece of advice that I’ve heard countless times and which I shared with others countless times: Write every day. Don’t go to bed without having written something that day. One of my role models, narrative historian David McCullough, said that he was fascinated and inspired by a man who had written 100 books. He asked the man how he had managed to write so many books in his life. The man responded simply, “Four pages a day.” McCullough asked, “Every day?” The man nodded, “Every day.”
I tell myself to write badly, as badly as possible, every day. Somehow, more often than not, I end up writing well. I recently told a friend that I had finally stopped caring whether or not I was a good writer. It was like an oil tanker was lifted from my chest. I could breathe and sleep again. What I wanted to be, at this point, is a prolific, thoughtful and interesting writer, even if no one ever read anything I wrote, even if I was never published. I write simply because I love to write, and in my words — and probably only in those words — are found my purest passions, desires, fears, loves and ambitions. They’re preserved forever, like a tall tree growing from my grave, infused with my nutrients, gently comforting those who sit under its dark, cool shade. There’s something so comforting about that.
I spent many years in the newsrooms of daily newspapers, perfectly situated at the nexus of information from all parts of a tumultuous, tortured, beautiful world. My first great mandate was, as an editor, to intelligently translate and present the events of that world to my print and online readers in a balanced, fair report. It was a titanic challenge every hour of every day, and one I deeply loved.
Occasionally, however, I would take a moment to imagine my future self. In that future I saw myself as a fiction writer, as a novelist. The novels I would write, I thought to myself, would be my essays on civilization, history, love and tragedy. My historical analysis. My humble summation. They would be the rich synthesis of everything I had learned in those newsrooms, everything war, disaster, triumph, destiny and relationships had taught me. Being a serious novelist — an author of literature — is one of the only two serious ambitions I’ve ever passionately pursued.
I’m reminded of what Deborah Eisenberg said in an interview with The Millions. The piece on the author, who was quite recently published in the New York Review of Books, concluded with something I’ve said many times myself: “This is a very interesting moment to be alive, and that is the only thing that makes it bearable.”
Bad writing or not, every day, with every page, I get a little closer. Just a little closer. That tree is getting taller.
Opening a door for a woman … Learning how to be a Marine … Lessons from Cosmo … Peru’s new president … A poem from Rimbaud
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.
2.Orgasm Guaranteed By Katherine Goldstein | Slate | June 6
“What I learned while freelancing at Cosmopolitan.”
3.Through the Ranks: Private First Class By Colby Brown | Marines Blog | May 23
“On an average day, [Pfc. Clark Kirkley] wakes up between 4 to 6 a.m. He has an hour to eat, shave, shower and prepare his gear before standing post. After being relieved of his post, he has the afternoon to himself, which is usually comprised of a nap and food. After dinner, he has another post duty, after which he sleeps. Kirkley wakes a few hours later to start the process over again.”
5.The Adventures of Aladdin The Brothers Grimm | The EServer Connection
“‘One day, as he was looking for wild figs in a grove some way from the town, Aladdin met a mysterious stranger. This smartly dressed dark-eyed man with a trim black beard and a splendid sapphire in his turban, asked Aladdin an unusual question: ‘Come here, boy,’ he ordered. ‘How would you like to earn a silver penny?’ ”
6.Humala won’t be a Chàvez — for now By Andres Oppenheimer | Miami Herald | June 11
“There are many similarities between the two men, but also many differences. Let’s start with the resemblances: in addition to their personal histories, both started out sounding conciliatory and promising to serve just one term. … But there are also big differences in the circumstances that surrounded the two men’s climb to the presidency.”
7.After the Flood By Arthur Rimbaud, translated by John Ashbery | The New York Review of Books | June 2011
“No sooner had the notion of the Flood regained its composure / Than a hare paused amid the gorse and trembling bellflowers and said its prayer to the rainbow through the spider’s web.”
8.The Ins And Outs Of Opening A Door For A Woman By Brett and Kate McKay | Art Of Manliness | June 8
“Most men grasp basic etiquette but how do you cope with those tricky situations – revolving doors or doors that push in rather than pull out? Should you hold the door open for others after your date has exited?”
