Pentapod reviewed Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis
Review of "Lincoln's Dreams" on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I'm a huge Connie Willis fan, I think I've read all her novels and several short stories and I was surprised to find I'd never read this one, so of course I picked it up at the library. Not being American, the civil war was less interesting to me as a topic than the time-traveling ones I'd read previously, but still, Connie Willis writes a good book rights?
Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this one. As mentioned, not American so not familiar with much of the history that might have added interest. But still, even apart from that, neither the characters nor the plot made much sense. Primary among my questions is why is it called Lincoln's Dreams anyway when it's about General Lee's dreams? Lincoln's dreams are just a small side plot and Lincoln himself doesn't really enter the book at all, whereas an extensive knowledge of General …
I'm a huge Connie Willis fan, I think I've read all her novels and several short stories and I was surprised to find I'd never read this one, so of course I picked it up at the library. Not being American, the civil war was less interesting to me as a topic than the time-traveling ones I'd read previously, but still, Connie Willis writes a good book rights?
Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this one. As mentioned, not American so not familiar with much of the history that might have added interest. But still, even apart from that, neither the characters nor the plot made much sense. Primary among my questions is why is it called Lincoln's Dreams anyway when it's about General Lee's dreams? Lincoln's dreams are just a small side plot and Lincoln himself doesn't really enter the book at all, whereas an extensive knowledge of General Lee is, if not required, at least helpful. Aside from that, Annie, the main female character, is an utterly rubbish doormat who does nothing but mope around while various creepy men including the main male character try to take care of her and control her and tell her what to do for her own good. She never develops any kind of personality and none of the motivations of the various men trying to control her really make any sense. Richard seems to swing wildly from one psychological theory to the next, in addition to taking advantage of her, drugging her against her knowledge, and stalking her. Jeff appears to fall for her in approximately 60 seconds just on the basis of her fragile looks, immediately decides his weird theories that she's experiencing Robert E Lee's dreams must explain everything and he must save her from them, except up until he finally decides to try and get her some help with the assistance of Richard, which turns into a confrontation with Richard, and somehow he's suddenly completely okay abandoning her entirely probably to die, and never seems to have any serious regrets again. Broun for some reason thinks that talking to the random girlfriend of his research assistant's college roommate will be of some use to his book research, which also makes no sense at all; on top of which his obsessive rewriting of his previous book is never really explained and the text we see of it in the galley excerpts is pretty awful.
The premise behind the book - whether someone in the present time can share the dreams of a dead person from the past - makes no sense and it's never explained in any clear way what's actually going on or why. And while the historical details seem to have been well-researched, even I know that General Lee was fighting to continue slavery in the US. In the entire book, I don't recall there being a single slave character nor any mention of slavery whatsoever despite extensive focus on Lee's life, thoughts, dreams, and decisions. He's just portrayed as a great leader and a kind man. Um, not to a large portion of the population, whose right to freedom and self-determination he was actively working to prevent? How do you write this book without even mentioning that?
Overall the characters were unlikeable, the plot largely confusing and full of holes, and the ending unfulfilling. There were individual pieces and moments that were an interesting read but the whole thing doesn't stick together and was very disappointing, particularly given that I know what good books Willis IS capable of writing.
