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Northern Lights
 
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Northern Lights (Paperback)

by Tim O'Brien (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Customers buy this book with Going After Cacciato (Flamingo) by Tim O'Brien

Northern Lights + Going After Cacciato (Flamingo)
Price For Both: £14.38

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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New edition edition (16 Nov 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006551483
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006551485
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 793,088 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #9 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > O > O'Brien, Tim

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Product Description

Review

'A thrilling story that can be read and enjoyed simply as an adventure story but digs deeper than that.' Irish Times


Product Description

An acclaimed backlist title by the award-winning author of If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato and In the Lake of the Woods. 'Calling Tim O'Brien a Vietnam War novelist is a bit like saying Joseph Conrad was a Polish guy who wrote some good sea tales.' Esquire Winner of the National Book Award (Going After Cacciato), Time Book of the Year (In the Lake of the Woods) and twice runner-up for the Pulitzer (The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods), Tim O'Brien is widely regarded as the finest American writer of the Vietnam generation. Northern Lights, originally published in 1975, was O'Brien's first full novel, resoundingly confirming the reputation gained by his remarkable debut, If I Die in a Combat Zone -- the fictionalised account of his own tour of duty in Vietnam. As in his recent bestselling novel In the Lake of the Woods, the action in Northern Lights takes place not in Vietnam but back in the USA, as Tim O'Brien explores the after-effects of that war -- on those who served, and those they left behind. Set in the frozen wilderness of north Minnesota, it concerns two brothers, one who served in Vietnam, and has returned tough, cynical and world-weary; and the other who stayed at home. When they take off on a long skiing trip together through the frozen woods, they quickly get lost in a blizzard, and are tested to their limits as they face a battle against the elements and each other.
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Northern Lights
37% buy the item featured on this page:
Northern Lights 3.7 out of 5 stars (3)
£7.19
In the Lake of the Woods
21% buy
In the Lake of the Woods 4.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£5.97
Going After Cacciato (Flamingo)
17% buy
Going After Cacciato (Flamingo) 4.2 out of 5 stars (5)
£7.19
The Things They Carried (Flamingo)
15% buy
The Things They Carried (Flamingo) 4.9 out of 5 stars (14)
£6.39
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Customer Reviews

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

 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and compelling, an adventure that stays with you., 11 Jan 2001
By A Customer
What an interesting book. The central character is the complex Perry and the book is based on his relationship with his brother Harvey, Harvey's girlfriend Addie and Perry's wife, the long suffering Grace. On the surface, the book is about survival in the snow covered woods of Minnesota, however, the dynamics between the brothers is what this book is really all about. The author keeps the reader wanting to know more about Grace and Addie and keeps the brothers at the fore. This is one of those books that is like a good wine - it is enjoyable at the time and yet it is only now that I have finished that I realise how good it was. I am actually missing the experience of reading this book and I would love to read a sequel. Unfortunately there will not be one.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Moody and gripping...an adventure becomes a misadventure., 9 Oct 2003
By B. Grime "bjg5000" (Lancashire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I'm a fan of Tim O'Briens yet this novel disturbed me as much as any of his Vietnam books - wish i knew why! O'Brien swaps Vietnam for the American backwoods. At the heart of the book is the relationship between two very different brothers. The troubled, analytical Perry and the volatile returning war vet Harvey. O'Brien ensures this is no happy family reunion by throwing into the mix out of the ordinary set pieces and characters. Even the two women Grace and Addie are far from straight forward. Each of the four main characters are enigmatic and deep and made me want to know more about who they really were and how they had got there. Set in the wilderness, life is quiet and slow until the ordinary suddenly appears extraordinary and you don't realise the steady pace has quickened till you are running fast with it. Ghosts from the past are less frightening than the realities of the present and the conflicts between the leads. When Perry and Harvey set off on a skiing trip through the remote woodlands the suspense mounts and the challenge becomes more than just one between two rival brothers. The atmosphere and expectancy leaps from the pages and pulls you with it right to the unforgettable ending. A tense, well crafted read about self discovery and strained relationships that left a strange taste in my mind.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Can do better!, 31 May 2008
If, like myself you have arrived at this novel after reading O'Brien's other literary offerings: 'The Things they Carried' - Excellent, 'If I Should Die in a Combat Zone' - Pretty Good, and 'Going After Cacciato' - Utterly Brilliant. Then like myself, you will probably be disappointed if you spend your valuable time and lay down you hard-earned, for this VERY mediocre novel. Clearly at the early stage of his career when this was written O'Brien did not possess any great gift for entirely fictitious story-telling, and certainly not outside of his Vietnam 'comfort-zone'.

Billed as somewhere between an epic suspense and a personal growth tale built on many subtle layers, it really is anything but. What it is, is a very average, bland story of no particular suspense, nor growth, evolution nor metamorphosis. All built around a very tenuous cross-country skiing experience that never really delivers any thrills or nail-biting. O'Brien spins his uniform, colourless yarn at an average pace and it's more like a train journey rather than a roller-coaster ride. Not much tensions and not much detail. No neatly drawn characters of carefully painted faces.

O'Brien's ultimate downfall lies in the previous point, in the fact he cannot paint pictures in the reader's mind. The old debate of the written versus the pictorial; the book verses the film is a mute point here. The writer should be at least capable (willing) to deliver enough adjectives and adverbs so as to allow us to use that as glue to add to the nouns and verbs and build our own visual puzzle, but sadly, in this case he clearly does not. His painting is altogether too wishy-washy, too much like some abstract water-colour that leaves the reader squinting trying to match the title to the visual imagery.

Compare this kind of writing to some masters of descriptive writing; Salinger, Hesse, Orwell, or contemporaries like Easton Ellis or Murakami Haruki and you realise that O'Brien is way out of his league in tackling this kind novel. Likewise his publishers were foolish to ever allow this to reach the printing press. One cannot help correlating this to one of those albums greedy record companies put out; albums full of out-takes, b-sides and half ideas better left on the studio floor.

Ultimately this book is bland and fruitless, uninteresting and unchallenging. It neither gives nor takes anything from the reader and offers not the slightest revelation nor ponderous moment, it is pulp-fiction at its worse, and in my mind that is a waste of time and trees. My advice, check out his other three offerings mentioned above, and you won't be disappointed - leave this one to be consigned to the bargain bins and the library shelves.
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