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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Aboard a Toxic Tanker, April 22, 2006
Set in 1979, Masiel's second novel takes place on a decaying chemical tanker the length of two football fields, carrying loads of barely contained toxic chemicals across the high seas. The human counterpoint to this broken-down ship is seaman Harold Snow, a 59-year-old Navy vet who has buried toxic memories deep within him, and whose physical health is slowly deteriorating. The shipboard atmosphere simply oozes with tension and nastiness, as it becomes clear from early on that it is crewed under rather dubious circumstances. Besides Snow there is the brutish first mate Bracelin, a rather screwy radio man, a gorgeous and tough young woman, a captain who's kept medicated and out of sight, a pair of Malay wiseacres, a wiry black Vietnam vet, and "the kid". The kid is a young ex-seminarian named George Maciel, who, despite zero seafaring experience, joins the crew outside of San Francisco. It quickly becomes clear that Snow, Bracelin, and one other crewman have essentially stolen the ship and are running some kind of scam involving selling the chemicals in West Africa and pocketing the proceeds.
The story takes them from the West Coast, through the Panama Canal, and across to Sierra Leone. En route they must contend with corrupt customs officers, mighty storms, violent fleahole ports, and a mysterious Australian. The atmosphere is almost universally outstanding. Masiel spent ten years at sea on various working ships, and this comes out in the shipboard details. You can smell the fetid air, and hear the groaning of old metal as the book moves along. Moreover, the quasi-cell block atmosphere of the tanker is evident throughout. However, the story itself gets rather hard to follow and melodramatic at times. One of the major ineffective plotlines is Snow's obsession with the female crew member who represents his one last chance at something beautiful in life. However, the kid (whose name, backstory, and age are all seem to be awfully similar to the author's) immediately changes the dynamics, and the trio become locked in an uncomfortable love triangle which never wholly convinces.
The trip itself becomes increasingly hallucinatory, especially once they reach West Africa and go ashore. The very hazily sketched backstory gives Snow a house in the hills of Liberia, a quasi-family, some manner of powerful contacts, and a buried bag of diamonds. As Snow and his increasingly menacing partner Bracelin drag some of the crew into sketchy bars and up-country where rebels are roaming, it becomes increasingly hard to understand why the others are tagging along, or what the point of it all is. It's very hard not to feel the influence of Heart of Darkness as Snow doggedly pushes them into more and more peril, and desperately holds onto the dream of a big score. As Liberia disintegrates around them in the midst of a coup, they race back to the ship and sea, where they at least understand the ground rules.
When this book sticks to the ship, it's very very good. The weird seamen are great and Masiel writes well about the tasks they must perform to keep the ship afloat. It's also very good on the psychology of the situation, and there are great moments of tension and danger. However, it never really quite comes together into a coherent whole. The African stuff and the love triangle work nearly as well as the rest of it, and the female character seems totally unlikely. Masiel tries hard to create a kind of classic existential thriller around Snow, but it never came together for me. Those with a interest in high-seas action will probably enjoy it, but it's just too awkward for me to recommend to others.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Western Limit of the World...David Masiel is right up there with Conrad and Melvillle, August 7, 2006
"Homer...mapped out a River of Ocean that flowed all around he earth with Olympus at the center. At the western limit lay ... the gateway to the Underworld. Beyond that lay the land of the dead. Snow supposed that you'd cross the river Styx there and pay the ferryman and go right into the Elysian Fields or left into Hades, and that only the fates decided which way you'd go." (p.122)
The Western Limit of the World is the story of Harold Snow, 59, Merchant seaman since WW II (it's now 1979) who is rotting from without and within from a lifetime of shoreside debauches and domestic tragedies and who, beset by guilt and ghosts, is making his last voyage down the west coast of North America, through the Canal and to the west coast of Afica in the rotting hulk of a stolen chemical tanker (a "floating drugstore") where, on the sands of Walvis Bay in Namibia, he pays the ferryman and the fates make their decision. It's a geat sea story, a great adventure novel and a tragedy - in the classical sense of tragedy. It will make a great movie, but it's a lot more than than bait for Hollywood.
Masiel is a seious writer and this is serious literature. He's every bit as good as Conrad when he describes life at sea and better than Conrad at bringing pure evil to the page. Conrad has Kurtz up the river (Heart of Darkness) and Marlow must go up river to find him. Masiel has Kurtz (in the charcter of Braselin,his massive homicidal sociopathic first mate) on nearly every page from the start, and Snow is with evil all the way on this voyage - unrelieved, unmitigated evil. No up the river to find it.
Also Masiel is every bit as good as Melville on the philosophical front. Captain Ahab had his white whale (Moby Dick) and Snow is searching for something, but we're never sure exactly what. Melville is the writer Masiel quotes and Masiel, like Melville, leaves you thinking about things other than the story itself.
Not only does Masiel have an accurate ear for seaman's talk, but he has a talent for character as well - and there are several here whom you will not forget, none of whom you would want to take home to mother. The ship is crewed by misfits (I'll not describe them here, But I hope you will meet them when you read the book.) Two of them deserve mention - Beth, the half-African, half-English AB whom Snow befriends, and Maciel (the younger Masiel himself?) a young ex-seminarian whom comes aboard at San Fancisco bringing with him a whiff of Catholicism and basic decency to the violent atmosphere aboard the Elizbeth. Beth is the only female in the book, Maciel the only hope; and at the end - as with all real tragedy - you are left saddened but hopeful, hopeful that light will shine into the world of Beth and Maciel.
There are a couple of things I could have done without - the trip to Beth's father in Lagos for one and a lot of Snow's stream-of-consciousness. A little bit of that is okay, but Masiel takes it a bit too far. However, there are gems of adventure - a bag of diamonds, a revolt in Liberia, storms at sea, a mysterious man from Lloyds and others. You have to read all this for youself - and wait for the movie. It will be - or should be - a blockbuster!
If I taught English I would have my students write an essay on this novel just to see how many would notice the currents which lie beneath the black and white of the pages of this outstanding novel and which of them would see it as just an adventure story. For me it was the best novel I've read this year. I hope you like it too.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
actuallly 3.5 stars but it is worth reading, November 15, 2006
This book is kind of like his first one. You have a stolen ship, the first book had a stolen tug. You have the old guy, a girl, and a new young guy in a love triangle. You have various nuts, weirdos, and otherwise odd people. In the first book the people were generally likeable and they stole the tug to RESCUE someone. In this book the people range from odd to psychotic killers, they stole a tanker full of toxic chemicals, and people die in various ways in the pursuit of cash. The plot is also much harder to follow. It is never clear exactly how the busines end is supposed to work. The "hero" seems to have been kicked out of Washington State by the Elks Club for having sex with a retarded girl, but the details are not clear. The inland trip in Liberia is not well explained and it is not even remotely clear why anyone else would go with Snow on this dangerous diversion from the task at hand. I live on an island and chemical tankers anchor just offshore from my house. I don't think I will ever look at them the same again! Just a hint - vinyl chloride REALLY would rather be polyvinyl chloride.
READ HIS OTHER BOOK TOO. I gave 2182 KHz 5 stars.
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