. Spinning .

Gawd, I must be the slowest reader in the literary field and close reading has only added to my time spent on a novel.

Overall, I enjoyed Matthew Sharpe’s Jamestown.  The writing in this particular book did not strike me as phenomenally lyrical or skilled, and yet the very process of writing a story from so many different voices and points of view of the major (and many minor) characters was perhaps a brilliant way of not only revealing the progress of plot, but of reinforcing the theme that mankind all too often cannot change its nature.

The ending was for me a downer.  Sarcastic hope of Pochantas’ kind is gone and yet replaced by a springing back and simple will to survive.  This is in contrast with much of the voiced feelings of the characters, such as Johnny Rolfe and Jack Smith who tell us that they don’t care much one way or another. They change–or at least, they don’t but we see their real intentions so they change for the reader.  That life goes on–unchanging–is what I brought out of this.

After reading several apocalyptic novels recently, I truly wonder what life after a disaster would become.  Unfortunately it does look like these stories are more realistic than my hopes.

Quite an interesting ending, but I have to think on it some more. I see apathy and I see human nature, and yet I see a spark of hope in that the name of the game is mere survival after all.

More tomorrow.

Although I suppose the entire story is metaphor for the way society is going to hell in a handbasket, Sharpe doesn’t seem to use a lot of metaphor–or else it’s beyond the scope of my intelligence to catch.  But this one is kind of neat:

"Get the hell away from me, you lump of foul deformity," she says quietly.  He does not answer her in words, but through the black cloth of grief that enshrouds her thighs, he tries to nuzzle them with his asymmetrically positioned wooden antlers, two end of a stick that’s displaced a slender stick-shaped horizontal column of his brain, a stick whose effects on that singular organ can be seen, I think, all over this room.  (p. 305)

This is Pocahontas’ description of Penelope Ratcliffe, whose son John was killed in VA, and who’s first and second husbands have just been killed by Martin, whom she addresses here.  Now Martin’s in rough shape himself.  He is legless after a battle and he’s survived with an arrow through his brain–left in as we all know that to dislodge it would surely cause his death. To carry that further, it may be construed to mean that the concept of war, the arrow, will never be removed from human nature.

Pocahontas–whose common sense philosophy and view of life has gotten to me–says: "…a stick whose effects on that singular organ can be seen, I think, all over this room."  While she is on the surface referring to the effects of the arrow on Martin’s brain and his subsequent murdering of the two leaders, I believe Sharpe’s reference is more global.  The arrow–a symbol of war and fighting–has the effect on the mind of mankind and always will lead to death and devastation.

Nice.

There’s some good stuff here and I think you need to be in the frame of mind to read and catch it.  Johnny Rolfe and Pocahontas are finally text-messaging and it brings in yet another form of communicating story that Sharpe uses skillfully. 

Here Johnny is telling Pocahontas about the meeting of the group in a wary celebration:

So I would caution you as a fledgling director of environmental theater to be aware of how much more interactive a performance can get than you might have intended when your audience is a group of frightened, half-starved travelers from a land where parody is chiefly used to wound and kill.  And I know you were dressed–or not dressed–to look like the men of your town, but beautiful, topless girls running a circle around a group of love-starved men will cause the sort of open-mouthed, drool-lipped catatonia you witnessed, followed by the violent open-armed lunges at you my guys made. (p. 212)

Johnny is so proper; his attempts at conversation are attempts at eloquence.  This to a girl who is as open and blunt with her own language, though it may be that he sees her cunning and intelligence.  A bit later, he reveals his own outlook on mankind:

Nothing since the start of time has stopped men from killing each other.  Art, though sometimes nice, has always been perfectly useless against war.  (p. 213)

Is the violence we see not only of one tribe towards another, but within the groups as the carelessly shoot, punch, beat each other without regret a statement that this one trait remains strongest and endures?  Surely this focus on the hope of young love based on the original tale of Jamestown is also a statement of what survives in lesser degree in times of horror and devastation, but will eventually grow to overcome whatever was done in the name of survival.

Here I was, thinking that overall, Sharpe’s prose wasn’t anything to write home about when I came across some use of language that set imagery in mind that may emulate Cormac McCarthy’s often blunt and emotionless images when it comes to human nature.

I put Martin in the driver’s seat, sat next to him, and made him back the car up from the tree they’d run into.  While pressing my thumb into Martin’s newest wound I aimed the gun at Ratcliffe and told him to stand up, unload the corn, and bring it to the mess.

"I told you, I was just in a car crash and my head is killing me."  I shot at the dirt in front of his feet to make it spring up and hit him in the eyes. He got up and came toward the car with a sad look as if I’d said the kittens his cat had just given birth to weren’t cute.  (p. 174)

That’s rather amusingly cold; amusing since these guys are on the same team.  The backstabbing and physical wounding of each other is taken in stride.  (Here I reflect on 78 year-old Angel Torres and I shiver.)  Then Sharpe leads us into the simile of kittens and as we hold our breath, he surprises us with a rather mellow one.

And here’s a more creative description, given by John Smith on the naming of the settlement as Jamestown:

While I was gone they’d named this place Jamestown after our CEO.  That they dared make town of this wet and sucking thing that vied with my foot for my boot at every step bespoke the glorious and yearning bullshit of men’s souls.  (p. 176)

The tone is one of underlying dark humor, a sardonic and sarcastic attempt to create a place that the mind has been stretched to accept.

Of course, natural resources are at a premium, but in these "after the day the earth…" novels, I’m always curious as to exactly what happened that could devastate the ground and animals yet leave people to survive. 

"Good.  We’re running out of trees.  Ninety-eight percent of Central Park is denuded and the other two percent is under armed guard.  Have Chris hack down trees and send them up.  And he should set up a small glass manufacturing plant."  (p. 166)

Curious. Also curious was the ‘poetry’ between Penelope Ratcliffe and Jim, back in their Manhattan bedroom.