The Man Without a Face

Rating:
Summary: Very poignant.
Review: "The Man Without a Face" is a very sad and emotional book, but it is one that will stay with you. Having a rebellious 14-year-old boy as the narrator was a wise choice, especially because of the time period, which is 1972. This story involves a platonic love between a disfigured man and an emotionally distraught boy. The trials and tribulations they both go through with one another is bumpy, but worth it. The era seems too far-fetched, but probably likely. The boy's family life is shameful and problematic (although it is not entirely his fault). And the ending is a sad one, and will leave you thinking about the entire story. A remarkable book. I recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Very Mixed Feelings
Review: "The Man Without a Face" is the story of Charles, a 14-year-old boy from a chaotic family that has given him little love and support, and Justin, a former teacher who became a hermit after losing his job subsequent to a car accident that resulted in a student's death. Charles desperately wants to flee his family and go to the boarding school that his deceased father attended, and he begs Justin to tutor him in preparation for the entrance examination. Justin, whose face was badly burned the car accident (but he is NOT the man without a face in the title, at least not to begin with; that is Charles', father, later supplanted by Justin), finally relents and sacrifices the lonely peace of his reclusion to help Charles.

This brief description fits the film by Mel Gibson as well as the book by Isabelle Holland. However, the stories diverge as they progress. In the film, the Justin-Charles relationship remains purely Platonic, although other characters in the film suspect otherwise, and an excellent theme emerges: men who Platonically befriend needy boys can be falsely accused of pedophilia. I volunteer as a mentor for a Court-run program for at-risk youth, and this factor seems to depress the numbers of men who will volunteer as mentors.

In the book, it is not at all clear that the relationship remains Platonic. Charles certainly experiences confusion about his relationship with, and feelings toward, Justin, and Justin does nothing to help clarify the situation or ease Charles' confusion. There is even a pivotal scene that can easily be construed as sexual, after which the Charles-Justin relationship deteriorates and changes significantly.

Both the film and the book treat the issue of the relationship in important ways, but also in quite different ways. Some Amazon customer-reviewers have expressed concern over the book being a how-to guide for pedophiles. I think that view is a bit overstated, although a pedophile, a victim of pedophilia, or a family member of a victim of pedophilia might see the book in this way, and a pedophile might be able to use the book in this way. The book can also be viewed as a case study in how confusing relationships can be for teens from chaotic families.

Technically, the book is well-written and it flows well. The characters are well-developed, and the plot is certainly complex and loaded with issues of import. The character of the book, however, is open to different interpretations.

Rating:
Summary: A Platonic Friendship
Review: A Platonic friendship

Isabelle Holland is a well-established writer of distinction and needs no plaudits from me. I had already seen the excellent film version of the 'The Man without a Face' before reading the book, and indeed was impelled by the substance and beauty of the film to do so. I am very glad to have taken this further step: this slim volume is a minor masterpiece, gripping, insightful, and disturbing. And it is so easy, so natural to read - the boy tells his own story with all the guilelessness and spontaneity of youth. His emotional questions, problems and finally trauma are palpable.

It is an important book for another reason: it treats of a relationship between a teenage boy and an adult male, and the peculiar force that such a relationship can have. In these times when such contacts are often viewed as exploitative or even abusive, it is refreshing to find a story which presents a different picture. Here an adolescent (Charles Norstadt) struggling to cope with a family in emotional disarray, reaches out for help, support and love, which he finds - eventually and fleetingly - in the person of a lonely and eccentric retired teacher (Justin McLeod), who reluctantly responds to the boy's almost desperate plea to be coached for an all-important school entrance exam.

The author is too sophisticated to overplay the drama of the story's conclusion which (I have noted) has elicited some negative reviewer comment. There is a certain ambiguity about the physical contact which occurred, but seen in the context of the boy's pain and distress, it would seem unnatural to exclude such human contact even if - in Chuck's mind - there is subsequent concern for its implications. After all, Chuck had consciously 'desired' to touch and be touched earlier in the story, which does not necessarily imply an overt sexual feeling. Whether or not this is important to know, the writer is sure of her ground as far as Justin is concerned - he at no point made any 'overtures', and there is no suggestion that he wanted to.

