Rating: 
Summary: another excellent book
Review: I read "The Gospel of Judas" last year. So I chose this book for our book club's reading selection. I can't say everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Most people were distracted by the mountain climbing scenes. Everyone though it was a great story but I am not sure they got as much out of it as I did. As an english major I am a little more tuned in to seeing under the imagery and the words that Mawer chooses. I loved the play with light and dark. And the thought provoking situations. It made for great conversation in the group. And I got to read an author who isn't crusty all over with boring language. Mawer doesn't beat you over the head with the metaphors, he simply puts them out there and you either enjoy them or you don't. It is a great read for readers of all levels. Something for everyone!
Rating:
Summary: another excellent book
Review: I read "The Gospel of Judas" last year. So I chose this book for our book club's reading selection. I can't say everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Most people were distracted by the mountain climbing scenes. Everyone though it was a great story but I am not sure they got as much out of it as I did. As an english major I am a little more tuned in to seeing under the imagery and the words that Mawer chooses. I loved the play with light and dark. And the thought provoking situations. It made for great conversation in the group. And I got to read an author who isn't crusty all over with boring language. Mawer doesn't beat you over the head with the metaphors, he simply puts them out there and you either enjoy them or you don't. It is a great read for readers of all levels. Something for everyone!
Rating:
Summary: A Page Turner of the First Order
Review: I spent a day and a half gobbling this imaginative, enveloping novel down. I don't think I need to say much more than the fans here have said already, except perhaps to add that at year's end, THE FALL is going to stand among the year's best for me, perhaps even at the number one spot. For me, everything in this tale of passion and friendship, love and betrayal, worked. Don't let the thought of the moutaineering scenes scare you off, they're superbly done, and metaphorically valid. The scenes of London during the Blitz are among the most vivid descriptions if that time I've ever read.I look forward now to going back and reading earlier Mawber. This is definitely an incredibly versatile author with an important future.
Rating: 
Summary: complex relationship drama
Review: Rob Dewar is driving home to his family when he hears on the radio about the death of his friend Jamie Matthewson from a mountain climbing fall. Though he and Jamie had not spoken in years, Rob heads to Wales to learn what went wrong and to provide comfort to his buddy's widow Ruth. Rob begins learning about his deceased friend, the man's family, and his own parents, more than he probably wants to know. He finds out that Jamie's father Guy and Diana Sheridan fell in love and shared a night together in 1940. However, while Guy is a conscientious objector married to a German wife, Diana heads to London to work as a nurse. She ends their affair and aborts the fetus. She marries, but that relationship fails as Guy has her love. After World War II ends, Guy and Diana meet, but though she is free he is now married to Meg. Still they share one last night of love. The historical tidbits bring alive the 1940s and 1960s. The characters are three-dimensional and are very complex. The story line is richly textured as readers observe how star-crossed lovers survive though not with one another. With all that going and Simon Mawer's usual strong prose, the novel falls a bit short because the secret once revealed seems insignificant in the scheme of life. Still though not quite a MENDEL'S DWARF, THE FALL displays the talent of Mr. Mawer to tell a tale that will provide much pleasure to fans of complex relationship dramas. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book About Love, Deception & Choices
Review: Robert Dewar suffered a broken leg and the loss of three toes after nearly freezing to death on a mountain climbing expedition. It was enough to move him away from climbing to a more grounded career in art procurement. Years later, his comfort zone is shaken when he learns that his oldest friend and former partner, Jamie Matthewson, has fallen to his death after a dangerous solo climb. Robert veers back toward his past despite his wife's objections and heads to Wales to comfort Jamie's attractive grieving widow, Ruth. Eve Dewar awaits her husband's return and wonders how delving into the past might change him. This detour places Robert in the company of Caroline, Jamie's eccentric mother, a woman for whom Robert's mother once harbored an unexplained level of disdain. Time has softened Caroline's rough edges, yet her mind is sharp. Conversely, Robert's mother, Diana, sits in a retirement home with her mind slowly fading. Guy Matthewson, once married to Caroline and a pivotal part of the story, remains frozen on a mountainside so high up that he will probably never be recovered. All events collide. Despite the unnecessary use of the same four-letter word in varying forms by different characters, Simon Mawer has written a lovely book. The characters magically spring forth from the page and dance before the reader. His natural narrative style and use of tension blend together wonderfully to create a powerful story of love and deception.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Simon Mawer's The Fall is an excellent work of fiction, one of the most enjoyable novels I have read in a long time. The story concerns several intertwining relationships that span the late 1930s through present day England. The novel opens as Jamie Matthewson, world-renowned climber falls to his death in a climb he was sure to fail at. His old, somewhat estranged friend Rob Dewar hears of the accident over the radio in his car, and immediately heads to attend the funeral and Jamie's wife and mother, to the displeasure of his wife. Rob's return to the climbing world he left behind years ago forces him to recall, for our benefit, his relationship with Jamie and the reasons for its disintegration. Rob's story involves not only Jamie and Rob, but the relationship of all of their parents many years ago. The narrative shifts between Rob's first-person explanation of the Jamie-Rob years and a third-person narrative of their mothers' friendship and various loves during World War II England. The Fall is a fascinating look at many "falls"--falling to one's death, falling in and out of love, falling into sin, the fall of one's life. It's a compelling, well-written read. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Simon Mawer's The Fall is an excellent work of fiction, one of the most enjoyable novels I have read in a long time. The story concerns several intertwining relationships that span the late 1930s through present day England. The novel opens as Jamie Matthewson, world-renowned climber falls to his death in a climb he was sure to fail at. His old, somewhat estranged friend Rob Dewar hears of the accident over the radio in his car, and immediately heads to attend the funeral and Jamie's wife and mother, to the displeasure of his wife. Rob's return to the climbing world he left behind years ago forces him to recall, for our benefit, his relationship with Jamie and the reasons for its disintegration. Rob's story involves not only Jamie and Rob, but the relationship of all of their parents many years ago. The narrative shifts between Rob's first-person explanation of the Jamie-Rob years and a third-person narrative of their mothers' friendship and various loves during World War II England. The Fall is a fascinating look at many "falls"--falling to one's death, falling in and out of love, falling into sin, the fall of one's life. It's a compelling, well-written read. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: "Wrong and right are judged by one thing: the outcome."
