Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

I was very pleased to have listened to the audio book of George Saunders novel Lincoln in the Bardo. 

I read that Saunders was inspired, in part, by Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. Which play always leaves me in tears. This novel lends itself extremely well to being read as a play. 

The plot, in short: President Lincoln's dear son Willie has died. The Civil War has been going on for a year and 3,000 young men have just lost their lives in a Union defeat. On the day of the funeral, the President returns to the crypt to hold his son once again. Willie cannot leave his father but remains with other shades in the limbo of the graveyard.

The story of Willie's death on the day of a magnificent party at the president's mansion and the day of his funeral is told through snippets of historical writings that link into a loose narrative, sometimes contradicting each other.

The denizens of the Bardo are rooted to their old lives, wrapped up in self-centered concerns. They include all kind of folk from various times past, class, and race. Some are unable to accept they are dead. Some are vulgar, some giving over to sin. There is a clergyman who fled from the judgment place in fear. Into this motley crew comes this blessed, innocent, boy. Several shades make it their concern to help the child move on.

I was so moved by the scene where the shades enter President Lincoln to inspire him to tell his son to leave this place for the home of glory Lincoln imagines for him. And in this community of shades and living man they feel each other's pain and understand each other's burdens. They realize that Lincoln is president and filled with doubt, staggering under the immense weight of a nation and all the deaths of war, other families also grieving over sons.

Willie realizes his truth and in excitement and understanding, shouts out his readiness to move on. The shades begin to understand, and forgetting their worldly concerns, let go and move on to the afterlife.

Now I want to read the book again, pencil in hand to mark it up and note the passages that move me and make me sigh. This novel of grief is also a celebration of life.

I thank the public library for the audio book through Overdrive.

Abe Lincoln, Animal Lover

Abe and Fido by Matthew Algeo is the charming tale of Abraham Lincoln's life long love of animals. Fido, his big eared, short tailed, 'yaller' dog became a national sensation after Lincoln was elected president, a home town fixture and community pet until his tragic death.

Since the time of Lincoln's presidency, friends and neighbors told stories of his soft heart concerning animals. The tales range from Lincoln's replacing baby birds into their nests to getting down in the mud to pull a pig out from under a fence. He had a special love of 'yallar dogs' and cats. He fed one cat at the dining table, with the White House gold tableware! Mary was not so pleased. She was afraid of dogs, which was reasonable at the time: they could bring rabies, fleas, ticks, disease to her beloved sons...and dirty the house. Lincoln was an excellent horseman, a necessity for a country lawyer who had to travel for his business.

Algeo places Lincoln's actions against his times.

Farm animals were sources of food, slaughtered by hand on family farms. Some dogs were bred for specific purposes and were prized, but all other 'mutts' were routinely, viscously, killed for public protection against disease and for population control. There were no veterinarians, no preventative vaccinations, no special foods for pets.

Fido came into Lincoln's life by 1855 when he was at a low point in his career and deeply depressed. By the end of the year Lincoln's "hypo" was better and he was reentering politics. Based on current research on the effects of animal companions on human well being, it is possible that Fido offered Lincoln much needed therapy.

The newly elected President Lincoln, planning his family relocation to Washington, D.C., choose to leave behind his beloved animal companion. Fido had been having a hard time dealing with all the noisy campaign activity around the Lincoln household. The boys and Abe loved the dog but Abe knew Fido would suffer during the long trip to D.C. and in the hectic White House life style. Fido deserved to live out his life in peace and familiar surroundings. His son's boyhood friends took Fido in....along with Fido's favorite horsehair couch!

We also learn about Lincoln's relationship to his family and neighbors, like his long friendship with his free African American barber William Florville who marched in the funeral parade. As did Old Bob, his horse who was also left behind in Springfield. Old Bob was draped in black mourning, and the riderless horse followed the hearse.

Abe and Fido is an enjoyable read. It will appeal to all animal lovers, Lincoln lovers, and those interested in 19th c history.

I thank NetGalley and Chicago Review Press for access to the e-book for a fair and unbiased review.

