Fauvism is style of painting that used pure, brilliant color aggressively applied straight from the paint tubes to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. This is what the imagery in The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara looked like when I read it. Of course, it is a book rooted in war and there seems to be nothing more explosive - other than the grief and silence of death. The explosion of color paralleled Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, but it also favored Crane’s book with blooming characterization from seed to wintery death.
“It was like the gray floor of hell.” Gettysburg as described by Joshua Chamberlain, Union commander.
“War, the red animal, war, the blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.” Red Badge of Courage
Gray or red each color describes the aftermath of war like ash and fire. Both Crane and Shaara leave the reader with infinite fauvist portraits of war.
The characterization of Lee, Chamberlain and Longstreet, unlike Henry in Red Badge of courage, began in full bloom rather than innocence, men already full of age and wisdom with stubborness as a crutch to choose poorly or not. In Shaara’s retrospective study, Lee’s stubbornness caused the turning point in the war at Gettysburg; whereas, Longstreet saw a better path, one not filled with human pride. The dynamic presented between Longstreet and Lee did not define one man as right or wrong. Shaara did an amazing job of showing the beauty in both of their choices.
My favorite character was Chamberlain. His character examined the reasons for the war exploring not just slavery, but the essence of the human condition which is Shakespeare - and also where the title of the book seem to come from:
“Once Chamberlain had a speech memorized from Shakespeare and gave it proudly, the old man listening but not looking, and Chamberlain remembered it still: “What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!” And the old man, grinning, had scratched his head and then said stiffly, “Well, boy, if he’s and angel, he’s sure a murden’ angel.”
This line is from Hamlet where Hamlet glorifies man and then finds man and the world around him as mere dust. It reminds me again of the men that fought and then the imagery presented, gray and red; man comes in like a fiery angel only to turn to dust leaving a gray floor of hell. At its heart, Killer Angels begs the question of why any man may fight and kill another sacrificing his own life. It is worth the read and maybe a second one.
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