Customer Reviews

Ship of Fools

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Less a plot-driven novel than a closely observed portrait, Porter's famous novel deftly exploits the author's ability to focus on the telling details of personality--and the result is a sometimes funny, often touching, and ultimately stinging examination of the insularity, hypocrisies, and pretensions of shipboard passengers en route from Mexico to Germany on the eve of World War II.

Porter's cast of characters are primarily German, but a handful of Spanish, Mexican, Swiss, and American characters give the novel an international perspective. Whatever their individual backgrounds, the characters tend to adopt reactionary postures toward and make assumptions about their fellow travelers based on both class and nationality; consequently, they tend to regard each other in a stereotypical light--but even as they fail to understand the truths behind the stereotypes, Porter highlights their lack of comprehension in a frequently comic but extremely disconcerting manner, thus demonstrating that her characters are at sea in more ways than one.

There is obviously a certain symbolism to the novel, but Porter does not belabor it, and we are free to decide if we wish to read for pure pleasure or for deeper meanings. Fortunately, there is an abundance of both. Still, this not a novel to read quickly or casually. It requires time to develop clearly in the mind, so readers are advised to approach it with ample time in which to enjoy this superior work.

I stumbled across this by novel by accident only to discover that this must be one the 10 greatest works of fiction! While a darkish portrayal of the human condition, and man's inability to escape the pettiness of mankind, this is a very clever novel that entertains while thrusting more truth your way than you may be prepared to accept.

Ship Of Fools is a bone chilling account of a world moving into the second world war. Those seeking to get inside the German frame of mind should read this book for it predicts(the book was written before the concentration camps were even discovered)the horrowing images of German hate toward the Jewish Religon. Through all the hate and "Proud German Order" Porter asks us to perform a difficult task; to find love or forever be lost on a ship of fools.

I got into SHIP OF FOOLS back in the day when I was a Deadhead and followed the band around from stadium to stadium. "Ship of Fools" as many know is one of their loveliest ballads and would never fail but put me in a trance. At one bookstore in the Bay Area I spotted lyricist Robert Hunter and I gathered together all my courage to approach him and to tell him how much his lyrics had meant to me and my kind. Somewhat to my surprise he asked me to name one of his songs that I loved. "Ship of Fools," I said. In the years since I have sometimes wondered why I didn't ask about "Row Jimmy" since that is even more puzzling. But anyway Hunter couldn't have been more receptive and even charming. I asked him where he found the inspiration to write "Ship of Fools" and he mentioned the Renaissance or medieval tradition of the ship of fools journeying out into the main without a solid plan and how it's a metaphor for the religious voyage of life. He mentioned other works based on this legend including Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" and finally, Katherine Anne Porter's novel SHIP OF FOOLS, which he said he had read in the 1960s, close to when it came out originally.

SHIP OF FOOLS tells the story of a group of German nationals on a boat from Bremen to the USA, and it is apparently based on a real life voyage. Jews by the boatload were attempting to escape from an atrocious abd repressive regime, and what they did not realize is that the shipboard lifestyle was a microcosm for the pains of the rest of the world. We meet dozens of characters, some more skillfully developed than others, including a young American couple through whose eyes we get to see the whole tragedy unfolding.

There is a tragic romance between a middle-aged countess and the ship's doctor, and a sense of foreboding about the whole voyage. The champagne and the crepe paper and the sparklers are out over the dark Atlantic, but we sense the lights going out all over the world.

Porter worked over thirty years writing this, her only novel, and when it came out it was a commercial success and a Book of the Month Club selection, though in general the critics were disappointed that it did not hit the heights of the short stories that had made her name starting in the 1920s. Some have criticized this book as too slow and too portentous. To me it hits the right note over and over again. There is a movie version of this novel, directed by earnest, plodding Stanley Kramer, but I think if I saw it, it could not begin to compare to my experience of either the novel nor the song. "Now I cannot share thy laughter, ship of fools."

'Ship of Fools' is the kind of novel that makes the whole thing seem easy. It's the kind of novel that makes you wonder how and why so many people have gotten it wrong. Enough with plot buildup, plot developement, plot twists! Katherine Anne Porter knows the truth about plots and it's this: you don't really need them. All you need are a handful of meticulously human characters interacting with each other. Each character seems molded by hand, and each is relatable, lovable, and hatable in their own way, much like the people in our own lives. I really cannot say enough how much I love this book. When you're done with it, check out KAP's short story collection 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider.' She is truly one of our great twentieth century writers, and should be taught in school right next to Hemingway and Fitzgerald, or preferably on top of them.

