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The Other
 
 
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The Other (Hardcover)

by David Guterson (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (3 Jun 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0307263150
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307263155
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.8 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 892,247 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #17 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > G > Guterson, David

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Product Description

Review
'...Guterson is widely recognised as a novelist of considerable talent and The Other will consolidate his high reputation.'
-- Waterstones Book Quarterly --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
'[Guterson's] most brilliant and provocative novel yet... He presents the reader with the quintessential questions of value and choice that shape life.' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Product Description

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars 'I go, he follows, no release until he ceases', 15 Nov 2008
This review is from: The Other (Hardcover)
David Guterson's new novel is both heartfelt and ironic. He draws, to different forms of realisation, two characters that are, of course, the same man who could take two divergent paths (something we can't do in reality). In middle-age so many of us ponder on what might have been but to be still alive and still walking in the mountains is demonstrated to be preferable to be lying dead in them. This fine novel (and that is a compliment) is a counter to false heroism and extremes of behaviour that break our hearts. David Guterson will probably not be a best-seller again but he writes with great compassion about human beings and it is a good thing that we can learn from his musings and ideas.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Good in many ways, but plain English would be helpful, 26 April 2009
By A Common Reader "See all mybook reviews at ww... (Sussex, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: The Other (Hardcover)
I came to The Other with mixed feelings as I tend to think of David Guterson as someone who's suffered from "second novel syndrome" - a brilliant start with Snow Falling on Cedars, followed by a rather mediocre second novel, East of the Montains. His third novel, Our Lady of the Forest, was much better however and sticks in my memory to this day.

The Other is the story of two boys who grow up as life-long friends while following very different paths. The narrator, Neil Countryman, meets John William Barry while competing in a running race. A friendship develops between them and they both develop a love of the wilderness, taking long trips into the vast landscapes of what is now the North Cascades National Park in the Pacific North West. They also love literature, from Jack Kerouac, through to T S Eliot, taking in along the way a huge range of classic and contemporary books.

Neil Countryman eventually decides to train as an English teacher, and marries and raises children. Barry on the other hand ploughs a different furrow and becomes a mystically-inclined hermit who builds himself a cave dwelling in a remote part of the mountains, and his life revolves around survival skills and Gnostic literature. Countryman visits Barry periodically and brings him supplies from civilisation and news of the outside world. However, ultimately, Barry becomes achieves a sort of fame as The Hermit of The Hoh (mountain) and Countryman, his amanuensis.

I won't spoil the book by describing the outcome of the young men's relationship, but it is a reasonable-enough story and is worth reading. However, while I enjoyed The Other, it is an example of how some books just don't travel across the Atlantic all that well. Guterson has become one of those writers who has taken to the convoluted, over-elaborate phrase to get his message across. For example, while in a Starbuck's bathroom, Countryman muses, ". . . embracing impermanence, the soul finds something that feels like rest, or at least a sustainable modicum of acceptance. Then the solitary searcher, like a climbing rose, is domesticated , and wants only a corner of the garden in which to thrive while twining, sunnily, with a complementing blossom". And this is just a visit to the bathroom!

There is much of this sort of thing in this book and to me it gets in the way of the story. Neil Countryman ends up being annoying rather than profoud. Having said all that, I did at least persist to the end, mainly because the story is actually quite good and made an adequate repayment for my perseverance.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent novel from Guterson, 11 Jul 2009
This review is from: The Other (Paperback)
This is the third novel I've read by David Guterson and perhaps the best. It explores the friendship between the scion of a wealthy family, John William Barry, who becomes a hermit in the wilds of Washington State, and working class Neil Countryman, who becomes an English teacher. Plotted brilliantly and full of breath-taking descriptions and witty characterisation, this is a very thought-provoking book about the roads we don't take and the ones we do.
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4.0 out of 5 stars another atmospheric novel of the Pacific northwest
I felt totally gripped by this book as soon as I got to page five, and the line.. "that's how I met the privileged boy who would later become the hermit of the Hoh - the loner who... Read more
Published 4 days ago by emma who reads a lot

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