"The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up"

I don't know which I liked more, the actual words of Whitman or the commentary by Folsom and Merill. In both you may find deficiencies and elements you wish were not there, but its hard not to find this book entertaining and enlightening. I highly recommend it.

What could possibly be the deficiencies, if I highly recommend it? Well, to put the matter succinctly, the whole project of writer and commentator borders on the personal. Whitman's experience of the war was a very deeply engaging experience. He was in the thick of the war seeing injuries in the hospitals and knowing personally so many combatants. The million dead is not an exaggeration, and Whitman is knee deep in the blood of a land killing itself in barbarism and heroism. He must try to make sense of the grandeur and senselessness. He fails, a lot. But that's part of the glory of Whitman, he keeps going and battles through to give us a clarity and comprehensiveness of the conflict that you will not walk away from unaffected.

Similarly, the commentators draw examples from what some may consider a narrow vantage point of today's conflicts and their own experiences. But that is part of the nature of Whitman, he invokes a personal reaction. That you might see the work differently than the commentators does not diminish the power and truth of their comments. All in all, its well done, and for the work of Whitman and his commentators, there must always remain an incompleteness. What is needed is the reader to engage themselves. If anything, Whitman says to the reader that they matter. You add something to Whitman, you engage his words as if it were a conversation with a man that has something important to say, and something you have to hear.