The Rope Eater

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating story, replete with colorful characters
Review: "The Rope Eater" is peopled with interesting fully realized characters in extraordinary circumstances. Author Ben Jones creates a colorful crew of misfits and eccentrics leaving a Civil War torn United States on a mysterious arctic adventure.
Speaking as one who has studied 19th century America and expeditions of this sort, Jones deserves full credit for a thorough research job. The journey itself, the perils and deprivations make for compelling reading. Putting disparate figures into dangerous and unfamiliar situations is a recipe for good fiction and Jones does not disappoint. Jones does a wonderful job of following the manner in which people respond in such conditions. The added element of the mysterious nature of the journey is adroitly handled.
However the lone character who I found lacking was the main one, Brendan Kane. He particularly perplexed me early in the novel as he left home, then a job to enlist, and finally when he deserted. Jones seemed to rush through the opening passages when he would have been better served developing the character. I similarly found the end of the book rushed. That aside, "The Rope Eater" is an excellent compliment to non-fiction works such as "Barrow's Boys" that delve into the harrows of 19th century arctic explorations, those both scientific and fanciful.
Jones' debut is a smashing one and I eagerly await his future work.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't finish it
Review: "The Rope Eater" is peopled with interesting fully realized characters in extraordinary circumstances. Author Ben Jones creates a colorful crew of misfits and eccentrics leaving a Civil War torn United States on a mysterious arctic adventure.
Speaking as one who has studied 19th century America and expeditions of this sort, Jones deserves full credit for a thorough research job. The journey itself, the perils and deprivations make for compelling reading. Putting disparate figures into dangerous and unfamiliar situations is a recipe for good fiction and Jones does not disappoint. Jones does a wonderful job of following the manner in which people respond in such conditions. The added element of the mysterious nature of the journey is adroitly handled.
However the lone character who I found lacking was the main one, Brendan Kane. He particularly perplexed me early in the novel as he left home, then a job to enlist, and finally when he deserted. Jones seemed to rush through the opening passages when he would have been better served developing the character. I similarly found the end of the book rushed. That aside, "The Rope Eater" is an excellent compliment to non-fiction works such as "Barrow's Boys" that delve into the harrows of 19th century arctic explorations, those both scientific and fanciful.
Jones' debut is a smashing one and I eagerly await his future work.

Rating:
Summary: A brave excursion, a cautionary tale
Review: A brave excursion, a cautionary tale

In the mid-1860's, young Brendan Kane finds the prospect of soldiering in the Civil War more appealing than life in his staid New England home. An only child seduced by war's false glamour, Brendan is quickly awakened to reality, revolted by the human carnage around him. Deserting one dark night, Kane flees to New York, where he blends into the roving mob of the Draft Riots, carried along by random violence.

Coming to his senses and unharmed, Brendan joins an Arctic voyage of indeterminate length on the Narthex, a reprobate whaler currently loading crew and provisions in port; signing on for the voyage is the most fateful decision of Kane's young life. His fellow crewmembers are an odd an assortment, men without place or means, who seize on the opportunity for adventure and the luxury of three meals a day. The men are unsure of the goal of their journey, patiently enduring until the owner of the expedition, Mr. West, confides that they are seeking " a paradise in the heart of the Arctic" where they will make their fortune, a virtual Garden of Eden suggested in the pages of West's family journal.

The oddest member of the group is Dr. Architeuthis, a physician-scientist who believes himself a man of the future, methodically testing the conditions that may affect the direction of the voyage, capturing samples in glass vials. The doctor likes young Kane, frequently using him as his assistant; for his part, Kane is most attracted to the exotic Aziz, a three-handed Arab who keeps below deck, stoking the boiler. Huddled for warmth with Aziz, Kane learns the story of the man's birth and why he has three hands. Aziz describes a barren village twisted by poverty, whose members are given an opportunity to enrich their lives. Of all the tales of the villagers, that of The Rope Eater best describes the astonishing inhumanity to which the village falls prey.

