In an ideal world, critics shouldn’t read the reviews on Amazon.com. And usually I don’t, not because they might alter my basic reaction to a book, but because they can so easily infiltrate phrases and even ideas, and dilute one’s original impression of the text.
But in the case of Thomas Trofimuk’s Waiting for Columbus I succumbed. I did so because I was genuinely perplexed by the book, the first novel by a Canadian “writer, editor and communications consultant.” But immediately after I started sampling the online reviews I understood my dilemma. The reviews were split down the middle, some calling the novel an overwhelming experience, others saying they were close to throwing it into the trash can.
The story concerns a patient in an asylum in modern-day Seville who thinks he’s Christopher Columbus. He’s delusional, of course, but any explanation of how he reached this mental state is left to the very end of the book. In the mean time we’re treated to lengthy passages in which Columbus is interviewed by Queen Isabella of Spain (who falls in love with him and is at the same time notably foul-mouthed) and meets Norsemen in the seas north of Britain who tell him tales of a land far to the west called Vinland. These episodes are mixed in with scenes at the asylum, an enlightened place where patients try out unusual gambits in games of chess played against the director, drink wine and go on trips to the beach.
Two characters soon come to the forefront: a nurse named Consuela who falls in love with the self-styled Columbus and an Interpol agent, Emile, who has come down from Paris in search of a missing person. It gives nothing away to reveal that this person is, of course, “Columbus,” but it would spoil any suspense the book has to disclose what train of events has led him to his present situation and fueled his delusion.
It’s tempting to say that this is a “power of love” novel, and that the sense of superiority such an unimpeachable, even transcendent, theme could be thought to give the book takes the place of any identifiable literary qualities. Such an analysis would certainly account for the disparity in the online reactions, those who are deeply moved by the novel’s ostensible theme giving it five stars, but those who focus instead on the self-consciousness of the writer, struggling hard to attain “fine writing” but laboring under his own rule of an almost constant present tense, giving it two at best.
On balance, I found the novel to be an ambitious and competent piece of work, though less than gripping. The problem is perhaps that Random House (here in the guise of Doubleday) has over-promoted the book, with the result that expectations have been on par with a major literary event, whereas the fact is that this is simply one more novel, interesting enough, but fit for a rather limited audience.
This over-promotion is reflected in the blurb that describes the book. “Breathtaking prose,” “the final, stunning page,” “a dazzling story,” “this unforgettable novel” — this kind of PR benefits no one (certainly not the author) and only serves to endorse the definition of advertising as the art of lying for money.
Another strange feature of the book is that its plot is retrospectively more interesting than it can ever have been while you were reading it. The “solution” to the mystery is the best thing in the whole story, making it strongly relevant to current world events. But because you have to read 300 pages before getting to it, you’re inevitably in two minds about the sections concerning Queen Isabella’s fantasies, Columbus’ problems getting backing for his expedition, the events on his ships when becalmed in the Doldrums, fears of the Inquisition and so on.
The question of what these historical passages actually signify is also troubling. They are clearly the result of considerable research on Trofimuk’s part, but are they the fantasies of the modern-day supposed “Columbus,” or some species of historical flashback? The significant part of the answer to this is that, whichever they are, they are ill-digested. And this, I think, is at the heart of the book’s shortcomings.
The historical matter is of course intrinsically interesting, though it’s a subject that has had more than its fair share of exposure. Had the author selected a less well-known event there might have been greater justification for the extensive attention he allots it. But maybe Trofimuk had an eye on sales and the almost limitless interest there is in Columbus’ voyage in Canada and the US.
Waiting for Columbus might have been better as a tighter, shorter thriller in the style of Georges Simenon, an extremely prolific writer who, according to legend, rarely took more than 13 days to compose a novel. Trofimuk would benefit from a dose of that attitude. It seems to me that he takes himself too seriously and probably devoted a year or more to his task. A breezier, more closely focused, matter-of-fact approach would have worked wonders.
So, read this novel only if you have time on your hands, don’t expect a thrill a minute, and don’t expect a literary masterpiece either. What you will find is a reasonably insightful work about psychiatric delusion, but one that is itself characterized by not inconsiderable delusions of grandeur on the writer’s part. There must be a moral here but, in the somewhat diffuse state of mind brought about by reading this meandering, rather self-important novel, I can’t at the moment work out quite what it might be.
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