In the Suicide Mountains [Hardcover]

John Gardner (Author), Joe Servello (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1977

Unable to find a place for themselves in society, a young woman, a dwarf, and a prince journey to the mountains intent on doing away with themselves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Gardner is just about unique in the annals of American literature. It is as if he had harnessed his total recall of just about everything ever written and turned it loose in his own original way to create myths and legends . . . A superb storyteller.” —Chicago Daily News

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 155 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394418808
• ISBN-13: 978-0394418803
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Gardner (1933-1982) was born in Batavia, New York. His critically acclaimed books include the novels Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, and October Light, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as several works of nonfiction and criticism such as On Becoming a Novelist. He was also a professor of medieval literature and a pioneering creative writing teacher whose students included Raymond Carver and Charles Johnson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book, March 21, 2005

By 

feralchica (Mountain View, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Suicide Mountains (Hardcover)

This is a great book, sadly hard to find, and a lovely fable, gracefully told. If you can find a copy, buy it, and read it when you need perspective. I can't say the writing is particularly luminous, but it is about what is true, and who we want to be, and who we become. Its one of the few books I keep extras of to give away.

5.0 out of 5 stars "Ah, that"--the happy medium between spelling out the moral of the story and letting readers interpret it for themselves, November 6, 2010

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In the Suicide Mountains (Hardcover)

During the course of this winsome and lively fantasy novella, the mysterious Abbot of the Ancient Monastery, unbidden, entertains his despondent guests with three adaptations of Russian tales. After the first story, Prince Christopher (who really doesn't want to be a prince, much less the king) says, "It's an interesting tale. Yet one thing I don't understand, father." "Yes?" responds the abbot.

"I don't understand why you've told it to us."

"Ah, that," replies the abbot.

Throughout his career, Gardner wrestled with this very issue, seeking the answer to the question so often asked by readers: "What's the point of the story?" During the mid-1970s, he published several books of fairy tales for children (such as "Dragon, Dragon") and surreal Gothic stories for adults (including "The King's Indian"), as well as "In the Suicide Mountains." As he said in an interview soon after the book's publication, he "was constantly playing literature against life, looking for the answers literature gives, or so we're told." Gardner constantly tried to identify "Ah, that"--the happy medium between the lecture and the poem, between spelling out the moral of the story and letting readers interpret it for themselves.

In the main story of "In the Suicide Mountains," we meet Chudu, a 200-year-old shape-shifter despised by his neighbors and blamed for every misfortune or tragedy in the vicinity; Armida, the beautiful Cinderella-like prisoner of her domineering stepmother; and Christopher, the un-heroic prince who likes playing the violin and reading poetry. To make him less "feminine," the king has given his son the impossible task of finding and killing the villainous Six-Fingered Man--but once all three travelers meet up, they discover that each of them have something in common: they have lost the urge to live.

Beautifully illustrated with black-and-white drawings by Joe Servello, the book can be read and enjoyed--assuming you can get your hands on a copy--by any child and teenager old enough to read "Harry Potter," as well as by adults with an interest in medieval literature, folk tales, fantasy, and metafiction. (Considering the current popularity of books featuring dwarfs, dragons, shape-shifters, magic, and the like, this book seems a likely candidate for a publisher to reprint.) With a pitch-perfect combination of light morbidity and whimsical humor, Gardner guides his three heroes through episodes that display how "life follows art"; the trio find self-worth both through storytelling and through the adventures they reluctantly confront. There is plenty of "Ah, that" to be found in this short novel, but above all Gardner confronts the issue of suicide and offers the answer that, often unexpectedly, life offers reasons to live to even the most despondent among us, if we just leave ourselves open to its possibilities.

1 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars okay, April 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Suicide Mountains (Hardcover)

An okay read, nothing great. Gardner once said of himself, "I am the greatest writer since Chaucer." Gardner died in the 1980's and most of his books are now out of print. Chaucer died in the 1300's and we're still reading THE CANTERBURY TALES. Gardner hasn't really lived up to Chaucer, has he?