Ship of Fools: A Novel

This is one of the best novels I’ve read. Almost every page contains a jewel of English expression. The freshness and vigour of its cynicism reminded me of Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night, but while his book retreats into the narrator’s inner world, Porter’s work is a study of clashing personalities. It’s also deeply compassionate, without a speck of sentimentality. It is 1931. The initial setting, Mexico’s “pestilential” port town of Veracruz, introduces the themes of social class, rage, inertia and ennui. One brief scene covers the antics of three pets, a monkey, cat and parrot, foreshadowing the further theme of confinement and of a shared suffering that begets no fellow-feeling. Then we set off on a mediocre German vessel carrying passengers and cargo from Mexico to Europe, pressing together different people of very different backgrounds, lifestyles and personalities. The ship and its journey provide the framework for the story. There are so many characters in play that the author provides a list of them; they are linked up like dominoes by fragile romances, antipathies, and shared cabins. Overseeing all is the German captain, a bitter, stunted, snobbish woman-hater, and of course he despises Jews. He is supported by the ageing ship’s doctor, who is a generally decent conservative. Of the passengers, Herr Hutten is a pontificating scholar. His loyal Frau holds him up, while he holds her down; together they dote on their child-replacement bulldog. Even less happy are the Baumgartners. The wife, a subtle piece of work, has drained their boy of all self-confidence. Her husband has sunk into self-destructiveness; she seems to conspire with him to deepen this moral ruin. Also desperately unhappy is Elsa Lutz, teen daughter of a dull Swiss couple. She shares a cabin with the trim, snappy, spunky Jenny, to whom she confides, in baffled anguish, the fact that no boys like her. Jenny offers bland false optimism but inside she “felt an anxious tenderness, as if she had been asked for help she was not able to give. What hope was there for the discouraged young face with its double chin, the crease of fat like a goitre at the base of the throat… And inside, there groped blindly, the young innocence and the longing, the pained confused limited mind, the dark instincts winding upon themselves like snails.” Jenny herself, nervy and restless, is entangled with David, who is dried up and emotionally constipated from his harsh religious upbringing; they torture each other in their joyless relationship, precarious yet endless. Jenny also flirts briefly with the handsome and gentlemanly Wilhelm Freitag, a German of good breeding whose social standing has been almost capsized by marriage to a French Jew, whom he is coming back to collect. David meanwhile shares with the Texan William Denny, obsessed with ladies of trade but unwilling to shell out a cent for sex. Like several other men Denny hangs around the edges of a group of four female Spanish dancers, pimped out by their sinister, wasp-waisted husbands; hanging off the group are the two scary children Ric and Rac. Then there is Herr Reiber, a short fat bald anti-semite with a pig-snout nose, and his girlfriend of sorts, the hysteric Lizzi: tall and gangly, “screaming like a peahen”, in Freitag’s mind a “half-witted rattle”; she “embodied to the last trait and feature everything the Captain found most positively repellent in womankind.” Lizzi shares with the dainty Mrs Treadwell: a 45-year old, attractive but single. Overprotected in childhood then brutalised in marriage, her past has left her vague, reserved and remote, less suited than most to Lizzi. “Perhaps the worst thing about her undesirable cabin mate was the extraordinary vulgarity of her talk about Jews. It cropped up no matter what the topic and gave Mrs Treadwell a creeping chill of distaste”. This is by no means a complete list of characters or themes covered in the novel. Though not a political book, it is of course set against the looming nightmare in Europe. Seen through a modern lens it has much to say about racism and sexism, without being didactic to the slightest degree. As a study of humanity it is unrelentingly skewed toward the cynical, but I found it absolutely hilarious.

i liked jumping from the passengers, sort of like daily life and bumping into different people. Interesting how the author tries to get inside the heads of men and women. Realizing how she started working herself in the pre-equal rights era. Too hard to describe all the characters in this review. Potter certainly covers a variety, a little society for three weeks on a boat sailing from Mexico to Europe. Famous for her short novellas, this took her years to write and pull all the characters together. Can't believe they made a movie from it.