Review: Such a pragmatic thought would be amoral in most contexts, but this is by no means an ordinary context. Rob Dewar and his climbing partner, Jamie Matthewson, are clinging by their fingertips to the North Face of the Eiger, one of the most difficult and dangerous of all mountaineering challenges, as this thought takes shape. Simon Mawer, a former mountaineer himself, recreates not only the drama of this "sport" but also the personal psyches of the climbers, those inner forces which impel climbers to face "Time and Death...the great parameters." With vibrant sensual descriptions of the mountain, the acts of nature which make the mountain so treacherous, and the agony of the climbing experience, many readers will feel the "chicken skin" which accompanies vivid writing and turns fiction into a vicarious, personal experience. As exciting as the mountaineering passages are, this is not primarily an adventure story. With its title connoting the fall of Adam and Eve, the novel deals with huge, complex questions of love and loss, life and death, and truth and responsibility. The story of whether Jamie's death was accidental or suicide, which seems so straightforward and plot-driven on the surface, becomes far more intricate, as the reader is guided back and forth in time, sharing the lives of Rob and Jamie as young teenagers, the lives and interrelationships of their mothers during World War II, the life and loves of famed mountaineer Guy Matthewson (Jamie's father), and the lives of Rob and Jamie and their lovers when they are in their twenties. Because of the many interrelationships among the characters--love affairs, seductions, pregnancies both planned and unplanned, and even sexual abuse--some of the most sensational events in the novel take place not on the mountainside but in the bedroom. These scenes often combine the imagery of sex with that of falling, and contrast the subjective reality of love and life with the objective reality posed by danger in the mountains, especially with its death and loss. Heaven and hell, sin and redemption, love and loss, honesty and betrayal, and ultimately life and death are all combined here in a vibrant novel which provides fast action and crises both on the mountain and in the personal lives of the characters over two generations. Though there are some clichés, along with some awkwardness in the plotting (especially in the predictable ending), this is a strong, dramatic novel which may become a popular breakthrough for Mawer. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Well-Written, But It Left Me Cold
Review: THE FALL is a good book, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as two of Simon Mawer's other books, MENDEL'S DWARF and THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS. There was something about THE FALL that just didn't "ring true" for me. I can't say exactly what it was. It could have been that I simply didn't enjoy the mountaineering episodes; mountaineering always seems so much more of a man's sport than a woman's, but I know that's not necessarily true. THE FALL opens with a death. As Rob Dewer is driving he learns about the death of his estranged friend, Jamie Matthewson in a fall from a Welsh cliff. Almost impulsively, Rob turns around and drives to Wales to visit Jamie's widow, Ruth. He's puzzled by the accident: he wants to know why Jamie wasn't wearing a helmet or using ropes and even why he was climbing such a difficult and unfamiliar peak alone. Rob even toys with the idea that Jamie might have wanted to commit suicide. The story of Jamie's fall isn't a straightforward one. Mawer takes us back fifty years, through two generations of Dewers and Matthewsons and their complex interrelationships, but, for the most part, the book centers on the relationship between Rob and Jamie because it is within this relationship that all of the answers to Rob's questions will be found. Rob and Jamie's friendship began when they were boys and was propelled by their mutual love for mountain climbing. Their relationship hits a snag, however, when they both fall in love with the same woman, a Welsh painter named Ruth. Even though Ruth chooses to marry Jamie, she works for Rob and she sleeps with both of them. Complicating matters (a little unbelievably for me) are Rob and Jamie's parents. Jamie's mother, Caroline, once seduced a teenaged Rob, while Jamie's father and Rob's mother were lovers in their youth. If all of the above sounds confusing, in Mawer's hands, it is not. He handles the shifts in time and generations both smoothly and skillfully. Mawer certainly makes us believe in his characters and his story. His descriptions are vivid and filled with sensory detail. The mountaineering scenes were especially vivid, but thank goodness Mawer didn't feel the need to fill them with technical jargon. That would have ruined the book for me. I wanted a book about people, primarily, and that's what Mawer gives us. Although THE FALL was a fairly entertaining story and a well-written one, I felt the ending was quite predictable. There are two "revelations", in particular, that were probably meant to be "shockers" or "surprises" but any astute reader could see them coming long before the final pages. All works of fiction are contrived, but the ending of THE FALL seemed "too contrived." It seemed forced rather than evolving naturally out of character progression and growth. THE FALL was a well-crafted and well-written book, but I just couldn't find empathy with or sympathy for any of the characters. THE FALL was a book that, despite all of its good qualities (and there are quite a few), simply left me cold. This is probably due to personal preferences and definitely not a reflection of Mawer's expertise. If you're new to Mawer, I'd read MENDEL'S DWARF or THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS rather than beginning with THE FALL, though. I think the other two books are more indicative of Mawer's literary talents.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Climbing Book
Review: This book has riveting climbing sections which are true page turners, and fantastic, realistic love triangles between fascinating characters who we all know.
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