To the White Sea

Rating:
Summary: a superb work of fiction
Review: A page-turner all the way. I had to force myself to put it down at times. It's a masterful piece of story-telling, for sure, but much more: a complex portrait of a serial killer which is also remarkable lyric poetry. It's this juxtaposition which is so disturbing: a cold-blooded killer with the mind of a poet. Dickey's ability to "paint with words" is incredible. I don't know what else I can add to what other reviewers have already said. I was disappointed to discover (as I should have expected) that this novel is probably going to be made into a movie. No, no no! I don't care who does it or how good it supposedly is; it can't achieve what the novel did, which is told in the first person. Why, oh why, can't Hollywood leave this one alone? In any case, read the book by all means. I haven't read anything that caught my attention like this one did in a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Consummate storytelling
Review: I knew James Dickey at the University of South Carlolina, and I later spent 14 years living in the interior of Alaska. His last novel is a stunning achievement, missed utterly by anyone hoping for "Hogan's Heroes." Critics who wrote at the time that the protagonist is "a sick puppy" were probably also offended by the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan." If you want standard Hollywood, and you buy Dickey, you will be disappointed.

To be a hunter, keen and alert, raised to know the life of the wild and the ways of the hunted, and then to be placed, as Muldrow was, into a world of aliens, each one a hunter, and to have all the usual means of becoming inconspicuous stripped away: that is the story. That was Muldrow's lot; what exactly was he supposed to do?

No one who hates this book can admit to even a vestigial smidgen of the feral in mankind. Dickey's unlikely and unwilling hero had it, and so when he appears to be camouflaged at the book's end, he really is: no one in the crowd who sees him understands what he is seeing--and that includes some readers.

Rating:
Summary: Wasn't sure what I was getting into...
Review: I read this due to the fact that I heard that the Coen Brothers were making it into a movie -- although I've read that this is no longer the case. In any event, this was my first Dickey novel and I have to say that all in all, I was very satisfied with the effort. The prose is interesting, lush and vivid in some parts and caustic in others. Some of the other reviewers seemed to be appalled at the plot and the surgical sterility that Dickey used to describe the deaths inflicted by the main character, but I found those exact things to be quite within the realm of believability, especially when the whole idea of the book is to survive like an animal behind enemy lines.

I liked the book enough to want to go back and read more of Dickey's other works...

Rating:
Summary: Reality and nostalgia collide
Review: If you are a fan of the more popular war writer, Tim O'Brien, I think you will particularly enjoy this book. Like a lot of O'Brien's work, Dickey's story is a mixture of flashbacks amidst a harsh war reality that is hard to cope with. Unlike, Dickey's Deliverance (another fantastic book), this book doesn't have a lot of interesting side characters--the main character is on a solo trip behind enemy lines, killing without remorse and sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts and memories of the wilds of Alaska. Where this book does share with "Deliverance" is a great understanding of nature and how man 'reverts' back to instincts shared with other predators and prey in the animal world when placed in a survival situation. I really enjoyed this book--the language is beautiful and even if it is often hard to be sympathetic to the main character because of his violence, we can understand his state of mind.

Rating:
Summary: Adventure through Japan and a Man's Soul
Review: This is one of the leanest stories I've ever read about such a complex character. The central conflict is simple and immediate and it doesn't let up until the very last sentence of the book. Dickey's prose is lyrical and captures the mind's eye better than any action/adventure novel I've found. There's virtually no dialogue as Dickey focuses on action, page by page, revealing the protagonist's nature along the way. You'll read this book in a matter of days if not hours.

I found To the White Sea to be better than Deliverance - the book Dickey will always be remembered for. It's both fitting and sad that Dickey's last book was his greatest.

Rating:
Summary: A Riveting Study in Character and Writing
Review: This novel operates on myriad levels, and there is enough here to make you think for years. Multiple readings will only raise more questions, and/or cause you to rethink the conclusions you've previously thought solid. Merely for the fact that this is a book that makes one think and ponder and consider, it is a great book.

The basic story is that of a WWII bomber crewman shot down over Tokyo immediately prior to the great firebomb raids of Spring 1945. He is utterly alone on a hostile foreign island, likely listed as missing, presumed dead, with the book's opening pages promising a superior adventure as our protagonist struggles to stay alive and eventually repatriate. But, as the story matures and we gradually learn more about Muldrow, we see that repatriation has been only a fleeting inspiration. Mudrow has been freed, and he pushes north toward a place that is much more imagined than real.

As he struggles north Muldrow changes from serviceman to fugitive, from survivor to predator, from endangered hero to questionable protagonist to a perplexing and difficult-to-like principal character. To my reading, Muldrow is an unpredictable, dangerous psychotic, with only the regimen and discipline of societal interaction and military service having kept him in check during brief periods of his life. When in his element, out in the wilderness relying only upon himself, he is a nation unto himself, free to make any choice which suits his needs and his whims. We see it in the flashbacks to Alaska, and we see it in his maniacal odyssey to Hokkaido and the White Sea, and to a mental and physical place which of course does not exist.

In the end where does Muldrow go? This is as debatable as the nature of his character, the origins of his actions and thoughts, and his motivations. Dickey takes us from a strong, pulsing adventure narrative in the opening pages to a lyrical, poetic, almost mythical climax as Muldrow finally dies/transforms/transcends. It is a fascinating transformation for the character, for the narrative, and for the experience of the reader. I wholeheartedly recommend this riveting, expertly written book.