Derek and Melissa’s Family

Killer Angels

by Derek—2005.09.18 @ 1025

My Rating: 4 out of 5

Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels was a very good book. I read it on my father’s recommendation, finding out that it was the book that inspired the excellent epic movie Gettysburg. At first, I was a little disappointed at how little I was getting out of the book compared with the movie. I thought the movie was excellent, but I was hoping for a little more from the book, as it usually follows that the book is usually better than any screen adaptation. What I realized, however, was that the movie is just an excellent adaptation of the book.

The book really lends itself to a screenplay as it tends to have short dialogue and short scenes. In fact, the writing style often slowed me down as I had to get used to all the fragmented sentences and stream-of-thought structure. Here’s an example of the kind of fragments the book is comprised of (from The Killer Angels page 315):

Don’t think on that. But I loved her. And loved much else. Always loved music. And good friends, and some moments together. Had much joy in the weather. So very rarely shared. I should have shared more.

In many ways, the book is written more like poetry than prose. Shaara seems to want to catch personality by showing the short, fragmented thought processes that the different characters had. That being said, I really enjoyed the book and it had an impact on how I feel about the Civil War.

Reading about the battle of Gettysburg was moving and really helped me understand what went on there, on both sides of the fence. Finally, all those history lessons my Dad gave when we visited Gettysburg are making sense!

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