What book are you reading?

Nilgiri said:
The US civil war is just one of those things that marked a massive sea change for the whole continent in massive ways. It can occupy several lifetimes of deep study...I wont have enough time in end haha....but it grabs so much of my attention regd the downstream today quite easily.
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The history of this region, like elsewhere, is an utterly fascinating topic to study, and endlessly so. I prefer augmenting it all with actual travel to major sites and thus help myself to put everything in as direct a perspective as and wherever possible.

(Montreal is a wondrous city to travel to and enjoy, especially the cuisine.)
 
VCheng said:
The history of this region, like elsewhere, is an utterly fascinating topic to study, and endlessly so. I prefer augmenting it all with actual travel to major sites and thus help myself to put everything in as direct a perspective as and wherever possible.

(Montreal is a wondrous city to travel to and enjoy, especially the cuisine.)
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I had to think back to my first encounter with the civil war.

It had to be my mother....she made me watch "gone with the wind" quite a fair few number of times....me not really understanding things too well heh (and generally losing interest easily around the time scarlett marching up the stairs in forlorn way while all the ruckus about fort sumter starting with all the gents rushing down as war announced to produce that funny contrast).....but she did try explain best she could though she would go into many details (she is a huge huge fan of the book by Margaret Mitchell).

Some scenes didn't need explaining though, I could tell by my mom's reaction just what it meant. I saw her trial and tribulation with giving birth to my sister....it was fresh in her head still first time I was watching the "middle" of the movie however that finally came about (I guess I finally had some taste for serious story)....and that scene scarlett rushes out to find the doctor to help Melanie deliver her baby....and the doctor being in the middle of all those soldiers returning from the front, all that carnage he has to deal with......"are you crazy, i cant leave all these men, get some woman to help you with that...look at all these men they have nothing....nothing to even ease their pain"....and the shot just pans out to show just the size of all that. My mom taken back by all of it. It has stuck with me more than anything else from that movie. Unbearable stuff in end.... but she trusted me to understand it.

That to me explained what a war was, is and always will be in distinct way only my mom could do.

But that is how my interest in the civil war really started albeit slowly at first and picking up drastically later in life.

@Joe Shearer
 
Nilgiri said:
I had to think back to my first encounter with the civil war.

It had to be my mother....she made me watch "gone with the wind" quite a fair few number of times....me not really understanding things too well heh (and generally losing interest easily around the time scarlett marching up the stairs in forlorn way while all the ruckus about fort sumter starting with all the gents rushing down as war announced to produce that funny contrast).....but she did try explain best she could though she would go into many details (she is a huge huge fan of the book by Margaret Mitchell).

Some scenes didn't need explaining though, I could tell by my mom's reaction just what it meant. I saw her trial and tribulation with giving birth to my sister....it was fresh in her head still first time I was watching the "middle" of the movie however that finally came about (I guess I finally had some taste for serious story)....and that scene scarlett rushes out to find the doctor to help Melanie deliver her baby....and the doctor being in the middle of all those soldiers returning from the front, all that carnage he has to deal with......"are you crazy, i cant leave all these men, get some woman to help you with that...look at all these men they have nothing....nothing to even ease their pain"....and the shot just pans out to show just the size of all that. My mom taken back by all of it. It has stuck with me more than anything else from that movie. Unbearable stuff in end.... but she trusted me to understand it.

That to me explained what a war was, is and always will be in distinct way only my mom could do.

But that is how my interest in the civil war really started albeit slowly at first and picking up drastically later in life.

@Joe Shearer
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I got familiar with the Civil War through military history fairly early in life; the American Civil War has great relevance for its taking forward the military practices of the Napoleonic era in Europe, and giving it a flavour of the industrial grade warfare of the latter half of the 19th century, from the period immediately following or partly overlapping with the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War.

Fascinating times, fascinating events.
 
Nilgiri said:
That to me explained what a war was, is and always will be in distinct way only my mom could do.
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Try this on for size, appreciated only when overlooking the battlefield:

"The town of Goshen was unable to bury its dead for 43 years, as the battlefield was too distant and the way too dangerous. In 1822, a committee was formed to travel to the battlefield and comb the area for remains. The few bones recovered were buried in a mass grave, first in Barryville and later moved to the village of Goshen. A stone obelisk was erected for the centennial of the battle, engraved with the names of the dead."

Battle of Minisink | American Revolutionary War

revolutionarywar.us revolutionarywar.us

(The families could see their loved ones dead and decaying from the higher slopes, but the British would not allow them to be buried, and then the ravages of war in the region and the aftermath did the rest of the indignity. For 43 years.)
 
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@Nilgiri
I know you can speak Chinese. But I don't know if you can read Chinese. If you can read Chinese, this book is recommended for you.

The book has been called the most amazing novel in contemporary China. It is a bit difficult to read, hard to understand and requires countless repetitions of reading and thinking.
Because it is so difficult to understand it, it has not spread much and not many people know about it.
There is a TV series based on this novel. But because the novel goes too deep into the study of human nature, the TV series cuts down a lot of content. Might as well just read the novel.

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