sewn paper
Fiction (sort of)
1993
176 pages
ISBN 0-88984-150-0
$11.95
Christopher Columbus
Answers All Charges
Yuri Rubinsky and Marc Giacomelli
This may be the most politically incorrect book of the year.
Five centuries have passed since Christopher Columbus's famous
voyage of 1492 and his place in history has never been so hotly
debated. Columbus is blamed for everything from slavery and
colonialism to the current state of the environment. He has been
described as a megalomaniac, an incompetent seaman, an
adulterer, an opportunist and a liar.
Yuri Rubinsky's and Marc Giacomelli's Christopher Columbus
Answers All Charges gives the `Admiral of the Ocean Sea'
a voice so that he can defend himself against his accusers.
Writing as a lonely old man in a villa in Valladolid,
Columbus responds with bombast and wit to accusations that
his voyages were religious expeditions disguised as voyages of business,
that his voyages were business trips under the guise of sacred
missions, and that he was obsessed by hats. To the charge
`That I Prayed for the deaths of my enemies,' he answers: `I
have generally found that the death of an enemy, while a blessing,
should not be considered a personal favour from the Almighty.'
To the charge `That I should have remained a cartographer, a
calling in which I have some skill,' his reply is: `Without
cartographers, there can be no progress. Without explorers,
there can be no cartographers.' The resulting book is a
humorous and provocative re-examination of Christopher
Columbus's claims to fame.
`Christopher Columbus Answers All Charges is manifestly a labour
of love, and one feels the guiding hand of deep religious convictions on every page.
Columbus here is also a wounded hero, suffering more for our sins than his own.
He is thus granted by the authors a universality that enables this book to transcend
itself, while still remaining tenaciously faithful to its original intentions.
Clearly, it takes huge themes to distract these writers from using their enormous
literary talent for purely satirical ends. Christopher Columbus would be grateful.' `Yuri Rubinsky and Marc Giacomelli explore the intricacies of a historiographical voice in
Christopher Columbus Answers All Charges. The double authorship of this novel is both suspect
and effective, as the Admiral Christopher Columbus, in his old age and after great successes,
claims authorship, justifying his actions and according himself the greatness of a discoverer.
I resisted this book, expecting it to be a defence of Columbus, but I was utterly taken
by the ironic humour of Rubinsky and Giacomelli's sharp-witted construction. Here, the voice
of Christopher Columbus announces his own perfection, proud of being first, pompously sailing
off the edge of all maps. Columbus does list and answer all charges, beautifully inscribed
at the top of each chapter under a baroque banner of headline, including such
interesting variants as "That I prayed for the deaths of my enemies," and "That
I allowed a stowaway girl to sail with me on the `Santa Maria' ". Columbus answers
general accusations, accusations concerning his origins, and accusations concerning his voyages
as well as his sense of divine mission, with his infallible logic, a logic that undercuts completely
the imperialist argument and shows the giddy sideshow of "discovery" for what it was.
In his responses, the fictionalized Columbus mixes bravado and vision, hard-core
entrepreneurship and dream, but Columbus as an ordinary man -- his ambition, his bitterness,
his squabbling, his persistent dissatisfaction with a world in which "small man of fact
are asked to place value on the actions of those of vision' -- comes through. Columbus's
answers are denials more than justifications, sometimes obstinate denials, sometimes
contradictions, capturing the ambivalence of his presumed discoveries, an ambivalence nevertheless
tempered by the novel's interest in him as a historical figure. In the end, ironically,
Columbus justifies nothing, only seals his own damnation; still, as a man of his time
and circumstance, he becomes almost forgivable. At least the novel tackles the ambivalence
of dreams, the dreams of men who seek difference, who seek to make changes to the known
world, who crave adventure. This novel is a brilliant achievement of characterization;
Columbus is truly "the first man to combine the virtue of humility with the necessity of
arrogance." Was he a fool, a madman, a tyrant, a visionary, someone who embodied the notion that
ideas can overcome blood? Or was he merely part of that terrible human urge to test his desires
at the expense of others? Whatever the fictional Columbus claims, history is not over,
as the irony of such a novel, especially one published in 1993, trumpets. Wry humour
saves this book from its own self-destruction. The writing is good, the book is beautifully
produced, and the tenor of this exploration
is thoughtful and intelligent. It is almost enough to make the reader cry, "Come back Chris -- come
back and speak up for yourself!" '
- the Toronto Star
- University of Toronto Quarterly
Photo by Tim Inkster