Celebrate the Fourth with a Good Book!

This short post is not merely aimed at American readers but also those LitNutters who might be interested in good fiction, no matter the literature lovers' country of their origin.

We've had quite a few movies about "Independence Day" -- including an action-packed SF melodrama with that very title. Then there are the polemic ones (Born on the Fourth of July) as well as the ones whose blatant patriotism borders on the jingoistic (Yankee Doodle Dandy.) One can find lots of "fun stuff" as well; Jean Shepherd is the humorist who first comes to mind. (I believe you can find a piece containing his take on the midsummer holiday on YouTube.)

What surprises me is that there doesn't seem to be a great deal of American literature set during the American Revolution, though this opinion may stem from my own ignorance. The Civil War, with all of its tragic origins and consequences, seems to have inspired authors more so than that of the pivotal years surrounding the country's birth. There are plenty of biographies about the nation's forefathers, libraries full of children's books about the topic, and one Broadway musical, 1776, subsequently made into a movie.

One classic story that touches on The Amnerican Revolutionary War --namely the change between colonial America and the fledging country--is Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," but the focus on that story is on Rip itself, not primarily what he missed during his twenty-year nap.

Two masterful novelists specializing in historical fiction have been --I'm sorry to say--woefully neglected. The first,Walter D. Edmonds is an author whose works I remember fondly, and not merely because he hail,s from the same general neck o' the woods as I! Set in upstate New York, his most successful adult novels are set in the region of the Erie Canal (built almost 50 years after the Revolution.) But his Revolutionary War era novel, Drums Along the Mohawk, is well-worth reading. The Farmer Takes a Wife is a play about the transition between colonialism and independence. Both of these were made into movies, both starring Henry Fonda.

Maine-born Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957.) is the other fine historical novelist featured in this thread. Though his best-known work, Northwest Passage, is set during the French and Indian War, Arundel and its sequel Rabble in Arms are beautifully written, evocative novels about the Revolutionary War. Warning: be prepared for a different take on Benedict Arnold. Another novel by Roberts, Oliver Wiswell shows the Revolution from the loyalist point of view.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of literature on the American Revolutionary War isn't by an American, but an Irish-born British dramatist, none other than George Bernard Shaw. Though full of the Shavian wit we might expect The Devil's Disciple, is no light-weight bit of fluff, but covers the themes of loyalty
and courage with a moral compass. It is quite an elevating read, but also serve as the basis of a very fine movie starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

I hope these works will find a twenty-first century audience and are appreciated for their quality. I do hope I haven't committed a glaring error of omission by leaving out some seminal work about the Revolutionary War, but if I have, I'm sure my fellow Lit-Nutters will set me right!

I read the play which was ably illustrated in a Limited Editions Club production. Next, I saw the play performed with Shavian wit, and finally I saw the movie. I endjoyed all three.

Novels of the Revolutionry war period include some very good ones by James Fenimore Cooper. Over a century before John Le Carre wrote about espionage, what may be the first espionage novel published was produced in 1821. It is a rollicking good tale which I would reccommend to all. The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground is its title.

Another Cooper novel set in evolutionary times is The Pilot, a tale about John Paul Jones. Cooper has been much maligned as a writer whose books are antiquated and a bit on the stodgy side. But I have always enjoyed reading him. Perhaps the somewhat unfair criticism by Mark Twain in his essay, The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper, has something to do with it.

When I read or hear of Cooperstown, NY, situated on the Lake whuch was Lake Glimmerglass in The Deerslayer, I think of Cooper and his early American novels, not the home of Baseball's Hall of Fame. I think of Natty Bumpo, not Johnny Bench.