Customer Reviews

Bucking the Sun

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Despite the claims of some of the misleading reviews (including the Editorial review at the top of this page) this is not a murder mystery in any way. Yes, two of the characters do perish, as is revealed in the first chapter of the novel (which is not in chronological order with the rest), but this plays an absolutely minimal role in the story. While the question of who ultimately perishes does linger in the back of your mind while Doig relates the multi-faceted story of the Duff family, this is not a tale of a family coping with death. This is truly an epic story which combines interesting, developed, and, most of all, distinct characters with an extraodinarily well described setting- an enormous New Deal project and accompanying lively shantytown set amidst grand natural scenery. The result is a novel which anyone (though especially someone with an interest in or affinity for the American West) should thoroughly enjoy.

Ivan Doig, as usual, writes great sentences and very good paragraphs. However, once he gets beyond 200 pages, the whole story drags. I liked his shorter books very much, and waited until I had several weeks of free time to tackle this longer work, knowing it would be slow going. It turned out to be even slower reading than I expected. Doig obviously learned a lot from Stegner about constructing long, complex sentences out of unfamiliar words ( or non-words on all too many occasions ) that have to be parsed carefully to suck out all the nuances of meaning, which works well for a short book of poetry but fails in a work of this length. After a while, the reader just wants the torture to end, but there is no way to hurry through Doig's convoluted poetry/prose. Doig's characters are at once totally unbelievable and exactly like my Scotch-Irish relatives, who are also unbelievable, or at least highly improbable in their actions and reasoning processes. In short, a book half as long would have been better.
Charlie A Allen

I just did not like this book as much as I had hoped to. Doig writes wonderfully and he has a terrific sense of character and setting, but all too often the story lacked a sense of direction. The murder subplot seemed hardly more than an afterthought and I thought the book would have been much improved had it been more fully incorporated. I find the construction of dams very interesting, so I was really looking forward to learning about them while enjoying the story, but it did not work. I think the problem others have with the focus on the dam is that Doig never actually explains its construction in clear, understandable detail, a la Crichton. Its always just bits and pieces that never fit with a coherent whole. In sum, good, definitely not great.

A fine novel worth your time, but definitely not a mystery book. Sure the first 10 pages describe a murder scene, but there's nothing to solve. Actually, it doesn't get solved, it's lived with, and really that can be said for much of what the Duff family experiences.

All members of the family Duff are unique, as are their relationships. All are enjoyable with only the Scottish Uncle seeming a little too polished; his dialogue a little too precise. But that's a quibble because overall, Doig does very well with his characters. Throw in the dam as another major character and Montana itself, and you have a book worth your time; a great tableau of the 1930s Depression in America.

And if you know what the cover of the first Life Magazine looks like, you know Fort Peck. Doig weaves many real events into his fiction including a visit by FDR, a major dam mishap, and a visit from a Life photographer.

"Bucking the Sun" starts with the discovery of two bodies and the promise of a mystery to be solved. I was hooked after reading the first chapter. However, the mystery reappeared once in the next 350 pages or so. In the meantime, I learned about dam building, New Deal projects , and Comunist politics of the era.

On the plus side, Mr. Doig certainly knows his subjects well. He develops interesting characters and relationships and weaves it all into a complex novel.

I was left feeling like I'd been teased with the mystery which turned out to be little more than a footnote. Also, I'd have to say I didn't find the author's style all that easy.

On whole, though, the book was worthwhile and I'll try another of his works.

I appreciated the sense of place and time that was so well evoked. I admired the characters, thier complexities, and the overlapping and differences among their personalities. But I missed the warmth and the sense of the moment that I got from English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair.

I found many of the phrases, allusions, and figures of speech to be quite unnatural and unrealistic. I found myself doubting that anyone would talk that way. While the words chosen were interesting and evocative they didn't flow and contribute to my connection with the story and characters. In fact, I often found the manner of speech to be quite distracting.

The dam was huge in life and in the story. I found that I could not easily follow some of the details about the design and construction but I also found that understanding the specifics was not necessary. What seemed to me to be important was the understanding that the dam was perhaps the major character in the novel with a life of it's own that grew in complexity as the structure itself built layer by layer. Much as the lives of the human characters interwove, unraveled, and were repaired.

I read this because my parents were at Ft Peck in 1933 where my dad worked as an engineer. My parents were "very proper" city people. My mother talked about living in a 24' X 24' construction shack, bathing in a wash tub in water heated from the stove, and hanging clothes to dry where they froze and the ice evaporated in the dry Montana air.

This story brought their experiences to light in a unique way. The Ft Peck area in 1933 Montana was Wild West beyond my imagination. The author brings it to life, weaving a family life, the dynamics of the area, the happenings of the 1930 and a mystery into a wonderful vivid novel.

I highly recommend Bucking the Sun to anyone interested in spending a few hours in such a story.

Andy

Like Fort Peck dam, Doig has fashioned a lasting and monumental achievement here. He has done what no dam engineer could--elevate the project to the level of metaphor. I LOVED this book--it's utterly compelling and pure poetry at the same time. I admit haven't read much Doig, but I recently listened to the audio book of "Bucking The Sun" read by Will Paton on a car trip, and even abridged, the book still has a tremendous impact. Long may Ivan Doig wave!

I thought I would never finish this book. It was very disappointing, mainly because his other books were so great. This had a thin story as an excuse to tell about the dam project which is interesting, I guess, if you're an engineer.

Make room in the pantheon of great western American novels for Bucking The Sun. Doig's novel deserves to be included with the other master works: Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, Stegner's Big Rock Candy Mountain and Angle of Repose, Guterson's Snow Falling On Cedars and Ferber's Giant.

Doig begins with a mystery and a scandel, but masterfully, he does not over-emphasize the real story, the story of the Duff family. I found his mystery pacing something like a catch-and-release effect--once he caught me and had me reading, he released me to explore the family story.

And the story has several layers that make for an enjoyable novel that will satisfy on many levels: The era of the 1930s, the inner-actions of the family, politics of the era, rich dialogue (Doig has a marvelous ear for language!) and of course, the mystery/scandel.

Final advice: read it when you have extended time periods. This is for the readers who loves a grand-scale novel.