Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter - BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Another week is here for us to share the first sentences (or so) of the books we are reading. Book Beginnings on Fridays has been going for several years now. We've gathered a lot of opening sentences! 

For those of you who have participated for a long time -- THANK YOU! For those of you who are more new, welcome! I appreciate everyone who participates. I don't always get around to visit everyone every week. But I enjoy all your blogs and love the variety of readers who take part in this event and the different sorts of books we all read.

Please link your post below. You don't have to have a blog to play along. You can post on facebook, Instagram, or other social media and link your related post in the Linky box below. As always, if you post, or share your blog post, on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag so we can find each other. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

August, 1931 -- The port town of Veracruz is a little purgatory between land and sea for the traveler, but the people who live there are very fond of themselves and the town they have helped to make. 

-- Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter. Published in 1962, Ship of Fools is a shaggy story of many characters on a ship from Mexico to Germany in the stormy times prior to WWII. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please link to your Book Beginning blog post or social media post, not the home page of your blog or your social media profile page. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

David, hearing the thin edge in her voice, said no more, but reflected that no matter how he tried to explain his point of view to Jenny, about anything at all, he seemed always to go off at a tangent, or in a circle, or to get bogged down in a spot he had never meant to be in, as if Jenny's mind refracted his thought instead of absorbing his meaning, or even his feelings about certain things -- Indians, for example. He would give up from now on talking to Jenny about Indians, or about her painting, either; she was sentimental about the one, and obstinate about the other; let it go.

Ship of Fools is a long book -- my edition is just under 500 pages -- but I like it. It's wordy, idea-based, repetitive, and detail-driven, the way many mid-Century (meaning mid-20th Century) novels seemed to be. It is one of the 50 books I put on my Classics Club list because it is on Erica Jong's list of Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women.