Rating: 
Summary: Self-Portrait of a Villain
Review: "Bone by Bone" is the final instalment of Peter Matthiessen's "Watson Trilogy". This ambitious series of novels aimed to tell the story of a man's life as seen through the eyes of his contemporaries ("Killing Mr Watson"), the same man's life as seen by posterity ("Lost man's River") and finally his life as seen by the man himself. In "Bone by Bone" Edgar Watson tells the story of his own life, starting with his childhood in South Carolina during and after the Civil War, and ending with his killing by a mob in Southern Florida in 1910.
The early parts of this novel are probably the best, particularly the descriptions of Watson's miserable childhood at the hands of his brutal, drunken father Elijah ("Ring-Eye Lige"). Elijah Watson (who himself played a less than glorious part in the war) stands as a symbol of the defeated post-bellum South -its disillusionment, its senseless racist violence, its desperate attempts to justify itself through the myth of the "Great Lost Cause". The teenage Edgar, hard working and determined, attempts to rise above the poverty and degradation into which his once-proud family have fallen, but his attempts are doomed when he is falsely accused of the murder of Selden Tilghman, a relative who has angered local opinion by his liberal, anti-slavery sentiments, and is forced to flee his home state.
The novel proceeds to relate Watson's life as seen through his own eyes. The rest of his life is mostly spent in Florida, with brief spells in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In time, Watson rises out of poverty to become a prosperous sugar-cane planter in the Everglades, but at the same time his character deteriorates, until by the end of his life he has become as violent and ruthless as his father, ready to exploit, bully, threaten or even murder those who stand in his way and to sacrifice or alienate his family and friends in pursuit of his ambitions.
"Bone by Bone" is better than its predecessor in the trilogy, "Lost Man's River", the dull story of Watson's son Lucius and his attempts to find out the truth about his father's legacy. Neither of the two later books, however, are as good as the first volume, "Killing Mr Watson", which tells Watson's story through the eyes of a number of those who knew him using a "multiple narrator" technique. This technique enables Mr Matthiessen to maintain an intriguing ambiguity. There is no authoritative author's voice to tell us whether Watson is good or evil or a mixture of the two, or whether his killing was bloody murder or a justified act of self-defence. The fascination of the book is that the reader must work this out for himself or herself, and different readers will (I suspect) come to different conclusions.
In "Bone by Bone" we finally get to hear the authoritative version of Watson's life- his own- and the ambiguity is lost. In the early part of the book, Watson may come across as a man more sinned against than sinning, but by the end any sympathy we may have had for him has been lost as we realise that his neighbours' suspicions of him were, by and large, justified. (This revelation will come as no surprise to those who have read "Lost Man's River"). The first-person narrative means that Watson dominates this book to an excessive extent; selfish and self-obsessed, he takes little interest in those around him, except insofar as they can be useful to him or stand in his way. The other people in the story do not therefore emerge as characters in their own right as they did in "Killing Mr Watson", and we have no voice to counterbalance Watson's own. The book works as a powerfully-written character-study of a villainous character, but its lack of any sympathetic figure to balance its central villain meant that I did not find it a very enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: Matthiessen deserves a Nobel Prize, though not for this book
Review: "Bone by Bone" is not Matthiessen's best work, or even the best of the Watson trilogy. But no matter: sometimes even Homer nodded, and anything by Matthiessen is better than almost anything else.Matthiessen deserves a Nobel Prize. Who else could write nonfiction as beautiful as "Wildlife in America" or fiction like the incomparable "Far Tortuga"? "Far Tortuga", in fact, may turn out to be one of the 6 or 8 very best novels of the passing century: it is unique, unprecedented, out-of-nowhere, and yet it is one of the most true and moving and beautiful novels I've ever read. So read "Bone by Bone", but let it provoke you to read all of Matthessien's other work as well.
Rating:
Summary: Matthiessen deserves a Nobel Prize, though not for this book
Review: "Bone by Bone" is not Matthiessen's best work, or even the best of the Watson trilogy. But no matter: sometimes even Homer nodded, and anything by Matthiessen is better than almost anything else. Matthiessen deserves a Nobel Prize. Who else could write nonfiction as beautiful as "Wildlife in America" or fiction like the incomparable "Far Tortuga"? "Far Tortuga", in fact, may turn out to be one of the 6 or 8 very best novels of the passing century: it is unique, unprecedented, out-of-nowhere, and yet it is one of the most true and moving and beautiful novels I've ever read. So read "Bone by Bone", but let it provoke you to read all of Matthessien's other work as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: A brilliant finale to what is surely one of the finest projects ever produced by an American writer. Peter Matthiessen is a genius.