This book is only mildly provocative but nonetheless makes a powerful statement on a theme of courage and love.

Rating:
Summary: Child molesters only need read
Review: I don't know which is more sickening - this book or the rave reviews for it, esp. the one that praises it for showing "the positive side of man-boy love."

I saw the outstanding film by Gibson (whose movie "The Passion of the Christ" was a true masterpiece) then decided to read the book. What a difference! In the film we have a noble soul, the teacher, who has had his life ruined by false accusations. In the book we have a pervert who rapes little boys. There is no justification for praising such a book, no matter how "eloquent." Artsy-fartsy comments like "literature shouldn't be poured through a moral filter" don't justify it; nothing justifies it. The book should have ended with the teacher being strung up to die; that was the fate he deserved.

[...]

Rating:
Summary: Brave, if complex and at times confused
Review: I recall reading this book as a teen-ager and being moved by the narrator's voice and by the relationship he developed with Justin--until the end, when I wasn't certain they had had sex or not (now I realize it was my own denial blocking the way--a courageous librarian who gave me the book helped me see what I had intentionally missed or glossed over). I'm still not sure, at 45, what I think about this depiction of man-youth love (and it was love, not simply sex)--it still makes me squeamish--but I think Holland was brave to raise the issue and to make the point that love comes in various forms and doesn't always follow rules.
I have to say that anyone preferring the film must simply be responding with the same homophobia that Mel Gibson brought to his directing. What worse match can one imagine between novel and director/actor than this--the de-gaying of Justin is yet another way of taking away his "face." Just can't wait to see Mel's "Passion"--no doubt Jesus won't be a Jew anymore, either. (Actually, it sounds far worse than that.) The film has has some nice elements--including Nick Stahl's performance--it's a shame Gibson had to intrude his bigoted world-view on a breakthrough, liberatory novel that has helped many a young gay person through the difficulties of adolescence.

Rating:
Summary: It should have been written by a man.
Review: I recommend the film, not the book, and these stars are for the former. The sensitive screen play, the painful separation and the bitter-sweet resolution, make this a classic.

The book, on the other hand, is a disappointment. In the film no sexual relationship takes place between the man and boy, or if it does it remains implied and oh so subtle, which does not prevent suspicions of impropriety ultimately result in the adult's banishment and a premature end to the friendship. In the book, written by a woman, the relationship is consummated in a single act which is described by the author as the event which "ruined everything". How is that possible? Only a woman could write such a ridiculous thing.

From the beginning something was not right. The evolution of the relationship between Justin, the adult, and Charles, the boy, is described with girly hand touching and warm feelings in the belly. Nowhere in the narrative do we find the fire of the loins, as Nabokov so aptly put it. The relationship between Justin and Charles had been feminized with sugar and spice and all things "nice" until it had lost its credibility, long before the reader arrives at the consummate insulting paragraph in which she wrote, in the ostensible words of the boy:

"... the more I thought about it [the sexual encounter], the worse I felt about myself, about Justin, And yet... somewhere, for a long time, I have know - not that this would happen, but that something would happen, and then everything would be over."

And having "ruined" the relationship with a sexual encounter Holland killed off the older character, off stage, by means of an unexpected heart attack. The ending is contrived and abrupt, and in the tradition of the worst dramatic writing is unattached to anything else woven into the story line; what a sad cliché! On the last few pages another character appears in a critical role, as executor of the estate and guardian of the boy, but who had no connection with the main protagonist and very little with the boy up until that moment. The sudden appearance of a key figure in a completely different role on the last few pages of the book is another example of poor dramatic development. The film had bigger surprises and sudden unexpected twists, but they were events more likely to have taken place and did not call for unlikely off-scene co-incidental relationships as the book does.