9.Probes Suggest Magnetic Bubbles at Solar System Edge Jet Propulsion Laboratory | June 9
“Observations from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, humanity’s farthest deep space sentinels, suggest the edge of our solar system may not be smooth, but filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles.”
10.‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ and its 25 contributions to pop culture lore By Jen Chaney | Celebritology | June 10
“[A] writer for the Atlantic has suggested that we all need to ‘get over’ our Bueller obsession because, really, the beloved John Hughes comedy is just the story of an entitled kid who was nothing like any of us were in high school. … But this John Hughes movie — perhaps the best one the filmmaker ever made — has endured, rightfully, for a number of reasons.”
Lessons from a Turkish grandmother … the Churchill we thought we knew … the release of all Pentagon Papers … Anna Nicole Smith and her doomed life … what not to say to the editor that fired you …
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.
1.My ‘Confession’ By Fang Lizhi | The New York Review of Books | June 2011
“From reading Henry Kissinger’s new book On China,1 I have learned that Mr. Kissinger met with Deng Xiaoping at least eleven times—more than with any other Chinese leader—and that the topic of one of their chats was whether Fang Lizhi would confess and repent.”
2.Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new By Jessi Arrington | TED Talks | June 2011
“Designer Jessi Arrington packed nothing for TED but 7 pairs of undies, buying the rest of her clothes in thrift stores around LA. It’s a meditation on conscious consumption — wrapped in a rainbow of color and creativity.”
3.Chile’s Puyehue Volcano: A slideshow Time | June 6
“After laying dormant for nearly half a century, the Puyehue volcano in southern Chile erupted on Saturday, shooting a column of ash and gas six miles into the sky and prompting the evacuation of more than 3,500 residents. … Here’s some of the best images photographers captured in the past 24 hours.”
4.“I Would Have Loved To Piss on Your Shoes” By Jack Shafer | Slate | June 6
“In honor of every journalist who flipped the boss off on the way out the door, I’ve collected a few of their best kiss-off notes and gestures from the recent past. If, after reading, you don’t turn in your badge and burn every bridge and causeway behind you and fill with sewage every tunnel and viaduct that connects you to your former place of employment, I’ve failed in my mission.”
5.After 40 Years, the Complete Pentagon Papers By Michael Cooper and Sam Roberts | The New York Times | June 7
“It may be a first in the annals of government secrecy: Declassifying documents to mark the anniversary of their leak to the press. But that is what will happen Monday, when the federal government plans to finally release the secret government study of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers 40 years after it was first published by The New York Times.”
6.Paw Paw & Lady Love By Dan. P. Lee | New York Magazine | June 5
“Has the Supreme Court ever heard such a peculiarly American story as that of Anna Nicole Smith? And they didn’t know the half of it.”
7.Film directors are embracing TV By Nicole Sperling and Melissa Maerz | Los Angeles Times | June 5
“Let the major movie studios have their superheroes and pirates. Cable TV has become more innovative, and top moviemakers such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Gus Van Sant are taking advantage.”
8.The Forgotten Churchill By George Watson | The American Scholar | June 6
“The man who stared down Hitler also helped create the modern welfare state.”
9.Marriage Lessons from My Turkish Grandmother By Sevil Delin | Granta | June 7
“The stories my grandmother, my anneanne, told me when I was a child are anything but children’s stories. They are folktales that have a common theme – the triumph of wily wives over evil husbands (jealous, repressive skinflints) through crafty subterfuge.”
10.Clever Girl By Tessa Hadley | The New Yorker: Fiction | June 6
“My stepfather wasn’t a big man, not much taller than my mother. He was lithe and light on his feet, handsome, with velvety dark brows, a sensual mouth, and jet-black hair in a crewcut as thick and soft as the pelt of an animal (not that I ever touched it, though sometimes, out of curiosity, I wanted to).”
Stillness of Heart 
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