Customer Reviews

The Rainbow and the Rose (Vintage Classics)

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

 

 

I was going to give this book four stars until I reached the end and it moved me almost to tears, hence 5 stars. Live many of Shute's books the feelings he invokes are beautiful and powerful, all coming from rather controlled, unemotional characters. "The Rainbow and the Rose" is about lives twined and brought around in a full-circle effect. There are no surprises in the plot, but there doesn't need to be. It works even as you know what's coming. There is a great deal of detail on flying and airplanes that may or may not appeal to you--I enjoyed it. Shute writes those sorts of technical details very smoothly so they integrate into the characters' traits. Not Shute's best novel, but decidedly worth reading.

I read The Rainbow and The Rose , along with most of Nevil Shute's novels, many years ago. Interestingly, I've never read On The Beach. I have, however, recently begun buying copies of Shute's novels for rereading. I wish to see if my sixty year old personna interprets them differently than I did as an eighteen year old.

At the time I first read The Rainbow and The Rose, I thought it as good as A Town Like Alice. I could not wait for Ron Clarke to become airborne once again, as he made his way across Australia, so that he would continue to experience the visions that were some sort of gift to help him sort out his feelings toward the woman he once loved and the man who'd won her heart so many years ago.

I thought back then, and I think today that the book would make a wonderful movie, if done correctly and with the right people.

I urge anyone with even a passing interest in Shute's work to read The Rainbow and The Rose.

This novel has a somber tone to it as it tells the life of a pioneer aviator. Much of the story is told in dream sequences as the lead character, an Australian airline pilot, tries to fly a mercy mission to evacuate or deliver a doctor to treat his old friend who has crashed on a similar mercy mission. Johnny Pascoe was a World War I fighter pilot and, after the war, works as a flying instructor for a small flying club in England. During the war, he marries a beautiful girl and she has a child while he is off at war. When he comes back, she has an offer to go to Hollywood as an actress and she divorces him taking their daughter to America. While working as a flying instructor, he meets another beautiful woman who is married to a wealthy man who is confined to a mental hospital. She learns to fly and they slowly fall in love. Eventually, they decide to marry if she can convince her husband to divorce her. She become pregnant but the husband balks at the divorce and she goes to France to have the baby. Eventually, she becomes distraught at the stalemate with the husband who has escaped from the mental hospital and her inability to reconcile the circumstances with her sense of duty. She crashes her plane committing suicide.

Johnny Pascoe then leaves for India and becomes an airline pilot for the next 30 years. At the time of the story, he is nearing retirement and he meets a stewardess who has become his senior stewardess on his regular flight. They become quite close and eventually he learns a shocking secret. The story is somber but like several others of Shute's novels is a pleasure to read. It resembles "In the Wet" in its dream sequences in which the story is told. It resembles "Requiem for a Wren" in the somber tone of the story. There is similarity to "Pastoral" in the flying sequences. It is an outstanding example of Shute at his best.

Wonderful to read this book again. Read it as a late teen and found much more meat in it this time. Nevil Shute rocks!!!

Amazon is amazing, they have so many of my old favorites available.

Totally enjoyed this book as I have many others by Neville Shute - he truly can tell a story with wonderful detail and intrigue that keeps the pages turning!