Customer Reviews

The Fall: A Novel

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a powerhouse of a novel that will have you reading compulsively until you've turned the last page, and will leave you deep in thought long after that. "The Fall" has achieved a place on my Top 10 list of favorite works of fiction.

Rob Dewer hears on the car radio that his old friend and mountain climbing partner, Jamie Matthewson, has fallen to his death while making an almost suicidal solo climb. Although the two men have not been in touch for years, the news hits Dewer hard, stirring up a series of memories and strong, unresolved feelings from long ago. He immediately turns his car towards Wales and begins a journey, not only to bring comfort to Matthewson's widow, his old friend and former lover, Ruth, but into the past where decades old secrets and betrayals are disclosed.

Author Simon Mawer writes, "At some time or other you must confront your past. We are our past...There is nothing else, and none of it can be undone." Mawer visits the past of a group of people who are intimately connected through friendship, love, lust, jealousy, competition, hatred and blood ties. The enormous power of some of Mawer's characters is almost overwhelming at times, as is their extreme fragility and vulnerability. His prose is masterful and poignant. The plot is riveting, compelling, almost brutal, in its honesty. I have never been very interested in the sport of climbing, but Mawer's narrative transported me, time and time again, on exhilarating treks up mountainsides; the action so vividly described that I felt that I was one of the climbers. His descriptions of landscapes, both fierce and bucolic, are as visual as paintings. Mawer is indeed a master craftsman.

This is a novel of love, of moral choices and decisions that life forces us to make. Sometimes the repercussions of these decisions echo into the future, for generations to come. This is truly one of the most amazingly original novels I have read in years and it has effected me deeply. I cannot praise "The Fall" highly enough!
JANA

I do not write long reviews. I am 82 years of age and try to read at least 1 book a week and have done so most of my life. Everything from good Histories to Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Balzac, to the great mysteries of Hammett, Chandler and Michael Connelly.

Put quite simply, The Fall may be the best book I have ever read. I may be a bit carried away as I just finished it last night--in 2 days--and at the moment it is terribly fresh in my mind. They say a good book needs good metaphors--there are some awful ones in so many books that I often wish they were not there at all--but Mr Mawer's are so good I almost filled the book with underlines.

The story is about 2 boys and their parents. There are a number of very intricate loves affairs and criss-crosses, but one way or another they all make sense and keep the reader fascinated. The other big part of the story is about mountain climbing, but don't let that put you off. I think they are crazy, but it surely makes for very exciting reading. To put it squarely, I had never heard of this writer until I read a review of his newest book--not publihed here yet--in the Finanial Times--He is British- and although maybe he isn't the super man that I think, he certainly should be talked about and reviewed more prolifically in the USA

I spent a day and a half gobbling this imaginative, enveloping novel down. I don't think I need to say much more than the fans here have said already, except perhaps to add that at year's end, THE FALL is going to stand among the year's best for me, perhaps even at the number one spot. For me, everything in this tale of passion and friendship, love and betrayal, worked. Don't let the thought of the moutaineering scenes scare you off, they're superbly done, and metaphorically valid. The scenes of London during the Blitz are among the most vivid descriptions if that time I've ever read.

I look forward now to going back and reading earlier Mawber. This is definitely an incredibly versatile author with an important future.

I must say that I'm a bit startled by the, ahem, avalanche of these over-the-top, encomiastic reviews. Put simply, this book is not the "greatest book in the world" or even "one of the best." It's not even literature. Rather, it's a mostly plodding book with long stretches of mountaineering, with which the author is perhaps all too obviously well-acquainted, accompanied by your typical generations-spanning, soap-operatic mescelliances galore formulaic plot with a "gee-whiz" ending to put the cherry atop the cake. The metaphorical and allegorical significance of "The Fall" is anything but subtly suggested. Quite to the contrary, it is shoved in the reader's face in passage after passage.

