Customer Reviews

Round the Bend

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4 star:		(5)
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Tom Cutter, tired after World War II and the loss of his wife (he blames himself for her suicide), comes to the Persian Gulf to begin a small-scale aviation business. He throws himself into the business and makes a success of it. The business really takes off after he hires childhood friend Connie Shaklin as chief engineer, and soon after, Connie's sister Nadezna, as his secretary. But Cutter soon notices--Shaklin is giving semi-religious talks as he works, which are attracting attention and support not only from his co-workers, but from the Arab population, as they previously did in Cambodia, and when Shaklin is forced to go to Indonesia, again, he attracts attention and support, somewhat to the confusion of Cutter, who nevertheless is unfailing in his support of Shaklin, who seems to be beginning a religion that crosses religious boundaries.

Shute's most thought provoking of novels, as a new prophet arises in the form of an aviation engineer who adamantly denies he is a prophet, somewhat to the confusion of his friend and his sister.

Even the small characters (a gunrunner who, in seeing Shaklin and his work, is reminded of the small town and church in the Midwest where he grew up, for example) are finely drawn. And Shute often gets rather subtle--Cutter, whose first name is Thomas, three times denies Shaklin's divinity in a talk with the British officer, Captain Morrison.

Beautiful and gentle work by a master storyteller. You will look for villians in vain in this book. His best.

I'm not entirely sure that there is a "typical" Shute book, but this one is both typical and atypical. It is typical in that it is mostly about post-WWII era aircraft operations, and rather more intense on the aircraft angle than most of his other books. Also, like several of his other books, it pokes about at the meaning of morality.

On the atypical side, "Round the Bend" is somewhat alegorical and "preachy" in the same sense as "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Robert Pirsig read "Round the Bend" before he wrote "Zen".

Folks comfortable with Shute's writing will find that "Round the Bend" has his trademark writing style -- spartan, yet with a delicious amount of descriptive detail, intense, yet without an identifiable climax. As usual, he's not given to plot twists, but rather focuses on the development of human character and the way it plays out under unusual circumstances.

This novel captures the romance of the age of aviation. Shute adds to it with a twist of universal religious experience. As the airplane ushers in a reduced sized world, Shaklin offers a reduced sized, compressed overview of the religious experience and becomes the guru of the Fifties. With today's focus on the Persian Gulf, this snapshot from past adds flavor to our knowledge of the area through Tom Cutter's eyes. This is a book that that will leave you with a glow.

"Round the Bend" is an adventure book that will take you with the protagonist through the pioneering atmosphere of early aviation, from the daredevil "barnstorming" era through early commercial aviation. In this book, Nevil Shute has a lot to say about the importance of finding your calling and doing good work. Besides eating, drinking, sleeping, and relating to loved ones, work is a fundamental dimension of human life, well captured by Shute in his portrayal of people's motivations, the conventional wisdom, and an encounter with a not-so-conventional attitude toward work in general that has promising implications for story characters and readers alike.

I first read this book at university, in a political theory course that read twentieth-century novels (as well as important essays) as a springboard for discussion of the best way to live in society (the ancient problem of reconciling the One and the Many). This book gives an intriguing vision of how impersonal society at work becomes a dedicated community through devotion to good work. Just as importantly, such devotion is individually enriching: airplane maintenance, and all good work in general is, at a deeper level, soul work.

A truly marvellous, inspirational story.

This is the story of an Englishman,Tom Cutter, who runs
an airplane charter service from Arabia to the Far East and
his best friend,the Russian-American Connie Shaklin, who
persuades men of all religions that doing their job honestly
and responsibly is the best way to serve God, any God.One
of the best examples of Shutes' simple,compelling style, it
is also an indicator of the change in his attitude from the
xenophobic Englishman of his early novels to a citizen of the
world. For anyone despairing of combining religious belief
with the modern work world, this book provides an excellent
solution without preaching to the reader.

A fantastic example of how apparent contradictions can become the most desired compliments to each other. How can there be room for selfless spiritualism in the midst of so much fast-paced technology? How can eastern ideals coexist with western ways? And how can a man serve his god while serving himself? These are the things that are explored in this amazing tale of tolerance, written in a way that will have you impatient to read the next page every moment you're away from it.

