Deliverance

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Summary: Outdoor lovers beware!
Review: I am an english student from Fort Mill High School. I picked to read this book for a project. I had no idea that it would turn into on af my absolute favorites. I could not stop reading until it was finished, and then I wanted more. The story of a man "comming of age" has never been so spine tingling great. Espically if you are the outdoor kind of person you can really relate to the plot. I recomend this book to everyone who is a little tired of the boring monotonous routine of everyday life. It will make you long to be in the woods and experience your own Deliverance.

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Summary: One of the Greatest of Our Time
Review: James Dickey's "Deliverance" is one of the great works of late twentieth Century American literature. It combines the excitement of the modern novel with the symbolism of the classics.

I find Dickey's masterpiece to be strikingly similar to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," another favorite of mine from a very different time and place. Superficially, the plots of the two are almost identical - a journey down (or up) an uncharted river, a questionable, even unknown destination, confrontation with "natives," a descent into madness, and an escape that changes the main character forever. Both give a frightening insight into the darker sides of the human psyche.

I first read "Deliverance" in high school some years ago, and I recently dusted it off for a long train ride. I can't recommend it enough.

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Summary: Powerful, laden with symbolism
Review: "Deliverance" is a powerful book laden with rich symbolism and commentary on twentieth-century life. No surprise that Dickey is a poet, too; the prose in "Deliverance" delivers an earthy, primitive pungency you can almost taste in the back of your mouth.

First, the title. Deliverance, according to Miriam-Webster, is "the act of delivering someone or something, LIBERATION, RESCUE." In Dickey's book, "Deliverance" has a twofold meaning. The obvious is "Deliverance" as in the liberation of the canoe party from the clutches of the violent rural rednecks. But there's another deliverance at work here, the liberation of a man from the meaninglessness of his suburban life. In the beginning of the novel, which many reviewers dislike but which I think essential to the book, the protagonist - Ed - describes his dull, small world. Neither his job, his wife, or his children engage him much. His life is meaningless and pithy. It's not until he's emerged from his wilderness ordeal that he appreciates it all again. He isn't delivered from his life, he's delivered from its meaninglessness. He's found his life.

If this is a story of attaining manhood, then manhood is appreciating the everyday, the humdrum, and the domestic.

The characters, as other reviewers have already astutely noticed, represent different aspects of modern culture. There's Drew, the dreamer and philosopher, the modern-day liberal; Bobby, the consumer, most removed from the wilderness; Lewis, the reactionary; and there's Ed, Mr. Blank Slate, Joe Normal. Lewis gets them into the mess; Drew is slain trying to pursue the honorable course; Bobby is violated as a result of his own corpulence; and Ed picks up the slack and saves them all in an extraordinary effort involving rock climbing and murder.

But it's the wilderness for me that contains the most potential for symbolism. Like Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the wilderness is a brooding menace representing the state of nature, and the river the steady road that leads the civilized man there. Certainly, too, given that the novel was written in the late 1960s, the wilderness contains a political element, a connection to the jungles and rivers in Southeast Asia where thousands of American boys were encountering horror on a daily basis.

Is this an anti-war book? I think so. "Deliverance" certainly reveals the horror of combat. And the ultimate result of the combat is a warm appreciation of the quiet. But this appreciation can't come without the combat. So, yes, "Deliverance" is anti-war but implies that war is necessary as well.

If we remember that Dickey was a fighter pilot in WWII, this seemingly paradoxical view makes a lot of sense. Based in the Pacific, Dickey no doubt witnessed the horror and carnage of the bitter combat on the atolls. No doubt Dickey lost a lot of friends, as well. But was there ever a more necessary war than WWII?

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Summary: Absolutely Brilliant!
Review: This is my all-time-favourite book. The prose is so uniquely masterful that I've read it several times. You can pick it up, open any page and start reading to enjoy the writing itself. I won't bother giving a synopsis of the story; this book has been around for so long, with stacks of reprints, as well as a movie, and the plot is quite simple anyway. Would it even be possible to find someone today who didn't already know the basics of it?

I highly recommend this, and if I could give it more than five stars I would. It will make you feel that you are personally involved in the experience of the river. Whenever I read it, I am Ed. I can touch the water. I feel the choking belt around my neck as I watch poor Bobby. But definitely buy it for the writing; the story is a bonus.

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Summary: Don't stop reading....
Review: ...I nearly did! I was ready to shove this book in the back of my cupboard by page 75ish because it was so bloody boring! I don't know why I kept reading but I did and I'm so thankful I did now! James Dickey definitely has a unique way of writing. In this book, he tended to detail EVERYTHING in the beginning. By this, I mean, he detailed things so much that I was nodding to sleep! If you can get through the beginning pages of this book, then you're in for a thrilling ride! The book is about 4 men who are out in the deep woods for a canoe trip until things get a little disrupted when they are interrupted by the natives who don't take too kindly to them. Pick this one up! It's worth it!