Rating: 
Summary: A "Bone" to Pick
Review: By all rights, this third part of Matthiesson's trilogy should have been the juiciest entry, since Watson tells the details of his bloody story himself. However, the book proves to be disappointingly pedestrian, with Matthiesson going back and sketching out Watson's early life, "explaining" how he got to be as hard-hearted as he did, etc. The linear approach is a mistake, I think, and a bad one; indeed, in his obsession with local color and period detail, Matthiessen seems to have forgotten the basic components of a novel -- seems to have forgotten, indeed, how to reward readers who have made their way patiently through almost 1400 pages of material. A book where Watson told his story from the time he came to the Everglades to the end, with the occasional flashback, would have been riveting. Instead, we get transcripts of trials, and again, mountains of information to sift through. Actually, that's been the problem with the series as a whole: as much as I find it intermittently interesting, and as well as Matthiessen can write at times, he's let the details and the chronology overwhelm him here, swamping the narrative drive and making it all seem very plodding. His other mistake, I think, is trying to explain Watson's character, more or less giving reasons for his evil nature. But evil is most interesting when it's an enigma. I don't buy the bland childhood scenes, the awful father who "makes" Watson into what he is. Matthiessen should have just let evil be evil and got on with the story. I also don't buy Watson's voice throughout: I keep hearing Matthiessen behind it, blandly filling out episodes most readers will care very little about. The most riveting section of the whole series comes in the second book when we get the 3 or 4 page version of the killing of the Tuckers written out by R.B. Watson. What a shame that Matthiessen couldn't have matched that kind of intensity for the conclusion of his monumental saga. Sadly, much as I love Matthiessen, I'd advise readers to call it quits after Killing Mr. Watson (as Matthiessen should have). It's the best of the lot.
Rating:
Summary: A "Bone" to Pick
Review: By all rights, this third part of Matthiesson's trilogy should have been the juiciest entry, since Watson tells the details of his bloody story himself. However, the book proves to be disappointingly pedestrian, with Matthiesson going back and sketching out Watson's early life, "explaining" how he got to be as hard-hearted as he did, etc. The linear approach is a mistake, I think, and a bad one; indeed, in his obsession with local color and period detail, Matthiessen seems to have forgotten the basic components of a novel -- seems to have forgotten, indeed, how to reward readers who have made their way patiently through almost 1400 pages of material. A book where Watson told his story from the time he came to the Everglades to the end, with the occasional flashback, would have been riveting. Instead, we get transcripts of trials, and again, mountains of information to sift through. Actually, that's been the problem with the series as a whole: as much as I find it intermittently interesting, and as well as Matthiessen can write at times, he's let the details and the chronology overwhelm him here, swamping the narrative drive and making it all seem very plodding. His other mistake, I think, is trying to explain Watson's character, more or less giving reasons for his evil nature. But evil is most interesting when it's an enigma. I don't buy the bland childhood scenes, the awful father who "makes" Watson into what he is. Matthiessen should have just let evil be evil and got on with the story. I also don't buy Watson's voice throughout: I keep hearing Matthiessen behind it, blandly filling out episodes most readers will care very little about. The most riveting section of the whole series comes in the second book when we get the 3 or 4 page version of the killing of the Tuckers written out by R.B. Watson. What a shame that Matthiessen couldn't have matched that kind of intensity for the conclusion of his monumental saga. Sadly, much as I love Matthiessen, I'd advise readers to call it quits after Killing Mr. Watson (as Matthiessen should have). It's the best of the lot.
Rating:
Summary: It has staying power
Review: I didn't whiz through this as I did "Killing Mister Watson", but Ed Watson tells his own story well enough to hold the reader. What amazed me as the end approaches and upon reflection, is that the story of Ed Watson, fictionalized as it is, offers food for thought about the thin line that can separate classic American rags to riches stories and those who, for various reasons, can't seem to make it over the hump. Watson had the strength, drive and natural intelligence, but couldn't overcome his weaknesses and his past. That makes this story, and the whole trilogy, a true American tragedy (much like Theodore Driser's novel, but with darker, dirtier characters). And the funny thing is, the second I finished this book, I grabbed Killing Mister Watson and spent hours going back and forth between books. It's an interesting sensation.
Rating:
Summary: It has staying power
Review: I didn't whiz through this as I did "Killing Mister Watson", but Ed Watson tells his own story well enough to hold the reader. What amazed me as the end approaches and upon reflection, is that the story of Ed Watson, fictionalized as it is, offers food for thought about the thin line that can separate classic American rags to riches stories and those who, for various reasons, can't seem to make it over the hump. Watson had the strength, drive and natural intelligence, but couldn't overcome his weaknesses and his past. That makes this story, and the whole trilogy, a true American tragedy (much like Theodore Driser's novel, but with darker, dirtier characters). And the funny thing is, the second I finished this book, I grabbed Killing Mister Watson and spent hours going back and forth between books. It's an interesting sensation.
Rating:
Summary: Great additon to the collection
Review: If you are south Florida history buff you won't want to miss this latest Matthiessen offering.
Rating:
Summary: Great additon to the collection
Review: If you are south Florida history buff you won't want to miss this latest Matthiessen offering.
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