Book review
East of the Mountains** by David Guterson Harcourt Brace 1999 The desire to probe the unknown is human nature. In his second novel, East of the Mountains, David Guterson explores the theme of transcending boundaries to discover not only new frontiers but oneself. Ben Givens, a retired heart surgeon and recent widower from Seattle, embarks on such a journey. Faced with terminal cancer and only a few months to live, Ben makes a radical, if to him perfectly sensible, decision. As a doctor, he knows of the suffering to come. Therefore, to spare himself and his family the pain of incurable illness, he sets out on a final bird-hunting trip during which he plans to take his life, making it look like an accident. However, events don’t transpire quite as planned. A car accident sets off a chain of events that compell him to act. At first reluctantly, but with growing determination and readiness, Ben accepts the challenges with which he is confronted. There is no time for lethargy or self-pity, and as he hikes through the wilderness, the world-weary Ben is surprised to discover his renewed vitality. Encounters with strangers open up new perspectives. The man at the beginning of the book who says he no longer feels part of this world is suddenly catapulted back into it. “He did not want to be careless, or transgress against his obligations: he wanted to be himself, a doctor seeing to every detail, a man tuned to his duties in life, and he found that even in the shadow of death it was not easy being otherwise.” Ben’s peregrinations lead him across the Cascade Mountains into the valley of his childhood where he revisits his past. A land of lush orchards and vivid memories, it promises bliss in an almost other-worldly way: “East of the snow-covered crests of the mountains the sky lay almost clear of clouds; save for a few last spectral wisps of vapor floating beneath the chill points of the stars, one’s views of heavens was unimpeded.” Whereas Ben is a complex and deeply sympathetic protagonist, other characters and certain events have a forced, artificial feel to them. It is as if Guterson steers his story too closely to the moral, restricting its natural flow. In every scene, the world seems to want to prove to this dying man that he is still needed. Whether it is a sick migrant worker, who could have walked right out of a John Steinbeck novel, or memories of the war that led to Ben’s vocation as a doctor, sentimentality is always just around the corner.