Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
How to Dodge a Cannon Ball (A Novel)
Author: Denard Dayle
Narrated By: William DeMeritt
Denard Dayle (Author, Jamaican-American writer, graduate of Princeton with an MFA from Columbia University.)
The central character in Denard Dayle’s novel is Anders. Anders is a light skinned Black soldier in the American Civil War. He begins as a Confederate and escapes to become a Union soldier as a Flag carrier. The author’s story is tedious and a mess, but it reflects the many conflicts among Americans fighting in the Civil War. The bizarre happenings in Dayle’s story are meant to be satirical with a bite but with so many twists in ideas about race, nationalism, gender, and the history of the war that one is inclined to put the book down. One may soldier on with a hope to understand Dayle’s point.
America’s Civil War.
After listening to “How to Dodge a Cannonball” for several hours, one gathers Dayle’s point is to show the complexity of America’s Civil War and what it means to be an American. The absurdity of all wars is revealed in America’s Civil War contradictions and hypocrisies. There are many, some of which are uniquely about civil wars, but also about every war.
In fighting a civil war for freedom in America, governments deny freedom to both sides of the conflict.
In fighting a war of conquest like that in Ukraine, both the aggressor and defender nations equally deny freedom to their citizens. Dayle shows race, gender, and nationality make little difference in who loses their freedom when war is declared. Black America is not liberated by the Civil War. Neither will the Russians or Ukrainians be liberated by whichever side wins. There are no winners. There is only death and destruction as evidenced by the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.
Dayle makes his point, but the story becomes too repetitive and tiresome for this listener/reader who quits the book before its ending.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 