Rating: 
Summary: Chesapeake chicanery
Review: Set in both England and the Chesapeake Bay area of the 1690's, "The Sot-Weed Factor" is written in the style of an 18th-Century comic novel, with arching plot lines, excessively formal prose, and long, descriptive chapter titles, but it adds 20th-Century ribaldries (homosexuality, incest, bestiality, masturbation, menstruation, toilet humor) that would have been absent or much more veiled in the older novels it emulates. It takes tremendous liberties with history by joyfully slandering such revered icons as Isaac Newton and Pocahontas and concocting a ridiculous plot filled with incredible coincidences that would make Charles Dickens's head spin, but that's what makes it so much fun. The main character, Ebenezer Cooke, is an affluent, idle young Englishman whose only professional aspiration is to be a poet while trying to preserve his virginity for the purity of his art. Through a series of misfortunes, he is assigned to go to America to oversee his father's Maryland tobacco plantation, Malden, but he also manages to be appointed Poet and Laureate of Maryland after getting an interview with Lord Baltimore. Idealistic and naive, he embarks on his journey expecting everything to turn out great. As expected in a novel like this, everything does not turn out great. Danger lurks around every corner, requiring Ebenezer to enlist the aid of companions who are often more troublesome than helpful. Accompanying him at various times are his resourceful and sly valet Bertrand and his childhood tutor Henry Burlingame, who turns out to be a man of many identities and a master of disguise. Burlingame, orphaned young, is determined to trace his mysterious ancestry, and his search becomes an integral part of the plot. Ebenezer's journey to Maryland is fraught with picaresque adventures. He is pursued by agents of the archvillain John Coode, kidnapped by pirates, marooned, and captured by Indians. All of these events are part of the political intrigue concerned with whether Maryland is to be predominantly a Catholic or Protestant province, and whether Englishmen will even be able to live there without worrying about being murdered by angry dispossessed Indians. When Ebenezer gets to Maryland, he is surprised to find it a bastion of prostitution, venality, and corruption, and through circumstances beyond his control or will, Malden turns into a brothel, opium den, and gambling house -- an appropriately comic predicament which Ebenezer and his friends must rectify using all the resources at their disposal. After reading this book, I felt like I had been clubbed over the head and taken on a wild ride through somebody's demented idea of a 17th-Century amusement park. It is intended to be a parody, but Barth, who is a native of the area he writes about, obviously invested a great amount of scholarship and research in its preparation. This is a novel for not only lovers of fiction, but anyone with an interest in Chesapeake Bay geography or colonial American history -- and a sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Outrageously funny
Review: This is the only book of this size (1200 pages) that I have read three times. I first read it in 1972 and just read it again last year. It is definitely NOT a "beach" read, and requires concentration, but is well worth it. After this, I read two or three more by Barth, and was quite disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Outrageously funny
Review: This is the only book of this size (1200 pages) that I have read three times. I first read it in 1972 and just read it again last year. It is definitely NOT a "beach" read, and requires concentration, but is well worth it. After this, I read two or three more by Barth, and was quite disappointed.
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