Book: Deliverance
Feb. 4th, 2012 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holytoastrI have been trying to read more books outside my usual preferences in order to broaden my horizons. I found a list of 100 Best 20th Century Novels, which I am using to guide me on what to read.
This one was a big miss. I found the book to be terribly dull and the characters completely unlike-able.
The story creeps along, heavily buried in descriptive overkill. I frequently felt myself thinking, "Get on with it already!" It would be one thing if the story was compelling, but it wasn't. I was bored with the story and impatient with the writing style.
And then there were the characters. Perhaps it's because I cannot imagine being a middle-aged man, but I just found no way to relate to any of the characters.
YARR! Thar be spoilers below! (Totally not worth cutting.)
The protagonist was Ed, who is a bored middle-aged man who works in advertising and has a man-crush on his best friend Lewis.
Lewis is a bored middle-aged landlord who is convinced the world is ending and needs to build up as many survival skills as possible before the time comes. The trip down the river is his idea - part of some test to himself before the river is dammed.
Along for the ride are Bobby and Drew. Drew is a bored middle-aged musician who rocks out with a hillbilly idiot savant. Bobby is a bored middle-aged salesman who isn't really into the whole wilderness thing and eventually gets raped by a hillbilly. I found it interesting that the man least interested in the "magic" of the river is the one who gets raped. And horrifically, his friends seem him as tainted and want him to just get over it.
So yeah, this was not a story for me. On the plus side, it was rather short in terms of page count. But the thing took me a month to read. I was miserable. I feel like I am failing in my endeavor to expose myself to new things. But at least I forced myself to read it all the way to the end. That counts for something, right?
This one was a big miss. I found the book to be terribly dull and the characters completely unlike-able.
The story creeps along, heavily buried in descriptive overkill. I frequently felt myself thinking, "Get on with it already!" It would be one thing if the story was compelling, but it wasn't. I was bored with the story and impatient with the writing style.
And then there were the characters. Perhaps it's because I cannot imagine being a middle-aged man, but I just found no way to relate to any of the characters.
YARR! Thar be spoilers below! (Totally not worth cutting.)
The protagonist was Ed, who is a bored middle-aged man who works in advertising and has a man-crush on his best friend Lewis.
Lewis is a bored middle-aged landlord who is convinced the world is ending and needs to build up as many survival skills as possible before the time comes. The trip down the river is his idea - part of some test to himself before the river is dammed.
Along for the ride are Bobby and Drew. Drew is a bored middle-aged musician who rocks out with a hillbilly idiot savant. Bobby is a bored middle-aged salesman who isn't really into the whole wilderness thing and eventually gets raped by a hillbilly. I found it interesting that the man least interested in the "magic" of the river is the one who gets raped. And horrifically, his friends seem him as tainted and want him to just get over it.
So yeah, this was not a story for me. On the plus side, it was rather short in terms of page count. But the thing took me a month to read. I was miserable. I feel like I am failing in my endeavor to expose myself to new things. But at least I forced myself to read it all the way to the end. That counts for something, right?
