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Shadow Country Trilogy #1-3
Shadow Country
Peter Matthiessen’s great American epic–Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone–was conceived as one vast mysterious novel, but because of its length it was originally broken up into three books. In this bold new rendering, Matthiessen has cut nearly a third of the overall text and collapsed the time frame while deepening the insights and motivations of his characters with brilliant rewriting throughout. In Shadow Country, he has marvelously distilled a monumental work, realizing his original vision.
Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.
Shadow Country traverses strange landscapes and frontier hinterlands inhabited by Americans of every provenance and color, including the black and Indian inheritors of the archaic racism that, as Watson’s wife observed, "still casts its shadow over the nation."
Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.
Shadow Country traverses strange landscapes and frontier hinterlands inhabited by Americans of every provenance and color, including the black and Indian inheritors of the archaic racism that, as Watson’s wife observed, "still casts its shadow over the nation."
892 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Peter Matthiessen
127 books837 followersPeter Matthiessen is the author of more than thirty books and the only writer to win the National Book Award for both non-fiction (The Snow Leopard, in two categories, in 1979 and 1980) and fiction (Shadow Country, in 2008). A co-founder of The Paris Review and a world-renowned naturalist, explorer and activist, he died in April 2014.
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September 29, 2018A brutal thriller and a literary wonder. Be advised: this is not a beach read. Book One is all first-person dialect, which as we know slows the reader down. If you can skim it you very well may be some sort of lexical genius.
There’s no rule of law in Ten Thousand Islands, Florida, as the twentieth-century begins. As you would expect in such circumstances, men will misbehave: steal, fornicate, murder et al. The whole of Book One is an indictment of E.J. Watson, a settler among the mangroves, a grower of cane and a serial killer. He’s also a bit of a social charmer when he has to be. He’s a megalomaniac in every sense. For years his murders go unpunished, and his neighbors live in fear of him. I recently read another book about early frontier criminality in America, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, which may be almost perfect, though it’s nonfiction. This is a novel based on a true story. Killer E.J. Watson lived and when there was no rule of law to stop him, the community, after much cowardly vacillation, was forced to take matters into its own hands.
Book One is told in the first-person voices of more than a dozen community and Watson family members, à la William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Matthiessen is a wizard with colloquial speech. Moreover, like Annie Proulx’s Barkskins, the book is a story of environmental rapine. We learn of the destruction of the egret population, for the plumes used in ladies’ hats; the decimation of the alligators, for their white belly skins used in ladies’ accessories; the sequestration of vast stretches of the wetlands known as the Everglades for housing—still occurring today; and how Big Sugar desecrates even more wetlands for cane, a monoculture.
The islands on which many of the white man’s villages are built are actually shell mounds built up over centuries by local Indians, so the white man’s villages quite literally sit upon the structures, some of them sacred, of a now largely eradicated indigenous culture. In the Proulx book the reader is a witness to the Indians’ decline. In Shadow County, by contrast, they are quite simply gone, a few appearing now and then to trade with the genocidal white man before vanishing again into the Everglades to which only they are adapted.
Book Two is almost entirely retrospective, reconsidering the action of the first book. Its central character is Mr. Watson’s angry son Lucius, who can’t live with the way his psycho father was gunned down by an angry mob. The sheriff ended up deputizing that mob retroactively, since arresting everyone wasn’t practical for a number of reasons; first, because of inadequate prosecutorial resources, and second, because it would have depopulated most of southwest Florida. So the killers, as E.J. Watson had so often in life, got off scot-free. This makes Lucius crazy since as the youngest child he never understood—as his older sister and brother did—that the killing was morally justified, that his father was a monster. Lucius is adrift. He is not stupid but rather bullheaded in the manner of his father, and in the early part of Book Two, unsympathetic. He trains as a historian at a state college. He writes a book about the history of Southwest Florida.
Lucius begins to visit those who were associated with his father. His current line of inquiry, one feels, will bring him only grief. I found the first half of Book Two unengaging, perhaps because its extended third-person narration seems flat after the intense first-person voices of Book One. It’s not until Deacon Grover Kinard starts telling the tale of E.J. Watson‘s boyhood on p. 334 that the story becomes engrossing again. As each new witness provides his or her unique perspective on the scary E.J. Watson, the narrative refracts as light from the facets of a gemstone. This is a powerful effect, masterful even; Shadow Country is a book of intense internal corroboration, far moreso than most novels I’ve read. Also stealthily done is the depiction of the mental vicissitudes of the characters as the story deepens. Almost everyone is alcoholic except a few of the women, but each leaves just a little bit more reality behind in the rearview each time we meet them.
Once the formidable engine of Book Two gets going, I speak in particular of the chapter titled “The Carver” onward, the writing becomes breathtaking, and outshines everything so far. This section reminded me of Stephen Crane’s story, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.” It has that kind of raw elemental power. Moreover, the novel’s no longer just recapitulation. It now moves into its characters’ private concerns and troubles. Yet the narrative armature remains Lucius Watson and his dogged inquiries. There are some mind-fucking scenes here, the motivations of so many characters are skillfully aligned. One reads on half-raving, but I’ll leave these jewels for your pleasure and delight. Shadow County is an incredibly voluble book, possessing a chorus of voices, all relaying their intricately wrought piece—with major dystopic strains running throughout—yet its a book that aspires to seamlessness and for the most part achieves it, quibbles notwithstanding.
In Book Three E. J. Watson narrates from beyond the grave. He is cooler and far more collected than when we first met him—no doubt because all his worldly woes have been stripped away. He speaks now a clean, fluid prose. Gone is his white-trash dialect, his temper, his capricious murderousness, his false bon homie. He can no longer practice bigamy because he is dickless. No longer can sire and neglect scores of children, get drunk, smell the sea, take in the fine cool dawn. Yep, he’s all cleaned up, presumably by God, or is it, hmm, I don’t know—Satan? And if it is the devil, must we assume an unreliable narrator? Not that this false dichotomy interests me, but I wonder whether Matthiessen’s bold license will bother me in the long run.
I have to finish Book Three...
There’s no rule of law in Ten Thousand Islands, Florida, as the twentieth-century begins. As you would expect in such circumstances, men will misbehave: steal, fornicate, murder et al. The whole of Book One is an indictment of E.J. Watson, a settler among the mangroves, a grower of cane and a serial killer. He’s also a bit of a social charmer when he has to be. He’s a megalomaniac in every sense. For years his murders go unpunished, and his neighbors live in fear of him. I recently read another book about early frontier criminality in America, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, which may be almost perfect, though it’s nonfiction. This is a novel based on a true story. Killer E.J. Watson lived and when there was no rule of law to stop him, the community, after much cowardly vacillation, was forced to take matters into its own hands.
Book One is told in the first-person voices of more than a dozen community and Watson family members, à la William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Matthiessen is a wizard with colloquial speech. Moreover, like Annie Proulx’s Barkskins, the book is a story of environmental rapine. We learn of the destruction of the egret population, for the plumes used in ladies’ hats; the decimation of the alligators, for their white belly skins used in ladies’ accessories; the sequestration of vast stretches of the wetlands known as the Everglades for housing—still occurring today; and how Big Sugar desecrates even more wetlands for cane, a monoculture.
Continuous monoculture, or monocropping, where the same species is grown year after year, can lead to the quicker buildup of pests and diseases, and then rapid spread where a uniform crop is susceptible to a pathogen. The practice has been criticized for its environmental effects and for putting the food supply chain at risk. Diversity can be added both in time, as with a crop rotation or sequence, or in space, with a polyculture. —Wikipedia
The islands on which many of the white man’s villages are built are actually shell mounds built up over centuries by local Indians, so the white man’s villages quite literally sit upon the structures, some of them sacred, of a now largely eradicated indigenous culture. In the Proulx book the reader is a witness to the Indians’ decline. In Shadow County, by contrast, they are quite simply gone, a few appearing now and then to trade with the genocidal white man before vanishing again into the Everglades to which only they are adapted.
Book Two is almost entirely retrospective, reconsidering the action of the first book. Its central character is Mr. Watson’s angry son Lucius, who can’t live with the way his psycho father was gunned down by an angry mob. The sheriff ended up deputizing that mob retroactively, since arresting everyone wasn’t practical for a number of reasons; first, because of inadequate prosecutorial resources, and second, because it would have depopulated most of southwest Florida. So the killers, as E.J. Watson had so often in life, got off scot-free. This makes Lucius crazy since as the youngest child he never understood—as his older sister and brother did—that the killing was morally justified, that his father was a monster. Lucius is adrift. He is not stupid but rather bullheaded in the manner of his father, and in the early part of Book Two, unsympathetic. He trains as a historian at a state college. He writes a book about the history of Southwest Florida.
Lucius begins to visit those who were associated with his father. His current line of inquiry, one feels, will bring him only grief. I found the first half of Book Two unengaging, perhaps because its extended third-person narration seems flat after the intense first-person voices of Book One. It’s not until Deacon Grover Kinard starts telling the tale of E.J. Watson‘s boyhood on p. 334 that the story becomes engrossing again. As each new witness provides his or her unique perspective on the scary E.J. Watson, the narrative refracts as light from the facets of a gemstone. This is a powerful effect, masterful even; Shadow Country is a book of intense internal corroboration, far moreso than most novels I’ve read. Also stealthily done is the depiction of the mental vicissitudes of the characters as the story deepens. Almost everyone is alcoholic except a few of the women, but each leaves just a little bit more reality behind in the rearview each time we meet them.
Once the formidable engine of Book Two gets going, I speak in particular of the chapter titled “The Carver” onward, the writing becomes breathtaking, and outshines everything so far. This section reminded me of Stephen Crane’s story, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.” It has that kind of raw elemental power. Moreover, the novel’s no longer just recapitulation. It now moves into its characters’ private concerns and troubles. Yet the narrative armature remains Lucius Watson and his dogged inquiries. There are some mind-fucking scenes here, the motivations of so many characters are skillfully aligned. One reads on half-raving, but I’ll leave these jewels for your pleasure and delight. Shadow County is an incredibly voluble book, possessing a chorus of voices, all relaying their intricately wrought piece—with major dystopic strains running throughout—yet its a book that aspires to seamlessness and for the most part achieves it, quibbles notwithstanding.
In Book Three E. J. Watson narrates from beyond the grave. He is cooler and far more collected than when we first met him—no doubt because all his worldly woes have been stripped away. He speaks now a clean, fluid prose. Gone is his white-trash dialect, his temper, his capricious murderousness, his false bon homie. He can no longer practice bigamy because he is dickless. No longer can sire and neglect scores of children, get drunk, smell the sea, take in the fine cool dawn. Yep, he’s all cleaned up, presumably by God, or is it, hmm, I don’t know—Satan? And if it is the devil, must we assume an unreliable narrator? Not that this false dichotomy interests me, but I wonder whether Matthiessen’s bold license will bother me in the long run.
I have to finish Book Three...
February 9, 2013
Shadow Country: Peter Matthiessen's New Rendering of the Watson Legend
Edgar Artemas Watson (1855-1910)
For seventeen days I was held enthralled by Shadow Country. Once I began it, I was unable to stop. Nothing could have pulled me away from it.
"A New Rendering of the Watson Legend" happens to be the subtitle of Peter Matthiessen's 2008 National Book Award winning novel. The operative word in that subtitle is Legend.
A legend is a story founded in truth, indigenous to the people residing in the region where the story originated. Rooted in truth, the question becomes where does the truth stop and the legend begin?
Peter Matthiessen devoted approximately thirty years of his life absorbed, or as he says in his introduction to "Shadow Country," he has learned a lot about obsession having spent so much time in the mind of E. J. Watson. For Matthiessen had previously written of Edgar Watson in a trilogy of novels: Killing Mister Watson (1990); Lost Man's River (1997); and, Bone by Bone (1999).
Watson was born in 1855 in Clouds Creek, South Carolina, as Edgar Artemas Watson. In later life he changed his name to Edward J. Watson. The J stood for Jack.
Matthiessen constructed his novel in daring fashion. In Book One, Edgar Watson is shot down by his neighbors on Chokoluskee Island, Florida, on October 24, 1910, suspected of a growing number of murders over a period of time. The question is obvious. How did those who knew him come to these conclusions, for, as we begin this increasingly complex web, there is no evidence, but only suspicion.
Chokoluskee Island
Matthiesen's writing is brilliant not only in its structure, but the dialogue of the natives of Chokoluskee, Florida. The language is reminiscent of a blend of the inhabitants of the novels of Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner. It is as easy to believe you are listening to conversations heard along a walk down Tobacco Road or around Frenchman's Bend.
Not only is Matthiesen perfect in character, dialog, and plot, he is a master of setting. For when you enter "Shadow Country," Matthiessen has effectively taken you to a lost world, relatively unblemished by man. And he will develop the theme of man's callous domination over nature in revealing plans to develop the gulf coast of the Florida Peninsula as Flagler and others permanently changed the character of the State's Atlantic coast.
Here are vast rookeries of white plumed egrets, with nights shattered by the scream of Florida black panthers. Seemingly sodden logs transform into huge alligators and crocodiles. In the vast mangrove tangles, cotton mouths, coral snakes and Florida Diamondbacks wait for the unwary traveler. And it is man's nature to believe that he has the right to exterminate any species for profit.
Book One is filled with fifty one monologues of fourteen separate narrators. They relate their memories of Watson and what they "know" of him. It becomes readily apparent that knowledge is an illusive concept.
Among the many crimes laid at Watson's feet is the murder of Outlaw Queen Belle Starr, while he was a fugitive in the Indian Territories. Watson did not deny the story, enhancing his reputation as a man not to be trifled with.
Watson has appeared as a figure in more than one Florida history. In The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, we find:
However, Watson's end appears in a different manner in
The story of the Chokoloskee Bay country: With the reminiscences of pioneer C. S. "Ted" Smallwood (Copeland studies in Florida history) by Charlton W Tebeau. According to store owner Ted Smallwood, the group of men who shot Watson was led by D. D. House, and no one faced by Watson was wounded. Matthiessen chose the Smallwood account for Watson's death.
