Cloudsplitter (1998)

An embroidered history of john brown the abolitionist. Details the impact a single fanatic can have on a family, town and country ( )

I was torn between this rating and four stars, because I found Banks' writing - as always - simply wonderful. But wow, this book was SO long. I think it could have used some editing, especially since there's relatively little action or dialog. And yet, it kept me going so I can't say I was bored. And it really sparked my interest in John Brown and the whole history of the U.S. preceding the Civil War. ( )

This is a huge (750p) fictional novel written about the Brown family and John Brown, the abolitionist, from the viewpoint of his third son Owen Brown. It is a study in personality and the slippery slope from religious fanaticism to terror and homicide in the name of anti-slave rebellion. Written somewhat as a memoir of Owen Brown, the only surviving Brown, the book is well written and philosophically rich. From the Kansas uprising to Harper's Ferry, the pace is good and the book is hard to put down. Banks did a great deal of research on the novel, but he also repeatedly asserts that it is a fictional account leading to one of the great events in U.S. history. ( )

I had never really known much about John Brown until I read this book. It's a thick book but a quick read. ( )

What I expected from Cloudsplitter was historical fiction about the famous abolitionist, John Brown. What I found was a masterful exploration of the relationship between two men, an extraordinary father and his ambivalent son, and their unrelenting struggles - within themselves, with each other, and with a nation that allows the enslavement of human beings.

Cloudsplitter is narrated by John Brown’s third son, Owen, who chronicles his life with his famous father for a biographical researcher. In an Author’s Note, Banks emphasizes that this novel is “a work of the imagination” and “should be read solely as a work of fiction, not as a version or interpretation of history”. Although following the main historical threads of John Brown’s life and anti-slavery activities, there are moments of divergence from fact and much added that is speculative and pure invention. But this seems largely irrelevant to Banks’ broader purpose.

John Brown is a complex figure whose single-minded opposition to slavery is both driven and marred by contradictions. Married twice and fathering twenty children, only eleven of whom survive to adulthood, Brown is devoted to his family, but extreme in his expectations of them.

Compared to the rest of us, no matter how hotly burned our individual flame, Father’s was a conflagration. He burned and burned, ceaselessly, it seemed, and though we were sometimes scorched by his flame, we were seldom warmed by it.

Highly religious, Brown imposes his own interpretation of God’s will in a harsh and severe manner. While intolerant of those who do not meet his strict Christian standards, his own version of faith inexplicably justifies the use of violence to advance his abolitionist cause. Historians have long debated whether John Brown was insane or simply a religious fanatic, a terrorist or a hero. But regardless, at the core of his character is a massive egotism that drives his failed ambition to amass great wealth and ultimately leads him to sacrifice his family and martyr himself to his abolitionist cause.

By comparison, Owen Brown is plagued by doubts. He lacks the unquestioning religious faith of his father and exhibits a rebellious temperament, driven by a desire to find a place and purpose in life that is missing for him. Despite these conflicting emotions, Owen is unable to separate from his father, eventually embracing his fanaticism and becoming his closest advisor and co-conspirator in their final acts of battle. Yet he secretly bears the guilt and responsibility for the accidental death of a freed slave and friend, and carries the crushing knowledge that he is himself not without prejudice and bigotry. And of all the family members, it is Owen that is most aware that his father is flawed, and not the prophet that his followers believe him to be.

They all thought me shy, inarticulate, perhaps not as intelligent as they, as they always had anyhow, and they were not wrong. But that did not mean that I did not know the truth about Father and why he did the great, good things and the bad, and why so much of what he did was, at bottom, horrendous, shocking, was wholly evil.

The storyline focuses on the decades prior to the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, exploring in-depth the development of John Brown’s abolitionist rage while only tangentially addressing the historical significance of this seminal event and its aftermath. Intricately plotted, the narrative follows the Browns through years of harsh conditions and hard work, marked by births and deaths. The family’s 1850 move to North Elba in the Adirondack Mountains is a turning point in their lives - a time of active participation in transporting runaway slaves to safety across the Canadian border, while evading slave-catchers and federal authorities. John and Owen Brown travel extensively during subsequent years, both for business purposes and to seek the support of wealthy abolitionists. During one such trip to Boston, Owen’s sense of faith and purpose are ignited by the excitement of danger and he is “brushed by an angel of the Lord”. His father’s resolve for militant action is strengthened by what he sees as the passivity of Boston’s prominent abolitionists and he develops elaborate plans to establish Kansas as a slavery-free state and to cause the collapse of Virginia’s economy by promoting an armed insurrection of slaves. But in the end, John Brown commits and condones horrific and wholly unnecessary acts of violence, culminating in a failed, armed attack on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry.

Russell Banks has a gift for creating multi-dimensional characters and placing them in real settings and situations. In Cloudsplitter, he reveals the complexities and contradictions inherent in the story of John Brown, while touching on important questions regarding the nature of faith, family, and the ways in which we are enslaved by our beliefs and ambitions. Banks writes in a voice that is both lyrical and stunning in its realism, using language consistent both with the period and with the religious fanaticism of John Brown. Never straying from Owen’s voice, Banks brings the reader into the mind of his narrator with an intensity that sustained my interest through the more than 750 pages of this incredible novel. ( )