#and he also puts a lot of emphasis on Chamberlain's religion in this one which i have no complaints with but I've not seen it in other books

[bardengarde]

Your comment about Longarce was so specific that it made me laugh out loud this morning. 😂 what was he saying that bothered you, if you don’t mind me asking??

I'm reading his book about Chamberlain currently- Joshua Chamberlain: The Soldier And The Man and..... I'm having problems with it.

I've never read any other books from this guy so I don't know if his writing style is always critical of his subjects, but there have been several comments in this book that have just rubbed me the wrong way.

First, I want to say that I can appreciate how his style puts things in simple terms and I'm getting through the book quickly because of that. I also saw in the preface this book kinda combats against Alice Rains Trulock's "In The Hands of Providence" which is another book I have been reading and enjoy, and Longacre is looking to combat against the "hero worship" and "legendary status" Chamberlain achieves in Trulock's book.

Which.... OK fair , I get he's viewed as "overhyped" by some civil war historians. I've seen some passages in Trulock's book that are a bit biased, I get it. He wants to write a more critical biography about Chamberlain, by all means.

But not even before we get to first page of the biography he states that other Chamberlain biographers rely too much on his writings and says on the very first page "He learned the value of legend not only as moral example but as historical record. ... He learned to infuse the past with a romanticism that quenched his thirst for adventure and fantasy. And he learned the superiority of symbolic truth over literal fact."

And like.... OK yes, a lot of Chamberlain's writings from the war, especially in later years, become very dramatic, but I really don't like the implication I think Longacre is trying to make that Chamberlain lied about what he saw or what he did.

Going forward there was a random comment about his family and Longacre said his brother John was like the favorite of the family and I thought that was weird because Tom was known as "his mother's pet" so like that wasn't right, and once again weird.

Then when Fanny comes into the picture he straight up calls her ugly and that crossed a line for me because what he goes to say is just mean and uncalled for. "The dark-haired, dark-eyed 'Fannie' was not a beauty; a prominent nose and a weak chin detracted from an otherwise pleasant appearance. She was handsome enough, however that Joshua was smitten almost from their first meeting."

And then he goes on to say Lawrence was interested in her because of her ancestry and I have not seen that claim anywhere else so I don't buy it. And there was another section during their courtship where Longacre dissects a letter that Lawrence might not have actually sent to Fanny, but essentially he was having a breakdown in the letter because Fanny was in Georgia at the time and they were going to be separated for three years and he had fallen into a state of depression because he missed her. Longacre basically calls the letter purple prose and made some claim afterward that some parts of the letter had sexual overtones which made me angry again because 1. What the hell??? 2. No?????

Basically, I don't know if I'm going to like this book. Like I said, Longacre has a simple and easy to read style and there's some entertaining anecdotes, but every couple of pages he says something that just doesn't sit right with me or flat out insults Lawrence or Fanny, and stuff like that is making it difficult for me to enjoy it or believe him at times.