I posted this on my re-enacting group's forum (which only about 10 of us ever use!) but thought I might as well repost it here. Even if you don't care for the American Civil War his stuff is excellent. He's best known over here for his acerbic 'Devil's Dictionary'. It’s Christmas, a time usually associated with Dickens and, especially, ghost stories. Well, Rochester parade aside, I’ve never really been a fan of his (Flaubert is more my style), but for terrifying stories and the American Civil War there is only one author you need to read:
Ambrose Bierce.
Born in 1842, Bierce enlisted in the 9th Indiana in 1861 then subsequently was commissioned as a first lieutenant. He saw most of the major battles in the west, and several of his works are narrative descriptions of these events.
#shiloh" class="postlink">‘What I saw of Shiloh’ is well worth reading, but his piece on
#page46" class="postlink">‘Chickamauga’, narrated from an unlikely angle, is harrowing.
His most famous short story is
#page27" class="postlink">‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’, and you’ve probably read it so we can move on quickly and discuss some of his other civil war stories. If you haven't read it, it’s up there with Crane's ‘Red Badge of Courage’ when it comes to great short stories.
Bierce is well known for his ghost stories, and some, such as
‘A Tough Tussle’, or
‘A Baffled Ambuscade’ do deal with the supernatural. For me, though, his best works are the ones that eschew ghosts and deal with people and their reactions to the war. There are few heroes in his war, just people caught up in something greater than themselves.
#page178" class="postlink">‘One kind of officer’, for example, is a grim tale of a man out of his depth, and the plodding words and descriptions Bierce uses helps to conjure up the fog and confusion of the scenario as we watch him fail to cope.
#page165" class="postlink">‘The Story of a Conscience’ deals with a matter of honour, whilst
#page15" class="postlink">‘A Horseman in the Sky’ details one man’s agony as he’s torn between conflicting loyalties. I found the situation and the character’s choices in
#page122" class="postlink">‘The Coup de Grâce’ to be extremely plausible and felt quite cold after I first read it.
As with all master wordsmiths, the more you read Bierce’s work the more you get out of them. Go and read
#page133" class="postlink">‘Parker Adderson, Philosopher’ (I’ll wait here whilst you do - it’s not that long). The dialogue’s amazing, isn’t it? Now, read it again, and we can argue all night about what actually happens. Similarly, I’m still not entirely sure about the cause of death in
#page71" class="postlink">‘One of the Missing’, but it does contain one of my favourite descriptions of the role of fate in our lives, which I’m going to quote just because I can:
Quote:
“But it was decreed from the beginning of time that Private Searing was not to murder anybody that bright summer morning, nor was the Confederate retreat to be announced by him. For countless ages events had been so matching themselves together in that wondrous mosaic to some parts of which, dimly discernible, we give the name of history, that the acts which he had in will would have marred the harmony of the pattern...Nothing had been neglected--at every step in the progress of both these men's lives, and in the lives of their contemporaries of their ancestors, the right thing had been done to bring about the desired result.”
Sometimes, the twists, such as that in
#page218" class="postlink">‘The Mocking-Bird’ , can be seen a mile off, but that does little to ruin our enjoyment of Bierce’s craft. The description in that tale of the sentinel’s collapse into madness is none the less scary just because we know what’s going on in the story.
Collections of his work can be picked up quite cheaply or downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg (I've linked to each story on this site), and many of his tales are short enough to be read out around a firseside. Treat yourself this Christmas to a compilation of his works, it’s worth it. Just keep the lights on.
AfterwordI recently bought a DVD called
‘Ambrose Bierce: Civil War Stories’ (2006), which contains dramatisations of three stories wrapped inside an irritating and unnecessary framing device. ‘One kind of Officer’ doesn’t really work, unless you’re into existentialist films and lots of fog and snow. Their rendition of ‘The Story of a Conscience’ is enjoyable, and the story lends itself to a short drama, but it’s their rendering of ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ which is worth waiting for. It’s very hard to film, but their stylistic devices go some way to suggesting the mysteriousness of the original story (it also has Robert Lee Hodge in a minor cameo).
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