Book Journal: Star of the Sea

I enjoy novels that take a step outside the box--especially with formatting. We all know that nearly everyone in the USA is ADD, somehow, and whether they were part of the over-diagnosed crowd a few years ago or not. So when books like Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor takes a bit of a borrow from 19th-century title headers (Roman numerals, chapter summaries), point of view shifts, and ship logs, the book is entertaining, at least for face value.

Stops there, though.

If there's one thing that frustrates me, it's when professors beat a book to death, trying to draw a lot more from them than what is actually there. In fact, the whole idea of literary criticism is kind of like that, but for the most part, literary criticisms focuses on books that want to be critically read. I don't doubt that Joseph O'Connor was like that in his book, but it really wasn't especially well-done, and the jump-happy plot didn't really settle to make any message especially poignant.

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor

Another account of the Irish turmoil of the late 1800's, O'Connor blends together several main protagonists to weave a story of personal trouble during political upheaval and the Irish potato famine. Set about the passenger ship Star of the Sea, the story is broken into chapters that switch point of views between characters such as Pius Mulvey, a killer; Lord Merridith, a pathetic nobleman; Mary Duane, some chick who is inexplicably irresistible, "a footnote in everyone else's story;" and Dixon, the American narrator. None of these characters holds enough sway for the reader and I could care less about them throughout the entire time, even as O'Connor tries to establish a "literary care" for them--the pathetic man, the weak man, "the dark soul of the night." Whatever you call it. He jumps around happily between present day and past, between narrators and settings, and is never able to really define these characters so that the reader cares for them.

The Plot B, about the murder aboard the ship, is clearly an afterthought of O'Connor's, and does not resonate within the reader. The unfolding of the characters is uninteresting because the characters are.

I give O'Connor props for his inventive formatting, harking back to Mark Twain & co., and the careful detail of the ship logs and historical backdrop that he clearly cared for. The writing is intelligent and fluid. However, the plot flaws are too great to really sustain his writing. Had his characters been more stirring it would have been a good book; but given that his novel is completely character-driven anyway, it fails to really stir in individuals. To echo a reviewer on Amazon, "The only thing rolling is the sea." Not once did I care about what happened next.

5/10