What I am reading

Fiction - "Lincoln's Dreams"

After reading Bellwether I passed it to a friend who read it and like it. He in turn, picked out this book, "Lincoln's Dreams", and passed it to me. It's another book by Connie Willis.

The main character of this book is a man named Jeff - who works as a research assistant for a famous author of Civil War novels. Through his old college room mate he meets a girl, namae Annie, who is having disturbing dreams about the Civil War. It seems that she is re-dreaming the dreams of Robert E. Lee.

I found the story engrossing, although somewhat depressing, as it dealt with the effects of war on people. It was engrossing because I could not tell where the story was going. In the end, as in Bellwether, the story was left somewhat open, with just a hint what may have been causing Annie's dreams. In fact I found the ending quite confusing and I read the last chapter twice.

The fun part of the book was some of the Civil War trivia woven into the plot. For example, did you know that Robert E. Lee's before the war home was Arlington (now the National Cementary)? Or did you know that one of the horses Robert E. Lee rode through better part of the war was named Traveller and that the horse outlived his master by several years?

posted by richieb @ 5:14 AM