Cloudsplitter

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Summary: The most honest voice I have ever read.
Review: Owen Brown, Bank's voice in "Cloudsplitter" does not make excuses for who he is and for the terrible things he thinks and does. Neither does he glorify his father nor apologize for him. He states events as they ocurred, whether good or evil. And what an interesting idea, to have "Owen" write this book as a collection of letters to a historical researcher. The one problem I had with Owen's voice was, how can a man with little formal education and very little, if any, time to read, be able to have such command of the language? That was not very believeable. But, in spite of this, Cloudsplitter is one of the most incredible books I have ever read in my life.

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Summary: John Brown had very bad luck.
Review: Owen, John Brown's son, tells us the story of his childhood and life at his father's side. It seems that nothing goes their way. Not even their war against slavery was particularly successful. The genius of the book is the narrative style; apologetic, fiercely angry and real. John Brown was a religious fanatic. He was cruel as the landscape he survived in. His temperment was what got him through the world. It enabled himself and his family to be tough. Religion was the only way to make sense of the constant failures around him. Owen Brown had a very difficult time with his atheism. He came to rely on the religious fervor of his father's in order to survive even though part of him knew that he could not believe. Anyone who was truly an atheist would just kill themselves as was evidenced by the suicide of the Peabody woman on the boat going to England. Owen had a conversation with her on the deck of the ship in the middle of the night. He spoke to her of his atheism. She had already committed herself to not believing in God. When he left her she threw herself overboard. It was with the news of her death that Owen decided to hang his hopes on his father's beliefs. He knew that he could never have his father's vision, but he also knew that if he didn't question his father, he would end up dead. A great book of moral despair.

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly realistic
Review: One of the most haunting aspects of this book is the realistic first person narration. Banks owen brown slowly drwas the reader in with his thoguhts which always seem real, it nevers feels forced. The otehr haunting aspect of the novel is the complex and slowly intoxicating father/son realtionship with is truly explored in a new and intresting away. Banks's Jon Brown is truly an enigma, what is he, crazy or overly rightoues ? you decide. This is surley one of the most powerful and important books in the 1990's

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Summary: One of the best historical novels I ever read.
Review: This stunning work is one of the most thought-provoking ruminations on religion and slavery I have ever encountered. Banks, one of the greatest novelists of his time, raises the bar with "Cloudsplitter," and he succeeds.

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Summary: Powerful and moving
Review: Although historically questionable in some accounts, the book is powerful and moving. Its personal account of a front-line participant recreates the emotion of pre-cival war America.

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Summary: An enormous and important novel
Review: "Cloudsplitter" is an enormous book in many ways--lengthy (759 pages), powerful, and important. Though it is clear that the novel is painstakingly researched and Banks demonstrates a vast knowledge of just the sort of things his two main players (John Brown and his third son, Owen) would have to be experts in--everything from weaponry to wool--, what emerges is less an historical document or even an historical novel than a dissection of the interplay of two personalities. The book is steeped in the odd, powerful mythology of fathers and sons. It is the relationship between Owen, his sometimes terrified and sometimes merely cowed brothers, and their legendary father that is this book's true achievement.

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Summary: classic tragedy
Review: A classic tragedy! I find myself reading on with a sense of dread for what is coming. Well developed characters and clear prose make this a joy to read. I will hate to finish it!

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Summary: The book was "a great read": descriptive, analytical.
Review: I was amazed that such a reflective, descriptive quasi-historical and long novel turned out to be so readable. The book evokes nineteenth century pioneer life vividly and the portrait it paints of the sometimes-deluded John Brown is realistic and believable. The narrator, Owen Brown, got a little tiresome. The character seemed partly motivated by a grandiose idea of his own importance, and he had a tendency to overanalyze. But the moral questions he raised were often important when one considers the history of the US and, sometimes, of universal significance.

Rating:
Summary: Very good. Highly recommended.
Review: When I first began to read this novel, I thought it would be long and dreary. It turned out to be an excellent novel with a fine and interesting plot and lots of satisfying insights into human nature.

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Summary: Absorbing; hard to distinguish between fact and fictio
Review: I loved reading the book. However, I would have preferred something that was truly fiction. The way the story was written I could not distinguish what was fiction and what was fact. I feel I understand Brown and his family when there is no basis for it.