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Summary: A new voice for Smiley
Review: Jane Smiley is one of those authors who seem to have the need to reinvent themselves with each new book. In The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, she has adopted the stylistic devices of 19th century writing and speech to bring this story of a young woman's experiences in 'Bloody Kansas' to life. So successfully does Smiley present the character of Lidie Newton that it is hard for the reader to believe this person didn't really live - that these aren't the actual words of a real life. This is a tough book in some ways. What the heroine experiences is not often pleasant. The physiscal and emotional suffering are clear and felt by the reader. I always take it as a sign that an author has been successful when I find myself experiencing anger, disappointment, elation or relief on behalf of a book's charcters, and in Smiley's new book this was a constant. Somehow the story of Lidie Newton seemed personal to me right from the start. I suspect that Jane Smiley modeled the character on herself in some ways, because she lives on the page more vibrantly than any Smiley character I can remember. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. What is important is that one comes to know and care about Lidie Newton; therefore anything that happens to her or that she thinks about becomes important for the reader. One of the strengths of the book is the main character's intellectual and spiritual growth. Things don't just happen to her, she learns from what happens. Still, the ending may not please some, because it doesn't show her as clearly triumphant. But it is true to life, and that is what the whole book is about.
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Summary: A woman's view of a crucial moment in American history
Review: Jane Smiley sets her novel in "Bleeding Kansas" before the Civil War and makes her readers appreciate what led up to that confict, its seeming inevitability and the consequences that are present even today. Her central character is not anachronistically feminist for the mid-19th century, but is still recognizable as a woman who finds traditional female roles unsatisfactory and who learns a commitment to freedom. Her awakening during her travels in Kansas and Missouri are at the heart of the book. Smiley does an amazing job in setting the scene and conveying to the reader the tension of the time. This book should have been a bestseller, but didn't get great reviews in the big papers - I can't imagine why not, because it's very good.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book that could have been much better
Review: Let me begin by saying that this is a good book. You would not be wasting your time by reading it. However, there are several problems with the way this is written that make me think Jane Smiley at some point lost control of what she was trying to accomplish. First, the book is basically divided into two parts--a long segment that takes place in the Kansas Territory, and a not-as-long part that takes Lidie off on the adventures alluded to in the title. The first part is way too long. Although I understand Smiley needed to set everything up in order to knock it down, there must have been a way to do it in fewer pages. Reading about how difficult life is in the Kansas territory gets tiresome after a while, and I was just waiting and waiting for something to happen. When things finally do begin to happen, however, Smiley crams so much action into the second half of the book that there's barely a chance to take it all in, and the various events lose their impact. After the rush of all these events, the book just kind of fizzles out. You never learn what becomes of the rest of Lidie's life, which is pretty frustrating. Another problem is that Lidie herself starts out as a neutral sort of character--she becomes an abolitionist because her new husband is one, but she admits that she has never thought much about the issues herself. Maybe Smiley intended to have Lidie become more righteous and firmly abolitionist as the novel went on, but this just doesn't happen. She seems pretty neutral about the slavery issue right up to the end. Which is not to say that the book doesn't take a stand against slavery--it does, in a powerful way. But it does so through an escaped slave named Lorna, not through the ambivalent Lidie herself. One of the other reviewers here mentions that the book is very historically accurate. This is admirable, and I did learn a lot about the Kansas Territory, which I appreciate. But a novel should do more than just be historically accurate. If you think the subject matter of this book sounds interesting, or if you're a big Jane Smiley fan, you will probably like this one. But if you're just looking for a really good, engaging book to read, I would respectfully suggest you look elsewhere.
