GALÁPAGOS REGAINED

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

Over the years, James Morrow has frequently examined religion with a satirical and skeptical eye through his Jehovah trilogy, Last Begotten Daughter, and a variety of short stories. He returns to this fertile ground with Galápagos Regained, a Victorian exploration of religion and belief set against dual explorations to the far ends of the earth, one led by the actress Chloe Bathurst, the other by Malcolm Chadwick, both seeking a fortune with their proof of God’s existence or non-existence.

An actress by trade, when Chloe Bathurst loses her position at the Adelphi Theatre, she finds herself unemployable and eventually takes a job as a zookeeper to Charles Darwin. Unfortunately, her new job cannot pay her the money she needs in order to pay her father’s way out of debtors prison, and Chloe comes up with a scheme to raise the money quickly. She copies Darwin’s treatise on evolution and plans to present it to the judges of “The Great God Contest” as proof of God’s non-existence. This theft results in her loss of position with Darwin, but allows her to be sent on a journey to the Galápagos to prove her assertions.

Malcolm Chadwick, representing the religious, leads a journey the East for the same contest in an attempt to discover the final resting place of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. Although the expedition continues on to the East, Chadwick's own progress stops in Constantinople, where he learns of the research of the German monk Gregor Mendel, which, separated from any understanding or belief in Darwinism, is presented as proof of the deity. The relgious forces are also at work on Bathurst's journey, both in the form of a priest of Chloe's ship whose job is to undermine the mission, and the voyage of Reverand Hallowborn, whose task is to destroy all of the life on the Galápagos islands lest they be used to prove the non-existence of God.

The majority of the novel follows the adventures (and misadventures) of Chloe Bathurst as she uses her unique skills as an actress and her equally singular point of view, to make the journey from England to the Galápagos despite the vicissitudes of weather. Along the way, she enchants not only her supporters and the crew of her ship, but priests, natives, and shipwreck victims. Chloe adopts new roles as necessary, or just on a whim, all of which add to the character's charm.

Morrow emulates, although not slavishly, the style of the Victorian period, enough to set the tone for his characters, but not enough to dissuade a modern audience from reading the novel. The writing almost seems to be Morrow trying to amuse himself with the different style. Fortunately, he is a skilled enough author to pull the style off, and in doing so adds to the satire of the novel.

Just as the faith of men of faith is tested in the novel, so too is the disbelief of the disbelievers, some of whom are truly aetheists and others of whom are merely opportunists, seeing a claim of disbelief as the best route to achieving their goals or making money. The characters slowly develop traits, making them more than two-dimensional figures, although some of them never manage to progress beyond the first impression of them. Hallowborn's epiphany seems more due to the exigencies of plot than to any actual change in his point of view. Similarly, Orrin Eggwort never gets past being a simple foil for Chloe upon her arrival in the isles.

Galápagos Regained further cements Morrow's already strong reputation as a religious satirist. His characters, on both sides of the argument, show strengths and weaknesses of characters, none of them being as pure in their beliefs or actions as they might wish themselves. Charlatans turn out to be more earnest than those who present themselves as faithful, and the faithful often find new outlets for the beliefs, consistent with their characters if not their educations.

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