River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

Book Description

For Tanus, the fair-haired young lion of a warrior, the gods have decreed that he will lead Egypt's army in a bold attempt to reunite the Kingdom's shared halves. But Tanus will have to defy the same gods to attain the reward they have forbidden him, an object more prized than battle's glory: possession of the Lady Lostris, a rare beauty with skin the color of oiled ceder--destined for the adoration of a nation, and the love of one extraordinary man.

International bestselling author Wilbur Smith, creator of two dozen highly acclaimed novels, draws readers into a magnificent, richly imagined saga. Exploding with all the drama, mystery and rage of a bygone time, River God is a masterpiece from a storyteller at the height of his powers.

Customer Reviews:

I guess I'm the only one who didn't like our narrator.......2007-09-25

"I love brave and honest men, they are so easily manipulated."

Except for the last parts of this 528-page hardcover published in 1993, I found myself mostly captivated by Wilbur Smith's RIVER GOD: A NOVEL OF ANCIENT EGYPT. The book silhouettes a compelling tale of Egypt in 1780-B.C. embroiled in bitter war and eventually giving rise to a line of princes and pharaohs that lifts Egypt to the peak of its glory. Entirely written in a very unique first-person, we journey through two generations with our main character, a boastful and vain eunuch slave narrator. Although I can't say I really liked his character, Taita's first-person narration strikes a very fresh appeal: he's a eunuch slave, he's vain, he's brilliant, he's artistic, he's compassionate, he's vengeful, and he loves like a man. Ultimately, he's very human. In the epic RIVER GOD, we're privy to political intrigue, conspiracy, love, war, violence, kingdoms lost, despair and triumph. We read about an Egyptian civilization turned upside down with the advent of a new technology (wheel), and the introduction of a new animal (the horse). I enjoyed the battle warfare and the passionate moments of love between Lostris and Tanus. The book can be violent at times, and if you're sensitive to slavery, you may not like this historical tale of ancient Egypt.

Possible SPOILERS ahead.

Although Wilbur Smith packs some page-turning enthralling moments, I found the last 50 pages overwhelmingly melancholy. After a heart-wrenching love story spanning most of the first half in this novel, I couldn't take the sad ending. Taita's self-aggrandizing commentary wearied me and his love for his mistress Lostris as a man irked me. Granted, these are very human emotions especially for a handsome, brilliant man castrated after he's enjoyed a woman's passion, but I was begging for some other perspective in this 528-page Egyptian epic. I especially wanted Tanus' perspective. From Taita's point-of-view, everyone else is too one-dimensional: Tanus the redoubtable honorable warrior, Lostris the stubbornly passionate Queen, Kratas the jocular ruffian, and even Prince Memnon seems drab. For most of the novel, Lostris affectionately considers Taita her father and brother. At the end, Lostris wishes for a different kind of love with Taita in the next life. Considering the fact that Lostris and Tanus had to hide their passion and love for each other in this life and they never knew each other as husband and wife, I found this last wish of Lostris' especially sad. More so than the deaths. Did she love Taita more than she led on in the beginning? Had Taita not been a eunuch, would she have eventually cast aside Tanus intimately? After a gripping battle in the middle where the invading Hyksos thoroughly rout a well-trained and disciplined Egyptian army, I found our protagonists' retreat back through the cataracts south of the Nile very, very protracted. Only to arrive at a very unsatisfying conclusion. But alas, such is history.

I'm not sure who is the River God in RIVER GOD. Ostensibly, it may refer to Tanus' role in the first half when he's acclaimed Akh-Horus, an Egyptian God. However, our narrator's influence overshadows all other characters here and his love for his mistress Lostris eclipses that of Tanus' love for Lostris... at least from Taita's perspective. The book firmly belongs to our eunuch-slave narrator Taita: playwright, inventor, surgeon, economic investor, astrologist, architect, singer, scholar, and most of all, devoted slave to his mistress Lostris. Since Taita appears to be behind every vital event and innovative thought for Egypt, if there's any god here, it's Taita. What else can you expect from the author of these scrolls?

