East of the Mountains

David Guterson's first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, was a true ensemble piece, in which even a high-stakes murder trial seemed like a judgement passed on the community at large. In his eloquent second novel, however, the author swings dramatically in the opposite direction. East of the Mountains is the tale of a solitary, 73-year-old Seattle widower. A retired heart surgeon, Ben Givens is an old hand at turning isolation to his advantage, both professionally and personally: "When everything human was erased from existence except that narrow antiseptic window through which another's heart could be manipulated--few were adroit as Dr. Givens."

Now, however, Ben has been dealt a problem entirely beyond his powers of manipulation: a diagnosis of terminal cancer. With just a few months to live, he sets out across the Cascades for a hunting trip, planning to take his own life once he reaches the high desert. A car crash en route puts an initial crimp in this suicide mission. But the ailing surgeon presses onward--and begins a simultaneous journey into the past. Between present-tense episodes, which demonstrate Ben's cranky commitment to his own extinction, we learn about his boyhood in Washington's apple country, his traumatic war experience in the Italian Alps, and the beginning of his vocation.

Guterson narrates the apple-scented idyll of Ben's childhood in a typically low-key manner-- and orchards, of course, are seldom the stuff of melodrama. Still, many of his ambling sentences offer miniature lessons in patience and perception: "They rode back all day to the Columbia, traversed it on the Colockum Ferry, and at dusk came into their orchard tired, on empty stomachs, their hats tipped back, to walk the horses between the rows of trees in a silent kind of processional, and Aidan ran his hands over limbs as he passed them with his horse behind him, the limbs trembling in the wake of his passing, and on, then, to the barn." The wartime episodes, however, are less satisfactory. Clearly Guterson has done his research down to the last stray bullet, but there's a second-hand feeling to the material, which seems less a token of Ben's detachment than the author's.

There is, alas, an additional problem. Begin a story with a planned suicide, and there are exactly two possible outcomes. It would be unfair to reveal Ben's fate. But as the forces of life and death yank him one way, then another, Guterson tends to stack the deck-- particularly during a bus ride toward the end of the novel, when Ben's fellow passengers appear to have wandered in from a Frank Capra film. Yet East of the Mountains remains a beautifully imagined work, in which the landscape reflects both Ben's desperation and his intermittent delight. And Guterson knows from the start what his protagonist learns in painful increments: that "a neat, uncomplicated end" doesn't exist on either side of the mountains. --James Marcus, Amazon.com

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Beauty in ugliness - Rated
Now I've heard that David Gutterson is quite an accomplished writer having also read raving reviews on `Snow falling on cedars', so thought this was worth a read.

Geographically, the book's setting depicts a large vast open space of fields, mountains etc. This is placed in direct contrast to the main protagonist, Ben Givens, and his inner emotional struggles in dealing with his raging colon cancer. He chooses to suffer in silence and takes a much closed standing, not even revealing the details to his closest family members. To him, his only option is suicide. We join him on his journey to his desired conclusion of life.

I have to take the same stance that the storyline is weak. The concept is improved by the injection of reminiscent stories of his past and the introduction of a few interesting characters he meets on his journey.

Again, Guterson should be applauded for his use of vivid imagery but also for his sensitivity in covering the subject of a terminal illness. Guterson's clearly done his homework in abundance with particular reference to geography, farming/orchard tending, war, medicine etc. He's definitely a stickler for detail and this makes the book seem a bit closer to reality.

From a personal note, this book deals with how an individual copes with suffering. It makes you think about your own circumstances and what you personally would do if you were in the same situation. The message very well may be not to `bottle' things up inside and to turn to your family and friends for support. We also see the main protagonist deliver a baby late in the book - clearly a medical gift that he has nurtured over the years. Again, this teaches us to appreciate the things we do have - possessions, family, friends but also your gifts and talents in life.

This is a very personal book and compelling, emotional read. It's a very plain look at an old man's reaction to a terminal illness. The setting/descriptive prose is high quality however the storyline and characters aren't so strong and will be receptive to mixed reviews.

No death without a life - Rated
Ben Givens is a man suffering from cancer. He knows he only has a few months to live. He is a retired heart-surgeon. As a doctor he knows exactly what to expect as his condition deteriorates.

So he decides to put an end to his life before the end that is not only inevitable but both certain and predictable in its physical evolvement.

However, he decides to do this in a rather contrived way. The aim is to make his suicide look like a hunting accident. So he carefully plans his last hunting excursion making certain that nothing will lead to any suspicions as to the real cause of his death.

Yet nothing turns out quite like he expected.

For he becomes involved in incidents which serve to remind him not only of the value of kindness of one human being to another but also of life itself. No matter how grim in fact that life may seem to a man condemned to die a slowly painful death.

His suicide trip in the guise of a hunting excursion simultaneously becomes a sojourn to the past as his mind is flooded by memories induced by two of three marijuana cigarettes given to him by a drifter, one of his acquaintances on this trip to death.

To reveal the end of the book would be to deny the reader the pleasure of following along with Ben Givens the track of his thoughts and emotions as he plans his death then suddenly loses the means to such a death and ends up trying to regain both the means and the circumstances which would help him in staging his seemingly accidental death.

Yet the book is not confined alone to this struggle towards death. Rather it is filled with reminders of how people cling on to life in spite of the dangers or obstacles they may encounter along the way.

This is the first book I have read by this author. Guterson does handle language with skill, knowledge and experience. Not, however, with any impression of effortlessness.

In fact, one does sense to an intense degree that the author not only has devoted a great amount of time on research on the factual background to the plot but also on finding the correct word on every occasion and for every description. However, the factually correct word is not always emotionally or even intellectually the right one as it may in essence interfere with the flow of the words within which it is embedded and consequently the way in which such a flow may affect the response of the reader to that particular flow of words .

Nonetheless the story is told well in spite of the way in which it is often illustrated by such overt aspects of reality in the sense of the detail profusely made available at certain points of the book. To such an extent in fact that one senses that the author is merely and possibly quite needlessly demonstrating knowledge which he has gained through his research prior to or during writing the book. In fact, even though this is a rather short book, while reading it one is sustained by a steady suspicion that it could even be shorter without any real damage to either the development of the plot or the message of the book.

Of course, some people adore detail. For detail does serve to make more real that which we all know is, in fact, not real but a work of fiction.

However, apart from this observation about how the book becomes needlessly dense at some points it remains throughout an interesting book to read.

This is mainly achieved by the way the character of Ben Givens is so solidly structured both by his placement in the present as well as his anchorage to his past.

gone west - Rated
Unlike some of the reviewers I really did not like this book. Overwritten, predictable, sentimental, and peopled by cardboard characters, it reads like a rushed job after the (deserved) success of Snow Falling on Cedars. It was difficult to care about the fate of Givens and at times I wished he'd died in chapter one so I could spend my time on something more worthwhile. We don't have a no star option but if we had this would get it.

Very human - Rated
This book is not about rock climbing but about one's relationship to oneself, about serious illness and the effect the knowledge of such has on one's mind and perception of the world. It is a book about love and care, about loneliness and despair, and about hope and desire. It follows Guterson's previous books and shows, with them, his great insight into the human mind and how one deals with important and painful questions and he does this against the background of the Pacific Northwest, one of the most beautiful parts of North America.

East of the Mountains is a fine read! - Rated
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.