Customer Reviews

The Other (Vintage Contemporaries)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I have been waiting for David Guterson's next book for several years.

What I liked: each of the scenes in the mountains with his eccentric and then bewildering friend, John William; the scenes in his classroom (too brief, wanted more, but then I too was a high school teacher); the trek through Europe and Neil's falling in love and early relationship. The reality of how poor many people were in that era as they struggled their way through college was very true to life, and Neil's commentaries on a variety of poets interested me as well.

I also admired the way Guterson interweaves the third-person narrative through secondary narrators even though his protagonist, Neil, is telling the story.

What I disliked: the entire denouement with all the scenes and flashbacks of John William Barry's parents and the endless monolog of the father. The scene in the lawyer's office and the merciless detail also seem to be filling a page quota rather than telling the story.

Overall, yes, I liked this book, but I didn't love it the way I loved "Snow Falling on Cedars" and "East of the Mountains." I think the editor could have helped Guterson trim 50 pages minimum.

But a really lousy execution. Oh my gosh, what a snooze-fest. I so wanted to like this book because I paid full price for the hardback. What a letdown. While the premise is interesting and could have made for an excellent book it is so bogged down by details and irrelevancies that it took everything I had to finish it. I won't recap the plot (what there is of one), since it's been done already, but I will say that The Other is not for the average reader. It's as though Mr. Guterson is trying to relive his day in the sun by writing an award winner. Ain't gonna happen. He uses far too much description and references to the unknown (2 pages of boring poetry, Chinese ideologies, Gnosticsm...ummm, what?!) We get it...the author is smart, the characters are smart, the reader who wants to be entertained by a good book...not always so smart. If he would have stuck to the basic story he would have had another great book on his hands, but as it is The Other is a huge waste of time. I'm giving it 2 stars because the potential was there, the pop culture references were spot on, and the ending was kind of cool, but other than that this book was a real downer.

If you're wondering whether to plow into "The Other," try this litmus test. Rent the movie "Old Joy," which is about two old friends going camping in the Northwest. Seemingly in real time. NOTHING happens in the movie for minutes on end. Nothing is said. There is no plot. There is no tension, no conflict, nothing but two guys in the woods and a lot of pretty scenery. If you like "Old Joy," you'll probably enjoy "The Other" where there is precious little plot, no detail too trivial to be mentioned, and the descriptions plod on for pages on end. As for me, when I want to see life sped up, analyzed, lived to its fullest, I read a novel. When I want to go camping, I go camping.

Save yourself four hours and just take two Ambien instead. This tale holds promise but turns out to be a plodding bore-fest. The narrator protagonist tells the story of his eccentric buddy John William Barry.

The latter is a trust fund kid who determines to embark into the woods and live (and eventually die) like a hermit.

Long after the death, the protagonist learns that his friend has willed his $400+ million fortune to the narrator.

I loved "East of the Mountains" and thought "Snow Falling on Cedars" was good but thought this plodding tale was a dud. For example, there are multiple points where a single paragraph runs on for a page, a page and a half.

That alone does not earn the novel my critique, but suggests the degree of tedium that lies in store for the intrepid reader.

Be forwarned: This book goes NOWHERE. And it goes nowhere in 250 pages, slowly. It felt like 500 pages. I wanted to find something to like here, I really did. I enjoy literary fiction that bears out deeper meaning. I've read some good things about Guterson. After this, I will never read another Guterson. Ever.

True story: I never skip paragraphs or pages. This book had me skipping page upon page because I kept closing one eye and then the other and then falling soundly asleep. I stuck with it, though. (Here's why: This book has started popping up on many AP reading lists. High school students, students of any age--this book is nothing but a sedative.) I skimmed loooonnnggg paragraphs for any taste of important (IMPORTANT) character development. Towards the end, the narrator goes to visit his best friend's mother and father and you think, "Here it comes: The big reveal on why he escaped to the wild." But no. No, the author spins out a conversation between the narrator and the father that in no way makes the investment of the reader's time in the story of John William Barry worthwhile.

I have been accused of liking esoteric, windy novels. I hated, HATED this book. This should tell you something. Also, I have never written a review on Amazon because I feel personal preference is important in choosing books of any kind. Who am I to say you should or should not read a book. This should also tell you something.

If you are looking for a novel of intertwining lives and contrasting views on life and how to live it, read Divisadero, Transit of Venus or, God, something else besides this unbearable waste of time.

Dr. Johnson provided a very good method of assessing novels in saying that the value of a story depended on how much of it was true. I don't think he meant literally factual, Alice in Wonderland is true while completely fantastic, so are the Arabian Nights. In a certain way, it's quite obvious that the only real benefit you can get from any art is determined by how much is infused from reality as opposed to how much derives from the artist's personal notions of how reality ought to be.

