Word: matthiessen
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KILLING MISTER WATSON by Peter Matthiessen...
...ruin of the Everglades between 1880 and 1910, especially by hunters of egret and flamingo plumes and alligator skins, is a likely topic for novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen (Far Tortuga; The Snow Leopard). Matthiessen has made the despoliation of the planet, as well as the ways in which men who work close to nature survive, his main concerns. Lord knows he has done his homework, and he details the destruction repeatedly and with bite. Here is how Bill House, a hardy plume hunter, sees the history of the region: "The Injuns was taking some egrets, trading 'em in with...
...this novel, based on a true story, Matthiessen is pretty good at mythmaking himself. From the evidence he gives, there is no reason to think the real Edward J. Watson was much more than a serial killer with trading smarts that were offset by lethal outbursts of meanness. But the reader doesn't see much of that side. Oh, Watson beats his son every Sunday and throws a half-caste mistress off his land when she becomes inconvenient. But the narrative, which is told in 36 short chapters by ten locals, mostly mixes awe and dread, along with a certain...
...aesthetes frequented the Fogg Museum, where Paul Sachs produced platoons of future museum directors in his museum course, and the intellectual elite concentrated in history and literature, where a remarkable group of tutors like Perry Miller, F.O. Matthiessen and Kenneth Murdoch created an atmosphere of excitement for whole generations of students. The emphasis in literature seemed to have been on English authors. If one read Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, or dipped into Zuleika Dobson, it was a true sign of sophistication. French literature was pretty much uncharted territory, except in my case, for I received...
...Matthiessen makes Peltier's trial something very like a 1960s-style conspiracy drama. He rehashes an "ambush theory" advanced by the defense and makes too much of the negligent autopsy of a former AIM member. Finally, the author drops all pretense of impartiality: "From the Indian's viewpoint-and increasingly from my own-any talk of innocence or guilt was beside the point...