Smallwood Grocery, Chokoloskee, Florida
Book II provides a distinctly different perspective in the narration of Lucius Watson, the most loyal of Watson's children, legitimate or illegitimate. Lucius is also the most gentle of Watson's children. Following his father's death, Lucius sets out to vindicate his father's name and bring those to justice who murdered him, compiling a list of the assassins.
Lucius, having been made a Marine sniper in World War One, loses his taste for revenge. However, the news that Lucius has prepared a death list is rampant in his father's former community. Lucius risks his father's fate because of that list. However, he refuses to abandon his mission to find the truth behind the rumors that swirled around his father.
In the end Lucius learns a truth more horrible than that believed by the residents of Chokoluskee from his half brother Robert, whom his father referred to only as "Son Borne," failing to acknowledge him by name. Lucius' mission had been to write a biography of his father. On learning the truth, he burns it.
Book III confirms Matthiessen's unconventional structure. The narrator is Edgar Watson. The voice is surprisingly formal and articulate. Watson is a man politically astute, and educated in the classics. However, this is no self serving refutation of the many accusations made against him. Watson's long monologue is a confession of what he has done and what he hasn't. He is no saint, far from it.
Interestingly, Watson recalls the Iliad before his final trip to Chokoluskee:
Those old people, the ancient Greeks, would have said that wrapped around Watson's arms was the fabric of hubris.
Watson's Grave
My thanks to members of "On the Southern Literary Trail" who voted this as one of our group reads for January, 2013.
This is a MUST read.
Edgar Artemas Watson (1855-1910)
For seventeen days I was held enthralled by Shadow Country. Once I began it, I was unable to stop. Nothing could have pulled me away from it.
"A New Rendering of the Watson Legend" happens to be the subtitle of Peter Matthiessen's 2008 National Book Award winning novel. The operative word in that subtitle is Legend.
A legend is a story founded in truth, indigenous to the people residing in the region where the story originated. Rooted in truth, the question becomes where does the truth stop and the legend begin?
Peter Matthiessen devoted approximately thirty years of his life absorbed, or as he says in his introduction to "Shadow Country," he has learned a lot about obsession having spent so much time in the mind of E. J. Watson. For Matthiessen had previously written of Edgar Watson in a trilogy of novels: Killing Mister Watson (1990); Lost Man's River (1997); and, Bone by Bone (1999).
Watson was born in 1855 in Clouds Creek, South Carolina, as Edgar Artemas Watson. In later life he changed his name to Edward J. Watson. The J stood for Jack.
Matthiessen constructed his novel in daring fashion. In Book One, Edgar Watson is shot down by his neighbors on Chokoluskee Island, Florida, on October 24, 1910, suspected of a growing number of murders over a period of time. The question is obvious. How did those who knew him come to these conclusions, for, as we begin this increasingly complex web, there is no evidence, but only suspicion.
Chokoluskee Island
Matthiesen's writing is brilliant not only in its structure, but the dialogue of the natives of Chokoluskee, Florida. The language is reminiscent of a blend of the inhabitants of the novels of Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner. It is as easy to believe you are listening to conversations heard along a walk down Tobacco Road or around Frenchman's Bend.
Not only is Matthiesen perfect in character, dialog, and plot, he is a master of setting. For when you enter "Shadow Country," Matthiessen has effectively taken you to a lost world, relatively unblemished by man. And he will develop the theme of man's callous domination over nature in revealing plans to develop the gulf coast of the Florida Peninsula as Flagler and others permanently changed the character of the State's Atlantic coast.
Here are vast rookeries of white plumed egrets, with nights shattered by the scream of Florida black panthers. Seemingly sodden logs transform into huge alligators and crocodiles. In the vast mangrove tangles, cotton mouths, coral snakes and Florida Diamondbacks wait for the unwary traveler. And it is man's nature to believe that he has the right to exterminate any species for profit.
Book One is filled with fifty one monologues of fourteen separate narrators. They relate their memories of Watson and what they "know" of him. It becomes readily apparent that knowledge is an illusive concept.
Among the many crimes laid at Watson's feet is the murder of Outlaw Queen Belle Starr, while he was a fugitive in the Indian Territories. Watson did not deny the story, enhancing his reputation as a man not to be trifled with.
Watson has appeared as a figure in more than one Florida history. In The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, we find:
Halfway up the empty Chatham River a circumspect man named Watson had built a respectable two-story frame house high on an old sand-and-shell Indian mound that commands a great sweep of river east and west. There was nothing to be seen but the fish jumping and the birds flying. It had a porch and high bare rooms, a rainwater cistern, a plank dock for his boats. He set out a cane patch, horse bananas, and the usual vegetables. He planted palm trees along the river, and two royal poinciana trees flamed against the gray house and dazzling blue sky….
Edgar Watson's home on Chatham Bend
Nobody seems to know when Watson first came to Chatham River. Nobody over there even now seems to want to say much about him. But of all the men who lived silently along those coasts with the air of strange deeds behind them, Watson’s is the figure about which multiplying legends seem most to cluster.
He was a Scotsman with red hair and fair skin and mild blue eyes. He was quiet spoken and pleasant to people. But people noticed one thing. When he stopped to talk on a Fort Myers street, he never turned his back on anybody.
It was said freely that he had killed people before he came to Florida, that he killed Belle Starr and two people in northwest Florida. That was nobody’s business here, from Fort Myers to Shark River. From time to time he went up to Fort Myers or Marco in his boat and took down to work at that lonely place of his on Chatham River people variously described as a boy, a rawboned woman, two white men, a Negro, a Russian, a Negro woman, an old woman. No one seems to know how many. No one seemed to notice for a while that none of these people came back.
He was, of course, a plume hunter and alligator skinner, and he shared many feuds with the quick-shooting men of the wilderness….
In 1910 a man and his son sailing up the Chatham River saw something queer floating by the bank. It was the body of an old woman, gutted, but not gutted enough to sink. The man said, “Let’s get along to Watson’s and tell him about it.”
The son said, “Let’s get back to Chokoloskee and talk to Old Man McKinney.” At Chokoloskee they found several men talking to a Negro in McKinney’s store. The story the Negro told was that he’d worked for Watson a long time and seen him shoot a couple of men. The Negro said he’d buried a lot of people on his place, or knocked them overboard when they asked him for their money.
Watson was away, the Negro said. His overseer, named Cox, killed another man and the old woman and forced the Negro to help him cut them open and throw them in the river. He said he would kill him last, but when the Negro got down on his knees and begged to be spared Cox said he would if he’d promise to go down to Key West and get out of the country. The Negro came up to Chokoloskee instead and told everything.
A posse went down to Watson’s place and found plenty of bones and skulls. The overseer got away and has never been seen there since.
The next day Watson came back in his boat from Marco and stopped at McKinney’s store in Chokoloskee. He came walking along the plank, quiet and pleasant, carrying his gun. And here were all the men of Chokoloskee standing quietly around with their guns.
Mr. McKinney walked up to Watson slowly and said, “Watson, give me your gun.”
Watson said, “I give my gun to no man,” and fired point-blank at McKinney, wounding him slightly. As if it was the same shot, every man standing there in that posse fired. Watson fell dead. Every man claimed he killed him, and nobody ever knew because there were so many bullets in him.
However, Watson's end appears in a different manner in
The story of the Chokoloskee Bay country: With the reminiscences of pioneer C. S. "Ted" Smallwood (Copeland studies in Florida history) by Charlton W Tebeau. According to store owner Ted Smallwood, the group of men who shot Watson was led by D. D. House, and no one faced by Watson was wounded. Matthiessen chose the Smallwood account for Watson's death.
Smallwood Grocery, Chokoloskee, Florida
Book II provides a distinctly different perspective in the narration of Lucius Watson, the most loyal of Watson's children, legitimate or illegitimate. Lucius is also the most gentle of Watson's children. Following his father's death, Lucius sets out to vindicate his father's name and bring those to justice who murdered him, compiling a list of the assassins.
Lucius, having been made a Marine sniper in World War One, loses his taste for revenge. However, the news that Lucius has prepared a death list is rampant in his father's former community. Lucius risks his father's fate because of that list. However, he refuses to abandon his mission to find the truth behind the rumors that swirled around his father.
In the end Lucius learns a truth more horrible than that believed by the residents of Chokoluskee from his half brother Robert, whom his father referred to only as "Son Borne," failing to acknowledge him by name. Lucius' mission had been to write a biography of his father. On learning the truth, he burns it.
Book III confirms Matthiessen's unconventional structure. The narrator is Edgar Watson. The voice is surprisingly formal and articulate. Watson is a man politically astute, and educated in the classics. However, this is no self serving refutation of the many accusations made against him. Watson's long monologue is a confession of what he has done and what he hasn't. He is no saint, far from it.
Interestingly, Watson recalls the Iliad before his final trip to Chokoluskee:
"'All of us must die. Why make a fuss about it?' Achilles to Hector.
You die in your own arms, as the old people say."
Those old people, the ancient Greeks, would have said that wrapped around Watson's arms was the fabric of hubris.
Watson's Grave
My thanks to members of "On the Southern Literary Trail" who voted this as one of our group reads for January, 2013.
This is a MUST read.
December 3, 2020
Una historia, tres novelas, las tres de estilos muy diferentes y todas maravillosas.
Mientras leía “País de sombras” me pregunté a menudo qué había en la prosa de este hombre para que me estuviera entusiasmando de aquella manera. No era la primera vez que me hacía una pregunta similar, ni será la última pues sigo sin saber exactamente qué debe tener una forma de narrar para que me llegue más que otras. En esta fantástica novela veía las palabras que formaban frases enlazadas en párrafos que constituían los capítulos y me parecía simple, fácil y maravilloso. Por supuesto, lo que narra, la trama de la novela, y lo que dice a raíz de lo que cuenta, también tienen parte importante en su grandeza.
El relato, que empieza con el linchamiento de E.J. Watson por parte de sus propios vecinos, es uno de esos que dicen de frontera. La vida de hombres y mujeres en un territorio hostil, donde impera la ley del más fuerte y en el que no cabe la compasión ni la debilidad, donde la vida está siempre amenazada por lo implacable del territorio y la dureza de los hombres que lo habitan y donde la mera supervivencia es ya un éxito. Un libro en el que la violencia es casi un personaje más. Violencia de la naturaleza contra los hombres y de los hombres contra la naturaleza; violencia de unos hombres contra otros hombres y violencia de los hombres contra ellos mismos.
Lean la novela, es una de las grandes, muy grandes… y no me estoy refiriendo solo a su tamaño.
Mientras leía “País de sombras” me pregunté a menudo qué había en la prosa de este hombre para que me estuviera entusiasmando de aquella manera. No era la primera vez que me hacía una pregunta similar, ni será la última pues sigo sin saber exactamente qué debe tener una forma de narrar para que me llegue más que otras. En esta fantástica novela veía las palabras que formaban frases enlazadas en párrafos que constituían los capítulos y me parecía simple, fácil y maravilloso. Por supuesto, lo que narra, la trama de la novela, y lo que dice a raíz de lo que cuenta, también tienen parte importante en su grandeza.
El relato, que empieza con el linchamiento de E.J. Watson por parte de sus propios vecinos, es uno de esos que dicen de frontera. La vida de hombres y mujeres en un territorio hostil, donde impera la ley del más fuerte y en el que no cabe la compasión ni la debilidad, donde la vida está siempre amenazada por lo implacable del territorio y la dureza de los hombres que lo habitan y donde la mera supervivencia es ya un éxito. Un libro en el que la violencia es casi un personaje más. Violencia de la naturaleza contra los hombres y de los hombres contra la naturaleza; violencia de unos hombres contra otros hombres y violencia de los hombres contra ellos mismos.
"No hables de lo que hicieron esos espantosos hombres. Habla de lo que hicieron esos hombres."“País de sombras” es un libro sobre el fatalismo, sobre ese irremediable y funesto destino de aquellos en los que se aúna un temperamento incendiario, unas condiciones adversas y mucha mala suerte. Gran personaje este E.J. Watson.
Lean la novela, es una de las grandes, muy grandes… y no me estoy refiriendo solo a su tamaño.
April 28, 2019
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2008.
This is a beast of a book at 892 pages. If you’ve read Matthiessen’s fiction or non-fiction then you are familiar with his propensity to write two sentences when one might possibly suffice. Don’t get me wrong he can write some descriptive and interesting prose. He was simply born to write.
This book of historical fiction tells the life story of the outlaw E.J. Watson largely taking place in the shadow country of Florida. The story was originally told in three separate novels. This book, that won him his award, is essentially a re-mastered and ‘condensed’ version of the original books.
The first book is a series of first person vignettes told by those who knew the temperamental and vindictive Watson in Florida up until his demise. The setting is mainly in the western Everglades. It is clear that a lot of people feared him.
The next book focuses on Watson’s son Lucius as he attempts to put together the history of his father and his father’s ancestors. Lucius learns the origins of the family in North Carolina and northern Florida.
The last book is really the first and second books but told in the first person by the main character E.J. Watson and covers his life from childhood until his death. We learn the real story behind all of the murders attributed to him in the first book. This last book was interesting but was not entirely convincing as it was written in an erudite manner and I had a tough time reconciling this approach with an uneducated and ignorant man who was drunk most of the time.
The threads in the story are interwoven with Matthiessen’s naturalistic style for which he is well known. He had no difficulty convincing me that I was riding along with the main characters in their skiffs while maneuvering up and down the iconic rivers and swamps of the Everglades.
4 stars. 5 star material and entertaining story but the novel was too long for a history of an obscure outlaw from Florida. Matthiessen is a master at setting the mood and scene but also is not always clear in his storytelling. There were a large number of ancillary characters.
This is a beast of a book at 892 pages. If you’ve read Matthiessen’s fiction or non-fiction then you are familiar with his propensity to write two sentences when one might possibly suffice. Don’t get me wrong he can write some descriptive and interesting prose. He was simply born to write.
This book of historical fiction tells the life story of the outlaw E.J. Watson largely taking place in the shadow country of Florida. The story was originally told in three separate novels. This book, that won him his award, is essentially a re-mastered and ‘condensed’ version of the original books.
