The Killer Angels
I've been struggling through The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara for the past few weeks. A colleague at work loaned it to me. The social obligation this creates is probably the only reason I'm still attempting to finish this book. The Killer Angels is about the Battle of Gettysburg. Three hundred and forty five pages of white men shooting rifles at each other. This isn't really my cup of tea. I generally like historical fiction, but military history bores me. If I'm going to read about a battle I prefer there to be some magical element to it. Dragons or giants or showers of sparks flying back and forth. If you take that away and just show men killing each other with ordinary metal, it gets to be a bit too real. It makes me uncomfortable. Knowing that all of this actually happened doesn't help matters. The thing I find most challenging about this book, though, is that it makes all of the characters real and sympathetic. Lee, Longst...