A review by quoththegirl
Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

3.0

Finishing Ship of Fools took me approximately an age. Porter is undeniably a talented writer, but never was a book so aptly named: every character in it was one kind of idiot or other. After 500 pages, I liked some of them even less than when I started. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to read it; if there isn’t at least one character with whom to sympathize, it’s difficult to care about what happens next. At the same time, however, I do recognize that her insights into human nature are extremely valuable: we all *are* some kind of idiot or other. The subtle (at first) hatred between Christian and Jew was eye-opening; suddenly I saw how it must have been terribly easy to fall into that trap unawares in German daily life of the 1930s. All in all, Ship of Fools is a good piece of literature, if an unlovable one.