The first book is a series of first person vignettes told by those who knew the temperamental and vindictive Watson in Florida up until his demise. The setting is mainly in the western Everglades. It is clear that a lot of people feared him.
The next book focuses on Watson’s son Lucius as he attempts to put together the history of his father and his father’s ancestors. Lucius learns the origins of the family in North Carolina and northern Florida.
The last book is really the first and second books but told in the first person by the main character E.J. Watson and covers his life from childhood until his death. We learn the real story behind all of the murders attributed to him in the first book. This last book was interesting but was not entirely convincing as it was written in an erudite manner and I had a tough time reconciling this approach with an uneducated and ignorant man who was drunk most of the time.
The threads in the story are interwoven with Matthiessen’s naturalistic style for which he is well known. He had no difficulty convincing me that I was riding along with the main characters in their skiffs while maneuvering up and down the iconic rivers and swamps of the Everglades.
4 stars. 5 star material and entertaining story but the novel was too long for a history of an obscure outlaw from Florida. Matthiessen is a master at setting the mood and scene but also is not always clear in his storytelling. There were a large number of ancillary characters.
December 31, 2019
4✚★
I'm not sure what to say after taking 9 months to finish this epic masterpiece.
It's really 3 books in one. After books 1 & 2 I needed a break and then others got in the way.
Each book tells the same story from three different perspectives and that's where the mastery of how Matthiessen told this story lies. He whittled it down from 1500 pages to 900 and it's still too long IMHO but what writing and history unfolds throughout. Just brilliant. That's all, I'm done.
I'm not sure what to say after taking 9 months to finish this epic masterpiece.
It's really 3 books in one. After books 1 & 2 I needed a break and then others got in the way.
Each book tells the same story from three different perspectives and that's where the mastery of how Matthiessen told this story lies. He whittled it down from 1500 pages to 900 and it's still too long IMHO but what writing and history unfolds throughout. Just brilliant. That's all, I'm done.
September 18, 2014
Here lies Edgar Artemas Watson.
The book opens on a scene of destruction: a hurricane has ravaged the Ten Thousand Islands region of Florida. A posse of Watson's neighbors forms and on the ruined beach they kill Watson as he arrives on shore. The end of this man's life marks the beginning of this epic story. The duty of the rest of the almost 900 pages of this book is to answer these questions: who is Watson and why was he killed? Was it a just or unjust death? Who did he leave behind? Was he a monster? Was he loved and did he love?
There is much to be said of the structure of Shadow Country. The first part consists of narrative from Watson's family and acquaintances. The second part is the narrative of Watson's son Lucius trying to reconstruct the story of his father's life years later. And the third and final part is Watson's life story in his own words.
Matthiessen is a master of semi fiction. Edgar Watson was a real man whose life became legend. This book takes the few facts known about the historical Watson and places them into a unique and heartrending narrative worthy of the American canon.
Watson's house on Chatham Bend
Ted and Mamie Smallwood, neighbors and friends of Watson.
Watson's grave in the Fort Myers cemetery
April 12, 2018
In this churchyard in a woodland meadow at the end of a white road, he missed what he had never known, the peace of living one day then another in communion with others of one’s blood and at the end, at the close of one’s works and days, to draw that last breath and come to rest in earth where one’s bones belonged.
It is strange that this one escaped my wobbly notation, my wayward sense of inventory. Shadow Country was picked up in Indianapolis over a Memorial Day weekend and immediately masticated with zest and zeal. The sifting of accounts and weighing of evidence was an exciting lot, though the descriptions of the flora and fauna were haunting in a lingering manner. The third section struck me as too lean and calculated, leaving strategic doubt while caulking up other rumor streams. The abridgement had to have a victim, though the grave is well marked in this case.
It is strange that this one escaped my wobbly notation, my wayward sense of inventory. Shadow Country was picked up in Indianapolis over a Memorial Day weekend and immediately masticated with zest and zeal. The sifting of accounts and weighing of evidence was an exciting lot, though the descriptions of the flora and fauna were haunting in a lingering manner. The third section struck me as too lean and calculated, leaving strategic doubt while caulking up other rumor streams. The abridgement had to have a victim, though the grave is well marked in this case.
May 9, 2014
As you probably know if you have skimmed the book description, the author has in Shadow Country put all three of his earlier books about Watson into one. The first section expresses the views of all the diverse people who knew Watson. The second is his youngest son's view of his father and his life, and now finally in the third section we hear Watson's own version. Third time around, all this feels rather repetitive! Third time around is rather boring, even if the picture is further clarified. Couldn't all these different versions have been incorporated into one? Did you know that Watson really did exist; this fictional book is an attempt to understand the legend of the man. I will follow this to the end. I have about 14 hours of the total 40 hours left!
Now I have completed all 40 hours! Phew. I will not repeat what I have noted before. The sections below relate to the three different books making up this story. Each book has a different style, but in all you get great dialogs that feel genuine to the core. On completing this book you understand the lawless character of southwestern Florida at the turn of the 20th Century and everything about Watson. The third and last part fills in lots of historical details. These details about the sugar industry, unions, the coming modernization, building of canals and roads, the development of the tourist trade and its encroachment on the fauna and flora are new to the previously told stories. Also you learn of life in the South during the Reconstruction. Do keep in mind that what you learn is primarily about outlaws, corrupt politics and racial discrimination. Does it give a balanced picture? There have to be SOME uncorrupted people, huh?!
OK, I would have preferred if these three books had not been split up but rather all the different views incorporated into one story. I got bored third time around. I found parts repetitive.
The narration by Anthony Heald remained fantastic throughout the entire audiobook. Totally fantastic. Unbelievable that this same guy could narrate Crime and Punishment and this, two very different books with completely different characters and voices and vernacular! Is he now my favorite narrator? Women, Blacks, Whites, outlaws, educated snobs - he can do them all. I have no complaints on the narration. None.
Really, a very good book, but the story should have been told once. I really liked how it drew what seems to be a so genuine picture of southwestern Florida and of racial inequality at the turn of the 20th Century.
*****************************
Half-way through: You want to know all the details of the murder, the why and who and everything about what happened. You need to know. Does that make it a mystery?
The book also gives an absolutely excellent picture of how life was in southwest Florida at the beginning of the 20th Century. How whites looked at Negroes and Indians. Does that make it historical fiction?
I am very drawn into the book. Right now I think it is absolutely excellent. The narration by Anthony Heald is stunning! There is a Negro dying and how Heald reads this section could simply not be improved upon. At first I thought his women voices were not good, but I have completely changed my mind and think he does them perfectly too.
But don't expect a comfort read. Blatant racial inequality, hard life, liquor and sex, but it is not written salaciously. This is quite simply how life was there and then. Do you really want to know how it was or not? If you can't stomach this then don't read the book. I think it is absolutely excellent. What is says about racial inequality is just so r-e-a-l!!!! Genuine is the one adjective that best describes the book. Sometimes what you see is not the whole truth, and yet even that can be debated.
What is also amazing is how people make so many assumptions about what MUST have happened without really understand what DID happen. I think that is an important message of the book too.
Hope? Well, some people belatedly realize that they actually admire some of the colored people they so despised before.
This is how the second of the three books hit me.
********************
Tremendously atmospheric! This is primarily how I was reacting to the first of the three books.
Now I have completed all 40 hours! Phew. I will not repeat what I have noted before. The sections below relate to the three different books making up this story. Each book has a different style, but in all you get great dialogs that feel genuine to the core. On completing this book you understand the lawless character of southwestern Florida at the turn of the 20th Century and everything about Watson. The third and last part fills in lots of historical details. These details about the sugar industry, unions, the coming modernization, building of canals and roads, the development of the tourist trade and its encroachment on the fauna and flora are new to the previously told stories. Also you learn of life in the South during the Reconstruction. Do keep in mind that what you learn is primarily about outlaws, corrupt politics and racial discrimination. Does it give a balanced picture? There have to be SOME uncorrupted people, huh?!
OK, I would have preferred if these three books had not been split up but rather all the different views incorporated into one story. I got bored third time around. I found parts repetitive.
The narration by Anthony Heald remained fantastic throughout the entire audiobook. Totally fantastic. Unbelievable that this same guy could narrate Crime and Punishment and this, two very different books with completely different characters and voices and vernacular! Is he now my favorite narrator? Women, Blacks, Whites, outlaws, educated snobs - he can do them all. I have no complaints on the narration. None.
Really, a very good book, but the story should have been told once. I really liked how it drew what seems to be a so genuine picture of southwestern Florida and of racial inequality at the turn of the 20th Century.
*****************************
Half-way through: You want to know all the details of the murder, the why and who and everything about what happened. You need to know. Does that make it a mystery?
The book also gives an absolutely excellent picture of how life was in southwest Florida at the beginning of the 20th Century. How whites looked at Negroes and Indians. Does that make it historical fiction?
I am very drawn into the book. Right now I think it is absolutely excellent. The narration by Anthony Heald is stunning! There is a Negro dying and how Heald reads this section could simply not be improved upon. At first I thought his women voices were not good, but I have completely changed my mind and think he does them perfectly too.
But don't expect a comfort read. Blatant racial inequality, hard life, liquor and sex, but it is not written salaciously. This is quite simply how life was there and then. Do you really want to know how it was or not? If you can't stomach this then don't read the book. I think it is absolutely excellent. What is says about racial inequality is just so r-e-a-l!!!! Genuine is the one adjective that best describes the book. Sometimes what you see is not the whole truth, and yet even that can be debated.
What is also amazing is how people make so many assumptions about what MUST have happened without really understand what DID happen. I think that is an important message of the book too.
Hope? Well, some people belatedly realize that they actually admire some of the colored people they so despised before.
This is how the second of the three books hit me.
********************
Tremendously atmospheric! This is primarily how I was reacting to the first of the three books.
January 5, 2011
I swear I will never think of Florida the same again. Gone is my impression of an overly air conditioned world of old people wearing Bermuda shorts and long black socks. This book was brilliant and terrifying and drenched in blood. It’s set in the “Ten Thousand Islands” of the Florida Everglades beginning in the late 1800s when it was as lawless as the Wild West. The characters display frontier grit in spades and a vicious, poisonous breed of racism the likes of which I have never seen before. The author absolutely nails his material; you can smell the swampy water, feel the mosquitoes, and see all the way to the souls of the characters.
According to the jacket, this book was originally published (against the will and intent of the author) as three separate books – Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone. After many years and extensive re-editing, the author succeeded in getting it republished according to his initial vision of the work. The results are pretty spectacular. I can see the first book working nicely as a stand-alone, but the combination of the three is what gives the book its unique texture.
Book One, the former Killing Mister Watson, was undeniably my favorite. It is told end-first, with the reader finding out in the first few pages that a Mr. Watson has been gunned down by his neighbors. The author then spends the rest of the book telling the events that led up to this through a dozen or so points of view. That is, through the eyes of just about every gender, race, class, and grudge in the Ten Thousand Islands, save that of E. J. Watson himself. In linear terms, the story deals with the gradual accumulation of evidence of Watson’s guilt – the killings, disappearances, and dark rumors that eventually turn his neighbors to fear and kill him. But the actual telling of the story is much more interesting; the characters doubt themselves and each other, their prejudices and allegiances lead them to ignore what they shouldn’t, and every person in the islands interprets Mr. Watson’s actions and supposed actions just a bit differently. It’s a fascinating story that is perfectly told.
I’m reserving a star from my rating due to Book Two, which skips forward to the 1920s and ‘30s and examines Watson’s son Lucius as he attempts to clear his father’s name. It has plenty of merit, but it’s slower and lacks the menacing immediacy of the first book. But while the atmosphere is lacking a bit, the examination of a son’s desire to believe the best of his father in the face of overwhelming popular opinion to the contrary is interesting.
The Third Book was also not quite up the standard of the first, but it was very good. The final book is reserved for the infamous Watson’s own point of view, from his violent childhood to his violent death. It is intriguing to see his perspective and to get an authorized version of the events of his life, although seeing things through his eyes did not always clear up matters of fault and guilt as much as one might expect. I think most people are sympathetic to their own stories, and Edgar Watson is no different. He wanted to be happy, he saw a fair amount of good in himself, and he saw himself as honestly regretful over much of what he directly or indirectly caused to happen around him. There are probably some readers who saw him as a man more sinned against than sinning – a victim of abuse with bad stars and an adolescent head injury that let his id permanently out to play. My own interpretation was that he was a textbook sociopath, with all the ironic charm and intelligence and horror the label implies.
This was an excellent book all around, and I would very much recommend it. It’ll knock your socks off.
According to the jacket, this book was originally published (against the will and intent of the author) as three separate books – Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone. After many years and extensive re-editing, the author succeeded in getting it republished according to his initial vision of the work. The results are pretty spectacular. I can see the first book working nicely as a stand-alone, but the combination of the three is what gives the book its unique texture.
Book One, the former Killing Mister Watson, was undeniably my favorite. It is told end-first, with the reader finding out in the first few pages that a Mr. Watson has been gunned down by his neighbors. The author then spends the rest of the book telling the events that led up to this through a dozen or so points of view. That is, through the eyes of just about every gender, race, class, and grudge in the Ten Thousand Islands, save that of E. J. Watson himself. In linear terms, the story deals with the gradual accumulation of evidence of Watson’s guilt – the killings, disappearances, and dark rumors that eventually turn his neighbors to fear and kill him. But the actual telling of the story is much more interesting; the characters doubt themselves and each other, their prejudices and allegiances lead them to ignore what they shouldn’t, and every person in the islands interprets Mr. Watson’s actions and supposed actions just a bit differently. It’s a fascinating story that is perfectly told.
I’m reserving a star from my rating due to Book Two, which skips forward to the 1920s and ‘30s and examines Watson’s son Lucius as he attempts to clear his father’s name. It has plenty of merit, but it’s slower and lacks the menacing immediacy of the first book. But while the atmosphere is lacking a bit, the examination of a son’s desire to believe the best of his father in the face of overwhelming popular opinion to the contrary is interesting.
