Reviewed by:

• Oklahoma Odyssey: A Novel by John Mort
• Steve Yates

There should be an official novel form delineated to describe a fiction in which a carnival of characters from all around a countryside collide with neighbors and a few outworlders in one grand event. “Kermesse” feels right, especially after reading John Mort’s novel Oklahoma Odyssey, which is Brueghel-like in its masterful balance of detail and sketch, its sweeping management of characters and setting, and its energetic capture of seething motion.

Many novels hinge on some country fair or mass human event that sets the action off or culminates it. Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, or Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March, or John Williams’s Butcher’s Crossing, or Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian spring to mind. Border crossings and life changings coruscate when these carnivalesque happenings—the last gasps of an empire, the last buffalo hunt, one of the last Indian massacres—go down. Tribes crash together in a frenzy sometimes as devouring as Judge Holden’s dance, but always dizzying and, eventually, fatefully reorienting.

Oklahoma Odyssey is a kermesse novel, then, a tale of the last land run into Oklahoma at its border with Kansas. Everyone hurries and kicks to make “the best of a piece of bad luck,” as occasional protagonist, Ulysses Kreider, sums up his life (306). [End Page 167]

The grand event of that final land run serves as both backdrop and driver. United States cavalry sweep out Cherokees and squatters, including bad guy Eddie Mole. Mort deploys a number of moves antithetical to the traditional genre Western, among them the infrequency of Mole’s appearances. Mole murders Ulysses “Euly” Kreider’s father in the opening scene then flees, remaining a storm cloud on the horizon throughout. This meteorological distancing prevents the villain from becoming the most interesting character and ensures that his criminality lacks romance.

In a kermesse novel, it is sometimes hard to identify one protagonist. There can be and maybe there always should be many compelling characters. Mort positions each at a precarious borderland externally and internally. Euly is Mennonite, of German-speaking Ukrainian immigrant stock, but his apostate and ambitious father, a tireless freight hauler, ran whiskey. Euly’s “cousin” Kate, adopted by Uncle Helmut and Aunt Annelise, wonders whether she is part Black or part Osage, artist or Mennonite. Her beloved, Johnny Heart of Oak, is Osage but adopted and raised Mennonite. He bears name and traits, good and bad, from both tribes. Even the times these characters inhabit prove liminal. The novel begins in 1892 when the buffalo seem but a memory and the automobile but a rumor.

Mort creates unforgettable settings and situations. Kate, with a partial inheritance, travels to grindingly urban Kansas City. Rather than solely focus on business school (a modern answer to the Mennonite maxim “Life is Work”) she also paints and sketches. After a schoolmate and erudite Northeastern homosexual male tags her as not white, she crosses another border for inspiration. She dons trousers to sketch and paint the Blacks of a slum, Mississippi Town. Her struggles as an artist exploiting other people of color and selling the resultant art in a nascent marketplace make for extraordinary, thought-provoking reading.

Johnny, a boarding school–educated orphan, strives to achieve a “worthiness” to marry Kate. The values pushing him are both Mennonite and Osage. In his quest, he returns to his tribe. Mort’s writing among the Osage characters sparkles with revelation. There is a kind of last buffalo hunt, and it’s too fitting not to mention the title of one of Mort’s listed sources, The Osages: Children of the [End Page 168] Middle Waters. Johnny seems just that, understanding Jesus but praisingWah-Kon-Da.

The land run in the final act of the five is as well a rousing and memorable read, swirling all three major characters in a collision with Mole and their destinies. Here Mort demonstrates the thrills, tensions, and joys in his formidable kit of writing skills. If he wished to write the...