Mostly captivating and enjoyable warfare/love, I could have done without the second half and the sad, overwhelmingly melancholy conclusion to this novel. Yes, I'm probably a sucker for some semblance of a happy ending.

More ramblings...

One of my biggest problems had to do with the plot device that has Taita scheme to pass off Lostris & Tanus' son as Lostris & the Pharaoh's son. First, I didn't like how Lostris was so amenable to sleep with the Pharaoh after she and Taita discover she's pregnant. I had hoped she would recoil from going to the Pharaoh's bed after her dreamy lovemaking with Tanus, . Eventually, Taita could convince her that sleeping with the Pharaoh would best serve the unborn child's interests and she could begrudgingly acquiesce. As it is, she's too ready to go to another man (the Pharaoh) after Tanus. Secondly, you would think one of Pharaoh's hundreds of other wives would have already attempted to pass off another man's son as Pharaoh's! Taita notes how the sexual appetites of some of Pharaoh's wives knew no bounds, so you're telling me not one of them thought to pass of another man's son as Pharaoh's? Seriously, why does it work for Taita and Lostris?

Worst, the second time Lostris is pregnant, Taita divines a dream to explain her condition without implicating Tanus. Taita dissembles that he dreamed the old Pharaoh resurrected from his sarcophagus in spirit form to impregnate the Queen Lostris. First, it seems ludicrous that this deception wouldn't work on the late Pharaoh during Lostris' first pregnancy yet will work like a charm on a hundreds of others. Secondly, I love how Tanus is too proud and honorable for kingship yet will consent to passing off illegitimate children of his as the previous Pharaoh's. Talk about hypocrisy, I didn't see how Wilbur Smith is able to credit Tanus' character. He won't even marry Lostris after her second pregnancy and assume regency for a short while until Memnon is of age. Tanus' character reeks of a duplicitous air of self-important morality. I just don't get how Tanus justifies deceiving the Egyptian crown with his own children yet won't take a temporary regency? He doesn't care that he'll never be able to acknowledge his own children, and that nevermind other people, but even his own children will not know their own true father? It's actually quite sad, to his last dying day, none of Tanus' children know him as their true father and Tanus makes Taita promise not to reveal it.

Enter ancient Egypt life, prepare for a death blow.......2007-09-06

A most egaging novel. I have just ordered the next two books in the series. I couldn't get enough. Taita, the eunich, a genius in arts, mechinations, life and the other world beyond ours guards and influences Lostris and Tannis a couple destined to be together but seems to be at odds with what the "Gods have planned". Linked with the evil Lord Intef and the Immortal Pharoah, their lives are filled with war and love. The author brings us into the life of ancient Egypt as if we have actually been there. The descriptions of everyday life and death are startling lifelike. I was unexpectedly impressed and hooked.

The best I've read in years!.......2007-08-22

A friend gave me a copy of Elephant Song when I was a teenager, and I was immediately hooked on Wilbur Smith. I bought River God when it first came out, ostensibly to do a book report in my grade 12 English class when I started going to night school. But I really just wanted to read the book.

This is the first book in the Egyptian trilogy, and, in my opinion, the best of the three. While all three are excellent novels, River God shines. I fell in love with Lostris, Taita, Tanus... These characters really came alive for me and I missed them horribly once I had finished reading the book. While these characters are featured in the other two books as well (The Seventh Scroll and Warlock), they're not as vivid or as real in the latter volumes.

Taita is a politician, economist, chemist, physician, servant, and mentor in his various guises throughout the book. It's impossible to dislike him. The rich descriptions of Egyptian culture, art, and costume are breathtaking, and I also learned a lot about their strategies, agriculture and politics.

I would definitely recommend River God to fans of historical fiction, adventure, and mysteries.