In the spirit of the day, the men endure the unremitting violence of the weather through the light-filled Arctic summer and blackest winter. Held captive by huge blocks of ice, the men become "a population of loss", who "in our lethargy... had only the energy to covet and loathe". The temperature drops to 49 degrees below 0. As nature exacts her deadly toll on the Narthex and her crew, a few, including Kane and the doctor, forge ahead to find their arctic Eden somewhere within the rigid ice floes. Even the doctor's relentless calculations cease to make sense and Kane finds reason to doubt the veracity of their quest, when "believing that this easy complexity can pass for vision" may simply be evidence of man's astonishing hubris.

The extraordinary prose is as unforgiving as the elements. Each brutal step of the journey, each spark of humanity is quickly extinguished by the weather's fury; yet it is in man's nature to challenge such odds. The author's calculated prose is etched with exacting detail and persuasiveness. Joining the Narthex to the tale of The Rope Eater, Jones enters into the territory of myth, in a story both shocking and compelling. Luan Gaines/2004.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't finish it
Review: Got to page 150 and did not think it would ever pick up the pace. Sad when the side stories are more interesting than the main! We get page upon page of descriptions of ice flows and ice bergs. The author does a great job of showing how dull the environment is, but in turn makes a dull story. Like listening to someone go on and on about how dull their trip turned out.

The characters are pretty flat and somewhat generic, with Aziz, the three handed man thrown in as a heavy handed (no pun intended) metaphor of madness (we get many of these!).Would like to know more about Kane, the protagonist.

The whole story is pretty unbelievable. A group of misfits (some criminal) brought along on a scientific discovery tour?

However, I think this book might make a good movie with the potential to develop the characters and the storm sequences (dogs washing around on board is a powerful visual).

Rating:
Summary: Vivid and Focused
Review: I came upon The Rope Eater by accident, browsing New Releases in our local library. I think I picked it up mainly because the title compelled me. I don't usually read historical fiction. This novel is utterly riveting -- it's all Story -- no disguised author's editorial commentary to impress readers. The Rope Eater is rich in detail and metaphor. The writing is vivid and focused. I've read it twice and will do so again. The writing is that "present." When I began reading the book, I couldn't wait to sink back into it at the next opportunity. In the right hands, this could make an astonishing, emblematic movie. But it already is, fully, a great story. Congratulations to author Ben Jones. And thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Stunning and brilliant
Review: I was in Chapter 11, the bookstore chain not the legal state, when a salesperson said that this would soon be the new hot book. Her book club was reading it and she said she was only 120 pages into it, but that I should buy it. I had been well steered by her in the past. What a find. This is a thriller more than a historical novel. I read it in one weekend. That is rare for me.

Damn fun reading.

Rating:
Summary: allegorical adventure
Review: Part way through the book I looked up "narthex." It's an antechamber of a church in which penitents wait. That, plus the opening with the heart beating strongly, the quest for an "Eden," the silver "chalice," which the narrator finds in Asiz's frozen hands, the strange story of the rope eater, the birth canal experience in which the narrator slithers through the glacier, looking for a way out to paradise only to return to hell make me think there's more to this story than I have quite figured out to my satisfaction. That's one of the reasons I like it so much. The details ring true without self-conscious display of scholarship. The narrator remains enigmatic, and I am hoping someone has some insights into allegorical interpretations.

Rating:
Summary: allegorical adventure
Review: Part way through the book I looked up "narthex." It's an antechamber of a church in which penitents wait. That, plus the opening with the heart beating strongly, the quest for an "Eden," the silver "chalice," which the narrator finds in Asiz's frozen hands, the strange story of the rope eater, the birth canal experience in which the narrator slithers through the glacier, looking for a way out to paradise only to return to hell make me think there's more to this story than I have quite figured out to my satisfaction. That's one of the reasons I like it so much. The details ring true without self-conscious display of scholarship. The narrator remains enigmatic, and I am hoping someone has some insights into allegorical interpretations.