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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A violent but poetic masterpiece, 1 May 2008
James Dickey's "To the White Sea" is without doubt one of the greatest novels I have ever read. This is the first person narration of Muldrow, originally an Alaskan hunter, now a B-29 tail gunner, shot down over Tokyo and his quest to travel north to the white landscape of the Arctic Circle. In truth Muldrow is a violent sociopath, more animal than man in many ways who uses all his hunting and survival techniques to work his way north through Japan leaving a trail of death. However this horror is juxtaposed with the sheer beauty of the writing. Dickey was primarily a poet (who confessed he only wrote prose to pay the bills) and the book reads more like an epic poem - it is poetry written as prose. The narrative and Muldrow's thoughts are full of images of the beauty and purity of the white Arctic landscape which is in stark contrast to the blood which he spills freely. Overall this is a disturbing, harrowing yet ultimately beautifully told story of survival. It conjures stunningly strong imagery in the reader's mind and is a thought-provoking contrast of beauty and horror, purity and impurity, snow and blood. An incredibly written masterpiece.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Escape through death, 7 Oct 2007
The basic story is that of a WWII bomber crewman shot down over Tokyo immediately prior to the great firebomb raids at the end of the war. He is alone in enemy territory. We follow our tail-gunner as he plans to escape Tokyo during the confusion of the upcoming firebomb raid the following night. We watch him as he struggles to stay alive with his only goal to keep moving north. To the ice regions like his home in Alaska, where he feels he will be safe. We are given many glimpses into the thoughts of our crewman as he tries to survive. The ending of the book we have our main charcter sort of at home with his surroundings and he seems to accept his fate at the end. I did find this a bit of a slow read. And therefore rated it 3 instead of 4 stars.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
I couldn't put this down; I wish I had, 29 Sep 2009
It's the end of the Second World War in Japan; he's a rear gunner in a B29, tough, single-minded, calm, calculated. The story is of his escape from his aircraft, his escape through the firestorm of Tokyo under American bombs through a territory filled with enemies who would castrate and decapitate him as soon as they recognised him.
The prose has a crisp brilliance that is always fresh and never overwritten. The story is alive with the tension of the moment and with recurrent reflections of memory. The whole is so involving that this is one of those rare books that is difficult to put down, and I couldn't, moving from sympathy with the narrator to growing distaste, from hoping that he can evade capture to wishing that he soon meets his end.
There are some buts, though. Some of the turns of the plot are implausible, and the characterisation is a little uneven. There are a few trails laid, leading us to think we will learn more about why the hunted Alaskan hunter has become the man he is; but we don't.
The end, for me, was the disappointing part. I found it mystical, fantastic and pretentious, a bathetic anticlimax. For five captivating hours I couldn't put it down; when I did, I suddenly wondered if the nightmares that could come from being inside the skin of this horrific character would be worth (truly exhilarating) reading.
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