MacKinlay Kantor (1904–1977)
Forfatter af Andersonville
Om forfatteren
MacKinlay Kantor is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Andersonville, the novel about the horrifying Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. Kantor is also known as a war correspondent and as the author of the novella and eventual screenplay The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that won seven vis mere Academy Awards. Kantor died in 1977 at the age of seventy-three. vis mindre
Værker af MacKinlay Kantor
Cuba Libre; a story 4 eksemplarer
Best-in-Books: Grand Hotel / Voice of Bugle Ann / Life with Father / Mutiny on the Bounty / Postman Always Rings Twice (1962) — Bidragyder — 3 eksemplarer
Reader's Digest Condensed Books: Lobo / The Century of the Surgeon / Letter from Peking / Bon Voyage / The Nymph and… (1950) 2 eksemplarer
Author's Choice (abridged) 2 eksemplarer
But Look, The Morn 2 eksemplarer
El goes south 2 eksemplarer
The Sickle And The Hounds 2 eksemplarer
The Boy in the Dark 2 eksemplarer
The Moon-Caller 1 eksemplar
The Good Family 1 eksemplar
Das Geheimnis des Sumpfes 1 eksemplar
The Grave Grass Quivers 1 eksemplar
La polvere e la gloria 1 eksemplar
The Torture Pool {short story} 1 eksemplar
Ennemi, mon frère 1 eksemplar
Frontier: Tales of the American Adventure 1 eksemplar
Then Came the Legions 1 eksemplar
Three: Short Tales of Triumph and Tragedy 1 eksemplar
Spring Lake 1 eksemplar
Associated Works
The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now (2008) — Bidragyder — 153 eksemplarer
To the Queen's Taste: The First Supplement to 101 Years' Entertainment; Consisting of the Best Stories Published in the… (1946) — Bidragyder — 24 eksemplarer
Discovering Fiction Student's Book 1: A Reader of American Short Stories (2001) — Bidragyder — 19 eksemplarer
Half-a-Hundred Stories for Men, Great Tales by American Writers (1945) — Bidragyder — 15 eksemplarer
My Most Inspiring Moment: Encounters with Destiny Relived by Thirty-Eight Best-Selling Authors (1965) 10 eksemplarer
Biblioteca de Selecciones 1959: El casco verde / Horas de angustia / Lobo / Rumbo al oeste 4 eksemplarer
The Work of Saint Francis / The Story of the Trapp Family Singers / So Great a Lover / Star Over the Frontier (1961) 4 eksemplarer
Wind Across the Everglades [1958 film] — Actor — 3 eksemplarer
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1935 — Bidragyder — 2 eksemplarer
Livet i skoven, Du, min fjende, Den tredje dag, Scotts sidste ekspedition, Vor mand i Wien 1 eksemplar
Reader's Digest 4 in 1 -Lobo etc. 1 eksemplar
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Kanonisk navn
- Kantor, MacKinlay
- Juridisk navn
- Kantor, Benjamin MacKinlay
- Andre navne
- Graceland Cemetery, Webster City, Iowa, USA
- Fødselsdato
- 1904-02-04
- Dødsdag
- 1977-10-11
- Køn
- male
- Nationalitet
- USA
- Fødested
- Webster City, Iowa, USA
- Dødssted
- Sarasota, Florida, USA
- Erhverv
- novelist
short-story writer
reporter
columnist - Relationer
- Kantor, Tim (son)
Shroder, Thomas (grandson)
Medlemmer
Anmeldelser
Lister
Discontinued (1)
AlphaKIT: Brown (1)
Hæderspriser
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Associated Authors
Statistikker
- Værker
- 73
- Also by
- 53
- Medlemmer
- 3,471
- Popularitet
- #7,328
- Vurdering
- 3.9
- Anmeldelser
- 45
- ISBN
- 97
- Sprog
- 2
- Udvalgt
- 2
The protagonist of this book is essentially Andersonville prison, hastily constructed by the Confederacy during the Civil War on parts of several landowners’ properties in a remote Georgia area not far from the rail line that would transport the Yankee prisoners of war. We first meet the fictional Ira Claffey, whose plantation is near what becomes an open-air house of horrors – the only structure is the walls that surround the acres of a hellish landscape on which an estimated 40,000 prisoners were crammed into a space meant for no more than 10,000, with poor sanitation, inadequate food, with a large percentage dying from exposure, disease, starvation, infected wounds, and about a 25% mortality rate. The conditions, horrible as they were, seemed to be less the result of malice on the part of the Confederate officers charged with the prisoners’ incarceration, but rather incompetence and indifference on the part of the upper echelon.
The closest to a protagonist of a human variety is Ira Claffey and his daughter Lucy – his wife descended into madness after their three sons who reached adulthood died in service to the Confederacy – and how they are affected by the proximity of Andersonville, and the horrors of the miserable, unlivable conditions the prisoners are subjected to. Throughout the book, we meet some of the (fictional) inhabitants of the area, learn a little about them. And we meet some of the fictional Yankee prisoners, learn a little of their lives before their time in Andersonville, often glimpses of their childhood, during their incarceration, and if they are lucky, which is rare, after. Certain Confederate officers and doctors tried to improve conditions but were then branded as traitors by Generals who were hell-bent on keeping the conditions the most miserable possible and expending the least amount of money, particularly as the tide of war turns away; yet despite their efforts, after the war they took the fall and were convicted of crimes against humanity. I understand the Confederate military figures in the book are real people. Also, some of the POWs mentioned – Boston Corbett, Chickamauga, John Ransom, John McElroy – also existed in real life. Ira Claffey and some of the other civilian agrarian neighbors around the prison showed compassion toward the prisoners and were also accused of treasonous behavior. Kantor certainly uses the conditions at Andersonville to raise philosophical and moral questions with which various characters grapple, but never explicitly answer.
While most of the male characters are richly drawn, the female characters are largely one-dimensional and almost always object rather than subject. I ascribe that deficiency more to prevailing attitudes about women’s place during the time period during which Kantor researched and wrote this novel (from the 1930s to the 1950s) than to any actual representation of women during the Civil War era. He probably had very little in the way of research materials for women’s accounts of their experiences during the war that might have helped flesh them out. In addition, I cringed near the end where Kantor perpetuates the happy slave myth when the war ends and Ira Claffey tells his enslaved human workers that they are free, and they are so grateful and will stay loyal, etc. It seemed almost a cartoonish or Hollywood ending.
But again, Kantor wrote during a different time, and in the interim more published journals or letters or oral histories of women and enslaved people have emerged. Accordingly, subtracting from the overall five-star rating of a mid-20th century book based on 21st century sensibilities is unwarranted. Some people have complained about the length of this book – my 60th anniversary edition is 754 pages – and have said the story could have been told in fewer pages, but I disagree. The pictures he painted and the little stories he told were so vivid that I feel I visited with this place for as long as the prison stood, and that is both disconcerting and remarkable, particularly since the focus of these stories is not the pompous politicians and generals, but on how this horrendous place affected the lives of those whose lives it touched inside and outside its walls. This book will stay with me for a long time.… (mere)