Much earlier in my reading quest, I read a novel subtitled: A Tale Without a Hero, and though I didn’t really think it appropriate for Vanity Fair…
It would have been perfect for At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
That might sound like a criticism; it is not. Neither is there a villain.
The drama is set in South America, somewhere along the Amazon river basin, probably in the 1960s. The cast includes American evangelical missionaries; a Spanish Catholic priest; a pair of American bush-pilots and ne’er-do-wells; the local despot el Commandante, and the real problem, the natives – the Niaruna.
You might also call this, "When Worlds Collide".
The Evangélicos and Catalicós compete for the lost souls of the Niaruna. The government cooperates and confounds, the pilots try, and never quite manage, to keep clear of el Commandante’s control, and the Niaruna contest with the jungle, with rival tribes, with the 20th Century, with the white man’s germs, and with one another.
They are all fragile human souls, pitiable at times, admirable at others, and always struggling.
If there is a single main character, it is Lewis Moon, one of the American pilots, known to everyone simply as Moon. He is a Native-American, Cheyenne to be precise.
So long as he kept moving he would be all right. For men like himself the ends of the earth had this great allure: that one was never asked about a past or future but could live as freely as an animal, close to the gut, and day by day by day.
But Moon is lost.
He felt bereft, though of what he did not know. He was neither white nor Indian, man nor animal, but some mute, naked strand of protoplasm.
Gradually, he begins to identify with the Niaruna, and then suddenly with the help of a natural hallucinogenic he joins them. He flies his plane into the jungle until it runs out of fuel and he parachutes out, and attempts to assimilate.
And then the real struggle begins.
My rating 3 ½ out of 5 stars
As I’ve stated, it is a tale without a hero, but a compelling tale nonetheless. The characters are all believable, and apart from el Commandante, not overly stereotyped. Each struggling to find meaning and purpose. I’ll probably read more by Matthiessen.
I began this with trepidation for how Matthiessen would treat the Christian missionaries. But Matthiessen, a Zen Buddhist, treated them as flawed human beings – that’s fair enough – but never as villains. I believe his greatest indictment was not of their sanctity nor sincerity, but rather their system: their failure to attempt to understand the culture of the souls they were trying to reach – also certainly fair in some contexts. He did seem to treat the Priest with a bit more respect than the evangelicals, and even though the Catholics were losing ground, Father Xantes was always calm, always courteous. There was one scene I found amusing. The two evangelicals, Martin Quarrier and Leslie Huben, along with the priest try and stop a native from making off with a motored canoe:
For one wild ecumenical moment the three holy men, grunting and thrashing in the mud and water, did violent battle with their maddened convert and his outraged machine.
Other excerpts:
“Why do you hate and fear us so,” the padre said, “when all we feel towards you is mild astonishment?” ~ Father Xantes to Martin Quarrier
“Why, I’m a missionary.” Moon said. “I’m at work in the fields of the Lord.” ~ Moon derisively to Martin Quarrier
And then in his last radio transmission from his plane, and not in his right mind…
“I’m at play in the fields of the Lord,” Moon said; he removed his earphones. “Repeat, at play in the fields of the Lord.”
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