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A review by whatsheread
Save Our Souls: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder by MATTHEW. PEARL
adventurous
dark
sad
slow-paced
2.0
SAVE OUR SOULS by Matthew Pearl caught my eye because of its title. A true Swiss Family Robinson story that involves murder sounded like the perfect break from all the fantasy novels I have been reading. However, what sounded like an intriguing story is, in actuality, a regurgitation of research and not one done very well.
SAVE OUR SOULS suffers from a serious case of too much information. There is no doubt that Mr. Pearl researched the topic, as he includes at least one footnote with its corresponding citation on almost every page. But therein lies the problem. Mr. Pearl finds a way to incorporate all his research into a short book. His notes are nearly as many pages as the story itself. There is too much information in such a short space that it is akin to drinking water from a wide-open fire hose. You can't process it all.
To make matters worse, Mr. Pearl opts to tell the story chronologically. While this doesn't seem like a bad organizational methodology to use for a historical narrative, it is to the reader's disadvantage here. Mr. Pearl spends large swaths of SAVE OUR SOULS going off on tangents every time he introduces a new person into the drama. The same holds for every new location mentioned or occupation. For every advancement of the castaway story, you must walk down at least one, if not more, other paths before Mr. Pearl finally gets back to the main narrative. If you take out all of the tangential information, the crux of the Walkers' shipwreck takes up very little room, and this is not a long novel to begin with.
While there is an interesting story there in SAVE OUR SOULS, it is not worth the effort required to dig that story out of everything else. There is no doubt Mr. Pearl is enthusiastic about this little moment in history, but his enthusiasm is overwhelming. His tangential explanations cause the main narrative to be disjointed. Plus, he doesn't always tie those tangents back into that main narrative, which serves to increase any confusion you may already have. You could get everything you need to know about the Walkers' tale from a simple Wikipedia entry because, in the end, that is all it needs to be. SAVE OUR SOULS is nothing more than a spewing of facts and numerous tangential history lessons for a moment in time that had no lasting impact on the world at large.
SAVE OUR SOULS suffers from a serious case of too much information. There is no doubt that Mr. Pearl researched the topic, as he includes at least one footnote with its corresponding citation on almost every page. But therein lies the problem. Mr. Pearl finds a way to incorporate all his research into a short book. His notes are nearly as many pages as the story itself. There is too much information in such a short space that it is akin to drinking water from a wide-open fire hose. You can't process it all.
To make matters worse, Mr. Pearl opts to tell the story chronologically. While this doesn't seem like a bad organizational methodology to use for a historical narrative, it is to the reader's disadvantage here. Mr. Pearl spends large swaths of SAVE OUR SOULS going off on tangents every time he introduces a new person into the drama. The same holds for every new location mentioned or occupation. For every advancement of the castaway story, you must walk down at least one, if not more, other paths before Mr. Pearl finally gets back to the main narrative. If you take out all of the tangential information, the crux of the Walkers' shipwreck takes up very little room, and this is not a long novel to begin with.
While there is an interesting story there in SAVE OUR SOULS, it is not worth the effort required to dig that story out of everything else. There is no doubt Mr. Pearl is enthusiastic about this little moment in history, but his enthusiasm is overwhelming. His tangential explanations cause the main narrative to be disjointed. Plus, he doesn't always tie those tangents back into that main narrative, which serves to increase any confusion you may already have. You could get everything you need to know about the Walkers' tale from a simple Wikipedia entry because, in the end, that is all it needs to be. SAVE OUR SOULS is nothing more than a spewing of facts and numerous tangential history lessons for a moment in time that had no lasting impact on the world at large.