The Third Book was also not quite up the standard of the first, but it was very good. The final book is reserved for the infamous Watson’s own point of view, from his violent childhood to his violent death. It is intriguing to see his perspective and to get an authorized version of the events of his life, although seeing things through his eyes did not always clear up matters of fault and guilt as much as one might expect. I think most people are sympathetic to their own stories, and Edgar Watson is no different. He wanted to be happy, he saw a fair amount of good in himself, and he saw himself as honestly regretful over much of what he directly or indirectly caused to happen around him. There are probably some readers who saw him as a man more sinned against than sinning – a victim of abuse with bad stars and an adolescent head injury that let his id permanently out to play. My own interpretation was that he was a textbook sociopath, with all the ironic charm and intelligence and horror the label implies.
This was an excellent book all around, and I would very much recommend it. It’ll knock your socks off.
January 24, 2016
E. Watson, The Decemberists
My copy of this book is 892 pages, and I understand the original manuscript was like 1300 pages. And then the Decembrists basically sum up Matthiessen's story in less than four minutes.
Just sayin.
This very large book is actually comprised of three separate novels (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone), but each of the novels basically tell the same story from someone else's perspective. This is actually pretty brilliant because you don't actually feel like you're reading the same story three different times, it's just that well done.
The story itself is about E.J. Watson, a near mythical outlaw who is best known (in my mind, anyway) for allegedly killing another outlaw, Belle Starr. I first read about Belle Starr in a book by someone I used to know when I was an intern for his literary magazine a hundred years ago - Belle Starr. The story is interesting to me, mostly because I have a fascination for outlaws, especially if there are mysteries surrounding them. And then my beloved Gene Tierney played Starr one time in a movie, so that pretty much solidifies it for me.
In any case, it's popularly believed that Watson shot her in the back. Afterwards, Watson moved back to Florida where he probably killed some more people, and eventually his own peers turned on him because that's what a jury of peers does.
This is one solid collection. It's a bit bloated; Matthiessen can bloviate at times. I found it hard to pick this back up after putting it down for a small break. But it's one solid book, it really is. The different perspectives are so different from one another so that it reads like a true account, yet similar enough to not feel like separate books. Matthiessen is genius at telling a cohesive story with a variety of voices, exceptional attention to detail, covering a vast period of time. As far as I know the story is historically accurate, and as far as I'm concerned, Watson did kill Starr. Yes, Matthiessen convinced me. Find me another, more convincing argument, and I'd be happy to check it out.
But what's really brilliant about this account is that no matter what Watson did (or didn't do), Matthiessen makes him a fascinating character. He's not all good or all bad, because no one ever is. That's about the most realistic part of this book, really, the most convincing.
My copy of this book is 892 pages, and I understand the original manuscript was like 1300 pages. And then the Decembrists basically sum up Matthiessen's story in less than four minutes.
Just sayin.
This very large book is actually comprised of three separate novels (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone), but each of the novels basically tell the same story from someone else's perspective. This is actually pretty brilliant because you don't actually feel like you're reading the same story three different times, it's just that well done.
The story itself is about E.J. Watson, a near mythical outlaw who is best known (in my mind, anyway) for allegedly killing another outlaw, Belle Starr. I first read about Belle Starr in a book by someone I used to know when I was an intern for his literary magazine a hundred years ago - Belle Starr. The story is interesting to me, mostly because I have a fascination for outlaws, especially if there are mysteries surrounding them. And then my beloved Gene Tierney played Starr one time in a movie, so that pretty much solidifies it for me.
In any case, it's popularly believed that Watson shot her in the back. Afterwards, Watson moved back to Florida where he probably killed some more people, and eventually his own peers turned on him because that's what a jury of peers does.
This is one solid collection. It's a bit bloated; Matthiessen can bloviate at times. I found it hard to pick this back up after putting it down for a small break. But it's one solid book, it really is. The different perspectives are so different from one another so that it reads like a true account, yet similar enough to not feel like separate books. Matthiessen is genius at telling a cohesive story with a variety of voices, exceptional attention to detail, covering a vast period of time. As far as I know the story is historically accurate, and as far as I'm concerned, Watson did kill Starr. Yes, Matthiessen convinced me. Find me another, more convincing argument, and I'd be happy to check it out.
But what's really brilliant about this account is that no matter what Watson did (or didn't do), Matthiessen makes him a fascinating character. He's not all good or all bad, because no one ever is. That's about the most realistic part of this book, really, the most convincing.
January 2, 2010
Wow.
Shadow Country is a searing dissection of turn of the century (circa 1880-1910) Everglades culture, history and character. The focal character is E.J. Watson, sugar cane planter, innovator, patriarch, murderer, and victim.
The novel is comprised of three 'books', all telling the story of the death of Watson from separate points of view: first, various people who witnessed and assessed the events at the time; second, one of Watson's sons, trying (maybe) to reconstruct Watson's life and crimes; and third, Watson himself. Matthiessen originally wrote this as three separate novels at the insistence of his publisher. (I never read the originals). Shadow Country combines them, with some reworking, and, like the melding of the five 'books' in 2666, the result is breathtaking. You'd think that telling the same story three times in a 900-page book would be annoying, a waste of time. However, it is precisely the three distinct views which give this novel its greatness.
Matthiessen confronts racism head-on and doesn't water it down with notions of traditional Southern justifications. He writes that there is "death among us" and shovels plenty of it. E.J. Watson is a full participant. Yet, Matthiessen teaches that the human mind and soul are complex, that judgements and actions can be situational, except, of course, when they are not. In one man, Watson, we see all of it: the history, family, lust, brutality, tenderness and many, many misunderstandings.
For all of the horror in this book, there is also much humor thanks to exceptional dialogue which Matthiessen paints in a dialect that he clearly captured.
My only criticism is that Matthiessen gratuitously throws in some brief environmental rant, gratuitous because it's out of place from the storyline. It's just a sentence or two, and nowhere near as distracting as Hugo's 100 page historical tangent in Les Miserables. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it.
I don't know if this is The Great American Novel but it certainly is a great American novel. It even has some baseball in it, Mr. Roth.
Shadow Country is a searing dissection of turn of the century (circa 1880-1910) Everglades culture, history and character. The focal character is E.J. Watson, sugar cane planter, innovator, patriarch, murderer, and victim.
The novel is comprised of three 'books', all telling the story of the death of Watson from separate points of view: first, various people who witnessed and assessed the events at the time; second, one of Watson's sons, trying (maybe) to reconstruct Watson's life and crimes; and third, Watson himself. Matthiessen originally wrote this as three separate novels at the insistence of his publisher. (I never read the originals). Shadow Country combines them, with some reworking, and, like the melding of the five 'books' in 2666, the result is breathtaking. You'd think that telling the same story three times in a 900-page book would be annoying, a waste of time. However, it is precisely the three distinct views which give this novel its greatness.
Matthiessen confronts racism head-on and doesn't water it down with notions of traditional Southern justifications. He writes that there is "death among us" and shovels plenty of it. E.J. Watson is a full participant. Yet, Matthiessen teaches that the human mind and soul are complex, that judgements and actions can be situational, except, of course, when they are not. In one man, Watson, we see all of it: the history, family, lust, brutality, tenderness and many, many misunderstandings.
For all of the horror in this book, there is also much humor thanks to exceptional dialogue which Matthiessen paints in a dialect that he clearly captured.
My only criticism is that Matthiessen gratuitously throws in some brief environmental rant, gratuitous because it's out of place from the storyline. It's just a sentence or two, and nowhere near as distracting as Hugo's 100 page historical tangent in Les Miserables. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it.
I don't know if this is The Great American Novel but it certainly is a great American novel. It even has some baseball in it, Mr. Roth.
January 18, 2021
I understand Mathiessen's place in literary history when I (re) read this; not considered as timeless or immortal, but beloved upon his generation, or for his contributions to the literary scene. At the core of Shadow Country is the life of an early 20th century serial killer named Mister Watson. The first novel of the trilogy is structured as a series of vignettes that unfurl of his livelihood and misdeeds. On a craft level, Shadow Country is quite strong. It exhibits Matthiessen's strong sense of voice ventriloquism, as well as his ability to set a scene, pivot all of a paragraph against a certain theme, and just write achingly great sentences.
However, while each of the vignettes largely exist only to further a little bit of the plot and tell a bit more of the story, they hold little life and feeling of their own. In fact, some come off as downright stereotypical. I know that this book was written in another time period, and it's also representing another time period, but often the use of Black American English seems tokenistic and contrived. It's also not particularly encouraging in this day and age to have characters of another background exist in a novel only to prove an author's point, but to rarely shine their own light.
So, while I think there's a lot to appreciate in this book, I found it hard to read, and not because of the use of so many styles of Southern American English. I just found it very hollow. Perhaps if I were more of a fan of postmodern writing, I think I would have been at ease.
I think this is a great companion piece for people who love Roberto Bolano or Barbara Kingsolver. There's a strong mastery of colloquialism, as well as a deep understanding of the importance of chapter structuring. But it seems more educational or built from a space of study rather than something that lives on its own. Much like an anthill, Shadow Country is fun to peer through, but the moment a magnifying glass is held up to it against the sunstrokes of a hot summer's day, the structure starts to burn, disintegrate, evaporate and decay.
However, while each of the vignettes largely exist only to further a little bit of the plot and tell a bit more of the story, they hold little life and feeling of their own. In fact, some come off as downright stereotypical. I know that this book was written in another time period, and it's also representing another time period, but often the use of Black American English seems tokenistic and contrived. It's also not particularly encouraging in this day and age to have characters of another background exist in a novel only to prove an author's point, but to rarely shine their own light.
So, while I think there's a lot to appreciate in this book, I found it hard to read, and not because of the use of so many styles of Southern American English. I just found it very hollow. Perhaps if I were more of a fan of postmodern writing, I think I would have been at ease.
I think this is a great companion piece for people who love Roberto Bolano or Barbara Kingsolver. There's a strong mastery of colloquialism, as well as a deep understanding of the importance of chapter structuring. But it seems more educational or built from a space of study rather than something that lives on its own. Much like an anthill, Shadow Country is fun to peer through, but the moment a magnifying glass is held up to it against the sunstrokes of a hot summer's day, the structure starts to burn, disintegrate, evaporate and decay.
May 5, 2013
The fact that I read "Shadow Country" over a long period of time should not be taken as a negative reflection on the book, but I suppose my rating hints at that. This is a masterpiece, but one I chose to read slowly with breaks after each section. The story of Mister Watson, which begins on the last day of his life, is full of turn of the 20th century life, details of frontier life I'd never heard of before---that frontier being Florida.
Edgar Watson is many things to many people, but he is always controversial. No one seems to really know him except possibly his second wife. But no one is neutral about him, probably even today. Mayhem and death seem to have stalked him from childhood on.
This novel presents us with a variety of views of what occurred in October, 1910 and invites us to ponder what happened, what motivated the men and women involved, how history and fiction meet somewhere in the middle.
Edgar Watson, himself, is the narrator (or apologist) of the third and final section of the novel and gives an accounting of his life. At one point he displays a moment of insight:
"Some would say that Edgar Watson is a bad man by
nature. Ed Watson is the man I was created. If I was
created evil, somebody better hustle off to church, take
it up with God. I don't believe a man is born with a bad
nature.I enjoy folks, most of 'em. But it's true I drink
too much in my black moods, see only threats and enmity
on every side. and in that darkness I strike too fast,
and by the time I come clear, trouble has caught up with
me again." (p 806)
But this insight becomes warped as it is spoken/thought. Who is this man who likes other people but also strikes out at them so easily? You really should read this book to find out. It is well worth the time spent.
Another, quite wonderful, review by a fellow member of OTSLT, Mike Sullivan, can be found at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... I recommend checking it out for some great photos and historical information.
Edgar Watson is many things to many people, but he is always controversial. No one seems to really know him except possibly his second wife. But no one is neutral about him, probably even today. Mayhem and death seem to have stalked him from childhood on.
This novel presents us with a variety of views of what occurred in October, 1910 and invites us to ponder what happened, what motivated the men and women involved, how history and fiction meet somewhere in the middle.
Edgar Watson, himself, is the narrator (or apologist) of the third and final section of the novel and gives an accounting of his life. At one point he displays a moment of insight:
"Some would say that Edgar Watson is a bad man by
nature. Ed Watson is the man I was created. If I was
created evil, somebody better hustle off to church, take
it up with God. I don't believe a man is born with a bad
nature.I enjoy folks, most of 'em. But it's true I drink
too much in my black moods, see only threats and enmity
on every side. and in that darkness I strike too fast,
and by the time I come clear, trouble has caught up with
me again." (p 806)
But this insight becomes warped as it is spoken/thought. Who is this man who likes other people but also strikes out at them so easily? You really should read this book to find out. It is well worth the time spent.
Another, quite wonderful, review by a fellow member of OTSLT, Mike Sullivan, can be found at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... I recommend checking it out for some great photos and historical information.
December 5, 2019
Descomunal, en muchos sentidos.
October 24, 2021
The historical Edgar J. Watson (1855-1910) was a drunken murderer, bully, philanderer, cheat and conniving so and so. He was a pioneering settler of the southwest coast of Florida in the final decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th.
He had an over-sized reputation as a desperado. He was thought to have killed Belle Starr, the Oklahoma territory outlaw, and was the subject of a dime store novel based on the legend of her demise. Although he was never charged, it seems clear that he murdered a young couple to prevent them from homesteading property to which he thought he had a prior claim. He was charged with murdering two men, one of whom had married Watson’s cousin, because they were selling off land that Watson thought belonged to his family and should remain a part of his descendants’ inheritance. Although acquitted of these murders, it is likely that the trial was fixed and the jury bribed. Watson also was believed to have murdered workers hired to farm his lands rather than pay them when pay day arrived at the end of the harvest.
Despite all of this, Watson was popular with many of his neighbors and regarded as a forward-thinking and hard working farmer. He built the largest sugar cane processing operation in southwest Florida in his day. His syrup was considered of the highest quality. He was charismatic and made friends readily. He had political connections in the state capital and was thought of as a leading citizen in his region. His were frontier times in southwest Florida and he was a man of local influence who enjoyed a veneer of respectability despite a whispered reputation for wickedness.
