This starts out as an awesome picaristic surrealesque on the waves, with a crew of Gormenghastian ne'er-do-wells all saying cryptic things, and we look forward to an unfolding quest narrative with its own weird sense of style, a more Gothic Sorceror's Ship, but instead we get Giovanni's extended reminsicence about his weird doomed love affair and fall from God's grace, and it doesn't add up to all that much. He and the book should've taken their own advice and let the sea sweep them away to somewhere stranger. ( )