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The characters are the same, but they are fleeing modern-day Manhattan. |
By MICHAEL ZITZ
The author of the new satirical novel "Jamestown" sees parallels between the invasion of Iraq and the establishment of the Virginia colony.
Seventeenth-century English leadership, Matthew Sharpe told The Free Lance-Star, was "venal and vicious and breathtakingly bumbling" in gaining a foothold here, "kind of like the Bush administration."
His "Jamestown" (Soft Skull Press) is set in the near future, as "settlers" move out of a devastated Manhattan and travel down Interstate 95 to establish a colony in southern Virginia.
The characters remain the same: Pocahontas, John Smith, John Rolfe.
"I hope readers will pick up on the parallels I'm drawing between early Americans and our bumbling foreign policy," Sharpe said in a phone interview from New York, where he teaches creative writing at Wesleyan University.
In both cases, he argued during the interview, "The primary purpose is a commercial one--the exploitation of resources.
"There's also the rhetoric of importing values to the savages and of one God being more valuable than another--or several others," he said.
"I do see many parallels with our adventure in Iraq," Sharpe said. "The breathtaking ineptitude in both situations would be ridiculous if it were not so horrifying."
His "Jamestown" is one of mind-bending manipulation and deception. And many historians, including Virginia Indian history expert and author Helen Rountree, say that may be closer to the truth of the real Jamestown than the tales of Pocahontas' love for John Smith that so many American schoolchildren have been fed over the years.
Sharpe said Rountree's historical writings on Pocahontas, Powhatan and the colony helped shape his view of the historical Jamestown.
In his "Jamestown" of about 25 years in the future, Pocahontas considers mechanic Jack Smith, whom she refers to as "Jack-[deleted]," a bit of a dolt.
She tricks him into helping her get together with communications specialist Johnny Rolfe, her big crush.
The real Jamestown almost starved to death because of an English miscalculation. The settlers plan had been to survive simply by trading copper trinkets to the Indians for food. A drought made that impossible for the Indians to do on a continuing basis, and led to their slaughter for their food. That was the conclusion shared by historians, archaeologists and Indians in last month's PBS Nova special "Pocahontas Revealed."
In this darkly futuristic "Jamestown," wireless devices, not copper, are prized by the Indians.
Pocahontas tells Smith, who's being held captive by her father, Powhatan, she'll save his life and free him if he gives Rolfe her e-mail address: cornluvr @werowocomoco.com
"You don't want to meet him?" Smith replies.
Pocahontas is exasperated: "Let me finish, Jesus, men are so--ugh! I don't want to meet him just yet. I prefer to exchange a few e-mails with a guy before I date him. You can tell a lot about a guy by how he e-mails."
Rolfe then courts Pocahontas via instant and text messages.
In an aside to the reader, Pocahontas admits, "I can't save his life or ensure his release, but I know my dad will let him go, that's his way of things."
The genesis of "Jamestown" came from a job assignment to come up with creative writing exercises for New York City schoolteachers to use in classrooms.
"I had such a good time, I decided to do a novel-length creative writing exercise."
He threw himself into research, making several trips to Jamestown, including a visit to the archaeological digs at the site of the settlers' fort and Powhatan's village.
The book is narrated, chapter by chapter, by various characters, including Pocahontas.
For his future Pocahontas, more than the other characters, he said, he strove to invent a dialect that was part Elizabethan English and part Britney Spears.
The book even includes nods to song lyrics by Spears and other current music artists.
"I was sort of trying to make them both characters readers could identify with on a human level, but also historical collages of the way we mythologize history," Sharpe said.
He considers Smith "a contradictory figure. One can't doubt that in his own way, he was heroic quite curious about the world and a Renaissance man.
"But he was also a colonizer and an abuser of local hospitality, very self-aggrandizing and a fabricator."
Sharpe is also the author of 2003's "The Sleeping Father" (Soft Skull), which was a "Today" show book club selection; 2000's "Nothing Is Terrible" (Villard); and 1998's "Stories From the Tribe" (Villard).
He acknowledged that "Jamestown" is sort of a literary grand jury that indicts both the English and the Bush administration without a cross examination.
"The beauty of being a novelist," Sharpe said, "is that you can have mixed feelings and not have to make an argument.
"But more than others I've written, this novel does make an argument--and it's not a flattering one."
Michael Zitz: 540/374-5408