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The 48 first-class passengers and the 900 Spaniards in steerage on a passenger-freighter crossing from Mexico to Germany in 1931 are traveling on a voyage of life.
A German ship, loaded with deported sugar cane workers from Cuba, a supposedly anarchist Condesa from Cuba, medical students from the closed university in Havana, a Troup of zarzuela dancers doubling as pimps and sex workers, and various travelers from Mexico leaves Veracruz for Bremerhaven in 1931. Everybody hates Jews and, for the most part, each other. They're at each other's throats night and day, and it's most delicious to read. ( )
Jenny glanced around and said, “Everybody looks tired. It’s just the same as we were in Veracruz, or in Havana. We all remember we’re strangers and don’t like each other. We’re all on our way somewhere else and we’ll be glad to see the last of each other. God, I’d hate to think I’d ever get even a postcard from anybody on this ship again, as long as I live!”
And, that, my friends, is precisely how I felt about this book. I despised every single passenger, not a sympathetic human being among them; there was nothing that really resembled a plot; and it was at least twice as long as was necessary, due to constant repetition.
I tried reading this many years back and abandoned it before I had given it any real chance. It was a finalist for the National Book Award. I assumed the problem was mine. Having now read all 500 pages, I had it right the first time. ( )
This book was loaded with narrow-minded fools. It took two world wars and still the hate and prejudice following the second of those conflicts was rampant enough to create battle zones around the world in its aftermath (Korea, VietNam, etc.). The writing reminded me of a German novelist such as Thomas Mann, but a bit more lucid. Finished 09.06.2020 at the NR. ( )
KAP's novel can be a bit of a struggle at times. It certainly never comes close to the vividness of her short stories. In fact, the latter often pierce through the pages with a sort of bright luminosity, the prose burning its way into the imagination. With Ship of Fools, you simply want the voyage to be over and done with. At least at times. There was a movie based on this that fared no better, alas. ( )
For Barbara Wescott, 1932: Paris, Rambouillet, Davosplatz, Salzburg, Munich, New York, Mulhocaway, Rosemont :1962
First words
August, 1931 - The port town of Veracruz is a little purgatory between land and sea for the traveler, but the people who live there are very fond of themselves and the town they have helped to make.
Quotations
Last words
Among them, a gangling young boy, who looked as if he had never had enough to eat in his life, nor a kind word from anybody, and did not know what he was going to do next, stared with blinded eyes, his mouth quivering while he shook the spit out of his trumpet, repeating to himself just above a whisper, "Gruss Gott, Gruss Gott," as if the town were a human being, a good and dear trusted friend who had come a long way to welcome him.
The 48 first-class passengers and the 900 Spaniards in steerage on a passenger-freighter crossing from Mexico to Germany in 1931 are traveling on a voyage of life.
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