In short, he was a dangerous enigma.
In the 1990s, Peter Matthiessen published three novels based on Watson’s life. The books were well-received by the critics and public alike. But Matthiessen originally had conceived of the books as a unified work and was not satisfied with the trilogy format in which the books were published. In the 2000s, Matthiessen reworked his Watson books into a new single volume, modifying extensively, with the hope of achieving a unified and integrated book. The new book was published as SHADOW COUNTRY in 2008, and it won the National Book Award.
I did not like it as much as I expected to.
My main complaint is that SHADOW COUNTRY remains three separate books, even after Mathiessen’s reworking. That alone might not be a deal killer, but the second two books are not as good as the first. And that did kill the deal for me.
What do I mean that SHADOW COUNTRY remains three books? It’s pretty simple. Although now published inside the same cover, the three novels separately published in the 1990s are designated Book I, Book II and Book III of SHADOW COUNTRY. More importantly, each is distinctly different in important ways.
Book I, originally published as KILLING MR. WATSON, is told through first person narratives of twelve witnesses whose accounts are realistically inconsistent with one another. The reader is left to piece together and evaluate the competing accounts so as to understand what drove Watson’s neighbors to turn against him, leading thirty or so of them to confront and kill Watson on Chokoloskee Island in the spring of 1910. Book I is brilliant and an absolute pleasure to read.
Book II, originally published as LOST MAN’S RIVER, is told in a traditional third person narrative. It recounts the life of Watson’s favorite son, Lucius Watson, who returns from World War I, and makes it his life’s work to uncover why his father was killed. Lucias' motives are ambiguous. Is it his goal to exact revenge or to rehabilitate his father’s sullied reputation? The tone, the method of narration and the diffuse and meandering story line in Book II are unlike anything to be found in Book I and do not measure up to the wonderful writing of Book I.
Book III, originally BONE BY BONE, is told in the first person by Watson himself. It turns out that Watson has a split personality. Yes, it’s true. His dual nature is explained by the device of a multiple personality disorder. There is Edgar Watson, who is essentially decent, hard working and admirable. Then there is Jack Watson, who is a murderous psychopath. They coexist uneasily in the heart and mind of Edgar J. Watson.
Of course. And how disappointing!
Reading Book III is like reading the chapters in one of John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels where Sandford features his villain. In those books, the villain invariably is a lunatic suffering psychological maladies that are so exaggerated that nothing like them ever occurs in real life. That literary trick is fun in Sandford, but unworthy in SHADOW COUNTRY. I almost did not finish Book III because of it.
My recommendation is to read KILLING MR. WATSON. It is tight and plausible. A joy to read. But proceed further at your own risk. The final two books fail to carry the weight of the first.
He had an over-sized reputation as a desperado. He was thought to have killed Belle Starr, the Oklahoma territory outlaw, and was the subject of a dime store novel based on the legend of her demise. Although he was never charged, it seems clear that he murdered a young couple to prevent them from homesteading property to which he thought he had a prior claim. He was charged with murdering two men, one of whom had married Watson’s cousin, because they were selling off land that Watson thought belonged to his family and should remain a part of his descendants’ inheritance. Although acquitted of these murders, it is likely that the trial was fixed and the jury bribed. Watson also was believed to have murdered workers hired to farm his lands rather than pay them when pay day arrived at the end of the harvest.
Despite all of this, Watson was popular with many of his neighbors and regarded as a forward-thinking and hard working farmer. He built the largest sugar cane processing operation in southwest Florida in his day. His syrup was considered of the highest quality. He was charismatic and made friends readily. He had political connections in the state capital and was thought of as a leading citizen in his region. His were frontier times in southwest Florida and he was a man of local influence who enjoyed a veneer of respectability despite a whispered reputation for wickedness.
In short, he was a dangerous enigma.
In the 1990s, Peter Matthiessen published three novels based on Watson’s life. The books were well-received by the critics and public alike. But Matthiessen originally had conceived of the books as a unified work and was not satisfied with the trilogy format in which the books were published. In the 2000s, Matthiessen reworked his Watson books into a new single volume, modifying extensively, with the hope of achieving a unified and integrated book. The new book was published as SHADOW COUNTRY in 2008, and it won the National Book Award.
I did not like it as much as I expected to.
My main complaint is that SHADOW COUNTRY remains three separate books, even after Mathiessen’s reworking. That alone might not be a deal killer, but the second two books are not as good as the first. And that did kill the deal for me.
What do I mean that SHADOW COUNTRY remains three books? It’s pretty simple. Although now published inside the same cover, the three novels separately published in the 1990s are designated Book I, Book II and Book III of SHADOW COUNTRY. More importantly, each is distinctly different in important ways.
Book I, originally published as KILLING MR. WATSON, is told through first person narratives of twelve witnesses whose accounts are realistically inconsistent with one another. The reader is left to piece together and evaluate the competing accounts so as to understand what drove Watson’s neighbors to turn against him, leading thirty or so of them to confront and kill Watson on Chokoloskee Island in the spring of 1910. Book I is brilliant and an absolute pleasure to read.
Book II, originally published as LOST MAN’S RIVER, is told in a traditional third person narrative. It recounts the life of Watson’s favorite son, Lucius Watson, who returns from World War I, and makes it his life’s work to uncover why his father was killed. Lucias' motives are ambiguous. Is it his goal to exact revenge or to rehabilitate his father’s sullied reputation? The tone, the method of narration and the diffuse and meandering story line in Book II are unlike anything to be found in Book I and do not measure up to the wonderful writing of Book I.
Book III, originally BONE BY BONE, is told in the first person by Watson himself. It turns out that Watson has a split personality. Yes, it’s true. His dual nature is explained by the device of a multiple personality disorder. There is Edgar Watson, who is essentially decent, hard working and admirable. Then there is Jack Watson, who is a murderous psychopath. They coexist uneasily in the heart and mind of Edgar J. Watson.
Of course. And how disappointing!
Reading Book III is like reading the chapters in one of John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels where Sandford features his villain. In those books, the villain invariably is a lunatic suffering psychological maladies that are so exaggerated that nothing like them ever occurs in real life. That literary trick is fun in Sandford, but unworthy in SHADOW COUNTRY. I almost did not finish Book III because of it.
My recommendation is to read KILLING MR. WATSON. It is tight and plausible. A joy to read. But proceed further at your own risk. The final two books fail to carry the weight of the first.
July 2, 2009
Shadow Country is actually three books rewritten and meant to be read together to get the whole story of Edgar J. Watson. He was a real plantation owner, one of the early settlers in the area now known as the Everglades. There are many rumors about his life and his death. This book is the fictionalized account of the myths and truths of the man and his family.
It’s a damn long book and sometimes I didn’t care if I got the truth. But that was mainly because I was ready to move on to something else. I already knew how and when he was going to get killed because I had already read (although a long time ago) Killing Mister Watson.
The first part of the trilogy, Killing Mister Watson is his story told from many points of view. From his daughter, his neighbors, his relatives. It’s an account of what they knew or what they thought they knew about what E.J. Watson did or did not do, about who he was and who he killed; about his good qualities and about his bad. The second book tells how one of his sons sets out to find out the truth about his father. He seeks out some of these same eye witnesses to get a retelling of his father’s story with hopes of learning something new; something that will show that his father was a good man and not a killer.
Book III is Edgar’s story. He fills in details others left out. He confirms and denies. He admits and he confesses. He justifies and he excuses. He is just as dead at the end.
You get the story of the taming or raping of south Florida. You see the beautiful wildlife hunted and shot just for sport or to ironically satisfy America’s love of beauty. You see justification of the powerful “land owner” doing whatever he has to do to get people to do dangerous, hard, labor for little or no pay. You see politicians playing their games to advance themselves or someone they consider an equal or an asset to their climb. An epic, that’s what it is. Nothing is really answered. You just get a good hard look at his story and the story of this time in our American History. And at the end of each account Mister Watson still is full of bullets.
It’s a damn long book and sometimes I didn’t care if I got the truth. But that was mainly because I was ready to move on to something else. I already knew how and when he was going to get killed because I had already read (although a long time ago) Killing Mister Watson.
The first part of the trilogy, Killing Mister Watson is his story told from many points of view. From his daughter, his neighbors, his relatives. It’s an account of what they knew or what they thought they knew about what E.J. Watson did or did not do, about who he was and who he killed; about his good qualities and about his bad. The second book tells how one of his sons sets out to find out the truth about his father. He seeks out some of these same eye witnesses to get a retelling of his father’s story with hopes of learning something new; something that will show that his father was a good man and not a killer.
Book III is Edgar’s story. He fills in details others left out. He confirms and denies. He admits and he confesses. He justifies and he excuses. He is just as dead at the end.
You get the story of the taming or raping of south Florida. You see the beautiful wildlife hunted and shot just for sport or to ironically satisfy America’s love of beauty. You see justification of the powerful “land owner” doing whatever he has to do to get people to do dangerous, hard, labor for little or no pay. You see politicians playing their games to advance themselves or someone they consider an equal or an asset to their climb. An epic, that’s what it is. Nothing is really answered. You just get a good hard look at his story and the story of this time in our American History. And at the end of each account Mister Watson still is full of bullets.
January 26, 2016
Someone, somewhere wrote about “Shadow Country” that “this is it… the ‘Great American Novel.’” It made me think about the never ending discourse surrounding the GAN, which has always struck me as somewhat odd. It’s one part Holy Grail quest and the other part a reflection of America’s unease – at least where art is concerned – that its achievements just might not be good enough. I’ve never bothered paying too much attention to the discourse since I've never trusted categories that contain the word "great" in them. There's always something a little elitist about what goes in to making something "great" and the inductees are more often than not completely expected, with bloated reputations and little to truly recommend them.
So, it's from this bias that I approached the hefty trilogy "Shadow Country" and, I have to admit that it didn't take long for the words "Great American Novel" to start echoing through my skeptical brain. It is a monumental work. An author could retire and live off the literary kudos, so deserved, after publishing this gorgeous work of fiction.
I read the novel compulsively. There is so much here of interest. It's rich in characters. Its plot touches on the key themes of American history with intelligence, compassion and no pedantry. Upon completing the novel, I wondered why I hadn't done so sooner in life but it's probably for the best. As I get older, I'm realizing that there are certain books that should be left for my later years. "Shadow Country" may be one of these.
So, it's from this bias that I approached the hefty trilogy "Shadow Country" and, I have to admit that it didn't take long for the words "Great American Novel" to start echoing through my skeptical brain. It is a monumental work. An author could retire and live off the literary kudos, so deserved, after publishing this gorgeous work of fiction.
I read the novel compulsively. There is so much here of interest. It's rich in characters. Its plot touches on the key themes of American history with intelligence, compassion and no pedantry. Upon completing the novel, I wondered why I hadn't done so sooner in life but it's probably for the best. As I get older, I'm realizing that there are certain books that should be left for my later years. "Shadow Country" may be one of these.
June 9, 2018
Existe la llamada novela-río y ahora también he descubierto la novela-océano. El navegante puede recorrer sus aguas durante un tiempo ilimitado y siempre tendrá la sensación de inabarcable, pero también de monotonía. Digamos que Matthiessen tiene agua como para llenar el lago Victoria pero la quiere meter dentro de una piscina. Una piscina olímpica, eso sí, que se trata de un escritor solvente, con tablas y que sabe hacer los deberes. Porque me niego a creer que una sola cabecita, así a pelo, pueda conocer los detalles de cómo cazar un cocodrilo, fabricar sirope de caña de azúcar, la mejor forma de construir una cabaña con tablones de pino o las leyes vigentes en el estado de Florida a finales del siglo XIX y principios XX.
Por decirlo en corto, esta novela es un exceso. A pesar de sus 1.132 páginas no ha sido el libro más largo que haya leído, pero el hecho que se centra en unos pocos hechos y lo que hace crecer la extensión es la multiplicidad de puntos de vista provoca en ocasiones cierto tedio porque en no pocas ocasiones Matthiessen se toma su tiempo en detallarte historias que ya conoces previamente y que en el fondo ni te interesan y tampoco son vitales para abordar el hecho central: el linchamiento a un hombre de terrible reputación. Cuando emprendes la lectura de una novela de más de mil páginas uno debe tener claro que no prevalecerá la tensión como en una película si no el detalle como en la temporada de una serie. Ahora bien, eso no justifica que tengamos que soportar redundancias a doquier o que se juegue con la paciencia del lector dilatando escenas por el simple hecho de demostrar control sobre el texto. Por contra, hay que reconocer que ante un incidente tan brutal las generalizaciones no valen y que hay que entrar en matices y ambigüedades para efectuar si quiera una aproximación más o menos factible.
El argumento aborda la historia de Edgar J. Watson, cuya infancia coincide con la Guerra cívil norteamericana y su muerte violenta se produce en 1910. Su biografía se mueve principalmente en los estados del Sur y finaliza en Florida, en un territorio tan agreste que incluso en el siglo XX seguía siendo una especie de lugar semi inexplorado, dónde el estado apenas si podía ejercer su fuerza. Tras mucho vagabundear, su talento para el aprendizaje le hace cobrar habilidad con las armas y también para la vida rural, capaz de criar cerdos o llevar plantaciones de caña de azúcar y fabricar el mejor sirope de su región. Para unos era un ambicioso pionero, un vecino trabajador y voluntarioso, para otros un psicópata inestable. Una mente inquieta y capaz de tomar las decisiones más crueles por puro pragmatismo, como ahora reprimir una huelga matando a sus dos principales agitadores.