I have the audiobook.......2007-07-28

I'm not really a big fan of audiobooks because I get distracted too easily to pay attention to the reading. I listened to River God while I was at work and it is the only book I've ever finished through audiobook format. This is first the book I've ever "read" by Wilbur Smith and I'm looking forward to reading all his other books.

Although the story is historically inaccurate as everyone has already mentioned, his writing style and descriptions are absolutely amazing! I could not stop listening to the audio book even though they're not really my thing. I had to listen to it at work, in the car, at home and get very into the story. Smith's descriptions are very vivid and I felt immersed in the story. It's a wonderful, exciting, creative adventure with a good balance between romance and violence. I feel fascinated by this book because there aren't very many stories based on Ancient Egypt.

The main character is an Egyptian eunuch who is in love with the pharaoh's daughter who is in love with the eunuch's student. Somewhere in the third chapter he starts talking about how the pharaoh "likes" boys. It also describes a scene where the main character gets his bits cut off in great, graphic depth. These are only some of the many interesting parts of the book.

The only thing I have a problem with is how the main character seems to be some kind of a genius, always coming up with brilliant ideas to solve every single problem. It a little hard to believe that one person would be able to come up with so many inventive solutions. However, this little annoyance can be easy to overlook. This book is completely worth the price and time spent reading.

BEST BOOK!!.......2007-07-26

This is literally the best book i've ever read. I felt so personal and close with all the characters that at the end, I was sad, not just that I had finished it, but that I had to say goodbye to these wonderful characters. I have also read the sequel, and though it is based far far in the future from ancient egypt, it was JUST AS, if not more of a good read. Especially since if you have read River God u are in on all the little secrets that the books characters are not. But, I would even recommend reading the sequel to those who have not read river god. These books are great fun, and full of every element a good story should have. I laughed, I cried, I read them both AGAIN!!

Average customer rating:

Too violent
Highly Recommended
For fans of the movie.....
Great book to go with great movie
My Favorite Movie

City of God: A Novel
Paulo Lins
Manufacturer: Grove Press, Black Cat
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Movie Tie-Ins | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0802170102

Book Description

The searing novel on which the internationally acclaimed hit film was based, City of God is a gritty, gorgeous tour de force from one of Brazil’s most notorious slums. Cidade de Deus: a place where the streets are awash with narcotics, where violence can erupt at any moment over drugs, money, and love—but also a place where the samba beat rocks till dawn, where the women are the most beautiful on earth, and where one young man wants to escape his background and become a photographer. When City of God erupted on screens worldwide, it became one of the most critically and commercially successful foreign films of recent years. But few were aware of the story behind the film. Written by Paulo Lins, who grew up in the favela (shantytown) Cidade de Deus in Rio e Janeiro and who spent years researching its gang history, City of God began life as a coruscating, harrowing novelistic account of twenty years in the illicit pursuits of the youth gangs born from the favela. Now available in English for the first time, City of God is a raw, powerful portrait of the countless millions of poor people all over the world.

Customer Reviews:

Too violent.......2007-05-08

It seemed to be an ok book until it described a man cutting the limbs off of his baby and then I couldn't force myself to read the rest! I just don't think it was necessary to put that in.

Highly Recommended.......2007-04-10

What a great story. The film shows a detailed and nuanced tail but still manages keep the viewers in rapt attention. This movie also benefits from not being your typical cliches story of the lives of the Brazilian poor.

For fans of the movie............2007-02-02

The fact that the film didn't win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay proves that the Academy Awards are nothing more than a popularity contest. The chore of adapting this massive novel must have been an immense task (it took three drafts before they director and producers got a script they were satisfied with). What was on the screen was basically a summary of the novel.

For instance, Rocket is a minor character in the book, Lil Ze is based on a character named Tiny, and the 'Tender Trio' is based on the characters Squirt, Hellraiser and Hammer. Carrot (called 'Carrots'in the book) and Knockout Ned (simply called 'Knockout') are about the only characters in the book that fans of the movie will recognize right off the bat. There's no mention of The Runts specifically, but dozens of other youngsters are. So many characters are introduced and killed off that it was impossible for me to keep up, but fans of the movie will notice bits and pieces of specific characters. Almost all the characters in the film are creations from several other characters in the book.

