I've been cleaning again.... I found this paper I wrote in high school. It's a book report on “Abraham Lincoln—The Prairie Years":Carl Sandburg is classified by the Encyclopedia Britannica as an author, but he is much more than this—he is a biographer. He takes the dry, washed-out description of a man and performs magic. He throws out the detail by detail method and weaves a magical web into his story until it is no longer a story that can be found in any history book, but rather, it is a story with life, with charm and wit, woven into its very thread.
Abraham Lincoln has become a symbol to Americans. We look to his memory with respect and honor and deep admiration for what he did for our country and our heritage. But what did he do? What did he really think about slavery, about a house divided against itself, about everything? In his book Carl Sandburg answers the questions we ought to be asking about Lincoln. Mr. Sandburg delves into Lincoln's life without getting too involved or too personal. He has respect for Lincoln's memory and an awareness of his duty as a biographer.
Abraham Lincoln was not the man so often portrayed in his biographies. He was not a handsome man; he was tall and lean and his face was almost ugly. He was not a great orator; he did not have the powers of speech that Douglas had, but rather, he spoke to his audience in his own simple manner. He showed his own true emotions when he spoke and held his audience spellbound.
Abraham Lincoln was a lonely man; he could only tell his inner thoughts to one man: Joshua Speed. He could not even confide in his wife for she did not have the patience and understanding that he needed. He was a confused man: he once wrote to his friend, Joshua Speed, “I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery.” He was only a man; people expected him to rid the country of slavery and do it in such a way that everyone, whites and Negroes alike, would receive a fair deal. He could only see evil manifested in slavery, and fight it—he could not correct it. He was only human.
Sandburg does not mess up his book with twenty-five and fifty cent adjectives, wordy phrases, or dripping, gushing, worthless passages. He uses his own appealing, sincere style. He has a story to tell and he does so without neglecting detail and without getting carried away. And that is hard to do! I particularly enjoyed Sandburg's description of the marriage of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. He says “Both gossip and science have little to guide them in effecting a true and searching explanation of the married life of a slow-going wilderness bear and a cultivated tempestuous wildcat.”
Another example of his fine writing style is the following description of Lincoln, “So tall, with so peculiar a slouch and so easy a saunter, so bony and sad, so quizzical and comic, sort of hiding a funny lantern that lighted and went out and that he lighted again—he was the Strange Friend and the Friendly Stranger.” And then again, “Like something out of a picture book for children—he was. His form of slumping arches and his face of gaunt sockets were a shape a Great Artist had scrawled from careless clay, and was going to throw away, and then had said: 'no, this one is to be kept; for a long time this one is to be kept; I made it by accident but it is better than any made on purpose' “.
Sandburg uses many illustrations in his book, pictures of Lincoln, of his family, his friends, his enemies. The pictures fit in perfectly with the story, for they portray people as they really were and not as they might have looked in “doctored” pictures. The pictures show Lincoln's moody eyes and his otherwise expressionless face. He is an awesome, serious man whose countenance displays no trace of a sense of humor. He must have hated to have his picture taken.
Carl Sandburg certainly has a great store of knowledge to draw his material from. So many books have been written about Lincoln and so many stories have been told about him that Mr. Sandburg merely has to choose the details he wishes to include in his book. The following is one of my favorite stories about Lincoln. Once he was on his way to some big social event that required very formal dress. Lincoln had on his very best suit, hat, and gloves. He drove his buggy along a country road that was still wet from a recent rain. He came upon a pig that was stuck in a rather big mud puddle. Lincoln stopped his buggy and got out to see what he could do. He talked reassuringly to the pig and waded into the mud to help him out. He arrived at the event late—and muddy. This story may not be true but it is typical of the folklore surrounding Lincoln.
Carl Sandburg's biographies of Lincoln have been an important contribution to American literature. Mr. Sandburg is considered the foremost Lincoln authority and it is not hard to see why. The reader gains an insight into the life of one of America's most influential presidents, and a great humanitarian. Sandburg has also set a standard for other authors who wish to distinguish themselves as biographers: all they need is the magic spark that Mr. Sandburg has. It is no wonder Carl Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for his “Abraham Lincoln—the War Years”. I plan to read it!
And so it was: a teenage girl wrote a book report about a book she had not read. I can say that now since both my teacher, and Carl Sandburg, are gone. I asked my father, at the supper table, to tell me about Abraham Lincoln. After doing the supper dishes, I went in my room and wrote this paper. BTW, I got an A+ on it....
Oh, and a very dear friend of mine gave me a copy of “Abraham Lincoln—The Prairie Years” earlier this year and yes, I think it's about time I read it!
No comments:
Post a Comment