Está claro que Matthiessen ve en la historia de este hombre una metáfora de la esencia de Estados Unidos y por eso desea abordar tanto aspectos de la biografía del hombre en sí y también de la sociedad que le rodea. De ahí la necesidad de su extensión y su particular estructura. Por más que su autor haya deseado unirlo todo en un sólo volumen, está claro que en verdad son tres novelas independientes, aunque con un vínculo más palpable. En la primera se da voz a un gran número de personajes para explicar su vida cerca del río Lost Man, en la segunda se concentra en el periplo de su hijo Lucius por esclarecer los puntos ambiguos de la vida de su padre y en la tercera encontramos la narración en primera persona del propio Edgar Watson. No hay que ser un doctor en filología para comprender que el primer volumen sigue el modelo de Mientras agonizo, el segundo es una combinación de narrador y testimonio a lo El gran Gatsby y el tercero ya es una narrador más usual, a lo Dostoyevski. Hacia el final de esta ardua aventura pensaba que lo que más me había gustado era el tercero, pero también me percaté que si se hubiese publicado sólo esa novela, se trataría de una más, pero visto todo en conjunto, los hechos adquieren una dimensión y una riqueza enormes. Philip K. Dick afirmó que un relato es la historia de un asesinato y una novela es la del asesino. País de sombras es ambas cosas al mismo tiempo.
El colosal esqueleto de esta narración sirve para que apreciemos con claridad como la historia de Watson se desdobla entre el hombre y el mito, que al final juega fatalmente en su contra. Cuando conocemos los hechos desde el punto de vista de Watson comprendemos la dificultad para tomar ciertas decisiones, el cargo de conciencia que conlleva cometer ciertos crímenes y cómo muchos golpes de mala suerte se suman a su fama sin que él sea realmente tan malvado como otros personajes que se cruzan en su camino, como Les Cox, quien de forma indirecta causa su muerte y que sí asesina por puro deporte. En ocasiones el propio Watson saca partido de esa reputación temible porque sabe que eso le garantiza respeto en un entorno duro, pero al final atrae hacia él a pura escoria, a tipos que se han quedado sin un lugar en la sociedad y que saben que dada su tendencia a explotar a trabajadores sin pedir explicaciones (viva el libre mercado) pueden encontrar un último lugar en el que esconderse. Así, al final, vemos a la persona víctima de su propio mito.
En no pocos momentos he notado como la paciencia se me agotaba, he llegado a plantearme abandonar (cosa que muy pocas veces hago), incluso en saltarme capítulos porque en plena mitad ya entendía hacía dónde se dirigía y qué me iba a contar y cómo. Pero haciendo un esfuerzo he logrado finalizar. En parte me alegro porque las últimas ciento cincuenta páginas me parecen estupendas y por otra también me parece un abuso. Sin renunciar a su vocación de matizar y contextualizar, está claro que la novela narra muchos pasajes superfluos. A día de hoy todavía me pregunto a santo de qué se justifica que una simple pelea de bar necesite cuatro páginas, una encantadora reunión con una tía y una prima pueda ocupar decenas de hojas o que debamos conocer todos los aburridos detalles de un proceso judicial, todas sus acotaciones y variaciones en el humor de los participantes. Detesto cuando ciertos comentaristas sabihondos necesitan cifrar exactamente cuantos minutos le sobran a una película o cuantas páginas se podrían sacar en tal narración, pero en esta ocasión es obvio que hay tal exceso de páginas que uno se pregunta qué estaría haciendo el editor cuando emprendió el trabajo con este libro. Viendo lo mucho que sabe Matthiessen es posible que le persuadiera explicándole alguna fabulosa milonga.
Lo cierto es que no me extraña que la trayectoria editorial de País de sombras en España haya sido tan sumamente discreta y que haya pasado sin hacer demasiado ruido. Es buena, cuenta con una traducción de gran mérito por parte del gran Javier Calvo, pero no maravilla. No descarto que en la ambivalencia de mi juicio final también pese cierto prejuicio que tenía sobre la novela, pues ya antes de abrir la primera página esperaba encontrar una lectura equivalente al Suttre de Cormac McCarthy, cosa que no ha sido así, pero no me parece ni mucho menos una obra redonda. Ambiciosa, enciclopédica, por supuesto, pero también algo pretenciosa a pesar de las grandes capacidades de su autor, que lo mismo se cree muy especial y por eso se siente en el derecho de reclamar tantísimas horas de lectura. Cosas de haber trabajado en la CIA, supongo.
En todo caso, a esos lectores que les haya encantado el tedioso Moby Dick de Melville, sí que le recomendaría encarecidamente la lectura de País de sombras, al resto les recomendaría que se lo pensaran muy bien antes de meterse en tan enorme travesía.
May 31, 2015
I enjoyed this thoroughly absorbing historical novel which is similar in some ways to those by E. L. Doctorow. However, while skillfully written, Shadow Country does not reach the artistic excellence of Invisible Man or All the King’s Men, a comparison made by The New York Review of Books.
Matheissen provides a fascinating look at late 19th and early 20th century SW Florida, particularly the everglades and Ten Thousand Islands region. We get details on the flora, fauna, and early settlers. We get a chilling recap of the treatment of blacks following reconstruction in the South. We get a peek into the Indian territories, north central Florida and even a bit of Indian history. All of this is fed to us around the story of E J Watson, an abused child and a hard drinking violent adult.
Regrettably, Mathiessen’s fitting in so much natural and cultural history creates many digressions from the central theme, the Watson legend. The running social and environmental commentary detracts from Watson’s deeply human personal story. Mathiessen’s recounting of the many crimes against blacks and insults to the environment offer valuable insights, but they become repetitive, a little preachy and after 900 pages a bit stale.
The three books comprising the novel are done in different styles. The first book uses the multiple narrator approach that Faulkner used in As I lay Dying. I like this style and the way Mathiessen executes it, although Shadow Country cannot be compared to Faulkner’s powerful allegory with its masterful symbolism and deep psychological insights. Unfortunately that style is dropped in the second book in which we follow around E J Watson’s son, Lucius, as he researches his father’s life. This format is far less engaging. The information Lucius collects would have been better presented by narrators in the first book.
The third book is a first person recounting from E J Watson himself, giving us the story from a third perspective reminding me of what Lawrence Durrell did in Alexandria Quartet. Watson is hardworking, but ruthless, calculating and cruel with little regard for others’ lives, let alone their feelings. His occasional acts of humanity are far outweighed by his brutality. But Watson’s unemotional and thoughtful telling of his story seems to belie his personality. Partly this is due to Mathiessen’s having Watson include so many historical details irrelevant to the major issues he faces. But mostly it is the incongruity between the way Watson thinks and the way he acts. For example Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment not only acts like an abusive criminal but thinks with the same crazy intensity. In contrast, Watson’s thoughts sounds more like the author speaking to us than the evil Watson, thus we have a nice Doctorow like novel rather than a brilliant Dostoevsky like one.
With all that said I learned a lot from Mathiessen and am glad I read this book. However don’t look for the psychological intensity Ellison gives us in his wonderful Invisible Man nor the beautiful prose that paints Louisiana and its people that Warren gives us in All the King’s Men. Very few novels can stand up to such comparisons. Readers with an interest in Florida history, an appreciation of the environment and the intractable problem of race relations in the US will all find their time well spent in Shadow Country.
Matheissen provides a fascinating look at late 19th and early 20th century SW Florida, particularly the everglades and Ten Thousand Islands region. We get details on the flora, fauna, and early settlers. We get a chilling recap of the treatment of blacks following reconstruction in the South. We get a peek into the Indian territories, north central Florida and even a bit of Indian history. All of this is fed to us around the story of E J Watson, an abused child and a hard drinking violent adult.
Regrettably, Mathiessen’s fitting in so much natural and cultural history creates many digressions from the central theme, the Watson legend. The running social and environmental commentary detracts from Watson’s deeply human personal story. Mathiessen’s recounting of the many crimes against blacks and insults to the environment offer valuable insights, but they become repetitive, a little preachy and after 900 pages a bit stale.
The three books comprising the novel are done in different styles. The first book uses the multiple narrator approach that Faulkner used in As I lay Dying. I like this style and the way Mathiessen executes it, although Shadow Country cannot be compared to Faulkner’s powerful allegory with its masterful symbolism and deep psychological insights. Unfortunately that style is dropped in the second book in which we follow around E J Watson’s son, Lucius, as he researches his father’s life. This format is far less engaging. The information Lucius collects would have been better presented by narrators in the first book.
The third book is a first person recounting from E J Watson himself, giving us the story from a third perspective reminding me of what Lawrence Durrell did in Alexandria Quartet. Watson is hardworking, but ruthless, calculating and cruel with little regard for others’ lives, let alone their feelings. His occasional acts of humanity are far outweighed by his brutality. But Watson’s unemotional and thoughtful telling of his story seems to belie his personality. Partly this is due to Mathiessen’s having Watson include so many historical details irrelevant to the major issues he faces. But mostly it is the incongruity between the way Watson thinks and the way he acts. For example Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment not only acts like an abusive criminal but thinks with the same crazy intensity. In contrast, Watson’s thoughts sounds more like the author speaking to us than the evil Watson, thus we have a nice Doctorow like novel rather than a brilliant Dostoevsky like one.
With all that said I learned a lot from Mathiessen and am glad I read this book. However don’t look for the psychological intensity Ellison gives us in his wonderful Invisible Man nor the beautiful prose that paints Louisiana and its people that Warren gives us in All the King’s Men. Very few novels can stand up to such comparisons. Readers with an interest in Florida history, an appreciation of the environment and the intractable problem of race relations in the US will all find their time well spent in Shadow Country.
August 22, 2014
‘País de sombras’ (Shadow Country, 2005), de Peter Mattiessen incluye juntas las tres novelas que forman la Trilogía Watson: ‘Killing Mister Watson’ (1990), ‘Lost Man’s River’ (1997) y ‘Bone by Bone’ (1999). Matthiessen decidió en 2005 publicarlas como un todo, ante la evidente estructura interna común. De esta manera ya no se trata de tres novelas independientes, sino de un todo que las entrelaza. Cada una de las partes sirve de complemento a la anterior, transformando la perspectiva del lector. ‘País de sombras’ ganó el Nacional Book Award, algo que fue motivo de una cierta polémica ante la idoneidad del premio. La excelente traducción al español corre a cargo de Javier Calvo, que en palabras suyas en su blog, se trata de la más larga e intensa de toda mi carrera, y a la que dedicó todo un año.
‘País de sombras’ narra la historia de Edgar J. Watson, un pionero que en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX se instaló en las pantanosas tierras de Florida con el fin de cultivar tierras y expandirse. Watson fue un personaje real, con una personalidad violenta, y sospechoso de numerosos delitos y asesinatos, al que se le apodó como Sanguinario Watson. El libro se abre con un sobrecogedor prólogo en el que Watson es abatido a tiros por sus vecinos. A partir de aquí, Matthiessen nos ofrece las diferentes facetas de este controvertido personaje, en un juego de sombras en el que lector ha de componer su propia visión, el porqué de este linchamiento.
En la primera parte, País de sombras, se nos muestran los testimonios de algunos de los implicados en el asesinato de Watson, cada uno con su particular visión de los hechos. Las opiniones son diversas, y van desde los que lo odiaban y lo calificaban de sanguinario, un tipo sin escrúpulos, hasta los que lo veían como alguien siempre dispuesto a echar una mano. Esta parte, entre testimonios de familiares y testigos, es excelente, y aporta un retrato directo del personaje.
En la segunda parte, El río Lost Man, es uno de los hijos de Watson el que toma las riendas de la narración. Lucius Watson vive angustiado y obsesionado por la muerte de su padre, y desea conocer la verdad sobre su vida. Para ello se embarca en una odisea personal a través de los paisajes, escenarios y personas de su niñez, siempre persiguiendo la verdad, para conformar la biografía de su padre. Al mismo tiempo, deberá hacer frente a sus conflictos personales y familiares, así como a diversos peligros.
En la tercera y última parte, Hueso a hueso, es el propio Edgar J. Watson quien, en primera persona, contará su historia, desde la niñez a su muerte. Aunque al lector siempre le quedan dudas sobre la veracidad de los hechos.
‘País de sombras’ es una obra ambiciosa, un asombroso retrato de muerte y crueldad, conflictos raciales y culturales, segregación e integración, explotación urbanística y oda al medio ambiente, de sombras huidizas y verdades subjetivas. Pero también se hace evidente el cansancio del lector, sobre todo en la última parte, ya que llega exhausto y fatigado, tanto por el número de páginas como al conocer los hechos sobradamente y tener que volver a leer sobre los mismos. Aun así, se trata de una muy buena novela.
‘País de sombras’ narra la historia de Edgar J. Watson, un pionero que en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX se instaló en las pantanosas tierras de Florida con el fin de cultivar tierras y expandirse. Watson fue un personaje real, con una personalidad violenta, y sospechoso de numerosos delitos y asesinatos, al que se le apodó como Sanguinario Watson. El libro se abre con un sobrecogedor prólogo en el que Watson es abatido a tiros por sus vecinos. A partir de aquí, Matthiessen nos ofrece las diferentes facetas de este controvertido personaje, en un juego de sombras en el que lector ha de componer su propia visión, el porqué de este linchamiento.
En la primera parte, País de sombras, se nos muestran los testimonios de algunos de los implicados en el asesinato de Watson, cada uno con su particular visión de los hechos. Las opiniones son diversas, y van desde los que lo odiaban y lo calificaban de sanguinario, un tipo sin escrúpulos, hasta los que lo veían como alguien siempre dispuesto a echar una mano. Esta parte, entre testimonios de familiares y testigos, es excelente, y aporta un retrato directo del personaje.
En la segunda parte, El río Lost Man, es uno de los hijos de Watson el que toma las riendas de la narración. Lucius Watson vive angustiado y obsesionado por la muerte de su padre, y desea conocer la verdad sobre su vida. Para ello se embarca en una odisea personal a través de los paisajes, escenarios y personas de su niñez, siempre persiguiendo la verdad, para conformar la biografía de su padre. Al mismo tiempo, deberá hacer frente a sus conflictos personales y familiares, así como a diversos peligros.
En la tercera y última parte, Hueso a hueso, es el propio Edgar J. Watson quien, en primera persona, contará su historia, desde la niñez a su muerte. Aunque al lector siempre le quedan dudas sobre la veracidad de los hechos.
