Hypnotic Novel of the Sea

The Death Ship 

by B. Traven

The death ship it is I am in,
All I have lost, nothing to win
So far off sunny New Orleans
So far off lovely Louisiana.
(from "Song of An American Sailor")

This was B. Traven's first novel, published in 1934, and it is my favorite of his works. It is a sea story unlike any other in that it is a story of men at sea as a metaphor for men against what Jack London infamously referred to as the "Iron Heel" of modern industrialism. It is a novel with hypnotic power, timelessness, universality, and authenticity. In this work, Traven approaches the ability of Joseph Conrad to make the sea come alive for the reader.

The main figure who doesn't have a name—at least not a true one—isn't a victorious hero. He is an ordinary person who is struggling. His tale alternates between being hysterical and really somber at points. The reader is made to feel like his existence is pointless and that he has nowhere to fit in. It's interesting to note that B. Traven, the author, published under pseudonyms and declined to have his works recognized. His identification has never even been adequately confirmed due to the extent of this. Maybe that's why I found the writing to be so captivating. It was, in part, the author's way of venting his dissatisfaction with the world he witnessed.

Bruce Catton called the book "a startling novel about the horrible things that can happen to a man in the cock-eyed post-war world of Europe if he can't prove he is who he says he is. . . Our sailor is entangled in a world gone mad, a world in which justice and sanity have simply ceased to exist." A few decades later and several wars as well, and the world seems at times to be just as cock-eyed, no more just or sane.

What intrigued me, perhaps even more than this mesmerizing first novel, is the mysteriousness with which B. Traven hid his personal life. Even after many more novels, including the great Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Traven continued to hide behind a post office box in Mexico City. However that does not matter since his novels stand for themselves as exciting and daring adventures into the world of men and nature. This reader found The Death Ship was a novel with hypnotic power, timelessness, universality and authenticity. 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 

by B. Traven

“The treasure which you think not worth taking trouble and pains to
find, this alone is the real treasure you are longing for all your
life. The glittering treasure you are hunting for day and night lies
buried on the other side of that hill yonder.” (p 1)

The author of this book, B. Traven, is a mystery man but his novels are some of the best moral adventure tales that I have ever read. Treasure of the Sierra Madre is his best known novel, probably due to the film version directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart. 
 In the novel three Americans down on their luck prospect for gold in the Mexican Sierra Madre. It is a psychological adventure tale as it takes us through the disintegration of one of the three, Dobbs, as the gold they find corrupts his soul. The results provide for suspense and Traven's fine delineation of character makes the story both believable and interesting. The men in the novel are particular individuals but they are recognizable as universal types. The tone of the novel is serious but not without humor. with an ironic style Traven develops a well-rounded plot. But most of all it is a story of outsiders, anarchic in its spirit. I've enjoyed both reading the novel and viewing the film and highly recommend them.


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Finding the Right Book

The Magic Path

Julia Keller, in The Chicago Tribune yesterday, called it "The Magical mystical path linking book and reader". It being that moment when you, the reader, find a book that is just right for you - when you acquire or become aware of the book.
Sometimes it is not the right time as when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time as a senior in high school.
Even though I was a veteran reader with Shakespeare, Hardy, Eliot, Dreiser and others under my belt, I was not ready for Jane Austen. Only later after college as an "adult" would I return to Pride and Prejudice and discover the humor and wisdom that was there all along, even when I was not ready for it.


Most of my connections come from browsing used book stores and finding strange books by authors unknown to me (usually dead authors). That is how I found B. Traven's Death Ship. I sometimes follow up on recommendations from friends or bookstore (the smaller the better) clerks; thus finding authors like Par Lagerkvist and his amazing novel The Dwarf, and Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard, possibly the greatest historical novel of all time. The magic can even happen on-line as when earlier this year due to my obsession with Robert Musil I encountered a blog by Damon Young, a philosopher from Australia and found his inspirational book of philosophy and the reading life, Distraction.


Whether the path is through dusty corridors and shelves in used book shops or the electronic byways of the Internet (with the help of "Google") it is magic, but I don't buy the "mystical" part (just call it serendipitous). And it certainly is wonderful magic when it leads you to a new (to you) author and book that resonates with your life and reading. The wonder of the book is renewed again and again.