The book is more violent than the film. Paulo Lins describes the massacred bodies in grafic detail. The last third of the book (well over 100 pages) deals with the war between Knockout and Tiny.

Cocaine and marijuana is mentioned repeatedly throughout the book. Almost every character seems to use or deal the drugs. The world of dope dealing is thouroughly investigated in this book.

Paulo Lins does an amazing job of telling the story of the City of God, but for me it was hard to keep up with the countless characters. The film makers did a great job of adapting this massive story. So if your a fan of the movie, and want to get a different perspective of this Brazilian hell-hole, then check out the book, just don't expect it to be just like the film.

Great book to go with great movie.......2007-01-23

I bought this is England a while back and it is fantastic. The movie is spectacular and all, but this goes a step further when it comes to the story. There is just generation after generation of gangsters and warfare and brutality. It serves as a grim reminder of the favelas that exist in this world.

My Favorite Movie.......2007-01-10

City of God is among the best movies I've ever seen in my life. Even if you're not a huge fan of foreign films, this movie will still grip you. The narrator of the movie is Buscapé (Rocket), a boy who grows up in the City of God, Rio de Janiero's most notorious favela. Also growing up with him is Dadinho (Lil Dice), who looks up to the hoodlums of the favela and aspires to one day be the most feared hood in Rio de Janiero. After killing all his enemies, Lil Dice becomes known as Lil Zé and becomes the biggest drug lord in the favela. Rocket watches all of these events unfold, and uses his experiences as a way to escape the favela by being a photographer.

This movie was amazing. It shows several stories unfolding simulataneously, and they eventually all come together in a way that blows the viewer's mind. The ending was amazing, and the element of surprise was used perfectly in this film. I would definitely recommend this film to anybody. THIS IS A DEFINITE MUST SEE.

Average customer rating:

A book to make you think
A mishmash
A good novel as well as a lovely piece of writing
very eclectic
Not For Everyone

City of God: A Novel
E.L. Doctorow
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0679447830
Release Date: 2000-02-15

Amazon.com

You want ambition? E.L. Doctorow's City of God starts off not merely with a bang but with the big bang itself, that "great expansive flowering, a silent flash into being in a second or two of the entire outrushing universe." It doesn't, to be sure, remain on this cosmic plane throughout. There's a mystery here, along with a romance, a chilling Holocaust narrative, and a deep-focus portrait of fin-de-siècle Manhattan--not to mention cameo appearances by that Holy Trinity of contemporary mythmaking: Albert Einstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Frank Sinatra. But while the author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate is no slacker when it comes to entertainment, he has more in mind this time around. Even the title, with its Augustinian overtones, tips us off to the author's preoccupation with belief, human consciousness, and "our wrecked romance with God."

Let's return, however, to that mystery. In the early pages of the novel, an enormous brass cross is pilfered from a church on the Lower East Side. Father Thomas Pemberton of St. Timothy's promptly sets off in search of it, dubbing himself the Divinity Detective. Yet he suspects from the start that this is no ordinary theft, with no ordinary solution:

So now these people, whoever they are, have lifted our cross. It bothered me at first. But now I'm beginning to see it differently. That whoever stole the cross had to do it. And wouldn't that be blessed? Christ going where He is needed?

Where He seems to be needed is the opposite side of the ecumenical aisle. The cross turns up on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, a tiny Manhattan institution to which Pemberton has clearly been led by fate. His encounter with the synagogue's rabbinical duo--a husband-and-wife team struggling to reclaim a pre-scriptural state of "unmediated awe"--transforms his life. It also destroys what's left of his conventional Christian belief. Augustine's spin on original sin, for example, now strikes him as "a nifty little act of deconstruction--passing it on to the children, like HIV." And as his relationship with Judaism deepens, he discards the clerical collar altogether and embarks upon a penitential exploration of the Holocaust--which in turn allows Doctorow to loop his narrative back and forth between several generations of (mostly) Jew and Gentile.