‘País de sombras’ es una obra ambiciosa, un asombroso retrato de muerte y crueldad, conflictos raciales y culturales, segregación e integración, explotación urbanística y oda al medio ambiente, de sombras huidizas y verdades subjetivas. Pero también se hace evidente el cansancio del lector, sobre todo en la última parte, ya que llega exhausto y fatigado, tanto por el número de páginas como al conocer los hechos sobradamente y tener que volver a leer sobre los mismos. Aun así, se trata de una muy buena novela.
April 16, 2012
Peter Mathiessen has taken his Watson trilogy novels and rewritten them into a gigantic work of obsessive brilliance.
I was absolutely enthralled by the convergence of perspectives in this story of the infamous Mr. Watson. For those who didn't know, Watson really existed. A pioneering Everglades planter with a shady background, he was murdered by a mob of his friends and neighbors in Chokoloskee, Florida in the early 19oo's. This novel is not so much a fictionalised account of the events, but an inspired exploration of all aspects and versions of the legend. While all of the places, most of the names and many of the events are based on facts, the themes developed by Mathiessen are more literary than historical. The history provides the backdrop of a turbulent time and place in the U.S. frontier of the last century against which Watson's own story is peeled off, patiently and obsessively, revealing with each layer elements of characters' (and society's) hypocrisy, hope, desperation, ambition, greed, jealousy, cruelty, self-destruction, and just about everything else human nature has to offer.
As a prolific writer of books on nature, Mathiessen is especially gifted in rendering details of the singular environment of the Everglades swamps. You may find yourself swatting mosquitos as you read, which only enhances a reading experience that is a bit demanding -almost 900 pages and an initially confusing number of characters- but most definitely worth it!
I was absolutely enthralled by the convergence of perspectives in this story of the infamous Mr. Watson. For those who didn't know, Watson really existed. A pioneering Everglades planter with a shady background, he was murdered by a mob of his friends and neighbors in Chokoloskee, Florida in the early 19oo's. This novel is not so much a fictionalised account of the events, but an inspired exploration of all aspects and versions of the legend. While all of the places, most of the names and many of the events are based on facts, the themes developed by Mathiessen are more literary than historical. The history provides the backdrop of a turbulent time and place in the U.S. frontier of the last century against which Watson's own story is peeled off, patiently and obsessively, revealing with each layer elements of characters' (and society's) hypocrisy, hope, desperation, ambition, greed, jealousy, cruelty, self-destruction, and just about everything else human nature has to offer.
As a prolific writer of books on nature, Mathiessen is especially gifted in rendering details of the singular environment of the Everglades swamps. You may find yourself swatting mosquitos as you read, which only enhances a reading experience that is a bit demanding -almost 900 pages and an initially confusing number of characters- but most definitely worth it!
Read
May 3, 2022Well, this was long. Real long. Sometimes these things are necessary – a shorter version of Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest wouldn't have worked. But Shadow Country? I'm not so sure.
On the one hand – and this is the part I liked – you get this very complete portrait of a place and a time, the Florida Everglades back when it truly was the frontier, and all of the characters that make up that place and time. This is something that particularly came together in the third book. But did it work as a novel? That I'm not so sure of. All I could think the whole time was that in the hands of Cormac McCarthy, this would have been an unqualified masterpiece.
On the one hand – and this is the part I liked – you get this very complete portrait of a place and a time, the Florida Everglades back when it truly was the frontier, and all of the characters that make up that place and time. This is something that particularly came together in the third book. But did it work as a novel? That I'm not so sure of. All I could think the whole time was that in the hands of Cormac McCarthy, this would have been an unqualified masterpiece.
June 13, 2011
892 pages. Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard; The Tree where Man was Born; At Play in the Fields of the Lord). I shake my head.
I don't think I've come across a book where the writing was so apparently brilliant - disciplined and careful, dialogue true to each character, imaginative - while the subject matter was so unrelentingly raw, rough, and dark. At the end of the read, I was both in awe of this writer's command of storytelling, and fearful of where he might be in his view of the world at age 84.
Originally called the "Watson Trilogy," the 1500 page manuscript was published as three well received separate books. But Matthiessen was never completely happy with the result, and returned to rewrite and condense the story into this rendering. He describes the book as "interwoven variations of the evolution of a legend."
The main character of this story is E.J. Watson - an outlaw, entrepreneur, patriarch, and general force of the SW Florida peninsula in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He lived during the times of great slaughter of Everglade birds for their plumage, just as the Everglades was either to be drained and converted to sugar plantations or general development or protected as eventually it was. Book one - the Killing of Mr Watson - is told from a third person voice, and describes the general rough, squalid, frontier living (poverty of spirit and body comes to mind) in the swamps of Florida. Mr Watson with a couple sets of offspring by a string of wives, has a past with murky crimes attributed to him, and a large network of allies and enemies. Eventually Watson is confronted and killed by a mob of settlers at some lone trading post for a culmination of past excesses that no one can clearly explain, but for the necessity of executing justice.
Book two makes a huge shift. Still in third person, it is from the viewpoint of Lucius Watson, one of EJ's sons. Lucius as a young boy was not present at his father's killing, but after gaining an education as Florida built its institutions, sets out to interview all the acquaintances of his father in order to write a definitive account of his life and abrupt ending. The broad theme of book two is how a legacy and violent act affects the next generation.
Just when one thinks that is a satisfying story, he realizes there is still another 1/3 of the pages left. Book three emerges with just as big a shift as before. This time it is EJ Watson himself in the first person, describing his life from a young boy with an abusive father, living in South Carolina in the fearsome days of rubble after the Civil War, the failed years of reconstruction and the beginnings of Jim Crow laws. EJ describes events that the reader thought had been clear from the original narrative, as well as the remembrances investigated by the son, but clearly all have their take. All in all, an amazing tour of a lifetime told three different ways.
Which leads back to the writing and superb discipline Mathiessen shows. Each of the 25-30 characters is kept true to their view of life, vocabulary, bias's, and standing as friend, enemy, daughter son, wives, etc. Matthiessen flows from inner thoughts to bemused observations of the absurdities of humans, foibles and forces of development are described equally with elegance. History, and nature are "meticulously researched" (as one reviewer notes) and woven into the story.
But the subject matter - racism, rough justice or simple violence for no reason one can fathom, small vision, inbreeding, degradation - seems nearly unrelenting.
The reader is left wondering how did "we" ever rise from this pool of dissolution? Why did Matthiessen describe so dark a world, when clearly there were other visions and lives being led at the time of honesty, elevation, and sacrifice? For that matter, what possessed this author to go back and rewrite a story - no matter how brilliantly - that had found acceptance by his loyal readership and critics.
A true dilemma: is a prospective reader willing to spend hours in the dark, dark side of human nature and the true costs of "progress" in order to enjoy first hand how a gifted author can showcase various voices, generational viewpoints, and a deep understanding of natural and historical forces at work.
I don't think I've come across a book where the writing was so apparently brilliant - disciplined and careful, dialogue true to each character, imaginative - while the subject matter was so unrelentingly raw, rough, and dark. At the end of the read, I was both in awe of this writer's command of storytelling, and fearful of where he might be in his view of the world at age 84.
Originally called the "Watson Trilogy," the 1500 page manuscript was published as three well received separate books. But Matthiessen was never completely happy with the result, and returned to rewrite and condense the story into this rendering. He describes the book as "interwoven variations of the evolution of a legend."
The main character of this story is E.J. Watson - an outlaw, entrepreneur, patriarch, and general force of the SW Florida peninsula in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He lived during the times of great slaughter of Everglade birds for their plumage, just as the Everglades was either to be drained and converted to sugar plantations or general development or protected as eventually it was. Book one - the Killing of Mr Watson - is told from a third person voice, and describes the general rough, squalid, frontier living (poverty of spirit and body comes to mind) in the swamps of Florida. Mr Watson with a couple sets of offspring by a string of wives, has a past with murky crimes attributed to him, and a large network of allies and enemies. Eventually Watson is confronted and killed by a mob of settlers at some lone trading post for a culmination of past excesses that no one can clearly explain, but for the necessity of executing justice.
Book two makes a huge shift. Still in third person, it is from the viewpoint of Lucius Watson, one of EJ's sons. Lucius as a young boy was not present at his father's killing, but after gaining an education as Florida built its institutions, sets out to interview all the acquaintances of his father in order to write a definitive account of his life and abrupt ending. The broad theme of book two is how a legacy and violent act affects the next generation.
Just when one thinks that is a satisfying story, he realizes there is still another 1/3 of the pages left. Book three emerges with just as big a shift as before. This time it is EJ Watson himself in the first person, describing his life from a young boy with an abusive father, living in South Carolina in the fearsome days of rubble after the Civil War, the failed years of reconstruction and the beginnings of Jim Crow laws. EJ describes events that the reader thought had been clear from the original narrative, as well as the remembrances investigated by the son, but clearly all have their take. All in all, an amazing tour of a lifetime told three different ways.
Which leads back to the writing and superb discipline Mathiessen shows. Each of the 25-30 characters is kept true to their view of life, vocabulary, bias's, and standing as friend, enemy, daughter son, wives, etc. Matthiessen flows from inner thoughts to bemused observations of the absurdities of humans, foibles and forces of development are described equally with elegance. History, and nature are "meticulously researched" (as one reviewer notes) and woven into the story.
But the subject matter - racism, rough justice or simple violence for no reason one can fathom, small vision, inbreeding, degradation - seems nearly unrelenting.
The reader is left wondering how did "we" ever rise from this pool of dissolution? Why did Matthiessen describe so dark a world, when clearly there were other visions and lives being led at the time of honesty, elevation, and sacrifice? For that matter, what possessed this author to go back and rewrite a story - no matter how brilliantly - that had found acceptance by his loyal readership and critics.
A true dilemma: is a prospective reader willing to spend hours in the dark, dark side of human nature and the true costs of "progress" in order to enjoy first hand how a gifted author can showcase various voices, generational viewpoints, and a deep understanding of natural and historical forces at work.
November 3, 2015
Read this novel! Absolutely fascinating account of life along the Florida Everglades gulf coast and development in the late-19th and early-20th centuries through the eyes and actions of the real-life character of Edgar Watson. This is one of those rare novels where it is truly difficult to sort out your own feelings for the plot's main protagonist. Sometimes you love him, and sometimes he is a real bastard. Just like like each of us, Edgar is a flawed character; and Mattiesson invests much of the book explaining why and how Edgar became this way.
Matthiesson is also an accomplished environmental writer and throughout this book one is constantly reading about the beauty and danger of life along the Florida Gulf Coast and in the Everglades. He describes the landscape, the habitats, and the myriad of species, the biting insects, lack of freshwater, periodic hurricanes, and so forth that people had to deal with on a daily basis. Also, I didn't realize it until I read this novel, but Florida, even in the late-19th century, was largely a lawless wild-eyed dog-eat-dog frontier that rivaled parts of the American west. This is also a hard-hitting novel that presents an unvarnished look at the rampant racism that festered in the southeastern United States following the Civil War, and its impact on the blacks, whites, and Native Americans. Painful to read, and even more painful to realize that some things still haven't changed.
This novel was awarded the National Book Award for fiction in 2008, and it is richly deserved. Interestingly, "Shadow Country" is Matthiesson's efforts--successful, I might add--to revisit his trilogy ("Killing Mister Watson," "Lost Man's River," and "Bone by Bone" and combine them into a cohesive single novel. Each book brings a different point-of-view associated with the death of the novel's main protagonist, Edgar Watson. The first book presents the points of view, as a series of little vignettes, of all of the people that lived with him in an around Chokoloskee Bay on the Everglades coast. The second book is the story of Watson's son, Lucius, as he tries to unravel the real story behind his father's killing. The final book in the novel is the first person account from Edgar Watson himself. Taken as a whole it is a fascinating literary technique that works very, very well. "Shadow Country" is a modern-day "Moby Dick" and a truly great and important American novel.
Matthiesson is also an accomplished environmental writer and throughout this book one is constantly reading about the beauty and danger of life along the Florida Gulf Coast and in the Everglades. He describes the landscape, the habitats, and the myriad of species, the biting insects, lack of freshwater, periodic hurricanes, and so forth that people had to deal with on a daily basis. Also, I didn't realize it until I read this novel, but Florida, even in the late-19th century, was largely a lawless wild-eyed dog-eat-dog frontier that rivaled parts of the American west. This is also a hard-hitting novel that presents an unvarnished look at the rampant racism that festered in the southeastern United States following the Civil War, and its impact on the blacks, whites, and Native Americans. Painful to read, and even more painful to realize that some things still haven't changed.
This novel was awarded the National Book Award for fiction in 2008, and it is richly deserved. Interestingly, "Shadow Country" is Matthiesson's efforts--successful, I might add--to revisit his trilogy ("Killing Mister Watson," "Lost Man's River," and "Bone by Bone" and combine them into a cohesive single novel. Each book brings a different point-of-view associated with the death of the novel's main protagonist, Edgar Watson. The first book presents the points of view, as a series of little vignettes, of all of the people that lived with him in an around Chokoloskee Bay on the Everglades coast. The second book is the story of Watson's son, Lucius, as he tries to unravel the real story behind his father's killing. The final book in the novel is the first person account from Edgar Watson himself. Taken as a whole it is a fascinating literary technique that works very, very well. "Shadow Country" is a modern-day "Moby Dick" and a truly great and important American novel.
October 17, 2020
I had a double reason for wanting to read Shadow Country. First, that I love reading Florida History, and second that I think so highly of the late Peter Matthiessen. "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," was a gripping book even though I knew how Leonard Peltier ended up. The tough part of writing such a piece would be the research that must have gone into it. Both books are meticulously researched and meticulously crafted.
The author originally wrote this book as a single volume. His publishers believed that he should divide it into 3 separate books; and so came "Killing Mr. Watson", "Lost Man’s River," and "Bone by Bone." A few years later, the author again decided to combine the 3 books into one condensed version and hence was born "Shadow Country.", Taking off 300 pages, the final product is still 892 pages. Like the original 3 books, Shadow Country is divided into 3 parts. Part one begins with a description of the killing of Mr. Watson with each subsequent chapter told from the viewpoint of one member of the posse who was a friend and neighbor. Part two is in the first person of E.J. Watson's youngest son Lucious Watson. Lucious spends years following the footpath of his father, trying to make sense of rumors of vicious savage murders and a casual disregard for human life. The son tries very hard and wants so much to find some mitigating circumstances that would lend a little redemption to Mr. Watson. By the end of part II, this reader was still left with many doubts about the character of the protagonist.
