Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy (2)

There is - as the other reviewers have pointed out in their varying ways - altogether too much inertia in this book for the impatient reader, too many interweaving genealogies and generations, too much "cracker" dialogue in this account of historian Lucius Watson's (son of the Watson killed in the first novel of the trilogy), who much resembles Matthiessen himself, even in physical description, attempt to discover the "truth" about his father, if that is indeed what one could call it. Lucius doesn't quite know what he's been doing all these decades of his life at the end of the book - aside from having thrown it away. All this having been conceded, Lost Man's River is like nothing so much as a long drawn out prose-poem of encircling narratives whose keynote is the deep lingering bass of elegy: elegy for a lost landscape, for a lost way of life, for a lost man and his lost sons, and, in the end, as with all great elegies, for lost humanity. One feels at times that the prose itself is sticky marshland one is wandering through to no end. But, to this reader's mind, all is redeemed by the lyrical sighs that punctuate the work, from the "cruel spring dusk" to the "somnolent August pastures" the narrative is wound in a dreamy language of desuetude. This lovely prose is what makes this second book of The Watson trilogy worthwhile to me. It has much of Thomas Gray and the book of Ecclesiastes in it. Here is a sampling: "And yet Lucius had always known - or known, at least, since October of 1910 - that in the end there was no sanctuary except free self-relinquishment into the eternal light of transience and change, leaving no more trace than the blown dust of an old mushroom or the glimmer of a swift minnow in a sunlit sea or the passage of a lone dark bird hurrying across a twilight winter sky." If this passage doesn't strike a chord in you somewhere, then - as any number of the canny old-timers in this book might say: "You'd best turn right around and leave off ponderin' readin' this thing right now afore you get yourself stuck somewheres you don't much like." But, on the other hand, if such passages do strike you, then you'll be amply rewarded as you turn the final page with a panorama in the mind's eye of a time and setting lost in shadows and voices on the wind.

This is the second book of a trilogy that begins with "Killing Mr. Watson," and ends with "Bone by Bone." If you read Killing Mr. Watson, and were fascinated by it, as many readers and critics have been, you'll be tempted to read the rest of the trilogy. Dead Man's River begins many years after E.J. Watson's death. Watson's son, Lucius, is struggling to reconstruct his father's life and death. You might have noticed in Killing Mr. Watson that the story, told by those who knew Watson, contains gaps, ambiguities, contradictions and mysteries. There's plenty of room for sequels. Lucius finds some answers, and also uncovers new mysteries and contradictions. Along the way, you'll learn more about the many fascinating characters you first encountered as narrators in "Killing Mr. Watson." The final book in the trilogy, "Bone by Bone," tells the tale again, from the point of view of Mr. Watson. The Mr. Watson trilogy is reminiscent of the well-known film, Rashomon, by Akira Kurosawa. It re-tells the same tale several times, from different perspectives. This is a gutsy kind of trilogy to write. A lesser author would burden the reader with repetition and excessive detail. Mathiessen, one of few authors ever to win one National Book Awards for fiction, and another for nonfiction, is up to the task, if anyone is. Dead Man's River suffers from the usual problems found in the second book in a trilogy. It doesn't begin the story, nor end it, and it's nearly incomprehensible if you haven't read the first book. Consider, who would enjoy "The Two Towers," the second book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if he or she had not first read "The Fellowship of the Ring," and did not intend to read "Return of the King"? If, after reading Killing Mr. Watson, you're eager to know about Mr. Watson and the other pioneer families of that time and place, read the rest of the trilogy, in sequence. I think you'll be glad you did. I certainly am glad that I did. Matthiessen is a master of so many things -- pioneer history of Florida, diverse cultures, nature writing, environmentalism, character development, historical accuracy and detail, dead-on vernacular dialog, inventive style, and, in this trilogy, compelling mystery. Also, in this trilogy, Mathiessen explores the nature of truth itself, as the same story is retold several times by people who all think they know the truth, though their understanding is filtered by their own perspectives, limited knowledge and vested interests. On the other hand, if Killing Mr. Watson filled your cup, you might want to stop there. It works very well as a stand-alone novel.

Matthiessen's Killing Mr. Watson trilogy, of which Lost Man's River is the middle part, is to me an excellent example of how fiction describes reality better, more intensely, and in a way that is hard to explain, more truthfully, than, let's say, a factual report by a newspaper (or the police, for that matter).

I read "Lost Man's River" nearly 10 years ago, and finished the trilogy immediately following the release of #3. I've been a repeat reader of "Snow Leopard" and "Nine Headed Dragon River" and when I saw an unknown (to me) Matthiessen title I bought it on reflex, dug in, slogged, and followed in short-order to consume "Killing Mr. Watson" and wait impatiently for "Bone by Bone." When talking with anyone in whom I detect the slightest to be a reader I'm off and gone on the magnificience of Matthiessen's capacity to immerse the reader in the heat of the swamp and stubborn mind of man. It is an ultimate fly-on-the-wall experience. You buzz around, land for a moment, flash a restless, comforting blink through hundreds of lenses, and flashing with fear, hunger and frantic sleepy nervous energy, flick to another elbow, eyebrow, lampshade, another hall of mirrors inside someone's mind. And onto the next. Endless strings of POV. Not an easy read. It's at least as confusing as any of the most critical reviewers has let on. If your expectation is smooth narrative with crisp transitions and a baggage-free punchline at the end of a perfectly dissembled string of interleaving "Arthur Hailey-esqe" sub-plots, well, no, this isn't it. Peter hasn't named it "Lost Man's River" for nothing. It's the heat. Sweltering, oppressive, unrelenting, weaving inside and out of the mind's eye of dozens of characters, dozens and dozens by the time you get through all three books, each of whom is utterly certain that they've got the story right. This is a long yarn where everybody is telling the truth. Probably in much the same way, as say, Tom DeLay is certain that he is always telling the truth. Matthiessen's accomplishment as a craftsman is the voice, the vernacular. You learn to read with a drawl quick enough, which gets to be like a buzzing in your head. Books 1 & 3 are by the far easier reads. The experience of #2 being very similar to Thomas Pynchon's "V" where the candy for the mind is in the tone, weight and timbre of language, the music of the prose, where the narrative line is possibly only be found by surrendering your search. Matthiessen's achievement is brilliant, extraordinary, precious and impossibly rare.

In agreement with many of the other reviewers of this novel I agree the amount of characters and their lineages can be trying. However, when I manged to get even a slight idea of who was who things became much easier. I thought the novel filled in the gaps and questions left my "Killing Mr. Watson" with great clarity. Because of this I believe that the novel could not be fully appreciated without having previously read the first book of the trilogy. "Lost Man's River" made me formulate my own conclusions as to what actually happened and not until the very end did I find out what I had right and what I had wrong