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Summary: history distorted
Review: Lidie's story is promising for the first half and then she becomes exceedingly ladylike and fails at all her attempts to do anything. It is generally known that true ladies can do little out there in the world and must languish and blame their failures on their refinement. Another problem is 'the Missourians', in this politically-charged book. All Missourians are described as cartoonish, drunken, pro-slavery villans. A political assertion deserves refutation. Here is a quote from a reprint of 'Memoirs Of The Rebellion On The Border, 1863'by Wiley Britton, a Union Missourian who fought with a Kansas Unit. ""Probably some of those who are so careless in their remakrs in regard to all the people of this state being rebels, would not like to acknowledge that Missouri, after furnishing all the men she has for the rebel army, has also furnished more men for the Union army than either of the great states Iowa or Massachusetts....a double sacrifice is put upon the Union soldiers of this state...under all the extraordinary trials and difficulties, of desolation and ruin, they have remained firm in their devotion and loyalty to the Government." The novel becomes polemical in the second half and Lidie becomes the typical ladylike and passive character. She attempts in a half-hearted way to rescue a slave, but of course merely rushed out with her into the night, the slave is caught and sold downriver. the slave will suffer in the cane fields, but Lidie goes East and lectures to admiring easterners about her adventures in rescuing a slave. Apparently this irony remains well hidden. The first half is great, the second polemical and mean-spirited.
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Summary: Entertaining if you're stuck for something to read
Review: Once I got past the first chapter or two I couldn't put it down. The writing is good. Unfortunately, the story loses its punch as it progresses. Too bad -- I really liked Lidie. Read this book if you're stuck at your in-laws' house for a week (as I was) and there's nothing good on TV.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and sometimes boring presentation.
Review: Some of Smiley's characters were simply unbelievable. I kept thinking the book would get better, so I kept reading. In that way the story did pull me in. The second half of the book did not live up to the "build up" of the first half. In the end , Lidie was a disappointment to me. She lost her fine resolve and was pretty confused by life, or so it seemed to me. The boy Frank dropped out way to early from the story and his demise simply wasn't plausible based on the way in which his character was initially drawn. The book didn't hold together well. It was full of ambiguity. It had moments of greatness and then would drop back into a fit of inaness and boring transgression. I'm glad I read it; I learned a bit about abolitionist history, but it left me feeling hollow.
Rating: 
Summary: A great read!
Review: The range of issues covered by Jane Smiley in her last three works is extensive. She has gone from family relationships (A Thousand Acres) to academic institutions (Moo) to a much larger palette in this novel with her snapshot of Kansas in 1855. Although I found the first half of the novel at times tedious (possibly a reflection on the New England characters that frequent it?), the second half (where Lidie is on her own) is compeling. It is a fascinating study of her emerging self-awareness and self-worth. She learns in the process that life's situations are not black or white but most often gray.
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Summary: the subject of the novel merits better writing than this
Review: the story of the wooing, wedding and widowing of young Lidie Newton in the tumultuous middle years of 19th century America is told by jane smiley at a frantic pace. Characterisation and credibility are weak: some of the key personalities such as Thomas Newton and Lidie's nephew Frank never come alive on the page, and to this reader at least the miscarriage suffered by Lidie and indeed her later return to Quincy read as news items inserted into the story rather than as integral to the development of the novel
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but a bit too educational
Review: The writing in this book is excellent, the characters interesting and the situation new, at least to me. I especially enjoyed the first 150 pages. Eventually the story bogged down and had to be revived by a death that seems both inevitable and contrived. Anyhow, I kept reading through mounds of social and political history because I was hooked on the narrator. I'm glad I did.
Rating:
Summary: good for fast readers; not good for plodders
Review: This book would be perfect for the 8th grade kid with a college reading level because it has got to be better than any historical fiction out there for evoking the pre-Civil War era. Lots better than Across Five Aprils or Rifles for Waitie in terms of being a readable narrative. Very believable 'adventures' in the travels. Offers a very clever variation on the Uncle Tom's Cabin flight. I still grin to think of her actually being abducted by the slave. This book served Jane Smiley well as her foray into this genre. Everything she writes suits the purpose she chose, so the results are as uneven as her targets. This one is a bullseye.
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