Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Both the Real Thing and A Merciless Parody, 1 Feb 2007
"Wright's title refers to a racist editorial cartoon of the period, which depicted "an amalgamation polka," where whites and blacks dance together in genteel costumes. This was meant to suggest, one presumes, that other mutually enjoyable physical activities might occur between the races later in the evening. Race mixing was the great shibboleth of slavery advocates and segregationists from the dawn of American history almost to our own time and many of the characters in Wright's novel are obsessed with it." Andrew O'Hehir
Stephen Wright is one of my favorite authors. I was introduced to him by my best friend who recommended his book "Going Native". I read this book in almost one sitting ten months ago but left the last chapter until now. I wanted to be able to leave the last chapter for a time when I needed solace and understanding. Who else will tell you that our country is screwed, always has been and always will be. Who else, as in most of his novels, infers that this 'is both the real thing and a merciless parody'? And, who else writes such marvelous prose? Exactly, maybe no one.
Liberty Fish, yes that is his real name, grows up in a house used as a station on the Underground Railroad, but his mother was raised on a large South Carolina plantation and his father is the son of a Northern industrial family that has profited greatly from the slave trade. Liberty's parents want to destroy the institution that made their families rich, and this perversity runs through the book. When Liberty visits the devastated Redemption Hall, his mother's birthplace, and meets his maternal grandfather, Asa Maury, the old man is a bitter, angry, hardened bigot. Yet, faced with the destruction of slavery, he is facing the racial dilemma, and is trying to solve it. Liberty survives the horrors of war at Antietam. He is taken prisoner by the rebels, then deserts from the Union Army to go find grandfather Asa. There he works with his grandfather to escape the collapsing Confederacy and hijack a ship for Brazil, where slavery remains alive and well. This harkens us back to Liberty's childhood where he is educated by a one-eyed former slave named Euclid, taken carousing by his Uncle Potter and sworn into the secret fraternity of pirates by a strange character Fife. Where does this all take us? That journey, my friend, is for you take.
Stephen Wright may see bloodshed and tumult of the Civil War period as good examples of our American madness. Despite the parody or maybe because of it, Stephen Wright gives us a new vocabulary, 'sheconnery', 'buckra, and 'gallinipers'. Fitting words for the occasion. What do they mean? You decide.
One of the characters, a southern lady sums this book up the best 'This war,'" she says to Liberty, "'this horrible evil war, it's never going to end. You do understand that, don't you? Even after it's over it will continue to go on without the flags and the trumpets and the armies, do you understand?'
There is so much to say about this novel. Stephen Wright may be having as much difficulty as we are in understanding what is happening in our world today, but he is able to articulate his thoughts in remarkable prose. I do not have the words to express the mastery of Stephen Wright's prose,nor will I try. Suffice it to say that he has led Liberty to the conclusion that "Life ... makes mongrels of us all." So Very, Very Highly Recommended.
prisrob 1-25-07
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Fish small fry, 12 Mar 2007
What could have been a Pynchon-esque smorgasbord of language, character and description fitting the top five American writers (living at least) is sadly let down by the total inanity of its protagonist, Liberty Fish. The bland fulcrum around which this story, fresh from the forge of the Amercian Civil War, revolves, Liberty is the son of some vociferous abolitionists, and the grandson of rabid anti-abolitionists. Venturing forth on what could loosely be termed a hero quest in search of some sort of redemption from the bonds of his mother's past, he enlists, fights and deserts the Yankee Unionist cause, to track down his maternal grandparents and exact some sort of reconcilliation or revenge. His motive is weak, his resolve comes as a surprise, and frankly, if he was not the pivotal character, I wouldn't care if he were killed in the first volley of the conflict.
However, it is Wright's immensely accomplished and polished prose that drives this novel. It's an absolute delight to read, and as such, Liberty's continued existence is tolerated, rather than willed. Humour is ubiquitous and well-received, and the depiction of America, cloven as it is, is utterly astounding. One to read for the art of storytelling, and despite the curious lack of depth to Liberty's character, the supporting cast is rendered with comic precision and acute observation.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
"The bearded ladies were dancing in the mud.", 9 Mar 2006
With this opening sentence, the reader knows immediately that this Civil War novel is no Gone With the Wind. Dense, suggestive, and impressionistic in style, it focuses on the Fish family--Thatcher Fish, a traveling preacher and abolitionist from Delphi, New York; his wife Roxana, formerly of Redemption Hall in Charleston, South Carolina; and their son Liberty, around whom most of the action revolves. Dividing the novel into three parts, the author first shows Liberty as a child absorbing his parents' values, sometimes being ostracized by other children, and, in his loneliness, finding comfort with Euclid, an escaped slave who lives in the family's root cellar.Wright is particularly effective in revealing life from the point of view of Liberty, a child whose house is an "enchanted domain," filled with hidden passageways, sliding panels, floor traps, and peepholes, all part of "the train Mother told me about, that runs under the ground." Moving back and forth through Liberty's childhood and that of his mother, the narrative is filled with extravagant descriptions and quirky characters--Uncle Potter, who is always seeking excitement; Ma'am L'Orange, Liberty's mad teacher; Arthur Fife, aged 146, a former pirate who lives in a hole in the ground; Captain Erastus Whelkington of the canal boat Croesus; and Stumpy, the hoggee, a child who keeps the mules moving along the towpath of the Erie Canal. Liberty's enlistment in the Union army when he is sixteen begins the second part of the book, filled with the carnage of battle, the devastating accidents of fate, and the horrors of hand-to-hand combat. Following "Uncle Billy" Sherman, Liberty joins Major Pickles, who travels with his own casket (filled with whiskey). Liberty's discovery of the devastated Redemption Hall and his crazed maternal grandfather constitute the final section of this compelling novel, which achieves additional dramatic strength through the black humor, the pathos, and outrageous behavior of Asa Maury, Liberty's grandfather. Long a practitioner of eugenics, Maury has lost all touch with reality, and the torments he inflicts upon his slaves goes beyond anything one may ever have read before. The energy of author Stephen Wright never flags. A parade of oddball characters engaging in wild episodes constantly entertains the reader, but Wright never lets the humor overshadow his serious themes and his message about the emancipation. His descriptions are brilliant and full of local color, and Liberty's emotional reactions to the physical details around him enhance the mood and intensity of each scene. Though the conclusion is a bit moralistic, the moralizing occurs within the context of some outrageous concluding scenes, which soften the lesson and make it more palatable. Ultimately upbeat, the novel breaks new ground in historical fiction. Mary Whipple
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(3 customer reviews)
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