East of the Mountains (Vintage Contemporaries): Amazon.co.uk: David Guterson: 9780156011044: Books

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First Sentence
On the night he had appointed his last among the living, Dr. Ben Givens did not dream, for his sleep was restless and visited by phantoms who guarded the portal to the world of dreams by speaking relentlessly of this world. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful but no surprises, 1 Sep 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: East of the Mountains (Paperback)

'Snow Falling on Cedars' had a wonderful sense of place, a tight and intriguing plot, and moments of gentle romantic eroticism. It also presented a fascinating insight into a unique community and its problems. 'East of the Mountains' is a much less ambitious novel. The evocative description is still there, so is the romance, and Guterson still writes genuine detail without it ever becoming pedantic. But there is plenty missing.

This is a story of a journey and the plot is inevitably looser, but what makes this novel ultimately unsatisfying is its predictability. For example, we are reminded of the fact that Ben Givens is a heart surgeon at the outset, and repeatedly throughout the book, so when we get to the point where his comrade is shot in battle and he watches the doctor's fight to save him, we know exactly what the outcome will be and why.

The characters too are rather one-dimensional, Givens himself, his wife, the young couple, the girl he meets on the bus and the woman who takes him under her wing, are all consistently good and flawless people. Only the owner of the wolfhound pack is a 'bad guy' and he is bad consistently, even to his own family.

I found certain similarities to Proulx's 'The Shipping News' - the work contains beautiful prose, but overall there are very few surprises and little that could be considered genuine plot. At least Proulx created entertaining and original characters.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A "pleasant little" book, but a disappointment for fans!, 5 July 2000

By

cgent@mdiuk.com (Bristol, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: East of the Mountains (Paperback)

Anyone who is expecting a book similar in quality to Guterson's "Snow falling on Cedars" will be disappointed by this one. Barely more than a novella, this book follows Ben Givens, retired heart surgeon,hunter and terminally ill cancer patient, on his journey back to his East Washington roots to commit suicide.

The book is hugely readable, Guterson's writing flows elegantly (in fact it is hard to put down) and his descriptions of the Washington countryside are hugely evocative. And yet nothing happens! An old man sets out to commit suicide ... and fails; in the process of which he meets some nice and some not so nice people, a few nasty things happen to him and he delivers a baby. Then he goes home.

Perhaps I was expecting too much of this book: his first book dealt with so many different themes after all, and was as impressive as the landscape it was set it in. This one promised a lot, was easy to read but left me thinking "and so..?".

The book has to have three stars if only for its wonderful descriptions: it does not pick up any extra stars for content! I remain a Guterson fan, but hope that the wait for his next book will be more rewarding.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars East of the Mountains is a fine read!, 29 Mar 2001

By

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: East of the Mountains (Paperback)

It is harvest time in the Columbia Basin of central Washington State where orchards droop with ripened fruit & Ben Givens, recently retired, widowered & diagnosed with cancer, heads east, over the Cascade Mountains into the still wild sage deserts for one last bird hunt with his Brittanies & his memories. A rain-slicked highway & a headlong skid into a tree changes his plans.

I thoroughly enjoyed David Guterson's writing which flows like windswept wild grasses, because I've roamed those same sagelands & I've known the same sort of world of hurt into which Ben Givens is headed.

David Guterson narrowly avoids sentimentality by allowing Ben's adventures to draw some blood, be scary enough to rouse a hero's lethargy & full enough with unexpressed loneliness, orneryness, dashes of dumb luck & mean spiritedness that kept me walking at Ben's side.

I wanted to hear more of those adventures. Having taken care of our Poppa during his last years of life, I had a very good idea just how valuable Ben's life & death will be to his daughter.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read

Very good book - Easy to read but well written. I think a second reading will reveal even more of the authors feelings. Bit like Grapes of Wrath meets Call of the Wild.

Published 21 months ago by J. Pedgrift