Land Ho!

Poesy

I believe a wise man once said…if you have nothing nice to say, say it in a haiku.  So here goes nothing:

Gosh Ship of Fools, is

long, long, long, long, long, long, long

End Part II, land ho!

Please note the irony of my utilizing the briefest of poetic forms to talk about this longest of novels, SoF.

But a lot has been happening that I thought we should discuss.

Bebe’s Odyssey

I could only imagine the pleased look on your face when Bebe became the connecting thread of all the narratives.  I imagine it was the look that comes across you face when you find yourself with a warm pizza and new season of Perry Mason on DVD.  Then the horrific turn!  Bebe overboard!  And I imagine your countenance changed…is that poop on my pizza?  Why are their episodes of Caroline in the City on Perry Mason DVDs!?

And were you as surprised as me that the character who lost his life to save Bebe was a character who had not been mentioned in the first 300 pages of the book?  I was on the edge of my seat…which character jumped overboard to save the dog?  (My money was on Freytag)  And then the announcement… it was Etchegaray.  Who?  Can you just make a major plot point happen to a character that you introduce on page 320?

Then and I think this is ironic (I’m never sure)…but Porter seems to chide her characters for only caring about this man after he sacrifices his life to save the Huttens’ dog…but she didn’t care enough about him to give him any sort of backstory or even mention him until that point either.

So I was  a little frustrated, but mostly I’ve gotten over it.

If the Ship is a rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’

Turn away if you’re embarassed by shockingly awkward love scenes…I’m pulling out a new favorite quote:

They began to fumble awkwardly at the more obstructive articles of each other’s clothing as if they meant to tear each other apart, and slumped over in a head and grappled together like frogs [nothing says romance like frogs!].  After inordinately prolonged labors, floundering, groaning, grunting and rolling in a savage wrestling match, they collapsed melted together into nerveless quivering and long moans of agonized pleasure; then lay joined for a plesureable time in a triumphant glow of exhaustion, their marriage mended almost as good as new, their feelings fresh and purified.

Um…what just happened here?  Oh to be a fly on the porthole in the Hutten cabin…and in front of Bebe and everything.

On to part 3!

Jon