Bone by Bone
by Peter Matthiessen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter MatthiessenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-18
ISBN: 0375701818
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Bone by Bone
Book Review: On a fever trail
Summary: 3 Stars
Beautiful depiction of natural scenery and a realistic picture of pioneer life in South Florida 100+ years ago. The complexity of Watson's personality was well handled showing him to be a multiple murderer with brief interludes of tenderness toward his wives and children. There were too many unimportant characters introduced who played insignificant roles in the history adding to the unwieldy length of the book. The various violent acts could have been dealt with more quickly without wallowing in the blood and guts of each incident; they all blended together diminishing their impact. One cannot argue with the praise heaped on Mathiessen for his masterful style; it's serious literature for serious readers of which we have too little. But there was a feverish quality to the book which I found disturbing. I felt trapped in an atmosphere of evil emanating from men doing dastardly deeds with an overlay of the worst that nature offers, mosquitoes, snakes, 'gators, heat, dampness, storms. I read it to the end but was relieved when it was over. I'm puzzled by those who think it is a masterpiece. I expected better. I will read Peter Mathiessen again but I had more than enough of Mr. Watson and company who made me want to take a long hot shower.
Summary of Bone by Bone
"Watson's voice is an artistic triumph. . .[Bone by Bone] may well come to be regarded as a classic." --San Francisco Chronicle Book ReviewIn Bone by Bone, Peter Matthiessen speaks in the extraordinary voice of the enigmatic and dangerous E. J. Watson, whom we first saw, obliquely, through the eyes of his early twentieth-century Everglades community in Killing Mister Watson.
This astonishing new novel, calling to account the violence, virulent racism, and destruction of the land that fueled the so-called American Dream, points an accusing finger straight into the burning eyes of Uncle Sam. Here is the bloodied child of the Civil War and Reconstruction who dreams of recovering the family plantation. He becomes the gifted cane planter nearing success on a wilderness river when he gives in fatally to his accumulating demons. Powerfully imagined, prodigiously detailed, Bone by Bone is a literary tour de force as bold and ambitious as Watson himself.
"Like a true tragic figure, [Watson] knows and understands; he does not wriggle to save his own skin," said The New York Times. "This is a work of genuine dignity."
In Bone by Bone, the final chapter of Peter Matthiessen's Everglades trilogy, the man known variously as "Desperado" and "Emperor" Watson finally tells his own story--and a hard, ruthless, and singularly bloody tale it is. Brought up in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War, Watson flees South Carolina after he's tagged for a murder he didn't commit. Bone by Bone follows his exile in the Indian Territories, his arrest for the murder of Belle Star, and his years in Florida, where he struggles to carve a sugar-cane empire out of the Everglades before being gunned down by a howling mob. "There's some that would say that Edgar Watson is a bad man by nature," he muses near the end of his life, but later declares, "I don't believe that men are born with a bad nature." So is Watson's fate nature or nurture? Is he a killer born or a killer made? This question lies at the heart of Matthiessen's tale as well as its precursors, Killing Mister Watson and Lost Man's River. Answering it would mean nothing less than answering the problem of evil itself.
In this case, the evil is inextricably twined with the good. Ed Watson loves his wives, a good laugh, and at least some of his children; he also murders and betrays employees and friends, all the while insisting that he "wanted to be an honest and upright citizen all my life." Somehow--and this is only one of Matthiessen's great achievements--the reader believes him. The reader also believes Watson's other defense: his crimes are no different from those of the great robber barons. His uncle, for instance, quotes South Carolina Governor James Hammond: "Sir, what is it that constitutes character, popularity, and power in the United States? Sir, it is property, and that only!" It is for property that Watson destroys himself and all those around him; it is for property that his son's beloved Everglades are hunted, fished, drained, and cleared to the brink of destruction. Bone by Bone is a distinctively American tragedy, as outsized and ambitious as E.J. Watson himself. --Mary Park
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