Killing Mister Watson
by Peter Matthiessen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter MatthiessenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1991-07-30
ISBN: 0679734058
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Killing Mister Watson
Book Review: storm surge
Summary: 5 Stars
Matthiessen's story of Ed Watson-or more accurately the land, the people, and the mores of Watson's day and age-is almost lyrically written. However, it is not a beach book. This book came to my attention through an article in a travel magazine. The writer described paddling through the Everglades with a well-read copy of this novel in his pack. So, I carried this book with me on vacation. Alas, I wasn't canoeing down the Everglades, and found the novel impossible to read during my noisier vacation adventure. That said, I'm glad I've made the time, now, to read this book. The early Florida that emerges in Killing Mr. Watson is not the Florida of early St. Augustine and Palm Beach history, nor does it closely resemble the history of the American Deep South. Instead, it more closely resembles the American West in values and spirit: both the tolerance and the intolerance of people who are living on the edge, and who must respect one another while ensuring that they are, themselves, respected; the deep spirit of compassion in many of the people overlaid with a necessary toughness; and a strain of irreverent humor and quick wit. Matthiesen allows the voices of these people-some of them running from a clouded past, most scrabbling for a living in an unfriendly land, and all struggling to emerge from the muck-to ring true. Most of those voices are likable; all of them are human. This book has a tone similar to the letters written by another generation, the oral traditions handed down through families, and the recorded historical documents of early settlers, but Matthiessen doesn't simpley connect the dots: he shapes that history and those voices, into an intense narrative. While it is a highly crafted, even elitist novel at times, in spirit, it textually represents some of the best paintings of the Florida Highwaymen. That is, his prose descriptions of the natural world fully render the wild, rugged beauty of life along Florida's rivers. Matthiessen also narrates the environmental destruction of Florida that seems to go hand in glove with people's dreams of success in this country in every era. The one thing both Ed Watson and many of the successful entrepreneurs in the novel seemed to share was a common belief that they could control this world, and that they would do so no matter what or who was damaged in the process. In this novel, gossip, greed, petty human nature, heartache, and loss become forces as destructive as the wind and waters of any hurricane and just as impossible to control.
Summary of Killing Mister Watson
Drawn from fragments of historical fact, Matthiessen's masterpiece brilliantly depicts the fortunes and misfortunes of Edgar J. Watson, a real-life entrepreneur and outlaw who appeared in the lawless Florida Everglades around the turn of the century.Literary Books
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