A ship of the North German Lloyd puts on 22 Vera Cruz from August 1931 to take over Cuba and the Canary Islands to Bremerhaven. On board the differences could not be greater. On the upper deck while enjoying a hundred passengers an incredible luxury, on the lower deck 800 English migrants are crowded, which can be returned to Spain and thus transported into poverty and hopelessness. In addition, still inhabit the team and the inhuman German captain the ship.
What happens at this nearly month-long trip on board has not the slightest with the romance of a dream boat to do, not even on the upper deck. Instead, begin a series of intrigues and lies, driven by greed and self-pity. Hostilities arise, anti-Semitic sentiments and the superiority of Germans thought burst forth, the arrogance of the rich to the poor comes to light freely. This will increase down to the hatred against the poor, who sell at least one, prefer to avoid but by the same population policy or destroyed by eugenics. The role of women in society and political persecution are issues that society novel. Fascinated
me how I was captivated by a book whose characters almost are consistently unsympathetic. The full range of human behavior, especially human abyss exists.
This range is reflected in the number of people involved. I was certainly very grateful for the novel prefixed extensive Directory. So I could easily distinguish the characters.
To name a few: Elsa, a pubescent, like every adolescent is dissatisfied with their bodies, the hunchback Mr. Bell, a Jewish factory owner Lowenthal, who is drawn as unappealing as it is today expected to do in any case, a American artist couple who constantly move between love and hate and fro, the German couple Hutten, which treats its bulldog Bebe as a child, the dying Willi Graf, who exploited his nephew, the ship's surgeon, Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with a drug-addicted aristocrat, the English music and theater group the escalation of conflicts on board cheerfully contribute.
For all the hatred that accumulates during the crossing when the actor will break, at the end vehemently rail.
twenty years, Katherine Anne Porter in this great novel written, and their efforts paid off. The result is a masterpiece, set in the same league as "The Magic Mountain". As with the "Magic Mountain", we have to do here with a situation of isolation, which brings together different social classes in a small space, and here the action takes place shortly before a world war.
that Katherine Anne Porter for writing this work, has taken the world literature so long, will probably be because she as a woman, unfortunately, had no wife, her freeing up the back so they can write in peace. Men had and still have it better off.
This simply magnificent book has found its place of honor on my favorite book shelf.
Katherine Anne Porter: Ship of Fools . ISBN 9783717522201, hardcover, 500 pages, published on 01.09.2010 at Manesse
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