Cheap Ship of Fools (Book) (Katherine Ann Porter) Price

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Customer Reviews of Ship of Fools

Porter at sea
I'm a pretty untiring reader, as long as I have faith I'm in competent hands, but I gave this book up at page 160, which was enough of an investment to convince me that Porter was lost, lost, lost. I'm an admirer of her short stories, but all she's done in this larger form is expand the cast of characters, forgetting to give them anything to do. The characters are really only cartoons, which Porter seems aware of, since she doggedly gives us paragraphs and pages of analysis for most of them. But in a novel, characters define themselves by what they do, not by what they think about themselves, or what their creator thinks of them. The sheer number of them just hanging around listlessly becomes so unwieldly for Porter that you feel sorry for her -- you can almost hear her thinking, "Wait, what about So-and-so, we haven't seen him come out of him cabin lately, maybe I'll have him get drunk and make a scene."

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Eminently Re-readable
I just finished Ship of Fools for the second time, and my opinion hasn't changed much: its brilliant. Porter's amazing use of perspective and the diversity of her cast of characters gives the story a richness that far exceeds the potentially sparse plot (a ship goes from Mexico to Germany).

Though some might not like the static nature of both the characters and the story, I felt that Porter struck a perfect balance between telling an entertaining story with interesting, if somewhat extreme players, and illustrating the prevailing ideas, trends, etc. of European (and especially German) society in the interwar period. It worked on every level: as simply a good read, as an illuminating look at the period, and as a number of intertwining character studies.

My only regret, having read this and Ms. Porter's short stories, is that this is the only novel she wrote.

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Closely Observed; A Superior Work
Less a plot-driven novel than a closely observed portrait, Porter's famous novel deftly exploits the author's ability to focus on the telling details of personality--and the result is a sometimes funny, often touching, and ultimately stinging examination of the insularity, hypocrisies, and pretensions of shipboard passengers en route from Mexico to Germany on the eve of World War II.

Porter's cast of characters are primarily German, but a handful of Spanish, Mexican, Swiss, and American characters give the novel an international perspective. Whatever their individual backgrounds, the characters tend to adopt reactionary postures toward and make assumptions about their fellow travelers based on both class and nationality; consequently, they tend to regard each other in a stereotypical light--but even as they fail to understand the truths behind the stereotypes, Porter highlights their lack of comprehension in a frequently comic but extremely disconcerting manner, thus demonstrating that her characters are at sea in more ways than one.

There is obviously a certain symbolism to the novel, but Porter does not belabor it, and we are free to decide if we wish to read for pure pleasure or for deeper meanings. Fortunately, there is an abundance of both. Still, this not a novel to read quickly or casually. It requires time to develop clearly in the mind, so readers are advised to approach it with ample time in which to enjoy this superior work.