This is one of the best novels I’ve read. Almost every page contains a jewel of English expression. The freshness and vigour of its cynicism reminded me of Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night, but while his book retreats into the narrator’s inner world, Porter’s work is a study of clashing personalities. It’s also deeply compassionate, without a speck of sentimentality.
It is 1931. The initial setting, Mexico’s “pestilential” port town of Veracruz, introduces the themes of social class, rage, inertia and ennui. One brief scene covers the antics of three pets, a monkey, cat and parrot, foreshadowing the further theme of confinement and of a shared suffering that begets no fellow-feeling.
Then we set off on a mediocre German vessel carrying passengers and cargo from Mexico to Europe, pressing together different people of very different backgrounds, lifestyles and personalities. The ship and its journey provide the framework for the story. There are so many characters in play that the author provides a list of them; they are linked up like dominoes by fragile romances, antipathies, and shared cabins.
Overseeing all is the German captain, a bitter, stunted, snobbish woman-hater, and of course he despises Jews. He is supported by the ageing ship’s doctor, who is a generally decent conservative.
Of the passengers, Herr Hutten is a pontificating scholar. His loyal Frau holds him up, while he holds her down; together they dote on their child-replacement bulldog. Even less happy are the Baumgartners. The wife, a subtle piece of work, has drained their boy of all self-confidence. Her husband has sunk into self-destructiveness; she seems to conspire with him to deepen this moral ruin.
Also desperately unhappy is Elsa Lutz, teen daughter of a dull Swiss couple. She shares a cabin with the trim, snappy, spunky Jenny, to whom she confides, in baffled anguish, the fact that no boys like her. Jenny offers bland false optimism but inside she “felt an anxious tenderness, as if she had been asked for help she was not able to give. What hope was there for the discouraged young face with its double chin, the crease of fat like a goitre at the base of the throat… And inside, there groped blindly, the young innocence and the longing, the pained confused limited mind, the dark instincts winding upon themselves like snails.”
Jenny herself, nervy and restless, is entangled with David, who is dried up and emotionally constipated from his harsh religious upbringing; they torture each other in their joyless relationship, precarious yet endless.
Jenny also flirts briefly with the handsome and gentlemanly Wilhelm Freitag, a German of good breeding whose social standing has been almost capsized by marriage to a French Jew, whom he is coming back to collect. David meanwhile shares with the Texan William Denny, obsessed with ladies of trade but unwilling to shell out a cent for sex. Like several other men Denny hangs around the edges of a group of four female Spanish dancers, pimped out by their sinister, wasp-waisted husbands; hanging off the group are the two scary children Ric and Rac.
Then there is Herr Reiber, a short fat bald anti-semite with a pig-snout nose, and his girlfriend of sorts, the hysteric Lizzi: tall and gangly, “screaming like a peahen”, in Freitag’s mind a “half-witted rattle”; she “embodied to the last trait and feature everything the Captain found most positively repellent in womankind.” Lizzi shares with the dainty Mrs Treadwell: a 45-year old, attractive but single. Overprotected in childhood then brutalised in marriage, her past has left her vague, reserved and remote, less suited than most to Lizzi. “Perhaps the worst thing about her undesirable cabin mate was the extraordinary vulgarity of her talk about Jews. It cropped up no matter what the topic and gave Mrs Treadwell a creeping chill of distaste”.
This is by no means a complete list of characters or themes covered in the novel. Though not a political book, it is of course set against the looming nightmare in Europe. Seen through a modern lens it has much to say about racism and sexism, without being didactic to the slightest degree. As a study of humanity it is unrelentingly skewed toward the cynical, but I found it absolutely hilarious.
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Cruising Was Not Always about Crusing
Ship of Fools captures that time, long ago, when being at sea was a necessity. There was no other way to cross oceans and a voyage could take weeks to arrive at a final destination. And because of this need, the types of people that congregated in close quarters on board a ship at sea was diverse. Ship of Fools captures the mood and diversity of passengers at sea during this bygone era.The book's strength resides in the various mind-sets of its eclectic group of passengers. While they come from different backgrounds, different professions, and different places, they all posses that common human trait that becomes readily apparent when diversity is forced upon individuals for prolonged periods of time: pride, in all of its sad manifestations.There is no escaping the foolishness that pride brings to every passenger. Each passenger cannot avoid seeing themselves in the true light of their own beliefs and their actions are consequently foolish to all but the actor (and those of similar minds). Themes of patriotism and xenophobia are explored alongside more typical human faults such as jealousy, envy, and greed. And while Katherine Porter spares her readers from being judged, the personal guilt of the reader is only a thought away from each foolish act.As the book progresses, however, this strength-of-theme also becomes its primary weakness. The effect of capturing the somewhat monotonous mood of weeks upon the ocean served to create a similar outlook for the book itself. It seemed to take weeks for both the voyage and the book to end.Picture: The SS Werra (2), which was to be renamed the Vera by Porter.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2016
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2016
The book's strength resides in the various mind-sets of its eclectic group of passengers. While they come from different backgrounds, different professions, and different places, they all posses that common human trait that becomes readily apparent when diversity is forced upon individuals for prolonged periods of time: pride, in all of its sad manifestations.
There is no escaping the foolishness that pride brings to every passenger. Each passenger cannot avoid seeing themselves in the true light of their own beliefs and their actions are consequently foolish to all but the actor (and those of similar minds). Themes of patriotism and xenophobia are explored alongside more typical human faults such as jealousy, envy, and greed. And while Katherine Porter spares her readers from being judged, the personal guilt of the reader is only a thought away from each foolish act.
As the book progresses, however, this strength-of-theme also becomes its primary weakness. The effect of capturing the somewhat monotonous mood of weeks upon the ocean served to create a similar outlook for the book itself. It seemed to take weeks for both the voyage and the book to end.
Picture: The SS Werra (2), which was to be renamed the Vera by Porter.
Cruising Was Not Always about Crusing
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2016
Ship of Fools captures that time, long ago, when being at sea was a necessity. There was no other way to cross oceans and a voyage could take weeks to arrive at a final destination. And because of this need, the types of people that congregated in close quarters on board a ship at sea was diverse. Ship of Fools captures the mood and diversity of passengers at sea during this bygone era.Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2016
The book's strength resides in the various mind-sets of its eclectic group of passengers. While they come from different backgrounds, different professions, and different places, they all posses that common human trait that becomes readily apparent when diversity is forced upon individuals for prolonged periods of time: pride, in all of its sad manifestations.
There is no escaping the foolishness that pride brings to every passenger. Each passenger cannot avoid seeing themselves in the true light of their own beliefs and their actions are consequently foolish to all but the actor (and those of similar minds). Themes of patriotism and xenophobia are explored alongside more typical human faults such as jealousy, envy, and greed. And while Katherine Porter spares her readers from being judged, the personal guilt of the reader is only a thought away from each foolish act.
As the book progresses, however, this strength-of-theme also becomes its primary weakness. The effect of capturing the somewhat monotonous mood of weeks upon the ocean served to create a similar outlook for the book itself. It seemed to take weeks for both the voyage and the book to end.
Picture: The SS Werra (2), which was to be renamed the Vera by Porter.
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Kindle Customer
A novel both of its time and universal
Reviewed in Australia on March 13, 2021
ALGIS SVEIKAUSKAS
Dvd ship of fools
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2014