Far Tortuga Summary
Peter Matthiessen

Far Tortuga Summary

In Far Tortuga, Matthiessen continues in many ways the explorations begun in At Play in the Fields of the Lord. But the configurations of the later novel allow a more perfectly executed rendering, not only in that here the setting of a voyage isolates the characters more completely in a microcosm of the world, but that the land world of these men, the Cayman Islands, is itself unreal, exotic. The richness of entry, for the reader, into this novel, the haunting sense of "being there" created by the stark description and dialogue, may obscure the apprehension of Matthiessen's commentary. Yet it is present nonetheless, in the lyrics of a Hank Williams song from the mouth of the feral, sociopathic engineer, in the easy juxtaposition of diesel engines and obeah.

Far Tortuga offers a sometimes amusing, sometimes painful parody of the quest for glory, the...

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