Far Tortuga

"The dialect strains a bit here and there, with the weight of exposition within an anecdote or observation, but the author's joy in it is so infectious and his ear for it so sure that its music comes to permeate the reader's consciousness as thoroughly as the wonderful descriptions. Matthiessen's evocation of the Caribbean is uncanny....[His] characters are very much the carefully individuated, positivistic creatures of traditional good fiction, outfitted with speeches, histories, destinies...but now and then...a touch too predictable....Yet they are effective characters, the reader becomes thoroughly involved in their fate, and the book works well even on what I take to be its secondary levels. 'Far Tortuga' is an important book, its pleasures are many and good for the soul. Peter Matthiessen is a unique and visionary artist."Matthiessen, Peter is the author of 'Far Tortuga', published 1988 under ISBN 9780394756677 and ISBN 0394756673.