DTH Omnibus Page 11
Thursday November 9, 1989
Best Sellers
Fiction
1. The Dark Half
Stephen King
2. Clear and Present Danger
Tom Clancy
3. Foucaut's Pendulum
UmbertoEco
4. The Pillars of the Earth
KenFollett
5. Jimmy Stewart and His Poems
Jimmy Stewart
6. Tales From Margaritaville
Jimmy Buffett
7. California Gold
John Jakes
8. Oldest Living Confederate
Widow Tells All
Allan Gurganus
Nonfiction
1. All I Really Need to Know I
Learned in Kindergarten
Robert Fulghum
2. I Was On Fire When
I Lay Down On It
Robert Fulghum
3. Roseanne
Roseanne Barr
4. Among Schoolchildren
Tracy Kidder
5. Confessions of an S.O.B.
AINeuharth
6. I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to
Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise
ErmaBombeck
7. A Brief History of Time
Stephen W. Hawking
8. My Turn
Nancy Reagan with William Novak
New York Times
Alternate
One
by Richard Bach
Summit Books
$19.95
oooo
w
hen the set-designers for
this summer's hit Batman
sat down to create Gotham
City, they went back to the New
York of the 1920s and built it up to
the present but as if everything
that could have went terribly wrong.
This fascination with "what might
have been" provides both the movie
and Richard Bach's latest novel, One,
with a spine-tingling, surreal view of
the present.
What would you be like if, when
you came to major turning points in
. your life, you had chosen the other
alternative? What would it be like to
meet a younger version of yourself?
Bach explores these questions through
The books we
review are
provided
courtesy of
the Bull's
Head
Bookshop,
located in the Student Stores
Easy ways
Journey
by James A. Michener
Random House
$16.95
ooooo
k stea
1 3 o'clock this morning the
steamer Portland from St.
ichael for Seattle, passed
up the Sound with more than a ton
of solid gold aboard." It's hard to be
lieve that this single sentence in
spired tens of thousands of determined
men and women to search for buried
treasure in the gold fields along the
Klondike River in Canada.
James A. Michener tells of the
celebrations and the hardships expe
rienced by five of these gold-seekers
in his thrilling new novel, Journey.
With a pre-determined plan of
travel and confident of ultimate suc
cess, Lord Evelyn Luton forms an
expedition to travel across 2043 miles
of land and water to the gold fields
near Alaska. Members of his party
include Luton's cousin, the veteran
explorer Harry Carpenter, and his
nephew, the strong and eager Phillip
Henslow. The team also includes
Henslow's friend, the poet Trevor
selves create (what
Sarah Barrett
a metaphysical visit with his and his
wife's alteregos.
Richard and Leslie encounter their
alternate selves while traveling in
their plane. They follow a metaphori
cal map of their infinite lifetimes,
touching down where instinct leads
them. In past and future lives they
commune with their' alternate selves.
In one instance, . Richard is con
fronted with the decision of marry
ing Leslie. He chooses to marry her,
but his decision creates alternate paths
for his alter-egos. In one life, they
merely live together and in another
life the couple breaks off their rela
tionship. He and Leslie are able to
speak with these alternate selves and
discover how the decisions they made
earlier affected their present lives.
The central theme of this book
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aren't always dishonorable
S us anne George
Blythe, and man servant, Irishman
Tim Fogarty.
The story follows the journey of
the five daring men as they embark
from England with high hopes and
travel hundreds of miles in luxurious
boats and trains. The novel also ac
counts the extreme adversities the
group experiences because of faulty
information and maps, the onset of
the harsh Arctic winter, hideous
swarms of mosquitoes, the treacher
ous Rocky Mountains, and most
importantly, Luton's fatal pride in
his country and his choices.
Luton is too proud to admit that
he led his team into danger that could
have been avoided. For example,
Luton felt that England was the best
country in the world, and he would
not under any circumstances allow
his party to trek on lesser American
soil even if it means that the five
men have to take the more difficult
and perilous route (and it does).
Luton succeeds in leading his team
down the wrong set of rivers leading
to the gold fields; yet, not wanting to
seem like an inadequate leader he
sounds complex and a little confus
ing, but it is much easier to under
stand than to explain. While the air
plane imagery in the beginning is
cumbersome, once the plot has picked
up. One is almost impossible to put
down.
The novel is a blend of fantasy
with real life that brings up several
provocative questions. Bach explores
his life as if his past choices weren't
dead-ends, but new beginnings. This
gives an unusual, but enlightening,
view of war, love, lonliness and peace.
By exploring all the possible conse
quences of his decisions through the
multiple his lives, Bach presents a
clear and fully developed philosophy
of life for the reader to ponder.
iiHIllllPnft
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opts to continue with the wrong di
rection rather than go the right way
and complete the mission in less time
with less anxiety.
Luton's crew recognizes this ina
bility in leadership; however, none
but Carpernter and Fogarty are able
to stand up to the captain and ques
tion his judgment. But Luton is quick
to provide seemingly appropriate
reasons why they should stick to his
course.
The novel is a tragedy, describing
a proud man and his devoted team
trying to reach the gold fields. In
stead, they find immense hardship
and doom.
Michener organizes the novel in
four sections and, in the end, backs
up the fiction with a personal
relflection on his writing and think
ing processes during the making of
Journey an unpublished portion
of his acclaimed novel Alaska.
In Michener's own words, "Jour
ney is a narrative which depicts the
courage that men and women can
exhibit when dealing with adversity,
even that which they have brought
upon themselves."
Through vivid imagery and, at
times, lengthy descriptions, Michener
illustrates Luton's realization that
taking the easy way out is in no way
less honorable than struggling with
the hard way. On this theme, Luton
might be)
One's dominant theme is that
humanity has the ability to control
its destiny with the power of choice.
According to Bach, the choices that
his characters make will change the
whole nature of their futures. When
a situation arises that requires them
to make a decision, many paths are
created from the alternatives. Once
he and his wife make the choice,
they are set on its path and leave the
others behind.
But after his characters have cho
sen their course, their alternate selves
branch out and follow all the other
possible paths. This pattern repeats
after every significant decision comes
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comes to the conclusion that "Bara
barians take over the world while
proper men huddle like bears in icy
caves."
James A. Michener's Journey is a
superb work of fiction ending in a
realistic, touching conclusion. It's a
powerful book that should be read by
all.
reality
up, creating a cycle of infinite lives
for each individual. These infinite
lives occur simultaneously and are
woven together to form the unifying
bonds that make up the characters'
present lives.
Bach gives us a freaky and inspir
ing view of life by showing us a world
where no decision is ever final. Ev
ery impulse you have ever had, every
life you have had the opportunity to
live, is fulfilled here. The past and
the present combine to make one
life. Bach takes us to unreality and
shows us that it is real. Think about
the past and "what could have been."
What could have been is.