Customer Reviews

Under Plum Lake

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This has been my favorite book ever since I first read it almost ten years ago. I've read it at least a dozen times - more than I've read anything else. It is an incredibly imaginative, dream-inspiring story that creates the world of Egon, a fantastic place where people visit Pleasure Dromes to experience the Universe, eat ragusa plums and stardew, drink silver-maroon tigra, and develop their minds much more than does humanity. The earth's ocean floor becomes the sky and people travel on rainbows using magnetism.

Davidson creates a world that people can easily identify with, but that is thoroughly unique and different from our world; and while Egon is incredibly fantastic, Davidson makes it believable - as though it really exists - which makes the book more enjoyable, because we feel like we can actually escape into its secret world. *Under Plum Lake* is a book that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

*Under Plum Lake* can be enjoyed by children and adults alike, on either a lighthearted level or a deeper philosophical level -- for in addition to exploring a fantastical world (from the view of a young human boy), the book ponders knowledge, life, time, perception and deception, sanity, memory, existence, humanity, and the universe... or, to borrow a phrase from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series (also really good), *Under Plum Lake* ponders "life, the universe, and everything."

This book is truly a classic - no other book from my childhood meant so much to me. It is not just a kiddies book - there is so much in there for adults too: Kids read it as a fantasy, adults as an allegory - I have read it as both. I am lucky enough to have my old (tatty) copy of it and I re-read it at least once a year and dip into it regularly - it is like a meditation.

One of the previous reviewers expressed a wish that they had never returned the book to the library. I didn't return the book and that is why today, many years later, I have a copy.This is not meant to condone stealing from libraries but hopefully illustrates how powerful and profound this book's effect can be. It is a haunting text, that lingers in your imagination. It is both strange and new, and disturbingly familiar. Read it and discover the far off memories it stirs in you.

It's a story that somehow captured my imagination so fully that it left me in a state of wonder.. I was very young when I last read Under Plum Lake, but I can't seem to forget the impact it had on me, so long ago. I too hope to someday share this book with my children, for few books manage to paint a more magical picture so vividly in the mind. When I think about it I feel deep nostalgia, and I'll keep looking until I find a copy for my own.

I can't believe I'm not the only person to have ever read this book. I read it first when I was about 10, around 21 years ago. It has always stuck with me. But every time I've ever told anyone about it they've never heard of it. It was such an imaginative book, I felt like I was actually there as I read it. I've been drawn back to it over the years and I believe it is still at our local public library, but I've never had a copy of my own. I would love to know where I could get a copy. It's too bad a book this good is so hard to find.

Count me among the rest. I read Under Plum Lake a hundred times when I was nine years old, until the covers were worn and the pages were coming unstuck. Under Plum Lake is like reading someone's dream: vivid, surreal, bright with colors and activity, often frightening. As an adult, years later, I was seized with the desire to find it again. And I was in luck. I found a hardback edition of the book, in excellent condition, at a used bookstore. I was able to reread it as an adult. And now I think I can say in all honesty that Under Plum Lake is magical for children of all ages, because I was once again transported.

I first read this wonderful book years ago, and it has remained with me ever since, like a vivid and rich dream. It's not merely the intensely colorful images, one after another, but the tone of the story itself: awed, and yet afraid that it might indeed be just a dream, and even more afraid that it might be lost forever. As previous reviewers can testify, this is a book that stays with you, lingering with a melancholy, yearning glow. Urgently in need of reprinting! For those looking for copies, try library used book sales - I've already found three hardcover copies, one for myself and two for friends.

This is my favorite book. When I think of it, I recall being touched deeply as a child and haunted ever-after as one can be after waking from the most precious of dreams, trying to relate that experience to the waking world and having no choice but to relinquish it. While this might be described as a children's fiction, I still cannot understand how Mr. Davidson could have invented this narrative experience without either strong inspiration from realms beyond this one, or (may I dare say) without having experienced such an unimaginable happening himself. I am very happy to find that this book is getting some recognition. May it continue to open imaginations to questions of what is tangible and what is possible.

Like everyone else here --- I picked this book up when I was 10 or 11, and totally and completely fell in love with it! Although I was a total girly girl (I was reading Anne of Green Gables and Daddy-long-legs at the time) --- this book still captivated me. I read and re-read that book until it was in tatters. Finally, when I was 14 or 15, I donated during a book drive. Ever since then, I've regretted it! I'm glad to see that there are still some copies around in the "used" section --- I'm so placing my order today!!!

I think I'm the third person to post that this book is my all time childhood favorite. Images from it have stayed strong in my memory - of the cliff, and of nightime secret sneaking out to visit the underwater world where mindpower is maximized beyond anything our culture can imagine. I read the first edition when it was published, sometime around my fifth grade year. Years and several readings later, I lent it to my brother when he was home one summer from college. He also loved it and lent it to a coworker without my permission. Despite my pleas, we never saw it again. I checked online years ago without success, found it was out of print. I'm now so grateful that it's available to me here. Thanks so much!