Rating: 
Summary: A horrid reading experience
Review: After a fine opening, another look at adultery in academia, the plot goes crazy with a soul trapped in an emerald and a revolution on an island. Totally unbelievable. Silly dialogue. Where was the editor? Definitely this is one of the worst books I've ever read by an acclaimed author.
Rating: 
Summary: he's done much better.
Review: As a rabid fan of this author since "Hall of Mirrors", I was sadly let down by this book. It seemed pretentious, not a flaw I normally associate with Mr.Stone, although there are some passages of lovely writing. The initial premise seems fascinating but the whole simply does not jell. Go back to his earlier work for rewarding re-reading!
Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: Based on some good reviews, I made an attempt to read this book, but I am giving up halfway through. I can't follow the plot and the Lara character is not believable at all.
Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: Based on some good reviews, I made an attempt to read this book, but I am giving up halfway through. I can't follow the plot and the Lara character is not believable at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Voodoo, intrigue and middle-aged angst
Review: Bay of Souls is a relatively short novel that is interesting but at times convoluted. I have only read one other book by Robert Stone, Damascus Gate, which I thought was brilliant. This one, though not without merit, was a bit of a disappointment to me. Michael Ahearn is a professor at a small rural college. He is married and has a twelve-year old son. Michael's life is not unhappy, but it has a bleak quality to it, similar to the cold Northern landscape he inhabits. His marriage is basically good, but his wife Kristin is a formidable and somewhat aloof woman who seems to intimidate him a little. In short, like many men approaching middle age, Michael is doing all right, but feels confined and has the desire to experience something new. This something comes in the form of Lara Purcell, an exotically beautiful professor from a Caribbean island called St. Trinity. They impulsively start an affair and when Lara returns to her island home after her brother dies, Michael comes along. This, to me, is where the novel falters. While the contrast between the rural American heartland and the Third World tropics is obviously a deliberate part of the book, the transition is so abrupt that it seemed to me like a different book altogether. On St. Trinity, Stone throws in a host of confusing, though typical (though more for a spy or suspense type novel) elements --corrupt officials, Columbian drug dealers, an intrepid reporter, American troops who covertly support a dictator. This part of the novel is a little cliched, with Michael running into the same cast of cloak-and-dagger type characters wherever he goes. The spirit of Voodoo also pervades the island, and this is central to the story. Lara believes her dead brother took possession of her soul before he died. She is now committed to retrieving it, which means she has to take part in some elaborate rituals. Lara is also deeply involved in all the political intrigue, in a way that is not well explained. For example, it is briefly noted that she was once a socialist (who may have had an affair with Castro) but then suddenly "switched sides" to support right wing extremists...why? Lara also apparently had some covert reason for teaching at Michael's college; this too is never explained. I suppose these questions are not really the point of the novel, but for me they were holes that I can more easily tolerate in a suspense thriller than a literary novel like this one. Finally, the Voodoo aspect of the tale remains ambiguous --are the occult forces real or only in the minds of the participants? I suppose it isn't necessarily crucial to know this, but I simply found myself with too many unanswered questions by the end of the book. Robert Stone is an interesting and original writer. His use of language is always creative and there are many turns of phrase that I admired in this book, even while I was less than satisfied with their context.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not at the level of past work
Review: Bay of Souls is reminiscent of previous Stone novels such as A Flag For Sunrise and Outerbridge Reach. The writing here is effective but the whole thing seems a bit rushed. Themes and characterizations are not fleshed out as much as in his other novels. This book would make for a good introduction to the author's prose style (like the short story collection Bear and His Daughter) but overall it isn't as satisfying as his earlier work.
Rating:
Summary: Bad story
Review: I find myself agreeing with some of the other reviewers. This book isn't poor writing style, but the story is so far-fetched, improbable and just plain unbelievable that this book cant be saved. There are two related stories, neither of which really works. First there is a group of professors deer hunting in the winter in a godforsaken part of minnesota (this is the characters' opinion, not to offend anyone). A few strange things happen, and the main character comes home to find his son has been lost in the snow. The son nearly dies, but miraculously pulls through. The main character goes on to meet a woman professor who has just come to teach at the college. She dresses exotically, comes from a ficitious Caribbean island, goes in for a little S&M, and he falls head over heels, despite his jealous wife and little son. After the woman tells him her brother has died of AIDS, has xtolen her soul and given it to a voodoo queen who died two hundred years ago, and how dangerous it is to walk around in a body without a soul (a recitation that would send most men running scared), he decides to pack up and go down to the island with her. Although it's hard to tell what is really going on, things get wilder and wilder, with Haitian voodoo ceremonies, Colombian drug gangs, Latin-American style juntas supported by the U.S. governement. At this point I felt the author was just letting his imagination run wild or he didnt know what he was talking about. If you've read this far, you'll have a hard time finishing, although I did. You''ll wish you hadnt. I cant believe people act like this.
Rating:
Summary: bay of bores
Review: i found this book to be lacking in characterization as well as plot. it started out fine and just wound up so silly. i wonder if the author really knew what he wanted to do here. the lara love interest seemed like she was on an acid trip. the guy just ups and goes leaving everything behind for flimsy reasons. it's as though he was looking for an excuse to play around. perhaps this book would've been better if it were longer and better thought out.
Rating:
Summary: Muddled Soul
Review: I think that Robert Stone has written some great books, but this is not one of them. Bay of Souls seems torn between an Dellilo style life in the USA novel, and the usual Stone third world Conradesque action/philosophy thriller. Sad to say, but the academic parts, the creeping ennuie, the sudden adultery, minutia of modern life, etc. seem much more real than the drug crazed revolutionary danger parts, which is too bad because there are a lot of people who do the Delillo/Carver thing and not a lot who can pull off the headlong rush of Robert Stone.
Rating: 
Summary: Farfetched, but fun.
Review: I was surprised that Stone's fans were so disappointed with this novel. It isn't perfect, but it is certainly a thrilling story.Midway through the course of his life, Michael Ahearn finds himself in a dark woods, with the right way obscured. From there, things really start to go downhill. Ahearn's descent into the inferno provides the reader with an exciting ride. The feeling that he deserves his fate enhanced my enjoyment of this misadventure. When we first meet Ahearn, he is a study in hypocrisy. In the opening scene, he is giving his son a bunch of transparently insincere reasons why he cannot join his father's hunting trip. We accompany Ahearn on this trip to discover that he loathes hunting, and in particular despises the kind of people who hunt to put food on the table. Ahearn sends his son to a Catholic school, although he really despises Catholics and cringes at the school's influence over his son. Ahearn likes to keep up a façade of religiosity while harboring a petulant resentment against the universe for failing to provide the fairy-tale god of his childhood Sunday school classes. For most of the story, we are limited to Ahearn's perception. We really are not given any insight into his wife's feelings, although we can see that she is distant and discontent. We see Ahearn becoming infatuated with a woman who really quite frightening. The point of view is quite effective here because any attempt to explain or interpret this relationship would be impossible. You simply have to accept that it is happening. The limited narration is especially effective at the end of the story, because Ahearn does not seem to understand why he has become frightening to others. We merely see them being frightened for no apparent reason. But Ahearn seems as benighted spiritually as he ever was. The meaning of his experience to the author remains rather vague. I think this made the novel less satisfying then Stone's earlier works.
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