Bone by Bone

Rating:
Summary: Nature writing transmuted to fiction
Review: Reading this book is an ambitious undertaking. Matthiessen's books appeal to the serious reader. His father, Elijah Watson, challenged a hero, General Butler, to a duel. Edgar Watson left Elijah Watson's household for two years. He stayed at the old Tilghman place. Returning he found out that his father had led others to believe that he had shot a man.

Edgar and the women moved south. In March 1871 they crossed into Florida. They had traveled from North Carolina to Georgia and into Florida. They went to the Myers plantation which Aunt Tabitha inherited. His mother's plea for refuge had been granted.

Edgar was disliked by the overseer, Woodson Tolen. He was from the Flint River country in Georgia. Edgar went to work on another plantation because he made Woodson Tolen angry. Then Old Man Woodson Tolen went back to Georgia and tensions eased.

Edgar married Miss Charlie Collins when she turned fifteen. Ten months later she died. Their child's name was not registered in Lake City. He was referred to as Son Born. Charlie's parents took him to raise. Eight years later Edgar went to fetch him. Mr. and Mrs. Curry Collins called him Elton, but now Edgar called him Robert or Rob for short.

Edgar, accused of killings he did not commit, went with Rob and his second wife, Mandy, to the Oklahoma territory. In the territory Edgar ran into the Younger clan and Belle Starr. Belle Starr's son claimed he tried to bribe his way out of a scrape. Watson was put on trial for Starr's murder. He was released. The charge was not proved. The federal court held there was insufficient evidence to indict him.

Next Edgar leased a farm in Crawford County, Arkansas. By that time Rob was eleven and the other children, Carrie and Edward, toddlers. Also there was a new baby and the family was in debt. In jail for a month, Edgar had to plant later. They did not celebrate Christmas. They were in hibernation trying to ride out the famine.

Watson was arrested for horse theft and Mandy and the children moved with kind people to the Choctaw Nation. When he went out on the chain gang he managed to escape, but could not get word to Mandy and his family. He went off with Frank Reese and they parted near Memphis. Now he was known as Jack Watson. He rode over the Smokies into the Carolinas.

He sought his father Elijah Watson near Edgefield Court House. In 1878 Elijah Watson and William Coulter were indicted for murder. In October 1879 there was a finding of not guilty. Then he had a work gang job, prison guard. Next he, Elijah, became a grave digger.

Edgar realized he no longer cared whether he lived or died. He went to Florida and changed his name to E. Jack Watson. He visited his sister Minny and her husband Billy Collins. He learned that he was wanted in Arkansas. Watson traveled west and hired out as a gunslinger. He killed a man and almost fell into the hands of lynch mob.

From Arcadia, Florida he went south to Ten Thousand Islands. He started farming at Chatham Bend. His family joined him. They led a rough mosquito-ridden life. The Watson Place was famous because it was the only place between Fort Myers and Key West that was painted.

In 1898, a dry year, a huge alligator made its home in the Chatham River. Everyone but Rob moved to Fort Myers when Mandy was sick. The story continues in this fashion. Les Cox was one of the last varmints, bully boys, encountered by Edgar Watson. Finally Watson meets his merited end.

I honor the author's accomplishment. The book is strong and fine, although I preferred KILLING MR. WATSON.

Rating:
Summary: Read "Killing Mr. Watson" First!
Review: This final installment in the "Mr. Watson" trilogy is, alas, in some ways the most disappointing. This isn't to say it isn't enjoyable, but having made it through both "Killing Mr. Watson" and "Lost Man's River," it's difficult, and perhaps unreasonable, to expect us not to judge this book in the light of its predecessors.

This book is a much easier read than the detective-like "Lost Man's River," which followed Lucius Watson's seemingly interminable journey all over Florida as he hunted for evidence of his father's innocence. In "Bone by Bone," told in the first person from the perspective of E.J. Watson himself, the mystery and doubt so perfectly balanced with drama and violence in "Killing Mr. Watson" is removed. Watson tells his own story, shows us how he became the violent man he is, and reveals to the reader his whole person.

The names in this book are confusing...I can't recall reading a book in which so many names are thrown at you. There is a gloss of family relationships at the beginning of the book, which helps somewhat, but I still found myself losing track of people, especially since we were dealing with members of the same family.