Every time, almost, I read another Neville Shute novel, I come to the conclusion that it is the best of them all. That can't be true every time, of course, but this time it might be. I may be getting sentimental as I get older; I know that Mr Shute did so. Trustee from the Toolroom was his last novel and was published after his death. It is probably the most sentimental of his books but this one, in a rather different way, is next. The story is of Tom Cutter, a young man who loves aviation from his first contact with it as a boy. He was working as a garage mechanic when a flying circus came to his home town of Southhampton, England. He spends two days helping them with washing the airplanes and, as they are leaving, he asks for a permanent job. They have no spot for him but he travels on his own to their next stop and helps with odd jobs until the owner finally offers him a job for the season as a sort of clown, driving around with another young man in an old Ford while the stunt fliers do mock bombing and strafing. The other young man, a bit older, is named Connie Shaklin and most of the book is about Tom and Connie in their later lives in the airline business in the Near East.

Tom serves in the war, learns to fly but is mostly a ground mechanic. After the war, he gets the idea to buy an old surplus airplane and take it to the Persian Gulf area to haul cargo around for oil companies. He flies to Bahrain and sets up shop in an inactive RAF station. He hires, unusual for an Englishman, all native workers, many of them veterans of the recent war who had served in the British Army. They are content with lower salaries and he can keep his rates low. He profits from his business and soon needs another airplane. In two years, he needs yet a third. In the meantime he has a workforce of Arabs and Sikhs and his business keeps growing. He finally gets a charter to fly oil equipment to Indonesia and there, quite unexpectedly, he encounters his friend from the air circus, Connie Shaklin.

The rest of the story is about their lives in the air cargo business in the very early days of long distance aviation. Connie is an excellent engineer and, little by little, Tom comes to realize that Connie is attracting a lot of attention from other aircraft mechanics and workers because of his unique approach to religion. There is quite a bit of discussion of this philosophy in the book and it is very interesting. Basically, Connie is teaching the other young men that, when they do their jobs well, they are praying. He spends time with Imams although he is not Muslim. He teaches that every time a mechanic tightens a nut properly and wires it carefully so it cannot loosen, he is praying. The imams have become discouraged that the young are entranced by the new mechanical world and are losing interest in religion. Connie, who is Eurasian with a Russian mother and a Chinese father, begins to use the Chinese version of his name and goes by Shak Lin. He teaches them that prayer consists of doing a job well. Mechanics he has trained are more reliable than others and other airlines begin to notice that Shak Lin's teachings are spreading and are having a good effect on their own reliability. Of course, there are ignorant civil authorities who become annoyed at this religious revival.

The story is one that kept me riveted to the book until I finished it. There are some similarities to Magnificent Obsession, which is also a story that has a religious theme that transcends doctrine or denomination. In Round the Bend, Tom finds that Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus all respond to Connie's teaching and soon his fame spreads among the airline industry all over Asia. It's a very entertaining and sentimental story and has this interesting twist about a religion of doing your work well. St Benedict in the 10th century said "To Labor is to Pray." That is something like the theme of this novel. This is one of Shute's best.

Nevil Shute is possibly my favorite writer, and this is definitely my favorite of his books. It quietly gets inside you and gradually begins to inform your thoughts and actions. Unassuming, simply told, and marvelous, on one level it's just an entertaining story that's difficult to put down. On other levels, it resonates deeply into matters of the heart and spirit. The characters are people I love, and the story is one that I return to again and again.

I love Shute's technical competence and honesty. Every word about aircraft, business, sailing, war, or other technical subjects, in any of his books, you just know is exactly true. That quiet unassuming truth pervades the characters and stories as well. They are so real, so ordinary, and so great. All his books have a delightful substance about them. After this one, please read Trustee from the Toolroom, The Pied Piper, The Legacy, and No Highway.

"On the Beach" is probably Shute's most famous book, but "Round the Bend" gets my vote for the best and most moving story he ever wrote. At the center of his tale is a Third-World aircraft technician who, through his simple teachings and exemplary behavior, seems to those who know him to be developing into at least another Mahatma Gandhi or maybe Jesus Christ. The story is told against the seemingly mundane background of two friends trying to establish a small international airline, a subject that Shute knew well. The mix of mechanics and mysticism is especially effective.

The main character makes no claims of divinity and there is nothing in his teachings that would upset the advocates of any of the world's great religions. There's no preaching: Just a well told story of a good man doing good in his day-to-day life and the tremendous effect that can have on other people in different parts of the world. It has been decades since I first read this book, and it still is one of my all-time favorites.

A very interesting and different book. It reads very much as a man telling a story about a chapter in his life. Very straight forward and readable. No long descriptions of scenery, or extensive dialog. This is a tale of two men. One is in love with airplanes and starts his own service, after WWII, in the Middle East. He is the primary character and the story teller. The other, a boyhood acquaintaince and later an employee, increasing becomes involved with religion and philosophy. It is a captivating tale but not one of action or suspense. Based on my experience with this book, I have acquired two more of Shute's work.