There are a few graceful, lyrical moments such as when Rob, whilst mountaineering with Jamie, describes his face as "alight with whatever it was he and I searched for in any kind of climbing: something sensual, something almost sexual, a physical charge that would find its echo in memory and give us something to recall, just as someone in the shadows of age recalls a past love" and when Ruth, hiking with Guy, recalls the Wordsworth poem to describe her feelings, "Surprised by joy - impatient as the wind." But these passages are few and very far between.

I also have my nits to pick with what I assume is this Kindle addition - my first, and perhaps last, reading using one. It would be ungenerous of me to blame these on the author:

1.) Guy Matthewson is described as dying of hypothermia at 30-33 degrees Celsius. Perhaps they forgot to add a negative sign. For American readers, the conversion formula to Fahrenheit is F=1.8C + 32. Nobody's going to die of hypothermia at this temperature.

2.) "Windshield" is used instead of the British "Windscreen" throughout the book. This seriously detracts from its verisimilitude, especially during the Blitz scenes. Also, nobody in London of the WWII generation used the word "apartment." Those are "flats"!

So, unless you are a member of one of these cutesy book clubs who enjoys mulling over those silly, reductionist questions in the back of a book, skip this lame, unoriginal spindrift of a novel.

Robert Dewar suffered a broken leg and the loss of three toes after nearly freezing to death on a mountain climbing expedition. It was enough to move him away from climbing to a more grounded career in art procurement.

Years later, his comfort zone is shaken when he learns that his oldest friend and former partner, Jamie Matthewson, has fallen to his death after a dangerous solo climb. Robert veers back toward his past despite his wife's objections and heads to Wales to comfort Jamie's attractive grieving widow, Ruth. Eve Dewar awaits her husband's return and wonders how delving into the past might change him.

This detour places Robert in the company of Caroline, Jamie's eccentric mother, a woman for whom Robert's mother once harbored an unexplained level of disdain. Time has softened Caroline's rough edges, yet her mind is sharp.

Conversely, Robert's mother, Diana, sits in a retirement home with her mind slowly fading. Guy Matthewson, once married to Caroline and a pivotal part of the story, remains frozen on a mountainside so high up that he will probably never be recovered.

All events collide.

Despite the unnecessary use of the same four-letter word in varying forms by different characters, Simon Mawer has written a lovely book. The characters magically spring forth from the page and dance before the reader. His natural narrative style and use of tension blend together wonderfully to create a powerful story of love and deception.

I have found that Amazon reader ratings, taken as the averages presented, are pretty true to reality, though I might be slightly more of a critic and give books, in general about half a star less. However, this book lives up to its rating! The only thing I can't figure out is why more people have not read it (assuming the number of reader reviews is an indication of the number of readers). Anyway, if you enjoy well-written, thought-provoking literary works, you WILL want to read this one!

I have to say that the beginning of the novel can only be appreciated once you get beyond it. Taken on its own, it is not particularly interesting and would not have drawn me in. Keep reading. Immediaqtely after the first chapter, the intrigue takes hold. This unpredictable, brilliant novel has received my ultimate praise!

Such a pragmatic thought would be amoral in most contexts, but this is by no means an ordinary context. Rob Dewar and his climbing partner, Jamie Matthewson, are clinging by their fingertips to the North Face of the Eiger, one of the most difficult and dangerous of all mountaineering challenges, as this thought takes shape. Simon Mawer, a former mountaineer himself, recreates not only the drama of this "sport" but also the personal psyches of the climbers, those inner forces which impel climbers to face "Time and Death...the great parameters." With vibrant sensual descriptions of the mountain, the acts of nature which make the mountain so treacherous, and the agony of the climbing experience, many readers will feel the "chicken skin" which accompanies vivid writing and turns fiction into a vicarious, personal experience.

