World's End
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Bloomsbury, 1996. 456 pp., $16.95 (pb)
Review by Phil Shannon
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/14979
If the obsessively introspective focus of most novels these days either puts you to sleep or has you tuning in to the latest episode of E.R., then does T. Coraghessan Boyle have something in store for you!
World's End is one of Boyle's earlier novels, which are now being reprinted following the success of The Tortilla Curtain. It, too, has the big social canvas brought to life by a writer in absolute control of the artistic tools of the trade.
History and its tale of class conflict are the grand literary project of World's End, explored through the tensions and occasional clashes between the land-and-labour-owning Van Warts and the labouring Van Brunts (and the Cranes and the Kitchawank Indians) across 300 years of US history.
It's a mighty saga, every page a well-prepared feast of colourful dialogue, flavoursome adjectives, rich high-protein sentences, marinated in sympathy for the underdog. Yet, there is just a note of negativeness that mutes unrestrained celebration of the novel.
Boyle's revolts of 300 years, as dramatic as they are, are "doomed revolts", spontaneous and unorganised. Yet revolts do not always fail. In the scales of history, it is the successful revolts and campaigns which tip human society towards progress. Boyle reflects his times, the 1990s loss of social hope, in writing about defiance, with sympathy but with political defeatism, too.
So, too, Boyle's 1960s nihilist hero, Walter, is a richer character than the "good guys", Tom and Jessica, who are psychologically thinner and less complex than Walter, their commitments and beliefs treated with some condescension.
Walter's thoughts seem to confirm Boyle's literary treatment of the "weary, righteous souls" of Tom and Jessica and "the romance of the do-gooders and marshwort preservers, of the longhairs and other cheek-turners, the romance of peace and brotherhood and equality". With socialists very unfashionable heroes these days, well-meaning but haywire hippies have to suffice, but they are a soft target for self-fulfilling cynicism.
That said, T. Coraghessan Boyle is, even for boring old Marxist curmudgeons, the best literary thing going at the moment. Well worth missing an episode or two of E.R. for.