Rating: 
Summary: better than I expected!
Review: This book held my attention from the first page to the last. A wonderful book, filled with historic background as well as riveting dialogue. Highly recommnnded!!
Rating: 
Summary: Over The Top!! Over Long & Sometimes Overwrought
Review: Wonderful evocation of 19th century rural life. Brave attempt to write a fictional "reflective" biography of John Brown. Gives a reader an authentic feel for slavery as the all corrosive political/moral issue in pre-civil war America.Ultimately an almost Great American Novel undone by poor editing, literary trickery and a repetitively pathetic narrator. At 758 pages the novel is overlong for even such a mighty subject as John Brown. The narrator, Owen Brown is so artlessly drawn that after 50 pages he has nothing new to say and his occassional whinning soliloquies are more irrritating then revealing. It appears Mr. Banks'fame has intimidated his editor. Too bad. This near great book could have been better.
Rating:
Summary: Over the Top! Over Long and Sometimes Overwrought
Review: Excellent passages describing 19th century rural domestic life and an outstanding feel for slavery as an all consuming obsession. An almost Great American Novel undone by poor editing, shallow literary trckery and a irritatingly repetative narrator that sometimes sounds too much like a Pinceton professor instead of a reclusive shepherd. Wonderful evocation of time and place. A brave attempt at a "reflective" fitional biography of John Brown in the heated mileau of pre-civil war America. Is Mr. Banks so famous that he intimidates his editor? So it seems.
Rating:
Summary: This is simply a stunning novel from banks
Review: I thought this was a brillant novel, that had an increadaible scope and brillantly writen charaters. The realtionship between jonh and owen was so real that i wanted to keep reading no matter who diffcult the subject matter became. Banks was able to give owen a voice that kept with me, I never felt for one minute that he was real, that this was all made up. it was simply a stunning book in which words cant describe.
Rating:
Summary: I have been waiting for this author.
Review: I do not read books. I read authors, and I intend to read everything that Russell Banks has written. His effort in Cloudsplitter was more than entertaining; it was educational, inspirational, cathartic, deeply moving and meaningful. His main characters are so fully rounded, that you can touch them; the story is so poignant and utterly human, that you can hear their voices. You know these people, for they are you and the people you meet every day. The events are exceptional and, although fictional, they exist. I hunted for this author, and his insight and skill have moved me to continue my quest.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing accomplishment by Banks
Review: I thought this was a terrific book, full of powerful scenes and interactions. Could it have been trimmed? Probably, but as a reader, I'm not in a race. Good writing is good writing, and I was as captivated by Banks's narrative on page 750 as I was on page 3. I walked away from this book with a far greater understanding of what the U.S. was going through in the years prior to the Civil War, as well as with a an even greater appreciation of Banks's terrific talents.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't sleep. I just kept reading.
Review: Great book. I wanted it to keep going. I started reading it because John Brown was born here in Torrington, CT now I am pushing for the minor league baseball team here to change their name to The Abolitionists. Their logo should be a picture of John Brown. Maybe I am getting carried away - but read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Big, bold, and brash--like John Brown himself
Review: Wonderful synthesis of history and fiction. Banks provides a wealth of historical detail as to the making of John Brown, the Underground Railroad, Bleeding Kansas, and the raid on Harper's Ferry. Then Banks delves deeper, where only fiction can, into the moral territory of the heart--principally John Brown's and that of his son Owen. Thus Banks explores his central question from a number of fascinating angles: yes, John Brown was a hero of the anti-slavery movement--but at what cost? (Footnote: look for one of the most fascinating race relations metaphors I've ever encountered about 2/3 of the way through the book, when something happens with a mountain lion and a gun.)
Rating:
Summary: pure poetry
Review: Cloudsplitter is simply one of the best books I have ever read and I highly suggest it
Rating: 
Summary: A noble effort, but ultimately disappointing
Review: This book has some enormously moving and powerful scenes, but after 500 pages or so, I grew weary of the self-pitying narrative of the novel's protagonist, Owen Brown. As a character, Owen is full of resentment towards his father, conflict about his religion, thinly-veiled homosexual yearnings, and agonizing indecisiveness about his place in life. The narrative explores these conflicts over and over as Owen tried to find his place (and never does). For much of the book, Banks paints John Brown as the all-powerful sun in Owen's wretched universe. Then he asks us to believe that John Brown "lost his nerve" in Bleeding Kansas and had to be goaded on by Owen, who has suddenly become strong and decisive. (If I were Miss Mayo, the fictional recipient of this tome, I'd take Owen's self-serving account of these events with a grain of salt.) It's too bad, because there is a great book hiding within all this mish-mash. Shame a good editor didn't get ahold of it.
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