As exciting as the mountaineering passages are, this is not primarily an adventure story. With its title connoting the fall of Adam and Eve, the novel deals with huge, complex questions of love and loss, life and death, and truth and responsibility. The story of whether Jamie's death was accidental or suicide, which seems so straightforward and plot-driven on the surface, becomes far more intricate, as the reader is guided back and forth in time, sharing the lives of Rob and Jamie as young teenagers, the lives and interrelationships of their mothers during World War II, the life and loves of famed mountaineer Guy Matthewson (Jamie's father), and the lives of Rob and Jamie and their lovers when they are in their twenties.

Because of the many interrelationships among the characters--love affairs, seductions, pregnancies both planned and unplanned, and even sexual abuse--some of the most sensational events in the novel take place not on the mountainside but in the bedroom. These scenes often combine the imagery of sex with that of falling, and contrast the subjective reality of love and life with the objective reality posed by danger in the mountains, especially with its death and loss.

Heaven and hell, sin and redemption, love and loss, honesty and betrayal, and ultimately life and death are all combined here in a vibrant novel which provides fast action and crises both on the mountain and in the personal lives of the characters over two generations. Though there are some clichés, along with some awkwardness in the plotting (especially in the predictable ending), this is a strong, dramatic novel which may become a popular breakthrough for Mawer. Mary Whipple

I read "The Gospel of Judas" last year. So I chose this book for our book club's reading selection. I can't say everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Most people were distracted by the mountain climbing scenes. Everyone though it was a great story but I am not sure they got as much out of it as I did. As an english major I am a little more tuned in to seeing under the imagery and the words that Mawer chooses. I loved the play with light and dark. And the thought provoking situations. It made for great conversation in the group. And I got to read an author who isn't crusty all over with boring language. Mawer doesn't beat you over the head with the metaphors, he simply puts them out there and you either enjoy them or you don't. It is a great read for readers of all levels. Something for everyone!

Simon Mawer's The Fall is an excellent work of fiction, one of the most enjoyable novels I have read in a long time. The story concerns several intertwining relationships that span the late 1930s through present day England. The novel opens as Jamie Matthewson, world-renowned climber falls to his death in a climb he was sure to fail at. His old, somewhat estranged friend Rob Dewar hears of the accident over the radio in his car, and immediately heads to attend the funeral and Jamie's wife and mother, to the displeasure of his wife. Rob's return to the climbing world he left behind years ago forces him to recall, for our benefit, his relationship with Jamie and the reasons for its disintegration. Rob's story involves not only Jamie and Rob, but the relationship of all of their parents many years ago. The narrative shifts between Rob's first-person explanation of the Jamie-Rob years and a third-person narrative of their mothers' friendship and various loves during World War II England. The Fall is a fascinating look at many "falls"--falling to one's death, falling in and out of love, falling into sin, the fall of one's life. It's a compelling, well-written read. Enjoy.

Other comments have summarized this story of friendship, love, and betrayal, with the stunning backdrop of mountain climbing as both metaphor and landscape for the lives of two men, Robert Dewar and Jamie Matthewson. I will just add a few points.

When I finished The Fall, I made a chart to see if the characters' intertwined relationships--sex, marriage, and friendship--were as improbable and excessive as I thought, and, yes, I feel they were. I wasn't offended by these relationships in The Fall, but I think it took away from an otherwise very realistic book. I can't think of a story that better described the anxiety and horror of the London blitz. I was cold, hanging onto bare rock, and inching forward every step of the way with Jamie and Rob on every climb. Yet, as more and more tangled love affairs developed among the characters, I shook my head with disbelief. For this, I'll knock the rating down to four stars. Perhaps, though, this is what made this book unique and kept it from falling into the category of just another thwarted love/adventure story.

I read this on my Kindle, and, again, I found the Kindle's dictionary feature to be very helpful with terminology. In this case, many of the British and Welsh slang words and mountaineering terms were in the dictionary and right at my fingertips for quick reference.

The Fall was on the Amazon recommendation list for me, based on what I had previously read. I have found these lists to be interesting, and they have led me to enjoyable books that I might have otherwise missed, i.e. The Fall.