Book III is written in the first person of Mr. Watson shedding a little more light on the upbringing and life influences that shaped the man. Here are all the forces at play just for simple survival in this heat weighted, insect-infested and hurricane plagued area of south Florida called The Ten Thousand Islands." The reader comes away with a clearer picture of the character of the man, and the differences apparent from looking at something from 3 different angles, and those circumstances that influence human nature.
Reading Shadow Country has rekindled my love of Peter Matthiessen and next up will be "At Play in the Fields of the Lord."
The author originally wrote this book as a single volume. His publishers believed that he should divide it into 3 separate books; and so came "Killing Mr. Watson", "Lost Man’s River," and "Bone by Bone." A few years later, the author again decided to combine the 3 books into one condensed version and hence was born "Shadow Country.", Taking off 300 pages, the final product is still 892 pages. Like the original 3 books, Shadow Country is divided into 3 parts. Part one begins with a description of the killing of Mr. Watson with each subsequent chapter told from the viewpoint of one member of the posse who was a friend and neighbor. Part two is in the first person of E.J. Watson's youngest son Lucious Watson. Lucious spends years following the footpath of his father, trying to make sense of rumors of vicious savage murders and a casual disregard for human life. The son tries very hard and wants so much to find some mitigating circumstances that would lend a little redemption to Mr. Watson. By the end of part II, this reader was still left with many doubts about the character of the protagonist.
Book III is written in the first person of Mr. Watson shedding a little more light on the upbringing and life influences that shaped the man. Here are all the forces at play just for simple survival in this heat weighted, insect-infested and hurricane plagued area of south Florida called The Ten Thousand Islands." The reader comes away with a clearer picture of the character of the man, and the differences apparent from looking at something from 3 different angles, and those circumstances that influence human nature.
Reading Shadow Country has rekindled my love of Peter Matthiessen and next up will be "At Play in the Fields of the Lord."
January 21, 2009
I am usually not a fan of National Book Award winners. And after reading Marilynne Robinson's "Home," I didn't think anything could top it. But they got it right this year. Matthiessen's trilogy is a book that (if I know anything about myself) will haunt me for a long time. It is one of the ten best novels I've ever read, and (as most of you know) I don't take ranking's lightly.
Of the three novels, I am fondest of the first--formerly published as Killing Mister Watson. Matthiessen's vernacular is challenging, but true. If you didn't know better, you would guess that it were written by William Faulkner. In the end, the jumble of stories establishes a nice first draft of the trilogy's entire narrative. But this narrative gets revised and then revised again in the second and third novels.
The middle book especially appeals to me as an historian. It raises all the questions that historians grapple with everyday: what obligations do we have toward our subjects? how do our subjectivities shape the (his)stories we write? etc. The middle section of this book is the only moment when Matthiessen loses coherence. But in a 1,000 page tome, that is bound to happen once or twice, right? In this novel, Henry Short (not the main character--that is Mr. Watson--but the "best supporting character") emerges as one of the most complicated and compelling characters I've ever read.
Novel #3 lets us into all of the little crevices that remain from the first two novels. Key events are totally recast. We are forced to choose our heroes/villians--often with equal amounts of evidence on both sides.
Reading "Shadow Country" takes patience and time. But this was a great first book of the new year.
Of the three novels, I am fondest of the first--formerly published as Killing Mister Watson. Matthiessen's vernacular is challenging, but true. If you didn't know better, you would guess that it were written by William Faulkner. In the end, the jumble of stories establishes a nice first draft of the trilogy's entire narrative. But this narrative gets revised and then revised again in the second and third novels.
The middle book especially appeals to me as an historian. It raises all the questions that historians grapple with everyday: what obligations do we have toward our subjects? how do our subjectivities shape the (his)stories we write? etc. The middle section of this book is the only moment when Matthiessen loses coherence. But in a 1,000 page tome, that is bound to happen once or twice, right? In this novel, Henry Short (not the main character--that is Mr. Watson--but the "best supporting character") emerges as one of the most complicated and compelling characters I've ever read.
Novel #3 lets us into all of the little crevices that remain from the first two novels. Key events are totally recast. We are forced to choose our heroes/villians--often with equal amounts of evidence on both sides.
Reading "Shadow Country" takes patience and time. But this was a great first book of the new year.
Shelved as 'on-hold'
February 8, 2013I don't think I'll say I've abandoned this forever, but I definitely didn't finish it in January. It was the phenomenon that the farther in I got, the farther the end grew.
April 6, 2015
Shadow Country (2008) is a re-rendering of Matthiessen’s three volume Mister Watson series, Killing Mr. Watson (1990), Lost Man’s River (1997), and Bone by Bone (1999). On Charlie Rose and elsewhere, Matthiessen has pointed out that the work began as one very large novel, so large in fact that he chopped it into three to facilitate its publication, only he didn’t feel right about the separation so he went back to work on it to make it work as a single volume novel. He cut and he rewrote over several years; but the three parts of Shadow Country still follow the three novels in that the first is a kind of oral history describing the shooting of Edgar Watson by a score of his neighbors one late afternoon in 1910. Except for a brief but magnificent prologue, part one is a brilliant quilt of first person accounts from Watson’s family, neighbors, friends, and enemies. It’s breathtakingly well-done.
The second part is a more conventional third person narrative, picking up the Watson tale from the wake of the shooting into the succeeding decades as Watson’s son tries to figure out the truth of the event. It is the one not fully successful section, though it has many moments of great writing and storytelling.
The third part is Watson’s own narrative, so a single first person narrative. It is almost as good as the first part and damn compelling, particularly given that you know all the primary events, in fact, you’ve heard them one way or another at least twice before.
So why a thrice-told tale? Watson is a real figure, if a minor one, of American history. He was born in South Carolina, moved, following a death or two ascribed to him, to Florida for a spell until trouble there forced him into Indian Country (Oklahoma) where even in the outlaw ridden territory he found himself in and out of trouble. Mostly in. He and a black outlaw named Frank Reese escape from an Arkansas prison. Eventually both men end up back in Florida. It’s Gulf Coast Florida, south of Tampa to the Glades. Wild, racist backcountry. Rife with opportunity, blood feuds, and hurricanes. Watson fascinates Matthiessen. He is a pioneer, a killer, a farmer, a family man, a failed dreamer of grand schemes. He is killed in the first six pages of Shadow Country so there is no mystery there, not who gets killed or who kills him. Even why is pretty clear: his neighbors were scared to death of him; their nerves rattled by an historic hurricane and three or more murdered bodies turning up at the Watson place.
Matthiessen, though, is curious about bigger whys and hows. He is fascinated by the many kinds of brutality that make up America’s past and therefore built its present. The role of greed, violence, race, heroism, nature. The costs of civilization in humanity and to the landscape and waterways. He is also fascinated by the difference between facts and truth, between history and legend, and knowing and not-knowing. He respects the rough and tumble of reality; the awful beauty of wilderness and the hard people attracted to it. His eye and ear for detail have no equal among American writers—whether that detail is of speech or place, sight or sound. Part one is perfect; part three nearly so. Part two is a shotgun blast that hits its target but does so messily. Taken together (and add in Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga and At Play in the Fields of the Lord), Matthiessen deserves to be considered a master of American fiction. Throw in his rich and diverse body of non-fiction and you have to wonder why, despite his several honors (one National Book Award, three or more nominations) and the obvious respect of generations of peers (Styron, Heller, Bellow, Oates, Pynchon, Dillard, Ford, and many others) Matthiessen is not more universally esteemed. Soon perhaps.
The second part is a more conventional third person narrative, picking up the Watson tale from the wake of the shooting into the succeeding decades as Watson’s son tries to figure out the truth of the event. It is the one not fully successful section, though it has many moments of great writing and storytelling.
The third part is Watson’s own narrative, so a single first person narrative. It is almost as good as the first part and damn compelling, particularly given that you know all the primary events, in fact, you’ve heard them one way or another at least twice before.
So why a thrice-told tale? Watson is a real figure, if a minor one, of American history. He was born in South Carolina, moved, following a death or two ascribed to him, to Florida for a spell until trouble there forced him into Indian Country (Oklahoma) where even in the outlaw ridden territory he found himself in and out of trouble. Mostly in. He and a black outlaw named Frank Reese escape from an Arkansas prison. Eventually both men end up back in Florida. It’s Gulf Coast Florida, south of Tampa to the Glades. Wild, racist backcountry. Rife with opportunity, blood feuds, and hurricanes. Watson fascinates Matthiessen. He is a pioneer, a killer, a farmer, a family man, a failed dreamer of grand schemes. He is killed in the first six pages of Shadow Country so there is no mystery there, not who gets killed or who kills him. Even why is pretty clear: his neighbors were scared to death of him; their nerves rattled by an historic hurricane and three or more murdered bodies turning up at the Watson place.
Matthiessen, though, is curious about bigger whys and hows. He is fascinated by the many kinds of brutality that make up America’s past and therefore built its present. The role of greed, violence, race, heroism, nature. The costs of civilization in humanity and to the landscape and waterways. He is also fascinated by the difference between facts and truth, between history and legend, and knowing and not-knowing. He respects the rough and tumble of reality; the awful beauty of wilderness and the hard people attracted to it. His eye and ear for detail have no equal among American writers—whether that detail is of speech or place, sight or sound. Part one is perfect; part three nearly so. Part two is a shotgun blast that hits its target but does so messily. Taken together (and add in Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga and At Play in the Fields of the Lord), Matthiessen deserves to be considered a master of American fiction. Throw in his rich and diverse body of non-fiction and you have to wonder why, despite his several honors (one National Book Award, three or more nominations) and the obvious respect of generations of peers (Styron, Heller, Bellow, Oates, Pynchon, Dillard, Ford, and many others) Matthiessen is not more universally esteemed. Soon perhaps.
May 12, 2015
Matthiessen's work here is really three books rolled into one. He rewrote his earlier Watson trilogy, and combined all three aspects into one book. Despite this, he labels the three distinct parts as Books I, II, and III.
Book I is a culmination of diary entries/deposition-type statements by many of the people that came into contact with Edgar Watson in SW Florida, with many of the people being the ones who participated in the mass shooting/lynching that ended Watson's life.
Book II is about the search by Watson's son Lucius to learn the truth about his not only his father's death, but also an attempt to dispel (or prove) the rumors that followed his father throughout his life.
Book III is Edgar Watson's first person narrative about his life from childhood up to his death.
This is well-written, and I can see why it won a National Book Award. Of the three Books, I enjoyed Book II the most - I found it to be the most suspense-filled of the three arching storylines. Book I started slow because it was difficult for me to adjust to reading semi-literate English (as many of the people back then probably did truly talk) and because the narration constantly changed. But Matthiessen writes so well and so lucidly that I quickly became enveloped in the story. I liked Book III the least - probably because everything had already occurred in Book I, and even though it was from a different perspective, I felt a sense of anti-climax after finishing Book II, then having to literally go back to the very beginning of Watson's life and redo everything over again. I understand why Matthiessen structured it the way that he did - to give Watson the last word and to stand on their heads many of those rumors that swirled around him. But I thought it was disjointed when considered with Books I and II. I would have preferred Book II to have been last, with Book III either being first or second, preferably first.
If I had to rate Book I alone, I would give it four stars; Book II, five stars, and Book III, three and a half stars. Therefore, the overall rating is four stars.
Grade: B+
Book I is a culmination of diary entries/deposition-type statements by many of the people that came into contact with Edgar Watson in SW Florida, with many of the people being the ones who participated in the mass shooting/lynching that ended Watson's life.
Book II is about the search by Watson's son Lucius to learn the truth about his not only his father's death, but also an attempt to dispel (or prove) the rumors that followed his father throughout his life.
Book III is Edgar Watson's first person narrative about his life from childhood up to his death.
This is well-written, and I can see why it won a National Book Award. Of the three Books, I enjoyed Book II the most - I found it to be the most suspense-filled of the three arching storylines. Book I started slow because it was difficult for me to adjust to reading semi-literate English (as many of the people back then probably did truly talk) and because the narration constantly changed. But Matthiessen writes so well and so lucidly that I quickly became enveloped in the story. I liked Book III the least - probably because everything had already occurred in Book I, and even though it was from a different perspective, I felt a sense of anti-climax after finishing Book II, then having to literally go back to the very beginning of Watson's life and redo everything over again. I understand why Matthiessen structured it the way that he did - to give Watson the last word and to stand on their heads many of those rumors that swirled around him. But I thought it was disjointed when considered with Books I and II. I would have preferred Book II to have been last, with Book III either being first or second, preferably first.
If I had to rate Book I alone, I would give it four stars; Book II, five stars, and Book III, three and a half stars. Therefore, the overall rating is four stars.
Grade: B+
February 21, 2009
3 books(2 stars, 2 stars, and 4 stars) rewritten into 1 long book. The 1st book sets up the tragic fiction character and is a tedious read with a lot of characters that are difficult to remember. The 2nd book is less tedious but also less entertaining. The 3rd book brings it all together; the fiction story that is used to bring in the history, and the total tragedy of the character, Florida, and the country as a whole. The story incorporates the sad, uneducated Scots and other poor whites that immigrated to the Islands on the west coast of Florida and their raping of the land. Also includes the horrible treatment of the black (with some reference to the devastation of the Indian) people with details of their lack of real freedom if not worse than before the war including the ramification caused by President Hayes pulling out and leaving them to flounder under the prejudice, poverty, and lynching’s, etc. It progresses to the destruction of the land by the Industrialists/capitalists and their horrible treatment of the poor whites and blacks. It includes how the corrupt legal, political, and overall government is not for the progress of all people but only for a few industrialists and politicians and also how the policies extend to other countries for the sake of money (e.g. Cuba, Mexico and the Philippines). The 3rd book brings all of these together using the fiction characters story.
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