More important than story line, however, was the depiction of the male/male love relationship, which fails in the book. For the same reason that the historical novels of Mary Reynolds are failures - a trilogy which purports to depict the relationships between Alexander the Great and his boy, but suppurates with honey and marshmallows until no self respecting male can continue reading them - Holland's book becomes absurd rather than tragic. Women should not try to write about relationships between men and men, or between men and boys. They possess neither the physiological instruments nor the erotic imagination for the task. Women see the male sex drive as something superficial, anatomical and standing in the way of romance. How little they understand! Sex between men turns on shared understandings of how muscles flex, organs pulse and juices flow; and we make from our animal excitement something playful which opens the door to a testosterone driven romance more powerful than any fairy-tales that giggling girls may tell each other. Don't read the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Platonic Friendship
Review: Isabelle Holland is a well-established writer of distinction and needs no plaudits from me. I had already seen the excellent film version of the `The Man without a Face' before reading the book, and indeed was impelled by the substance and beauty of the film to do so. I am very glad to have taken this further step: this slim volume is a minor masterpiece, gripping, insightful, and disturbing. And it is so easy, so natural to read - the boy tells his own story with all the guilelessness and spontaneity of youth. His emotional questions, problems and finally trauma are palpable.

It is an important book for another reason: it treats of a relationship between a teenage boy and an adult male, and the peculiar force that such a relationship can have. In these times when such contacts are often viewed as exploitative or even abusive, it is refreshing to find a story which presents a different picture. Here an adolescent (Charles Norstadt) struggling to cope with a family in emotional disarray, reaches out for help, support and love, which he finds - eventually and fleetingly - in the person of a lonely and eccentric retired teacher (Justin McLeod), who reluctantly responds to the boy's almost desperate plea to be coached for an all-important school entrance exam.

The author is too sophisticated to overplay the drama of the story's conclusion which (I have noted) has elicited some negative reviewer comment. There is a certain ambiguity about the physical contact which occurred, but seen in the context of the boy's pain and distress, it would seem unnatural to exclude such human contact even if - in Chuck's mind - there is subsequent concern for its implications. After all, Chuck had consciously `desired' to touch and be touched earlier in the story, which does not necessarily imply an overt sexual feeling. Whether or not this is important to know, the writer is sure of her ground as far as Justin is concerned - he at no point made any `overtures', and there is no suggestion that he wanted to.

This book is only mildly provocative but nonetheless makes a powerful statement on a theme of courage and love.

Rating:
Summary: This is not Tom Brown's Schooldays
Review: Teacher/student relationships are as old as Mentor and Telemachus in the ODYSSEY. Think also of GOODBYE, MR CHIPS and TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS.***

Like other reviewers I first saw the Mel Gibson movie, then decided to read the book. Surprising to me was how different the two are. The book dates from 1972 and perhaps the revisions for the movie are an attempt at a retelling for more recent times. The decidedly athletic boy who in the book walked twice a day for four or five miles one way to his mentor's home is replaced in the film by a less vigorous boy on a bike. Pot smoking is important in the book, insignificant in the film.***

In the book the teacher does not have his pupil learn math by digging square holes in his yard. The book is altogether more conventional, low key and pedestrian. In the book the boy is obviously seriously concerned about his sexuality, which is barely looked at in the film.***

On balance, I think the book holds up better. The movie is more like a negative book review of the book than an original film. Normally, films eliminate scenes from a book. THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE adds scenes and changes the ending. This reminds of the pointlessly changed ending of the recent film verion of Graham Greene's THE END OF THE AFFAIR.***

The book is indeed an easy, quick read. But it is put together by a master and in its simplicity rings truer than the film.-OOO-

Rating:
Summary: A MUST TO READ
Review: the book was great... i would recommend buying this book to anyone...very powerful... i cried... read it and then give it to someone else...

Rating:
Summary: This was a must read
Review: This novel was a about a boy, Charles Norsradt he really dosen't know much about life being stuck with a family full of girls; he hates living with them. Feel like he's not manly maybe?He decides t o get away and go to St.Matthews a all-boy private school.He meets a strange man with a disfigured face Justin Mcleod, A writer and teacher, he decided to help him pass a entrance exam to get in,Charles takes to him and loves him and justin helps him like a father, but in the story the writer makes it seem more than father -like love, this story is very intresting and the charcters are complex this is a must read book