Astonishingly enough, the foregoing only scratches the surface of City of God. This marvelous hybrid also includes a metafictional framework (i.e., an author-as-character with a rather Doctorovian resume), an ongoing rumination on city life, and a dozen other major strands and minor players. There are, not surprisingly, a number of misfires. For example, Doctorow has long been interested in the power of American popular song--in the way that, say, Gershwin's work has come to function as a kind of secular hymnal. Yet the author's postmodernist variations on the standards, which appear at regular intervals throughout the novel under the ominous rubric of "The Midrash Jazz Quartet Plays the Standards," are jaw-droppingly awful. One might also argue that the book is too centrifugal, too devoted to the storytelling principle of the big bang. Still, there is an undeniable power to the way Doctorow makes his fictional worlds collide, setting off all manner of historical and philosophical conflagrations. At one point he imagines "the totality of intimate human narrations / composing a hymn to enlightenment / if that were possible." A tall order, yes. But despite its occasional longueurs, City of God suggests that it's possible indeed. --James Marcus

Book Description

In his workbook, a New York City novelist records the contents of his teeming brain--sketches for stories, accounts of his love affairs, riffs on the meanings of popular songs, ideas for movies, obsessions with cosmic processes. He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age. But now he has found a story he thinks may be-come his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episco-pal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared...and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why. Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts...and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters--including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners--in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.

Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, and filled with the sights and sounds of New York, this dazzlingly inventive masterwork emerges as the American novel readers have been thirsting for: a defining document of our times, a narrative of the twentieth century written for the twenty-first.

Download Description

But now he has found a story he thinks may become his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episcopal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared... and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why.

Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts... and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters -- including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners -- in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.

Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, and filled with the sights and sounds of New York, this dazzlingly inventive masterwork emerges as the American novel readers have been thirsting for: a defining document of our times, a narrative of the twentieth century written for the twenty-first.

"E.L. Doctorow is an astonishing novelist -- astonishing not only in the virtuosity with which he deploys his mimetic skills, but also in the fact that it is impossible to predict even roughly the shape, scope and tone of one of his novels from its predecessors."
   ROBERT TOWER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"Doctorow is a master of atmosphere... He knows the art of storytelling inside and out."
   NEWSWEEK

Customer Reviews:

A book to make you think.......2007-05-25

If you like Doctorow you'll enjoy this book, although it a bit different from his earlier writing...perhaps more overtly cerebral at least in the contemporary part (there is a subplot that takes place during World War II). Full of likeable but imperfect characters.

A mishmash.......2007-04-27

Doctorow has always liked to play with narrative structure and this book is no exception. Multiple narrators and narratives follow each other in multiple strands that ultimately do not hold together. Mostly in the form of notes the main narrator, Everett, has put together for (perhaps) two separate novels, it involves such disparate elements as: a sort-of detective story about the disappearance and reappearance of a cross (from the apse of an Episcopalian church to the roof of a Reform synagogue); the crises of faith of the priest of said church and his troubles with his hierarchy (who seem far more authoritarian than the real Episcopalian church); a holocaust narrative and another sort-of detective story about a ghetto's lost archive; various affairs, sexual or romantic, some without any connection to the main narrative; various fantasies in the form of imaginary film scripts, troubling in their depiction of sex, power and identity; long sections of prose poem (Everett's autobiography) and pseudo-philosphical riffs on jazz/Broadway standards by the fictional "Midrash Jazz Quartet"; numerous meditations on the origin of the universe and life, some quite inaccurate; passages on Einstein's life and (fictional) thoughts; and passages in the voice of Ludwig Wittgestein, many given in the form of numbered points as in his seminal book of philosophy Tractatus Logicophilosophicus.

