Customer Reviews

Continental Drift (Perennial Classics)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is Banks' finest novel.

Bob Dubois, is a powerful and well developed protagonist; a blue-collar worker in snowy New Hampshire who tries to escape the hopelessness of his dead-end existence and fizzling marriage by traveling south to Florida. But Bob loses control of his situation, and his predestined path is dictated by forces outside of his control, just as plate tectonics dictates the drift of our wayward continents.

Dubois is a beautifully written character. He's a moral man who tries to do the right thing, and in the end it's his morality that brings the tragedy to its conclusion. On the other side of this collision course are two Hatian immigrants with which Bob shares everything and nothing. Banks once again shows his knowledge of Caribbean cultures - a reoccurring theme in his novels.

Love, sex, desperation, hope, good vs. evil, racism, free-will versus destiny, these are all elements interwoven into a tightly written story. An excellent novel.

Truly a great book of the past few decades. Continental Drift parallels the lives of two individuals co-existing in North America. The main character, Bob Dubois, is a mediciocre, who flees his drab life in New Hampshire for the riches of Florida. In the process, Banks comments on racism, sex and materialism. In contrast, is the tragic story of a young Haitian woman seeking the American dream. Bob Dubois is a ghost of man morally; adrift in a society that rewards greed, consumerism and de-emphasizes love and committment. The Haitian story reflects on poverty and the moral bankrupcy it extracts. Russell Banks is one of our best writers today. Don't miss this book.

This was one of the best books I've ever read. I learned alot from this book,alot about my own life and the lives of the people around me.Russell Banks hits quite a few nerves in his depiction of the American Dream and all the trappings of our overly materialistic,shallow lives. Banks beautifully blends two seperate lives on a collision course with destiny.Human nature at its best and its worst.Everyone should be able to identify with the main character Bob Dubois, a tragic figure who doesnt know who he is or what he wants.Life just happens to him. On the other side is Vanise Dorsinville and her nephew Claude two poor Haitians who seek a new life in America.The misery they endure will haunt you.Banks' knowledge of the Haitian culture was phenominal.What a remarkable book!

This book was suggested to me by a professor (Preston Allen, author of the fine novel Hoochie Mama), whose opinion I respect very much; and thus, I continued reading even when I felt overwhelmed with emotion and was ultimately rewarded with a story that is really two stories. Mr. Banks is perhaps the finest writer I have ever read, his prose refined to the point of being almost too self-conscious. He is a master at making the reader FEEL for his characters. So I followed the main character from the Northeast to Miami, as he fled his boring life and found himself in more trouble than he knew was possible. That first story, surface story, works because of rich writing and some semblance of plot. As a Haitian American, I had a serious problem with the second main story (especially because of Banks' fine style), Claude and Vanise's story. I wept. It was fiction, but I wept. I remembered how I came here as a small boy. I remembered what happened to my mother, but I won't go into that. And I was angry because Mr. Banks is not Haitian. I kept waiting for him to get it wrong--there were some stereotypical things, but they were minor. This is the story I kept wishing someone would write. Both Haitians and Cubans see Miami as a haven from poverty and political oppression in their countries, but America usually sees only the Cubans as deserving of refuge. I am still a bit bothered that Banks is not Haitian, but for selfish reasons I wish every American would read this book. I number it among my favorites of all time.

Continental Drift is a difficult book. Emotionally astute and patient in its details, it drives us through the grim particulars of lives in migration. These characters travel with poorly imagined maps and limited scope of expectation, and we (with the benefit of an aerial perspective) see their mistakes and imminent misfortunes long before they do. The book succeeds because its grimness is redeemed at the story's beginning and its end. Early in the book Banks claims that human migration is an effort to mimic larger forces, and therefore it is heroic. Then, after the trials of the migration--when you're weeping for the misfotune of characters you've gotten to know quite well and asking "why didn't they just stay home?"--Banks steps outside of his long story once more. In this epilogue he refers to the celebration and grief that accompany the close of a book and he hopes that, through caring for the lives of his characters, the greed and distrust that makes it so difficult for us to move amongst each other will be weakened.

Russell Banks' CONTINENTAL DRIFT, published in 1985, is not an easy read and not a pretty one at that; however, it is a powerful, disturbing, thought-provoking look at the death of 'The American Dream' as experienced by two entirely different protagonists from entirely different worlds. We have married, philandering, blue-collar Bob DuBois, who is dissatisfied with his dull, boring, overly routine life in frigid New Hampshire who finally decides to take his seemingly happy and successful older brother's offer to come work for him in sunny, warm Florida. It becomes a a never-ending series of nightmares for him and his family---but mostly for him. At the same time, we have intelligent, unselfish, thoughtful but dirt-poor Haitian emigre Vanise Dorsinville, who decides to try and escape her seemingly hopeless homeland with her infant son and 13-year-old nephew Claude---and run into a series of nightmares of their own.

I have just reviewed the classic 1980's Tom Wolfe novel THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, which is a hilariously scathing social commentary of The Greed Decade that follows four separate tracks, one for each protagonist, until they all come together in the second half of the book. CONTINENTAL DRIFT follows just two tracks; however, it is a much more difficult read that requires a lot more patience. It is not the compulsive page-turner that BONFIRE is. One reason is the decidedly dark tone of Banks' story; it is a lament, not a satire. Also, it is written in two distinctly different styles: it alternates between standard modern American prose, when following Bob's life, and an English-language version of Haitian prose which is rich with that island nation's odd mixture of French-derived Catholicism and African-originated voodoo. This jarring contrast in tones is at first puzzling on the initial read; however, I found that over time I gradually got used to it. As I said, this is a story that requires a lot of patience, and goes through its plot revelations and permutations slowly. There is lots of background and exposition, particularly on the Haitian side of things, showing that Banks obviously has fully researched, studied and understands the Haitian culture. However, for those readers who do not particularly care for this area of knowledge, the book will really drag, perhaps past the point of patience. At over 435 pages, this book is not a quick read by any means.

