Customer Reviews

American Goliath: Inspired by the True, Incredible Events

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It took awhile, but I finished Harvey Jacobs' 1997 novel "American Goliath", about the infamous Cardiff Giant hoax of the post-Civil War period. Was the Giant one of those who roamed the Earth, per Genesis, or an elaborate hoax? We know the answer, but Jacobs keeps the populace of the time guessing, and imaginatively. He allows the Giant a "speaking" voice to keep us up with "his thoughts" on the developing story. P.T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb play major roles. The dialogue among Barnum, Thumb and primary hoaxist George Hull crackles in a Runyanesque way. Jacobs also knows how to stage a blockbuster, particularly in a climactic Barnum-staged battle. You'll also learn a good bit about the cigar business, both its growth and demise.

I grew up in Central NY State, where most of the story was set. The familiar place names helped me enjoy the book even more. I must have seen the Giant in its final resting place at the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown as a child, but I don't have a specific memory of it.

Five stars for fans of 19th century US history. Fans of Kevin Baker's writing (Dreamland, Paradise Alley (P.S.) will also find some parallel delights in American Goliath.

Is this giant too big for America to see ? I first read about it in an English magazine in a piece I think by Michael Moorcock or Martin Amis, who claimed Jacobs as one of America's funniest writers. Well it took the Brits to see Chandler, Faulkner, Welty and a dozen others before we did, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. A prophet in his own land indeed! This is a superb, mordant, intelligent, clever and wonderfully funny novel which should be on every literary studies syllabus in America. I can't add much to the other reviewers -- except to join in the applause. Jacobs is a first rate writer. This is the first book I have read of his and I'm desperate for more. A great American novel, nothing less.

Sly, randy, and splendidly researched, Harvey Jacob's novel is one for the ages.I did not expect this story to be told with so much humor or such understated insight into what our country - and many of its denizens - was like circa 1869. Marvelous descriptions, amusingly deft characterizations, some startlingly intuitive depths where one would least expect them to appear. This novel does not at all suffer to compare with the magnificent RAGTIME. I was most amused and impressed by the fast, witty dialogue, particularly between Barnum and Tom Thumb - what used to be called "crackling good" dialogue during the old screwball comedy days. Other scenes reminded me of the logical nonsense of CATCH 22. In other words:a hoot and a real pleasure to read - made me want to start it all over again once I finished. Harvey Jacob's marvelous imagination and talent has provided us with a celebration of American craziness and craftiness. Very funny and something else. So read it, already!

Based on an all-American hoax, it tells an all-American story of suckers and entrepreneurs and proves that, here at least, one of each is born every minute. But beyond the hilarity--somewhere between the fictional spin on the factual fun-- Mr. Jacobs is making a point about what made America "great" and lo! it's that tension between suckers and entrepreneurs. And all of this is wrapped in a delicious, rollicking prose that makes you look up from your reading and say,"Honey, listen to THIS..." In other words, I'm giving it three thumbs up.

The absolutely true story of the greatest hoax of the 19th century is given a charming retelling here. Problem: the author smirks early and often at his characters and at the credulous America that yearns to be fooled into believing in something. None of the characters is all that deeply drawn; each one bumbles through the story as best he can but without moving the reader all that much. Angelica's widowed plight, Loretta's promiscuity, George Hull's burning ambition to avoid disappointing his father, Herbert Black Paw's rage at the white God: these characters don't explore extremes of high or low, all are figures of fun to be pointed at. Yet the book never quite rollicks either. There are a few lurid incidents: frenzied sexual encounters with the celebrated midget General Tom Thumb; fatal elephant mishaps; and my favorite loon in a book full of loons is Salle, the mad sculptor kept in a cage by his former student. But these twists are neither inevitable enough to elicit the nod of recognition nor unexpected enough to drop jaws. It is as if the author were writing for an audience of stone giants who smile and shrug at puny mortals and their fleeting concerns. That said, the book is by far the most readable and funny and fast-moving of all the books in the "Ragtime"/"Banished Children of Eve" canon of sprawling Americana. Certainly worth a read.

The royal monster mavens, Mary Shelley, who created Frankenstein's monster, and Rabbi Judah Low ben Bezulel, who popularized the Golem (a monster out of Jewish mythology) now have a crown prince to share their throne room - Harvey Jacobs, author of the wholly absorbing, outrageously funny novel, "American Goliath."

What a farce this is to get lost in! It is based on a true event: the faked discovery in 1869 of a 10-foot stone statue of a man buried on a farm near Cardiff, NY. The entire hoax - from sculpting the statue through burying and uncovering it - was cleverly staged. The statue was claimed by its fake discoverers to be the petrified remains of a giant who lived when giants walked the earth, particularly on the land that became the United States.

The Cardiff Giant, often called Goliath, became renowned all over an America desperate for diversion from the agonized memories of the recent Civil War. The giant was viewed by thousands of paying Ameicans for reasons that varied from simple curiosity to anticipation of a religious experience. Goliath is still with us, big as ever in his permanent home in the Farmer's Museum, Cooperstown, NY.

The flimflam artists who conceived Goliath and established him in American history found their modern mythologizer in Harvey Jacobs. In "American Goliath," as in his dazzling previous novel, "Beautiful Soup," Jacobs reveals superb writing qualifications for telling the story of the Cardiff Giant and for contributing inspiring flimflam of his own.

Each of the monsters of literature has his own personality. Frankenstein's monster, for instance, is both violent and pathetic. The Golem exhibits terrifying power. Like these predecessors, the Cardiff Giant has strength but is distinguished from them by sexual power and sexual inquisitiveness. A sexy fossil? Isn't that too far out? Not at all because Jacobs' comic inventiveness depends greatly on his his demonstrated talent for making the far out seem plausible.

Here is an example. Terms like mass medium, mass hysteria, mass production, mass market, mass murder, and even Mass card are widespread with nothing inherently funny in any of them. In fact, the word "mass" has a lethargic quality. Against this common linguistic experience, Jacobs suddenly confronts us with his own mass phenomenon, which occurs, without warning, in a crowd gathered around Goliath. "Mass tumescence!" Don't ask. You will find it described on page 168, where you will also discover that you can relieve this condition by "communal prayer and the singing of familiar hymns."

Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, politician Boss Tweed, actor Edwin Booth, financier Cornelius Vanderbilt, and justice Oliver Wendell Holmes are a few of the potpourri of fascinating peronalities from real life that help move the story from one imaginative and funny episode to the next. Great showman P.T. Barnum unsuccessfully tries to buy Goliath. Frustrated but persistent, Barnum hires a sculptor to make a copy of Goliath. Then, assisted by his celebrated protege, Tom Thumb, Barnum exhibits his stone clone with the brash claim that it is the only authentic ancient man.

Make no mistake: the two colossi are not just lifeless shapes of stone. They can think! Surely their thoughts will find their way into future studies of literary stream of consciousness techniques.

Sometimes the giants' thoughts indicate that they have rocks in their heads. Fair enough. But when Goliath asks "Is there more to me than I know?" it is clear that a stone mind is capable of profundity. Here and throughout the novel, Jacobs ignores the orthodox boundary betweeen reality and fantasy. The result is a delightful and engrossing madness that makes "American Goliath" a brilliant tour de comic force. And, best of all, Jacobs is a talented storyteller, making his novel a pleasure to discover.