Book Review
Feb. 9th, 2005 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Ordinary Seaman
by Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman is a brilliant writer. The story is about Esteban (a veteran of the Nicaraguan war) and fifteen other Central American men who are hired to be the repair team and crew of a ship docked in the Brooklyn Harbor. The ship is a wreck with no electricity or working plumbing, and after the men spend several months working to fix it up, the unscrupulous owners of the ship abandon them. The men eke out a bleak existence, alone with their memories and stories. Eventually, Esteban leaves the ship and embarks on a new life in New York City.
However, as with many great books, there is more going on here than just the plot. The way Goldman weaves together the crew's stories, their separate pasts, and their shared present, is beautiful. Goldman also touches on the nature of the (illegal) immigrant experience, the necessity of coming to terms with the past in order to enter the future, and the workings of human optimism and hope.
Around the middle of the book, there is a gorgeous passage in which Goldman travels through the dreams and thoughts of each man as they fall asleep at night, and each dream or memory is about a woman from the man's past. Goldman doesn't give the names of the men when he tells their thoughts, but by that time, I knew them all well enough that I could tell who each thought belonged to. The aching beauty of those few pages has really stuck with me.
by Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman is a brilliant writer. The story is about Esteban (a veteran of the Nicaraguan war) and fifteen other Central American men who are hired to be the repair team and crew of a ship docked in the Brooklyn Harbor. The ship is a wreck with no electricity or working plumbing, and after the men spend several months working to fix it up, the unscrupulous owners of the ship abandon them. The men eke out a bleak existence, alone with their memories and stories. Eventually, Esteban leaves the ship and embarks on a new life in New York City.
However, as with many great books, there is more going on here than just the plot. The way Goldman weaves together the crew's stories, their separate pasts, and their shared present, is beautiful. Goldman also touches on the nature of the (illegal) immigrant experience, the necessity of coming to terms with the past in order to enter the future, and the workings of human optimism and hope.
Around the middle of the book, there is a gorgeous passage in which Goldman travels through the dreams and thoughts of each man as they fall asleep at night, and each dream or memory is about a woman from the man's past. Goldman doesn't give the names of the men when he tells their thoughts, but by that time, I knew them all well enough that I could tell who each thought belonged to. The aching beauty of those few pages has really stuck with me.