Ship of Fools captures that time, long ago, when being at sea was a necessity. There was no other way to cross oceans and a voyage could take weeks to arrive at a final destination. And because of this need, the types of people that congregated in close quarters on board a ship at sea was diverse. Ship of Fools captures the mood and diversity of passengers at sea during this bygone era. The book's strength resides in the various mind-sets of its eclectic group of passengers. While they come from different backgrounds, different professions, and different places, they all posses that common human trait that becomes readily apparent when diversity is forced upon individuals for prolonged periods of time: pride, in all of its sad manifestations. There is no escaping the foolishness that pride brings to every passenger. Each passenger cannot avoid seeing themselves in the true light of their own beliefs and their actions are consequently foolish to all but the actor (and those of similar minds). Themes of patriotism and xenophobia are explored alongside more typical human faults such as jealousy, envy, and greed. And while Katherine Porter spares her readers from being judged, the personal guilt of the reader is only a thought away from each foolish act. As the book progresses, however, this strength-of-theme also becomes its primary weakness. The effect of capturing the somewhat monotonous mood of weeks upon the ocean served to create a similar outlook for the book itself. It seemed to take weeks for both the voyage and the book to end. Picture: The SS Werra (2), which was to be renamed the Vera by Porter.

Some people write only one book, and one is all they need.To Kill a Mockingbird, Conspiracy of Dunces, and Black Beauty come to mind. The books are so perfect in their completeness that to add another would be wrong. How do you follow perfection? Anything else they write after the one, would be second best. This wonderful book tells the story of the first-class passengers on a German cruise ship, the S. A. Vera, sailing from Veracruz, Mexico, and Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1931. Each passenger and ship's officer is delineated in scrupulous detail. The narrative drifts in and out of each of their lives as the ship slowly moves closer to its destination. Apparently Ms. Porter never learned the rule that one doesn't change point of view in the middle of a paragraph. Virginia Woolf knew it, I'm sure, but chose to disregard it. The book has a claustrophobia feel to it. There is nowhere to go to escape the other passengers. Nowadays cruise ships are behemoths, carrying up to 4,000 passengers. There are many opportunities to avoid an unpleasant fellow passenger. This was not so in 1931. Meals were all taken at the same time with the same table companions. One ran into the same people over and over again while on deck. One learned more that one wanted to know about fellow-passengers. The book is a fascinating exploration of characters from the revolting children Ric and Rac who like to throw things overboard, to the mysterious and engaging Condesa, who rates a compartment all herself. Ms. Porter shows each character with its faults and strengths in loving detail. By the end of the voyage one doesn't want the ship to dock but keep on sailing.

Ein facettenreicher Reise-Roman, die Geschichte einer Seereise und deren so unterschiedlicher Passagiere. Ein Buch, das nie langweilig wird, was bei dem großen Umfang einiges sagen will. Sicherlich ein Buch, dass man auch noch ein zweites Mal lesen kann. Man lernt sehr unterschiedliche Menschen kennen erfährt zudem viel über die Zeit kurz vor der Machtübernahme von Hitler und den Beginn der Judenverfolgungen.

A classic

This is a really well written book that is enjoyable to read. I wholeheartedly recommend it. The characters are well drawn and the story slowly unfolds in an unpredictable and always interesting way. I subsequently watched the film version which to me did not do justice to the subtleties and emotional power of the book.

This is overly long, especially for modern tastes. I found it difficult to sympathise with any of the characters or find interest in any of their thoughts, deeds and mishaps. The novel was written decades after the events but, if it is accurate, shows well the snobbery, conventionality and conformity, and, racism of the time. There are far better novels to read, try one of those!

Classic novel from 1930's. Good insight into people and their prejudices.