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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I can't find enough superlatives!, March 23, 2007
Your enjoyment of this novel may depend on how fast you bond with the main character, Isabel. She had me at "Hello."
A FAR COUNTRY has elements of a quest novel, but it could also be a "Coming of Age" novel. Isabel is sent to the city because a drought has devastated her homelands. She takes a "perch," a flatbed truck surrounded by a railing that looks rather like a birdcage. Isabel hopes to find her brother, Isaias, who left for the city to become a musician. If you have ever been lost in a big city, you will feel for Isabel. The address she has for her cousin, for whom she will babysit during the week, doesn't mean much to the people she asks for help. When she finally finds "The settlement" it's a scary place indeed.
Isabel finds a weekend job working as a flag-waver for a political candidate. That's where she meets Josiane, who could be an American teenager. She's into boys, discotheques, and movie magazines. She sets out to corrupt Isabel. She also provides the comic relief in the novel.
Meanwhile Isabel continues her search for her brother. Some will be bothered by the number of coincidences involved, but Daniel Mason has done a great job suspending disbelief. As a young girl in the backlands, Isabel had a mystical ability to find her brother in the sugar cane fields, no matter how well he hid. This makes what happens later more believable.
Mason never does tell the reader where in South America the action occurs. But he does drop some hints. Brazil has innumerable sugar cane fields. Mason also tells us the city Isabel goes to has ten to twelve million people, and there are "settlements," in the big city, a euphemism for slums. Isabel's boyfriend also takes her to a huge beach. Ipa Nima? I may be wrong but it was fun to gather clues.
It's hard to believe that a Californian can write this well about South America. Mason knows the backlands. The people eat cactus and ants, as well as mixing soil with what little food they have to stave off starvation. There is a huge dump outside the big city that the people can "The Mountain." Isabel rides by it in a bus. When she takes a closer look she sees people clamoring over the mountain scavenging. It is a godsend to people who have nothing else.
I am an unapologetic bookworm. Usually I'm lucky if I can find one great book during the year, but this year I've already read two. This one and THE TERROR by Dan Simmons. I can't wait to read Mason's THE PIANO TUNER. It's supposed to be better than this one. That's hard to believe.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Visionary, unforgettable, stunning, May 7, 2007
Are you the type of person who can sit alone contentedly for a many hours merely observing and sensing the world around you? Are you the type of person who delights in reading words put together so creatively and carefully that they come to life on the page and in your mind? Are you the type of person who reads in order to better comprehend the human condition and, in particular, the currrent state of the world at this, the beginning of the 21st century--at this dangerous tipping point in earth's history where mankind finds itself entering a century of possible global climate and ecological disaster? If you are, then you might enjoy getting to know Isabella, the main character in Daniel Mason's second novel "A Far Country."
Isabella is the teenage daughter of present-day peasant farmers in an unnamed, most-likely South American country. Her people are cane-cutters. The family lives in a dirt-floored hut and sleeps hip-to-hip in hammocks slung together in a single tiny room. There is a small town nearby, but they are a good four-days' journey, "by perch" (a crowded flat bed truck filled to overflowing with dusty migrant travelers) from the big city (a megametropolis of over 14 million).
Isabella is a contented, quiet, gifted child, extremely close to her older brother Isaias. She idealizes him; for Isabella, Isaias is perfect in every way.
As the result of a long cataclysmic drought, first the brother and then the sister must leave their village for the big city. Almost the entire novel is taken up with Isabella's quest to find her brother in the city. The book is full of vivid observation and sensing. The author has the gift of making it possible for you live inside Isabella's mind. As a result, the civilized world takes on otherworldly and alien dimensions.
The plot moves slowly to the climactic scene in which Isabella finally finds her brother. It is worth reading this book for no other reason than to experience this one scene--to live inside Isabella's head when she finally finds Isaias. This is an experience you will not forget; mark my words, it will haunt you. You will find yourself thinking about it long after you've finished the book.
Mason took a leave of absence from his medical studies at UCSF to write this second novel. He was urged to do so after the considerable success of his first novel, "The Piano Tuner." He wrote the novel while living and traveling in Brazil. Much of the people and locations have the feel of Brazil.
There were times in this novel when I thought it was taking place in the near future. There are frequent descriptions of major climatic trouble: widespread drought; city-engulfing dust storms and floods; and ocean storms devouring coastlines. There are descriptions of epic migrations of rural poor fleeing drought to find any type of living in the big city. A man in the city tells Isabella that these migrations from drought-plagued lands are happening all over the world. If it was Mason's intent to place this book in the near future, I wish he had developed this idea more fully.
I enjoyed this novel, and hope that Mason will continue to make room within his medical career for more writing. If so, I will seek it out and read it.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderfully written with fantastic characters., March 21, 2007
I love this book! A huge fan of Mason's, The Piano Tuner, I ran out and bought this the day it was released. I was not disappointed! Mason's writing is addicting and with the descriptive story line and vulnerable characters, especially Isabel, it's tough to put down. Read this book. A++++
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