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Summary: Immerse oneself in nature means play by nature's rules
Review: Macho southern author par excellence James Dickey wrote this well crafted, richly poetic (Dickey was one of America's finest poets of the latter part of the 20th Century) paen to the alpha male as a reaction to the "let's get back to the peace, tranquillity and harmony of nature" sub culture that gained prominence in the late 1960's.

What the transcedentalists like Thoreau, Wordsworth, Shelley and others failed to ultimately realize that immersing oneself in the sheer beauty of the natural world means that one must play by nature's rules. Dickey apparently believes Darwin was right in interpreting nature's rules to be: only the strong organism survives.

The four main characters serve as contemporary archetypes for contemporary American society.

Lewis is the uber-macho hunter eager to see the "system" fail so he can have the opportunity to live by his physique. He is sincere in his devotion to "the strenuous life", but Dickey will not allow us to depend on the traditional warrior to provide the food and the protection. It is our job.

Bobby is the overweight, vulgar super consumer who has, through the process of evolution, mangaged to remove all vestiges of the savage hunter from his being. He has become far too accustomed to feeding off the bounty harvested from the rape of the natural world (boy howdy is he in for an ironic table turning!). His soft white underbelly is ripe for the attack as he is incapable (at least in the beginning) of producing any physical threat. His job is to let his talking do the action.

Drew is the idealist who believes in the purity and gentle aesthetics of the forest. He is one who has probably commited "Walden Pound" and The Constitution to memory. It is he who believes in Democracy and decency. In many ways he is Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" reincarnated.

And finally there is our bland (this, I believe is Dickey's purposefull intention) narrator, the commercial artist Ed who is a blank slate. Like "The Call of The Wild's" 'Buck' (I strongly encourage all to re-read Jack London's aforemention book in conjunction with Deliverance- the similarities are astounding!), it is Ed who must progress (evolve) by retrogressing. It is he who I believe becomes the reader's persona and ultimately the story is about Ed's Deliverance. And ours. Perhaps.

Like William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", Dickey seems to suggest that while facing the roaring river and her inhabitants, morality is, to quote London "a luxury one can ill afford in the wild." Morality and law after all are not commodities traded in nature's open market.

Like the river itself, Deliverance is beautiful, savage, and ever flowing toward an inevitable (but suprising!) conclusion. It is not for the faint of heart, but for those looking for a good read containing prose crafted by an expert marksman, Deliverance is a great novel well worth your time. A classic.

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Summary: Suspense and action!
Review: Very well written story about four men who encounter events that will change their lives (and outlooks) forever while on a camping trip!

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Summary: Man vs Nature, Man vs Man, and Man vs Himself
Review: Four Atlanta yuppies decide to take a canoe trip down a primitive river in the rural Georgia mountains.

Lewis, the macho man persuades Ed, Drew, and Bobby to accomapny him on a trip down an uncharted river and in a region inherited by uncharted people. Ed, a graphic designer, is goaded by Lewis to make the trip. Ed eventually has to challenge both man and nature so that he and his buddies can survive.

Be prepared for a graphically brutal story.

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Summary: Hunted By Unknown Forces
Review: For my English Honors class we were rezuired to read a fiction book of our choosing. I chose Deliverance. Four men venture out on a canoe trip down a large Georgian river. The wildeness surrounding the river is extremely dangerous, and the men barely escape with their lives. The author portrays these characters very well, and I feel like I can relate to the struggles they are going through. The one thing that I did not like about the book was all the profanity. I think that maybe the author put the language in there to give the reader a realistic sense of what everyday life is like out in the country of Georgia. I feel like the book does a great job of grabbing the readers attention, and describing the events very well. It caught me by surprise when I read the book within 3 nights because it was so good.

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Summary: A Remarkable Adventure
Review: This book is amazing at some points. The struggle of the human body and mind to cope with the most difficult of situations. The adventure, the conflict, the suspense are almost unparalleled in modern fiction. The only flaw in this book is the fact that it's also somewhat unreadable at other points.

First off, nothing of true significance happens in the first 100 pages. That's one third of the book totally wasted. A description of an advertising agency, a description of archery, and other such descriptions just disrupt the true meaning of the novel. Secondly, this book is not one of the most fluid books around. It's true that this book is fairly modern, but the pages don't turn like a Puzo or Clavell novel.

However, once the reader trudges through the first one hundred pages and becomes accustomed to the Dickey's non fluid style, the books becomes a gem. Without giving away much of the plot, this rest of the book mostly chronicles two days of man's adventure when a simple canoeing trip goes terribly wrong.

The sense of danger, action, suspense is all mixed in with moral dilemmas that make this one of the best adventures in literature. Dickey turns a simple situation into a complex web of lies, of death, and consequences. From the matter of climbing a rock face, to lying to cops, Dickey seems to thrust the reader into the problems of the main character.

If Dickey trimmed the first 100 pages down to 10, this would be one of the greatest books I?ve ever read.