I was very much aware of all this reading "The Other" which was almost one of the best books I ever read. The character John William is a magnificent "creation", who must be based on someone real, and who really rings true. He is the embodiment of the intelligent teenager's hope and despair: the question, Isn't life for something? Weren't humans, with all these capacities, meant for something? It can't possibly be just a mere accident that all this exists. In the book, John William determines that the Gnostic view: essentially that life is an imprisonment of the spirit by an manipulative Jehovah, and tries to escape by resisting the seductions of modern conveniences and modern opinions. He is a quintessential young rebel with a real question. No one wiser comes along to help him, he only has the narrator who is less alienated but sympathetic, more or less acquainted with the issues, but not psychologically on the line in the same way. He, the narrator, is a would-be writer who becomes an English teacher, who thus gets to talk about some of the emotionally charged issues that John William lives with by discussing Emily Dickinson, Wordsworth, even Issa and Basho, one or two steps removed.

I felt I was both these people to some degree, most serious readers will. It's an interesting paradigm- we have a little bit of direct experience of life - which makes we feel we really don't know much of anything, and then we have the mental monologue in which we make everything all right, in which impressing other people, if only in our own imagination, creates a sense of security. This was surely a worthy subject for a novel and "true" in Dr. Johnson's sense. I thought of Van Gogh in relation to John William, also Walt Whitman, when he, Whitman, was young. He, the character John William, reminded me too of guys I knew when I was young, who seemed too "exposed", like uninsulated wire, who went one bad way or the other. There are not many good endings to this kind of intensity in our world. Reality remains as it is, the only option for us is that we're able to cocoon ourselves in pleasant notions and hopes.

Unfortunately, the writer wasn't able to stick to the issue and there's a lot, as the other Amazon reviewers have ably observed, that should have been cut. It's not really necessary to offer explanations for whatever aspects of stark reality you have to seen. The superb haiku that were quoted might have served as exemplars of brevity.

So. I was disappointed about this book because John William could have been one of the great characters: Oliver Twist, Hamlet, White Rabbit, Holden Cauldfield, of our culture - he could have been a contender.

The Other is an O.K. book, and not as good Guterson's previous works. As usual, Guterson's books are cluttered with uncommon vocabulary, requiring too many runs to the dictionary. His penchant for description is obvious, but contrived. He knows too much about everything, and is trying too hard. Mistakes are made in the attempt to slip past the average reader. The story tends to wander, and the author searches for direction. It never comes together, leaving the reader with a rambling narrative. I loved his previous books, and like the author. His personal voice is revealed, and I like the man. He is intelligent, unique, nurturing, eclectic, and profound. Maybe the next book will be better.

So much wanting to like this book, its resonance and references to a
sixties and seventies rite of passage so many of us shared, but find
it stunted and flat because the narrator seemed almost an Asperger's
type character, without an ability to express his internal world.
He married his girl because "I always knew I would marry the first girl who came along"! Riveting !! And he's the lively one, the character he is describing is worse. There is something to be gained here I am sure,
but its about as rewarding as hacking into a limestone cliff.


It has made me re-evaluate Snow Falling on Cedars, which on reflection,
was weakest in entering the inner world of the young protagonists.
Lyrical description of the outer world don't make up for a lack of insight or richness of characterization.

Since this is a book now inflicted on high school kids, some more help and hope for their attempts to live good lives might be welcome.

This is not a book that you read for plot - it is a novel of introspection, set largely in the mid-'70s. It centers around the friendship of Neil Countryman, who comes from a blue collar family, and John William Barry, the only child of a wealthy family. Though Neil goes to public school and John William goes to a private school, they encounter each other for the first time at a track meet. They are drawn to one another for reasons that are not readily discernible, but for Neil it seems to be John William's quirkiness and daring, and for John William, it is Neil's patience and tolerance. Above all, this is a book about loyalty and the ties that bind.

The descriptions of hiking in the forests of the pacific northwest are so enveloping that you almost feel as though you are walking along with them. The action moves back and forth from the '70s to the present seamlessly, developing the odd behaviors of John William, contrasted with the more middle-of-the-road choices made by Neil. The plot line is revealed early on, and one of the characters spends much time in the present trying very hard to fill in the gaps in his history of the other.

I enjoyed this book very much - as one who is the same age as the characters, I felt as though the narrator could be someone I had known. Many of the experiences were familiar, and as the plot is revealed so early, you are reading largely to fill in the blanks, and to enjoy the beauty of Guterson's writing. Some of the passages were so familiar and resonated with me in such a profound way, that I found myself underlining them, and rereading them later.

I lived in Seattle, went to Roosevelt High, camped in the Olympics and had very strict parents who showed little interest or ability in mentoring me. There was so much in the book that helps me understand who I am. The author's characters seemed so real to me and the the images of the friends adventures on the Hoh will last a long time. It's not that the book has a great plot; it's about descriptions, believable characters, friendships, youthful expressions and human frailty.
There were several stretches where I had to force myself though but it was a great read and one I'll remember for a long time. But if I were well-adjusted and never had friends who went to Reed College and never ate at Dicks or drove by 5 corners, it might not have been the same.