Far From Brooklyn

This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust

Sometimes I read about a book and a little voice in my head says, “OK, now I know what that book is about, and I have no need, reason or desire to read it.”

This little voice in my head is generally a very, very good guide, and I should pay more attention to it than I usually do.

However, in the case of “This Republic of Suffering,” I ignored the voice and picked up the book at my favorite bookstore, “Small World Books,” on the boardwalk in Venice Beach.

Outside a street band was playing a very nicely done version of “Feelin’ Alright,” [sic] so maybe that was what led me to think I would want to read a history of American attitudes about death during the Civil War.

I feel mean and small when I say this, but I’ll say it anyway: Really, what would you expect attitudes to be? Death was everywhere – naturally young people prepared, mentally, to die, naturally people struggled to make sense of it, naturally it tested and changed their religious viewpoints, naturally mourning became a habit and something of a fetish.

I’m sure this was a worthwhile academic exercise, but I should have listened to that voice in my head.