Passage

by John David Morley

'Passage' is the life story of a 500-year-old man and at the same time a history of the New World. The story is told by a hero in the first person during the course of five nights. His narrative takes the form of a confession to a Franciscan friar, who finds a box with the mummified old man deposited on his doorstep in New York.

Genres: Fiction

618 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Pewterbreath · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had to make a recipe for this book, it would be Little Big Man + Faulkner + 100 Years of Solitude. What we're following is the lifespan of a man from the first Western Hemisphere to now (or maybe a little bit into the future) as told to a monk on his deathbed.

I couldn't possibly go into detail on the story here--we follow our main character (whose name periodically changes) from Hispaniola to Brasil to New Orleans to Chicago to Hollywood to Las Vegas. What we get is an allegory of sorts, focusing on the theme of History.

Morely makes a distinction between history (past events that actually happened) and History (the stories that emerge from collecting these past events.) While reality never changes that much, the stories--the Histories--constantly change and evolve as they depend on imagination and technology. The biggest symbol for this is the Quipu--the documents made by Native Americans to record events through knotted string. As a quipu wears out it's required to be copied or lost forever, but in that copying certain errors happen, certain things get misinterpreted or left out, the story alters--sometimes to the point where it leaves reality. We see different forms of history keeping throughout this book, from portraits to film all of which have singular distortions.

This book is not an easy read--the writing is quite dense and it's less about story and more about variations on a theme. Our protagonist is mostly a passive onlooker going from fortune to misfortune. This isn't necessarily a weakness--with the lengthened lifespan we're able to see events in a much greater scope than a regular life would hold. It's not a fast read either, it begins very slowly and grows momentum as the book ends.

Morely's greatest strength is his description, whether it be of antebellum New Orleans, or Spanish Conquistadors, or Chicago in the 19th century, the moments that impressed me were describing these settings, in fact this is the rare book where talking about places were more important to me than talking about people.

I recommend this book, but only for those who want a really deep read that provokes some thought. Definitely not one for the beach.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel in 5 parts is about a 500 year old man told by himself (and father Anselm, who sits and listens to his stories, and te absolvos him when requested, and boy does he need some absolvos). It starts with protag landing in new world with the conquistadores, 2nd is in Pernambuco during colonial times (fun fun), 3rd is set in New Orleans in good ole usa historical times, 4th in Chicago during the gilded age, and 5th the "neon rainbow" of hollywood in "present day". This is a fantastic saga and a bit of a feeling of the "cavalcade of years", but you learn lots of history, lots, and the whole humanity thing (ugly to say the least), some redemptive love and empathy (but not lots), so i would recommend this to all serious readers, though Morley's style is not that "smoooth" and i would compare it to John Domini style.
A Tomb on the Periphery
or weinberger
Oranges & Peanuts for Sale
or agee
A Death in the Family
one question: why are John David Morley books so rare?