Abe and Fido
by Matthew Algeo
Chicago Review Press
Publication date April 15, 2015
ISBN: 9781556522222
$22.95 hardcover

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Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin--FINALLY FINISHED

"...I stood in the presence of the great guiding light of the age." Judge Joseph Mills

I have lived with Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet for over a year. I savored each episode as one holds a sip of fine wine on one's tongue. I held each sparkling story in my mind before I read on. Instead of my usual gallop through a book, I read in a week what I usually would read in an evening.

"I consider the central idea that is upon us, of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves." Abraham Lincoln

Many men wanted to be president. Some took it for granted that they would be elected the presidential candidate for the new Republican party. When the least likely candidate won there were some hard feelings. No one expected much of Lincoln. When William Seward lost to Lincoln, and was asked to take the position of Secretary of State, Seward thought he would be the power behind the throne. Instead he became Lincoln's greatest supporter and admirer and his close friend.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin is about how Lincoln used the skills of his political foes for the good of the country. It is also a moving portrait of a remarkable leader of great insight, intelligence, and constraint.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was a Quaker by birth and pacifist by nature. Lincoln himself was considered 'soft-hearted' and saddened by the human toll of war. "Doesn't it strike you as queer that I, who couldn't cut the head off a chicken, should be cast into the middle of a great war, with blood flowing all around?" "There could be no greater madness," Stanton said, "than for a man to encounter what I do for anything less than motives that overleap time and look forward to eternity."

A government by the people, for the people. It was an experiment worth even the blood of the people to ensure it's success. The Confederacy considered itself a separate country. If the Federal Government valued peace over unity, it would not last. The Civil War was a war to end all possibility of war among the states of America.

Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase was a radical abolitionist who sought the presidential nomination and lost to Lincoln in 1860. In 1864 he conducted a secret bid to be a presidential candidate running against Lincoln. Lincoln understood Chase's desperate need for recognition, and although Chase was no end of trouble, he  respected the man's abilities. After Chase has resigned from the cabinet Lincoln offered Chase the position of Supreme Court Chief-Justice. Not because Lincoln wanted to reward Chase, but because "the decision was right for the country." Lincoln was that great a man that he could put aside personal feelings, toss off all prejudices, and view choices from the greater perspective of eternity. It was Chief-Justice Chase who swore in Lincoln at his second inauguration!

I dreaded those last pages, the death of Lincoln. But I knew what had happened to Abe and his family afterwards, I had read stories and books and seen the documentaries. What I was not prepared for was the assassination attempt on Secretary of State William H Seward. He was bedridden after a brutal carriage accident left him with a broken jaw and shoulder. The assassin pushed his way into the sickroom. Seward's son Frank tried to protect his father and the assassin slashed him with a knife. Frank died of his injuries. I was sadly ignorant of Seward, except for knowledge of "Seward's Folly", the purchase of Alaska, but Goodwin's portrait of Seward and his importance to Lincoln and the country caused me to shudder and nearly come to tears when I read about the assassination attempt, which took place at the same time as the assassination of Lincoln. 

Indeed, all of the men who served with Lincoln are so vividly drawn we come to know them and esteem them as Lincoln did.

President Lincoln. His is a mythic presence across the world. Goodwin's book makes it clear what kind of man he was, how he operated as a political leader, and plumbs his deep humanity.

The movie Lincoln was a wonderful film BUT movies are entertainment, and even when based on excellent motives, are made to make money. One should be always aware that not everything in a movie is historical fact. Art can move a viewer in ways most historical writing can not, and if the viewer then seeks to learn more, opens to new ideas, experiences a new awareness, then art has served its purpose. At times, mostly during the war, I did bog down, but overall Goodwin's characterizations were deeply drawn and her portrait of Lincoln made me believe I really know him as a man, a politician, a leader, and as the moral compass of an age.

For some insights into historical bloops in the movie read
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/22/what-s-true-and-false-in-lincoln-movie.html
http://www.thenation.com/blog/171461/trouble-steven-spielbergs-lincoln#
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mr-lincoln-goes-to-hollywood-82330187/?no-ist

Visit the Doris Kearns Goodwin's website at http://www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com/books.html#team-of-rivals

Note: I read Goodwin's book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II when it came out and it is remarkable. And I read it quite quickly! Her book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream was the first LBJ book I read. I have been fascinated by LBJ ever since mock election in junior high when I was told about his Great Society dream. I have Robert Caro's The Passage of Power on my shelf to be read. His Master of the Senate was one of the most remarkable books I have read.