I'm an avid, dogged reader, and I plowed through Tolstoy's War and Peace at a quicker clip than I managed Porter's Ship of Fools. I love Porter's short stories--I cannot recommend more highly purchasing her collected fiction in paperback--but her talent doesn't translate as well into the long work. Unfortunately, I found the characters in this novel uninteresting, the lack of plot without much underlying substance somewhat tiresome, and the entire book as slowly moving as the ship these characters are traveling on from Mexico to Germany in the 1930s. The writing is good, the observations sharp, but I had trouble engaging with this book and, therefore, found myself reading other things before picking it back up. Ultimately, this is a good book by a good author, but it probably is not worth the effort required to trudge through it.

In 1931 the author herself took part in the voyage depicted in the novel. It lasted for one month and according to herself she didn't exchange half a dozen words with anybody but kept taking notes all the time. Then she let the material rest for ten years, took it up again and worked on the book for about 20 years more - the result has become world literature. Is it still of interest today?

Porter draws a picture of pre-war society, especially of Germany, for it is a German ship bound from Vera Cruz for Bremerhaven and the passengers in the first class are mainly Germans, almost all of them nationalist and anti-Semitic, narrow-minded and arrogant, so that there are lots of reasons for conflicts. Another explosive element is the role-behaviour of men and women of that time. Relentlessly pungent, sometimes desperately comic Porter characterizes gender-typical behaviour of that time. And it becomes clear that her own emancipation experiences lie at bottom, especially in the case of the American Mrs Treadwell. In a grandiose scene the latter beats up the drunk, sexually roused, repulsive Texan Denny with the sharp heel of her sandal. Last, but not least, there lies immense fuel for conflict in the social and religious discrepancies. But even if the satire is no longer of topical interest and sometimes luridly and grotesquely exaggerated, many of the attitudes and ways of behaviour in a somewhat different form have lived on in our times and you always get a universally relevant picture of human society. For, firstly, apart from the Germans there are also other nationalities, other social classes present - indeed you have a downright political and social microcosm -, and, secondly, the passengers in spite of often being drawn as caricatures are always recognizable as human beings by being mixed characters who are in most cases also suffering from their own shortcomings. The only Jewish passenger on board (Löwenthal), by the way, is presented as an especially repellent character equalling his opponents in arrogance and contempt.

The vital element in the book is the realistic, caustic style of the author revealing her attitude of profound disillusionment. What is especially admirable is how she can put herself into men's shoes and see the world from their points of view. Doing so she oscillates between the points of view of the omniscient author, reported speech or interior monologue, and the protagonists comment and characterize each other permanently so that the reader gets into a superior position wondering : Why is there almost never any real communication possible? Must every society be like that? What should/could/must be different?

I'm a pretty untiring reader, as long as I have faith I'm in competent hands, but I gave this book up at page 160, which was enough of an investment to convince me that Porter was lost, lost, lost. I'm an admirer of her short stories, but all she's done in this larger form is expand the cast of characters, forgetting to give them anything to do. The characters are really only cartoons, which Porter seems aware of, since she doggedly gives us paragraphs and pages of analysis for most of them. But in a novel, characters define themselves by what they do, not by what they think about themselves, or what their creator thinks of them. The sheer number of them just hanging around listlessly becomes so unwieldly for Porter that you feel sorry for her -- you can almost hear her thinking, "Wait, what about So-and-so, we haven't seen him come out of him cabin lately, maybe I'll have him get drunk and make a scene."

I love this book and have read it a few times....that's why I give it 5 stars. I give amazon 1 star because they show a cover and send you a different cover. I want the blue cover and they send the stupid red cover with flowers on it. I have no idea why they advertise one thing and send you a different thing.

...but I abandoned ship halfway through. After enjoying the movie, and reading the great praise for author Porter, I assumed I'd enjoy diving into this good, long read. What I discovered was a rambling and excrutiating book...droning characterization page after page until I could no longer concentrate on the essentially non-existent plot.

I assume this is strictly for fans of Porter, who was a master at short story telling. She should have stuck to it. Anyone expecting a "Grand Hotel" or Maugham like saga will be sorely disappointed.