I’m working on a project on Ken Burns’s “The Civil War” (more to come about that). But because I grew up largely without access to television, I didn’t have a chance to watch the series when it premiered in 1990 (and at 6 years old, I don’t pretend I would have been sophisticated enough to appreciate it). For those of you who watched the first airing, how do you remember “The Civil War”? I’d love to hear about any of your experiences with it.  • “When Did Books Get So Freaking Enormous? The Year of the Very Long Novel,” by Boris Kachka: I enjoy a doorstopper myself, so I enjoyed reading Kachka’s meditation on why fiction seems to be getting extremely long again.  “But again, maybe it was ever thus? ‘I don’t think the long novel ever went away,’ says Jennifer Brehl, who edited Neal Stephenson’s forthcoming 880-page sci-fi story ‘Seveneves.’ Other editors and agents of VLNs agree, but the notable thing about these books isn’t that their heft is unprecedented; it’s that all the forces [Garth Risk] Hallberg alluded to in 2010 are exponentially stronger today,” Kachka writes. “We measure out our lives not just in tweets but in a blizzard of memes, Vines, Periscope soundings, and flash quizzes. We binge-watch, sure, but we wash dishes at the same time. Reading, on any device, is a discreet and solitary experience. ‘We’re in a very noisy, fast-paced world that’s only getting noisier and faster,’ says Hallberg’s agent, Chris Parris-Lamb, ‘and books, without changing at all, increasingly stand in relief.’ ”  • “Artisanal Macho: The Clash of Action Stylings in ‘Avengers’ and ‘Mad Max,’ ” by Mark Harris: In a characteristically terrific piece in Grantland, Harris looks at the refreshingly visceral impact of the practical effects in “Mad Mad: Fury Road.”  ” I didn’t need or want scores of people to die in ‘Ultron'; the dispatching of poor, redshirt-y, here-today-gone-today Quicksilver, the Fred Weasley of this installment, was enough. But at one point during the epic battle with, I don’t know, Captain America and Hulk and Vision vs. Ultron and his robot army, I thought, of course I don’t care — I’m sitting here watching Chris Evans’s stunt double and a cartoon do battle with a bunch of drawings. How can you invest in something that doesn’t even offer a surface to grab on to?” Harris asks. “‘Fury Road’ never, ever says ‘No sweat.’ It sweats. And the film’s doing-it-the-hard-way ethos feels like both a defiant blast from the past (it is, after all, the work of a 70-year-old director reviving a 36-year-old franchise) and a thrown gauntlet that signifies an exciting new rift in how we define quality in this genre.”  • “Honest answer to a reader’s question,” by Taylor Batten: In response to a challenge from a reader, the editorial page editor of the Charlotte Observer lays out the board’s first principles. It’s a useful exercise, and I’d like to see more opinion sections do it.  “I wrote a light blogpost last month about Mayor Dan Clodfelter proclaiming April 30 ‘Honesty Day’ in Charlotte. Honesty Day, it turned out, is observed on that date nationwide. I noted a Wikipedia explanation of what it’s all about: ‘On this day, anyone participating may ask any question they choose and the opposing person should give a truthful and straightforward answer,’ ” Batten explains. “I invited readers to say what they would ask, and of whom. David Fry of Charlotte was among those who responded. ‘To: observer editors. Question? Why do you support such a liberal agenda? Remember you’re supposed to answer honestly.’ Well, rules are rules, so I suppose you deserve an honest answer for Honesty Day. Here goes.”  • “The Rise of Fast TV: Why ‘Empire’ Is the Preferred Script Model,” by Matt Zoller Seitz: I realized I missed this when it first came out, but it’s a useful piece that explains why TV feels different lately.  “The final stretch of ‘Mad Men’ — and I write this having not yet seen the series finale — was uneventful: There was a finalized divorce and a terminal illness and at least three possible great, lasting love stories, and we watched Sterling Cooper and Partners being absorbed and dismantled by a larger agency, scattering its partners and employees to the wind (including Don Draper, who spent most of the last seven episodes preoccupied with a waitress and road-tripping West in a Cadillac),” Seitz wrote. “But it doled out plot in miserly increments as always, caring more about the why and how than the what, introducing major new characters whose personalities necessarily stole time away from the established ones, and generally seeming to take a ‘Sopranos’-like pleasure in thwarting what the audience craved: groups of beloved, established characters moving through a series of cathartic moments that popped one after the other like a string of firecrackers. In that sense, ‘Mad Men,’ like Don himself, is one of the last of a dying breed of series. The newest, hottest TV-storytelling model is all about fan service, and it throws so much plot at viewers that the result sometimes recalls that old video game of the firefighter rushing up and down a sidewalk, catching falling babies in a basket.”  • “The Best Maps Help You Get Lost,” by Luke Plunkett: This is a fun meditation on the role that maps serve in storytelling.  “You might think a map is just a map. A thing with some locations stamped on it that you use to get from one place to another. And that’s true! They are, but a good map doesn’t just show towns and castles, it provides scale, which in turn provides meaning to movement and distance. It’s one thing being told about a long walk. It’s another knowing just how long it was,” Plunkett suggests. “Why do you think the very introduction sequence to ‘Game of Thrones’ begins with a sweeping overview of a world map? Because it provides context to everything that’s about to happen. When you see how far Tyrion has travelled to get to Daenrys, or how just how far Winterfell really is from King’s Landing, or how crazy it is that Stannis ended up at The Wall, you get an understanding of task and accomplishment that no amount of make-up, heavy breathing or expletive-riddled dialogue can account for. But a map can also play a narrative role. Nothing piques curiosity more than the unexplored quarters of a map. They suggest mystery, excitement, danger. There’s nothing out there that will excite a gamer more, or get them moving in a game faster, than giving them a map with empty/incomplete areas and saying ‘have at it.’ “  Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for The Washington Post's Opinions section.
What do you remember about "The Civil War"? Plus, the rise of long novels and fast TV, the return of practical effects, an honest response to a reader's question and the role of maps in storytelling.