Deliverance
James Dickey
Nov 2008 · Delta
4.2star
27 reviews
Ebook
288
Pages
About this ebook
“You're hooked, you feel every cut, grope up every cliff, swallow water with every spill of the canoe, sweat with every draw of the bowstring. Wholly absorbing [and] dramatic.”—Harper's Magazine
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.
Praise for Deliverance
“Once read, never forgotten.”—Newport News Daily Press
“A tour de force . . . How a man acts when shot by an arrow, what it feels like to scale a cliff or to capsize, the ironic psychology of fear: these things are conveyed with remarkable descriptive writing.”—The New Republic
“Freshly and intensely alive . . . with questions that haunt modern urban man.”—Southern Review
“A fine and honest book that hits the reader's mind with the sting of a baseball just caught in the hand.”—The Nation
“[James Dickey's] language has descriptive power not often matched in contemporary American writing.”—Time
“A harrowing trip few readers will forget.”—Asheville Citizen-Times
"A novel that will curl your toes . . . Dickey's canoe rides to the limits of dramatic tension."—New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant and breathtaking adventure."—The New Yorker
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.
Praise for Deliverance
“Once read, never forgotten.”—Newport News Daily Press
“A tour de force . . . How a man acts when shot by an arrow, what it feels like to scale a cliff or to capsize, the ironic psychology of fear: these things are conveyed with remarkable descriptive writing.”—The New Republic
“Freshly and intensely alive . . . with questions that haunt modern urban man.”—Southern Review
“A fine and honest book that hits the reader's mind with the sting of a baseball just caught in the hand.”—The Nation
“[James Dickey's] language has descriptive power not often matched in contemporary American writing.”—Time
“A harrowing trip few readers will forget.”—Asheville Citizen-Times
"A novel that will curl your toes . . . Dickey's canoe rides to the limits of dramatic tension."—New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant and breathtaking adventure."—The New Yorker
Ratings and reviews
4.2
27 reviews
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November 27, 2011
Trying to describe this book as either 'good' or 'bad' is giving me a headache, mainly because, even though it has some merit, I would probably not recommend it to anyone, except if he/she needed to read it as a class requirement. So I'll just describe what I liked and what I didn't like:
I liked most of the language and the literary structures of the novel. Some of the most interesting passages are of the four men deciding what to do with the killed body, the action-packed scenes of the river-rapids, and Ed's (highly improbable, yet poetic) climbing of the cliff. I also liked the strong influence of nature/animal/wilderness themes.
I did not like (and at some points, couldn't stand) the very awkward dialogue, which seemed out of place in some situations; the imagery and metaphysical description (such as of dreams and the deer-hunting scene), although well-written and captivating, were dragged-out and at first difficult to reconstruct in the fast-paced, danger-filled plot.
What caught me off-guard somewhat, though I can extract the reason for it being there, are the occasional references/nuances of homoerotism. So, I can understand that Dickey includes these to strengthen the themes of male bonding and to construct a notion of the ideal "alpha male", yet it also seems out-of-place from the dangerous trek that these suburbanites are experiencing. Or maybe, it is appropriate, probably to reveal an absurd type of suburban mindset that blindly focuses on what it is to be a man, namely the sexual side. I have no idea, really. That's why this book gives me a headache.
The book overall leads to some interesting class discussions that could be equally done, if not better, with similarly-themed books like "The Lord of the Flies" and such. It may also offer some insight into what it means to be a suburban man caught in a life-or-death situation. I found that last sentence hard to write. Read it only if you have to. Or watch the movie.
Enrico Cheatham
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April 21, 2014
I have seen the film several times over the years and have finally read the book.I thought this story was well crafted and captivating. Four city men head to the country for a weekend of canoeing down the river and endure a harrowing experience. A significant contemplation on the intangibles one has to possess in order to survive without the comforts of modern civilization.
Brian Siis
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February 22, 2016
Having seen the movie,I could picture visually each character and the scene as its happening.
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
James Dickey was born in Atlanta. One of America's best known poets and a winner of the National Book Award for Buckdancer's Choice, he is the author of the National bestseller To The White Sea, a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Carolina Professor and Poet-in-Residence at the university of South Carolina.
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