If Doctorow could have made all this hang together, it would have been a work of rare achievement. Unfortunately, he fails. As a clear-eyed writer on class struggle in America, and what he sees as the capitalist corruption inherent in the American Dream, Doctorow has been brilliant, regardless of what one thinks of his politics. His attempt to grasp the metaphysical questions that humanity has struggled for millenia ("life, the universe and everything" as "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" put it) is far less successful. I still give him a three because of evocative writing and daring narrative structure. But compared to his other novels, this one falls short.

A good novel as well as a lovely piece of writing.......2006-08-17

I enjoy EL Doctorow's work, so it was with pleasurable anticipation that I picked up City of God and was astonished at what a beautiful book he had wrought.

You should, when approaching this book, be aware that the narrative is experimental and postmodern. (It certainly fits every definition of postmodernism that I've ever read, including that in my favorite reference, Teaching the Postmodern.) Yes, it begins with a riff on physics and awe. It includes epistolary sections from characters to a character based on EL Doctorow.

There is also a strong narrative thread that keeps the book from becoming amorphous literary rap lyrics. An enormous bronze cross has been stolen, as is revealed on the fourth page, and its chase leads Tom Pemberton to Rabbi Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus, and I'm shocked that none of the other very intelligent reviewers here seem to have picked that one up, esp considering later plot developments,) and Sarah, his wife (very Da Vinci code, there.) Tom's interactions with Joshua form the, ahem, crux of the novel, and change Tom's life irrevocably.

While I, too, am astonished by the beauty of the book, and I appreciate the effect of all the narrative threads and their coalescence after the last page is turned, reading the book itself is an enjoyable experience. The characters are drawn nicely, there is excellent tension and struggle within the characters' lives, and the plot leads from one suspenseful scene to the next.

TK Kenyon
RABID, coming in 2007 from Kunati Books

very eclectic.......2005-12-09

E.L. Doctorow's "City of God" is about -- well, everything. There's the obvious Augustinian reference in the title. There are treatises on the Big Bang and the effects of popular culture. There's a moving lament for the end of democratic media and art and the rise of corporate Hollywood. There's a Holocaust diary. There's a study of the turmoil evoked by the Vietnam War. There's even a mystery of a stolen cross (although E.L. Doctorow never reveals the solution). Throughout Doctorow intertwines his thoughts on fate and the nature of God and religion.

With so many disparate elements, "City of God" shouldn't hold together; yet, somehow it does. I guess it's a testament to Doctorow's genius that he accomplishes what should be the impossible and creates out of a patchwork of ideas a riveting novel.

Not For Everyone.......2005-04-17

This is a very tough one to review because it's a difficult book to know how to feel about. Despite its length, it has all the elements of an epic - Holocaust, God, philosophy, cityscapes, a millenium approaching etc - and plays self-consciously, and often brilliantly, with the possibilities of the epic form at the twentieth century's end.

However, I can only agree with Christopher Smith's sharp point below regarding the way in which Doctorow relies on detached speeches to make his point. There is very little character interaction or development, and thus little drama. It's almost as if Doctorow didn't trust the strength of his central story to hold the weight of the message, and also didn't feel he could write a full-on Holocaust story as an alternative (though I think he can judging by the scenes in here).

Nevertheless, there are long stretches of brilliant writing, particularly in the aforementioned Holocaust sections and in the thoughts of Wittgenstein and Einstein. The structure is also very clever as the reader is lost for a while but soon begins to see the outline of the book's narrative form. All in all, an ambitious and challenging work, up there with "Ragtime" and "Billy Bathgate" as one of Doctorow's best works.

Climbing the God Tree: A Novel in Stories

Average customer rating:

This one is a keeper!
Excellent
Advance Praise for Climbing the God Tree

Climbing the God Tree: A Novel in Stories
Jaimee Wriston Colbert
Manufacturer: Helicon Nine Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown3 | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 1884235255

Customer Reviews:

This one is a keeper!.......2004-01-02

I love this book! For me to read a book twice when I have tons of books that I have NOT read says it all. Great, great book.

