The Shenandoah Spy - Part 14
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Belle's life grow more complicated. She is romanced by the Union's Chief Medical Officer, who has treated Keily and had him moved to Washington. She is still collecting intelligence, even though Ashby's death leaves her cut off from the Confederate Army. She also meets a paroled Confederate prisoner who she suspects is actually a Union spy and tries to play him so that the Union Army will finally release… Product details and pricing info |
|---|
1 Customer Review Posted
- Over?! No, I can't believe it! Does it really really really have to finish?! Can't it go on forever, sir?
- It's tragic. Positively tragic.
Of The Bard's proportions.
THE SHENANDOAH SPY, Francis Hamit's fourteen part oeuvre, is now OVER. ::: the sound of that final uttered sound clangs around like an echo thoughout my cavernous Communist-era flat :::
A story whose strands and a woman whose exploits have woven themselves so very tightly around my thoughts is now..."no more."
What to do?
Well, I've got a solution or two. Allow me to present them here for your reading and educational pleasure.
Francis Hamit has compiled one of his most heartfelt works, in my opinion, with THE SHENANDOAH SPY. I know this, because I've read quite a bit of his material over these past few months, now having **fourteen** separate occasions on which to prove this point.
After almost 450pp worth of stellar prose over four months, detailing magnificently stunning and finely-sliced visuals, smothered in faithfully-rendered period details, and nicely decorated with a Southern Belle braised bow (sorry, I was aiming for the cooking metaphors there), Mr. Hamit has heartfully depicted the Civil War experiences of the former Southern spy, Belle Boyd.
I'm tempted to tell you what happens at the end. I'm tempted to just reveal those too-good-to-be-true bits and pieces of this delicious narrative. But I WON'T.
Still, it's a pity. Not this story, you see. But rather its outcome. I am miffed with what happens to our cute lil' dingaling, the Belle-ster.
Was she doing a disservice to the Union?
Did her spying activities lead to the death of hundreds, perhaps thousands?
Did she manipulate or manoevre the men who crossed her path--mostly Unionists, with a marked tendency for men formerly of the Emerald Isle--into, er, "tight" and "sticky" positions in order to achieve the goals so loftily set for her by none other than Stonewall Jackson himself?
It's challenging for me to say. As well, who the heck would I even be to cast so bold an opinion (first of all, I wasn't even there, and second, I'm not a part of that latter-day society, ergot, I don't have a right to opine).
Much as this story captivates my burning interest, and much as I am truly pained at the swan song of this series, and what happens to our Belle, I am reticent to get all worked up about today's reality. It's not my place too. As well, I know that Mr. Hamit will soon be out with a sequel. It won't be long before we catch up with Belle very very soon.
Though I must ask: does the long-sought harmony amongst the former warring Northern and Southern factions actually exist today, not to mention the nation's "color divide?"
Have the so-called noble propaganda aims of the Civil War taken root across the United States?
Have the so-called goals and targets (propagandized as they were and are) been reached?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Hard to say.
Some might continue to toss out those hackneyed expressions of koom-bay-yah, polishing off or buffing those already tarnished slogans which are a well-known part of North vs. South relations, the so-called Paragons of National Virtue.
It's an artificially-imposed harmony, let it be clearly known. But what would the author have to say about all this? Francis? Take it away...
FH does a masterful job of setting the record straight on so many points in his THE SHENANDOAH SPY.
For one, there were notable personalities on the Southern side who believed ardently in the Union. When push came to shove and they had to choose a side, and when that final bell tolled (but what was the shot across the bow, or the throwing down of the gauntlet incidentally--note to self, make sure you study up on this!), some of the men who dwelled south of the Confederacy's grey line chose to fight alongside the Men in Blue (the Unionists).
Were there any cases of men on the Northern side of the "border" who chose to fight with the Successionists? Please, please, tell me now (this is a Duran Duran song, by the way).
I don't recall reading instances of this in THE SHENANDOAH SPY; though Hamit does a service in revealing the strong part played in this conflict by guns and swords-for-hire, "gay" blades or mercenaries, in other words. People in the personalities of Myles Kelley, Daniel Keily, and Colonel Wyndham. Mix in a few Italian castaways who fought under Garibaldi's tricoloured banner, and we've got the recipie for a motley crew of fighting men! Oho!
But what a statement for feminism and nascent women's liberation! Hamit depicts the pride of our nation's young Southern women, who were not only beautiful, fleshily and jiggily well-endowed (yum!), plus mildly mannered, yet were also mightily skilled going bareback (or saddled, as the case may be given our modern and viral times) and in knowing how to, um...use a stray "gun" properly. Belle never fired when her pistols weren't, ahem...cocked. That Colt Winchester of Belle's was a mightily powerful weapon, lest we forget. She was great with the other guns in this story too; at least according to the word out on that dusty Front Royal street (and darn that Lucy Buck and her clucking hens and coffee klatches! -- d'oh!).
Mr. Hamit's experience with the overall writing craft--not only as an entertainer of significant note, but as a technician of the artform (Hamit is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop)--is clearly evidenced by this well-constructed Short.
If this is the first review of Mr. Hamit's series that you're reading bubs, then you absolutely **owe** it to yourself to return to Part One and download at least the first three sections to get a better idea.
I guarantee you'll be hooked from the get-go, and we'll be seeing you here at Part Fourteen again soon.
My thanks go out to the author for making this a well-stocked and beautifully appointed home for the better part of four months. It was a gorgeously set table, and a meticulously planned party. Plus, the grub was just dee-lish. (<-- there I go again with my culinary metaphors).
In closing, I think I shall quote liberally from this finale:
"...it was tempting to call out to them something that would cause them great difficulties with the Union authorities, but Belle knew she was better than that."
This, for me, encapsulates the essence of Belle Boyd. A class act, all the way!
Francis, thank you for teaching me much.
Thank you for rendering the memory of Isabelle Boyd so faithfully and honorably.
Thank you for everything.
You have set your bar high. I supopse that all which remains is to receive that very next bundle.
Your newest fan,
ADM in Prague - 2006-10-02, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