审阅者：

• 俄克拉荷马奥德赛：约翰·莫特的小说
• 史蒂夫·耶茨

应该有一种官方的小说形式来描述一部小说，其中来自乡村各地的人物狂欢节与邻居和一些外来者在一场盛大的事件中发生冲突。《Kermesse》感觉不错，尤其是在读了约翰·莫特的小说《俄克拉荷马奥德赛》之后，这部小说在细节和草图的巧妙平衡、对人物和场景的全面管理以及对沸腾运动的充满活力的捕捉方面具有勃鲁盖尔式的风格。

许多小说都以一些乡村集市或大规模人类事件为背景，这些事件引发或达到高潮。托马斯·哈代的《卡斯特桥市长》、约瑟夫·罗斯的《拉德斯基进行曲》 、约翰·威廉姆斯的《屠夫十字路口》、科马克·麦卡锡的《血色子午线》都会浮现在脑海中。当这些狂欢节般的事件——帝国的最后喘息、最后一次水牛狩猎、最后一次印第安人大屠杀之一——落下时，边境穿越和生活的改变就会焕发光芒。部落在疯狂中碰撞在一起，有时像霍尔顿法官的舞蹈一样吞噬一切，但总是令人眼花缭乱，并最终命运般地重新定位。

《俄克拉荷马奥德赛》是一部克尔马斯小说，讲述了最后一块进入俄克拉荷马州与堪萨斯州边境的土地的故事。正如偶尔出现的主角尤利西斯·克雷德 (Ulysses Kreider) 总结自己的一生一样，每个人都匆匆忙忙地想“把厄运变成最好的结果”(306)。[完第167页]

最终陆地跑的盛大事件既是背景也是驱动力。美国骑兵扫荡了切罗基人和占屋者，其中包括坏蛋埃迪·莫尔。莫特采用了许多与传统西部片风格相反的动作，其中鼹鼠的出场频率很低。鼹鼠在开场谋杀了尤利西斯·“尤利”·克雷德的父亲，然后逃跑了，始终在地平线上留下了一片乌云。这种气象上的距离阻止了反派成为最有趣的角色，并确保他的犯罪行为缺乏浪漫。

在一部kermesse小说中，有时很难确定一个主角。可以有而且也许总是应该有许多引人注目的角色。莫特将每个人置于外部和内部不稳定的边界地带。尤利是门诺派教徒，是讲德语的乌克兰移民后裔，但他的叛教者和野心勃勃的父亲是一位不知疲倦的货运司机，经营威士忌。尤利的“表弟”凯特被赫尔穆特叔叔和安妮莉丝婶婶收养，她想知道她是黑人血统还是奥塞奇血统，是艺术家还是门诺派教徒。她心爱的约翰尼·橡树之心是奥塞奇人，但收养并抚养了门诺派教徒。他的名字和特征，无论好坏，都来自两个部落。即使这些人物所处的时代也被证明是有限的。小说开始于 1892 年，当时水牛似乎只是记忆，汽车似乎只是谣言。

莫特创造了令人难忘的场景和场景。凯特继承了部分遗产，前往堪萨斯城的繁华都市。她不仅仅专注于商学院（对门诺派格言“生活就是工作”的现代回答），她还绘画和素描。在一位同学、博学的东北同性恋男性给她贴上“不是白人”的标签后，她跨越了另一个边界寻找灵感。她穿着裤子为密西西比镇贫民窟的黑人素描和绘画。她作为一名艺术家剥削其他有色人种并在新兴市场上出售由此产生的艺术品的斗争，值得一读，非同寻常、发人深省。

约翰尼是一名在寄宿学校接受教育的孤儿，他努力实现与凯特结婚的“价值”。推动他的价值观是门诺派和奥塞奇派。在他的探索中，他回到了他的部落。莫特在奥塞奇人物中的写作闪烁着启示的光芒。有一种最后的水牛狩猎，莫特列出的来源之一的标题太合适了，《奥塞奇： [结束页 168] 中层水域的孩子》。约翰尼似乎就是这样，理解耶稣，但赞扬Wah-Kon-Da。

五部曲的最后一幕中的陆地奔跑也是一部激动人心、令人难忘的读物，三个主要角色都与鼹鼠及其命运发生了冲突。在这里，莫特展示了他强大​​的写作技巧中的刺激、紧张和快乐。如果他想写...