Excellent.......1999-09-22

I have had the pleasure of not only reading this book but I have been fortunate enough to actually know the author. Jaimee Colbert is a very pristine and talented woman. Her work is excellent and manages to capture the reader's full attention from beginning to end!

Advance Praise for Climbing the God Tree.......1999-04-01

WINNER OF THE WILLA CATHER FICTION PRIZE

"A debut novel set in a haunted Maine town. Eerie, understated, and deft. Colbert uses atmosphere the way David Lean uses scenery." -Kirkus Reviews

"The scope of Jaimee Wriston Colbert's storytelling is impressive, with no fewer than 16 central characters delineated in intricately overlapping narratives. The stories stand on their own as sensitive and unsentimental evocations of unrelieved loss." -The New York Times Book Review

"Here is a writer who, in powerfully linked stories, movingly evokes both our craving for the sacred and our tenacious embrace of the profane." -Dawn Raffel, Judge, Willa Cather Fiction Prize

"Ingeniously constructed and sensitively rendered, Climbing the God Tree is a compelling and moving novel." -Madison Smartt Bell

Customer Reviews:

Well-written but frustratingly bleak.......2002-07-19

As a 32-year-old woman, at first I had a hard time getting into the main character (a 72-year-old man), but I kept going. The problem then became that the first half of this book was un-remittingly bleak. The writing is good and the plot becomes interesting or I would not have hung in there. A little light is introduced...but (I don't want to spoil the plot) it ends up being undeserved and that is the greatest frustration of all. Perhaps the author thought the point was that anyone can change but the ending seems to show that they haven't changed, or at least not enough.

No laughter, here..........2000-01-19

I thought this book might be a paean to aging, but it isn't. It is an extended and tedious look at what happens to a man when his testosterone supply diminishes. The hero of the story moves through a fairly uneventful life in a small Minnesota town. He must face the fact that he is aging, his wife is dying, and his son is a failure. But sex is the real subject; every conversation moves to sex, every observation is tinged with sexual particulars, every reverie eventually ends in a backseat or a bedroom. The story is told with palpable distaste for its characters, with particularly unforgiving eye turned to their physical flaws. There is a murder subplot and a romance, but these are expressed in images of masturbating priests and wrinkled, aging thighs. Eventually, we learn whodunit. We also learn that the ebbing of testosterone is a GOOD thing, since men are so horrible when acting under its influence. This is an especially disappointing book because the quality of the writing is excellent.

Praying to a Laughing God was a book I would never re-read........1998-10-08

At the end of the book, it didn't matter anymore who committed the crime - you had finally reached the end of a long, drawn out story about a murder.

A moving and poignant novel and a very good mystery.......1998-03-24

True crime writer Ted Lewell arrives in the small town of Credibull, Minnesota, researching his next effort: the real story behind the murder of Albert Wilson, who was killed almost four decades ago. When septagenariun Clark Holstrom learns what the famous author plans to do, he begins to worry about how this will affect his ailing friend, Maynard Tewle, a person who many townsfolk believe actually committed the murder. However, the state could never prove its case....

The who-done-it aspects of PRAYING TO A LAUGHING GOD are somewhat interesting, but are overwhelmed by the more poignant and brilliantly described harsh realities of aging. The characters are first rate and Kevin McColley, a renowned writer of young adult fiction, has gracefully moved into the adult world with this passionate, sentimental, and very melancholy ode to old age.

Harriet Klausner

Average customer rating:
City of God: A Novel
E.L. Doctorow
Manufacturer: Random House Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OFR6KI

Average customer rating:

excellent sci-fi/mystery/media satire

City of God: A Novel
Tom Grimes
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0393037894

Book Description

CITY OF GOD

Kirkus Reviews-- ***starred review

A near-future novel that depicts with savage glee the economic-driven Armageddon awaiting us: a choreographed, televised race war brought to you by your local sponsors.

