Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

First published in 1962; published digitally by Open Road Media on April 28, 2015

Labor unrest or a nascent revolution has gripped Veracruz. To avoid it, as well as a smallpox epidemic and approaching hurricanes, foreign travelers scramble to board a German ship that is docked in the Veracruz port. The passengers are a mix of Germans and non-Germans. The voyage takes place in the early 1930s.

Ship of Fools is aptly named. Taking a trip with nearly any of the passengers would be a voyage to Hell. They each hold the belief that their language and place of birth make them superior to people born in other countries. Apart from their nationalism, they carry an assortment of religious and racial prejudices. They moralize and condemn. They gossip endlessly. They argue (or bicker) about love and politics and religion. They are easily offended by opinions they do not share. They are hypocrites and betrayers. The men are misogynistic and most of the women are self-indulgent schemers. The ship is a microcosm of humanity with nearly all the good people omitted.

Christian passengers hate the lone Jewish passenger as well as the man who is traveling to Germany to rescue his Jewish wife. The Jewish passenger despises the fact that a Jewish woman would marry outside her faith. Non-Catholics hate Catholics. Germans hate Spaniards. The old despise the young. Women look down upon other women, particularly the Spanish countess who has been exiled from Cuba and given passage as a prisoner (much to the delight of the captain and a doctor who attends to her ether addiction). Revolutionary students and Spanish dancers stuck in steerage seem to be the only passengers who are capable of having a good time, probably because they do not spend their time judging others or worrying about how others are judging them.

Nothing in the novel approaches a plot but the character studies are flawless. Petty characters bicker about the people with whom they must share quarters and dinner tables. They form alliances and enemies. All of this is entertaining and, thanks to Katherine Anne Porter's elegant prose, easy to read. In the end, however, it becomes wearing to take such a long journey with so many fools. No particular character carries the novel. No major character is given more prominence than any other. A young American (Jenny) and her unmarried partner (David) are the least offensive characters and, for a time, it seems that their disintegrating relationship will give the novel some focus, but their story is buried amidst all the others. The development of so many characters is masterful but it leaves the story without a center.

A few of the characters change or grow during the course of the novel although most are just as foolish at the end as they were at the start. That is a reflection of reality -- one ship's voyage is unlikely to undo the prejudices that have built over a lifetime -- but that reality gives the novel a static feel. Perhaps Ship of Fools is just too long and too detailed to achieve the simple beauty and power of Porter's shorter works. It is nevertheless full of small moments that make the journey worth taking.

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