A big, magnificent book with passages of prose that will make your head spin, also overblown, meandering, brilliant in its enthusiasm for detail, maddeningly slow in developing, always careful in chronicling the minutiae of life on St. Catherine, a made-up Caribbean island. And, oh yeah, there's some kind of political conspiracy and a few spicy things happen toward the end, but the real joy of this book is in the first 200 pages or so as Shacochis takes his sweet time creating and wandering the byways of his little backwater republic. Every scene is woven with tremendous care. Not the book of a lazy writer, or one for lazy readers. It requires patience, and in the end doesn't fully reward that patience from a plot standpoint. On the other hand, the more important, dominant hand: I can't say enough about how impressive the writing is. The dialogue, the prodigious description, even the flights of emotional abstraction, all of it comes out pitch-perfect. By the end the book can wear you down with its sheer girth, leaving you unable to sustain the attention it merits, but take that as a challenge. It's worth getting through.Incidentally, the opening scene (Isaac and Mitchell on their way to the airport) is one of the best I've ever read. Brilliantly conceived from a craft standpoint, giving him the perfect vehicle (pun intended, I suppose) to deliver crucial exposition, and also tremendous fun to read.
A dizzying account of what the author calls "good intentions" and their effect on the complex developing world. It is in many ways a story of naiveté of which many of us are guilty, myself included. The writing is beautiful and complex and savage, capturing the energy of human thought in its ceaseless activity. I loved this book, which is probably clear by now, and I encourage especially the expat community to take a look at it. I already want to read it again even though I just closed the back cover. The story is layered and thick and not explicitly stated in cut and dry language. I had the feeling I needed to draw my own conclusions about certain topics and events. Alright, I've rambled on enough. Can't wait to read my next Bob Shacochis masterpiece.
Do You like book Swimming In The Volcano (2004)?
The writing was brilliant prose, but I didn't care for the subject of the book. Sacochis is brilliant but needs a better topic - character development superb, details in the imaginary setting incredible, but the subject just made me feel like I was reading porn because there was nothing else of substance except for random drunken-high insights into the meaning of life which were out of place and just strange in greater context.If you have time to read this slowly and appreciate word choice and such literary devices, go for it, but if not then give it to someone who does. I had a limited amount of time to read it and so it was a somewhat painful read and sadly, I am glad it didn't win the 1993 National Book Award.
—Marina