In both "Lost Man's River" and "Bone by Bone," Matthiessen editorializes--through his characters--quite a bit about race issues. Given that these stories are situated in the post-Civil War South, it is not inappropriate that there should be some race issues, but the manner in which the characters editorialize (rather than letting the action of the narrative speak for itself) makes that commentary stick out like a broken wing. The problem of race, and the situation of blacks, becomes less an organic part of the story (as it is in Faulkner) than asides the writer makes to remind us of the racial horrors of the Reconstruction South.

Watson's voice is clear throughout, although there are certain inconsistencies. He speaks for the most part in elevated, literary English (using complex metaphor, at times). We are told that as a child he read the Greek classics. Nevertheless, he cannot spell, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, he lapses into backwoods diction.

In "Killing Mr. Watson," Watson came off as a brooding, violent, secretive man. Here, we see the guts of the man, the joker, the father, the husband. This side is effectively blended with the violence and the brooding we saw earlier. It will be hard to appreciate this, though, if you haven't first read "Killing Mr. Watson." (You don't really need to read "Lost Man's River" to get the full effect of this noverl, although you will be more sensitive to the drama involving Lucius and Rob.)

Rating:
Summary: Read "Killing Mr. Watson" First!
Review: This final installment in the "Mr. Watson" trilogy is, alas, in some ways the most disappointing. This isn't to say it isn't enjoyable, but having made it through both "Killing Mr. Watson" and "Lost Man's River," it's difficult, and perhaps unreasonable, to expect us not to judge this book in the light of its predecessors.

This book is a much easier read than the detective-like "Lost Man's River," which followed Lucius Watson's seemingly interminable journey all over Florida as he hunted for evidence of his father's innocence. In "Bone by Bone," told in the first person from the perspective of E.J. Watson himself, the mystery and doubt so perfectly balanced with drama and violence in "Killing Mr. Watson" is removed. Watson tells his own story, shows us how he became the violent man he is, and reveals to the reader his whole person.

The names in this book are confusing...I can't recall reading a book in which so many names are thrown at you. There is a gloss of family relationships at the beginning of the book, which helps somewhat, but I still found myself losing track of people, especially since we were dealing with members of the same family.

In both "Lost Man's River" and "Bone by Bone," Matthiessen editorializes--through his characters--quite a bit about race issues. Given that these stories are situated in the post-Civil War South, it is not inappropriate that there should be some race issues, but the manner in which the characters editorialize (rather than letting the action of the narrative speak for itself) makes that commentary stick out like a broken wing. The problem of race, and the situation of blacks, becomes less an organic part of the story (as it is in Faulkner) than asides the writer makes to remind us of the racial horrors of the Reconstruction South.

Watson's voice is clear throughout, although there are certain inconsistencies. He speaks for the most part in elevated, literary English (using complex metaphor, at times). We are told that as a child he read the Greek classics. Nevertheless, he cannot spell, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, he lapses into backwoods diction.

In "Killing Mr. Watson," Watson came off as a brooding, violent, secretive man. Here, we see the guts of the man, the joker, the father, the husband. This side is effectively blended with the violence and the brooding we saw earlier. It will be hard to appreciate this, though, if you haven't first read "Killing Mr. Watson." (You don't really need to read "Lost Man's River" to get the full effect of this noverl, although you will be more sensitive to the drama involving Lucius and Rob.)

Rating:
Summary: On its own merits: Bone by Bone
Review: This is the finest and most enjoyable novel I have read this year. Unlike many reviewers, I have not read the previous books in the series. This novel tells the story of E. J. Watson in the first person, from his boyhood in South Carolina during the reconstruction till the moment when he is gunned down by a mob in Florida in 1910. A long, complex, detailed narrative full of people, character, information, and history, it works on many levels, and is most amazing to contemplate when one has finished reading it. Mr. Watson had a brutal childhood, and was fixated early in life on becoming a man of property and restoring his family honor. He in fact becomes a murderer, exploiter, trouble maker, and terrorizer of blacks. From his own perspective, we also see a man truly in love with each of his three wives, having a generous sense of humor, trying to be decent and upstanding, and aware of his own evil. Peter Matthiessen's book is a powerful evocation of the complex trajectory of a human life, and the paradox of any attempt to reconcile an external judgement of that life with the experience of how it was to have lived it.