Not done with life yet....

books:


	• East of the Mountains David Guterson Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999 - 279 pages average customer review:based on 201 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

An eloquent elegy

Readers will likely take an interest in David Guterson's "East of the Mountains" after reading his popular 1995 novel "Snow Falling on Cedars". The more recent book is the story of Ben Givens, a retired doctor who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Givens decides to take his own life in a staged hunting accident rather than subject himself and his family to the suffering of his inoperable condition. The good doctor travels east, where he intends to commit suicide with his trusty hounds at his side while stalking grouse in the rolling hills of Washington's apple country.

Guterson is poetic in his descriptions of the landscapes and personalities that Givens encounters. The author also employs a handful of flashbacks to Givens' younger days, to his time spent as an infantryman in WWII, and how he became inspired to dedicate his career to medicine. Although the pace of the story is a bit poky in the early chapters, the novel eventually establishes itself. The man who would take his own life struggles with both the logistics and the logic of his decision, which makes for some interesting tension. The ending sweeps in predictably enough. But even if you can see how this one will end from a mile away, there's still plenty of satisfaction in reading this elegy through to its conclusion.

for more information click here

Not done with life yet....

People seem to really like or really dislike this book. I enjoyed it very much and recommend it highly. I'm giving nothing away in telling you it's about a dying man and how he makes elaborate plans to leave this life -- and then what happens instead... a very "human" book, one that ably demonstrates how even a dying grandfather still has the capacity to grown and learn.

for more information click here

Magical...

This is a beautiful, magical book. I started reading the book with very low expectations, expecting another hokey, cliche-ridden discourse on facing up to our own mortality. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm not going to go into details of the book, because I don't want to ruin any potential readers' experiences. All I can say is...read this book! It's gentle pace draws you in, and makes you feel-REALLY FEEL-Ben's experiences, his thoughts, and the conclusions he reaches in facing his own mortality.

I was expecting a tear-jerker, and the author could easily have played it that way...yet, I never shed a tear. Instead, I finished the book with a sense of satisfaction for the way that Ben had chosen to end his days.

This is a keeper...and for me, there is no higher compliment.

for more information click here

subtly captivating

With the first sentence I was captivated; "On the night he had appointed his last among the living, Dr. Ben Givens did not dream, for his sleep was restless and visited by phantoms who guarded the portal to the world of dreams by speaking relentlessly of this world." I read this book because I loved reading Snow Falling on Cedars and wanted to read another book by this author. Guterson weaves a story of love between a husband and wife into a story about dying and does it well. He writes of the value of life even when facing imminent death and proves his point without being preachy. Guterson's writing has a way of being subtle and also captivating.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

It is mid-October, 1997, harvest time in the Columbia Basin of central Washington state, a rich apple- and pear-growing region. Ben Givens, recently widowed, is a retired heart surgeon, once admired for his steadiness of hand, his precision, his endurance. He has terminal colon cancer. While Ben does not readily accept defeat, he is determined to avoid suffering rather than engage it. And so, accompanied by his two hunting dogs, he sets out through the mythic American West-sage deserts, yawning canyons, dusty ranches, vast orchards-on his last hunt. The main issues for Ben as a doctor had been tactical and so it would be with his death. But he hadn't considered the persuasiveness of memory-the promise he made to his wife Rachel, the love of his life, during World War II. Or life's mystery. On his journey he meets a young couple who are "forever," a drifter offering left-handed advice that might lessen the pain, a veterinarian with a touch only a heart surgeon would recognize, a rancher bent on destruction, a migrant worker who tests Ben's ability to understand. And just when he thinks there is no turning back, nothing to lose that wasn't lost, his power of intervention is called upon and his very identity tested. Full of humanity, passion, and moral honesty, East of the Mountains is a bold and beautiful novel of personal discovery.

for more information click here

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

2006 Books I've Read- List 2 (May 18th-August 4th)
Books I read in 2003, part I
Lyrical but Gritty Novels

east

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build ...
No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah
Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II ...
From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava ...

search for books
east of the, east, mountains

Impressum / about us