I first came across CONTINENTAL DRIFT back in college; it was originally assigned to us as part of the reading list in an American Studies class I took in 1988, one that was taught by a 40-something ex-hippy-ish professor who made the class very interesting. Our theme for the semester was The Myth of Rebirth in American Culture. Our reading list included Henry David Thoreau's WALDEN, James Dickey's DELIVERANCE, Abraham Cahan's YEKL...and thhis book. By the end of the semester, we had run out of time to cover CONTINENTAL DRIFT; however, my professor had strongly urged us to read this book on our own time. Well, five years later, in 1993, I finally did!

CONTINENTAL DRIFT, as with any good work of art, is open to many different interpretations. I take it pretty much as the exposure of 'The American Dream' as one that is a complete myth and fantasy for most people. It is the Golden Ring which is out of reach for most of us, even if we do work hard. That's not to say that it is completely unattainable for anyone; certainly there have been many rags-to-riches success stories in the good ol' US of A. However, let's face facts: just about everyobdy growing up in this country of ours has been promised a bill of goods at some point in our lives, that they would make out better than their parents' generations, etc. etc., blah, blah, blah---and for most of us, now struggling with massive, unprecedented credit card debt which which *most* of our parents never had to deal, this bill of goods has come up unsatisfyingly short in reality. This is what I personally take as the crux of this novel. Your interpretation may vary.

I like the fact that, right up front, we know that the story covers the last year-and-a-half of Bob DuBois' life. We know for certain that he will die, when he will die, and where he will die (On a rain-soaked night in Miami). The adventure is to find out on he came to go from Point A to Point B. Overall, I think this book is successful because now, after almost a dozen years since I had read it, I still remember most of what happens; it obviously made a big impression on me. Just a warning: it is not for the faint-of-heart, and is so graphic in certain scenes that I doubt if it will ever be adapted to the big screen (as Russell Banks' later works AFFLICTION and THE SWEET HEREAFTER have been). But for now, you can just read it and make up your own mind as to whether or not you liked it, and as to what it all means for you.

RECOMMENDED, AGES 18 & UP

It is easy to imagine that there are real-life Bob Dubois and Vanise Dorsenville and people with blind ambitions and aspirations close to what we find in the characters from this well-written book. They live in noncontiguous places and have disparate backgrounds and experiences. However, their search for better lives brings them together in a brief but crucial intersection that may change them forever, sometimes with fatal consequences. One unnerving aspect of the novel is the "leave it to fate" mantra that both main characters live by. One man's fate is driven by his brother and his best friend who promise big bucks and fun in the sun; the woman's fate is determined by the loas, Papa Legba, and other figures of her country's folklore. It is a psychological trip to the man's mind that seems to be an endless battle between dependency and self-reliance. We do not quite know what the woman thinks other than what seems to be clouded by a deep faith in supernatural forces and reliance on collective "soul-searching" rituals. In the end, these disparate lives meet at a juncture that is so moving and tragic. Indeed we are all passengers of one planet. If we let our dreams have their way on us, we enrich our lives and who knows whose lives from whence we will encounter and may bring results unanticipated!

As a twentysomething reader, I found Bob Dubois' story both a beautiful American tragedy and a poignant, pointed warning. Banks draws a painstaking picture of dream-saturated, lower middle class Americana, its relation to other peoples, and its similarity to the shifting planet itself. Neither hero nor anti-hero, Dubois' lack of control over the world, indeed over his own life, invokes both awe and pity.

I have always enjoyed the writing of Russell Banks, particularly the way he deals with morality within the context of trying circumstances. Bob Dubois is a classic tragic figure, unable to effectively control his own destiny; constantly at the mercy of others and unable to love or be loved. Whenever he has a moral choice, he weakens and destroys the only thing of any worth; his humanity. His pain is so palpable, that reading the book is physically exhausting. Banks is bent on illustrating the consequences of a life not well lived. This book confirms his genius.

I have always found Russell Banks' writing to be more affecting than it seems like it should; to have more hefty than his straight ahead, sometimes colorless narrative style would imply. This weighty meaning is often right up front in the powerful stories he tells of people trying to carve a small piece of the good life out of rotten husk of the bad lives they are mired in. This is true of Affliction, Sweet Hereafter, Cloudsplitter, and Rule of Bone, but none more than Continental Drift, his best book.

Why do people refuse to except the lot they are given? Why do they continue to pursue counterproductive, desperate measures-- like uprooting a family and moving across the country on little more than a whim, or taking a perilous boat ride to a promised, and unlikely prosperity-- on the off chance that somehow this sacrifice will deliver them the life of happiness they have always dreamed about? They do so because individuals and society as a whole have lost their moorings, and Banks explicitly describes the dissatisfaction with modernity, at the individual and societal level, during the searing epilogue. Though Banks does leave us with a vision of hope for the power of empathy, he does not have many positive things to say about the world as it is.


...even though the Haitians keep on coming, and many
Of them are drowned, brutalized, cheated and exploited,
and where they come from remains worse than where
they are going to; and even though the men in three-piece
suits behind the desks in the banks grow fatter and more
secure and skillful in their work; and even though young
Americans men and women without money, with trades
instead of professions, go on breaking their lives trying
to bend them around the wheel of commerce, dreaming
that when the wheel turns, they will come rising up from
the ground like televised gods making a brief special
appearance here on earth, nothing like it before or since,
such utter transcendence that any awful sacrifice is justified.
The world as it is goes on being itself.