The author of two baseball-oriented novels (A Stone of the Heart, 1990; Season's End, 1992), Grimes here makes a quantum leap into DeLillo land, taking the usual Blade Runner vision of our world in a few years' time-income disparity a gulf, the streets a battlefield-and casting it in the poetry of direct marketing. For most white people in their armored sedans and feudal communities, overspending is the only heroism; for the black and brown ghetto, life revolves around crack and virtual-reality arcades. But then black crackhead Do-Ray, heeding the mysterious rapper Coda, blows away two cops, bringing on rioting and murders that are carried live on XXN- TV. Looking for Do-Ray are Nick, a disinherited louse of a public defender; Julia, a prosecutor with a skinhead 14-year-old son on the lam; and McKuen, a black Vietnam vet detective. As the characters converge, Do-Ray understands that he's been manipulated into taking the fall as the nonexistent Coda-a ratings-boosting creation of XXN and its Bill Gates-like, seemingly omniscient chief-and reaches for a vision of love and redemption. Julia and McKuen never find their quarry, but they do find each other. And Nick, pathetic to the end, dies reaching for XXN's brass ring. Grimes hews to his vision and keeps the energy up almost to the last, beginning with opening setpieces that are brilliant, language-fueled riffs, bleakly funny and uncomfortably accurate ("Can't produce jobs, we'll mass-produce criminals," says Nick, upon hearing that the police are using the riots as an excuse for mass arrests). The characterizations are a bit thin, but then, this is television.

Pungent with the lunatic language of consumer-driven tabloid America, this horrifying prophecy of a book, coming on the heels of the Oklahoma City bombing, seems closer to social commentary than satire.

Customer Reviews:

excellent sci-fi/mystery/media satire.......2000-11-21

An incorrupt cop in the near future learns a lot about the ugly side of pop culture and media manipulation when he investigates the death of two policemen.

Grimes's point that people don't think anything is real until they see it on TV, is a sharp one, as are the characterizations in this novel. Another telling point is that when it is revealed that a gangsta- rap tape may have inspired the murders, that the tape becomes the new mega-seller!

Customer Reviews:

For those that don't speak portuguese.......2004-07-01

The book City of God is a deposition on daily of a social sector ahead of the process of urbanization and the growth of the urban violence in Rio De Janeiro. The depositions that had been transformed into a romance (and to leave of it in film) didaticamente trace the different and possible exclusion and ways of the members of this Carioca community. The rotation of the man power in the traffic of drugs and the mortality of its members is impressive and is noticed clearly that the exploration gear leaves in the mount (slum quarter) the part poor, with the connivance of the policy and of investors until the cartels. Disputes of teritórios and the creation of walls "invisíveis" but deadly so that it crosses them in the sample as the absence of the public power and the diffidence with what still surplus of it does not leave choice ahead of "lei" of the violence. Impressive and involving this romance.

Um Romance sobre a violência e exclusão social carioca.......2004-02-02

O livro Cidade de Deus é um depoimento sobre o cotidiano de um setor social diante do processo de urbanização e o crescimento da violência urbana no Rio de Janeiro. Os depoimentos que foram transformados num romance (e a partir dele em filme) traçam didaticamente a exclusão e os caminhos diferentes e possíveis dos membros dessa comunidade carioca. A rotatividade da mão-de-obra no tráfico de drogas e a mortalidade de seus membros é impressionante e nota-se claramente que a engrenagem de exploração deixa no morro (favela) a parte mais pobre, com a conivência da polícia e de investidores até os cartéis. Disputas de teritórios e a criação de muros "invisíveis" mas mortíferos para que os atravessa nos mostra como a ausência do poder público e a desconfiança com o que ainda sobra dele não deixa escolha diante da "lei" da violência. Impressionante e envolvente este romance.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books