false 26924 15 Atom Egoyan's Oscar-nominated <I>The Sweet Hereafter</I> is a good movie, remarkably faithful to the spirit of Russell Banks's novel of the same name, but Banks's book is twice as good. With the cool logic of accreting snowflakes, his prose builds a world--a small U.S. town near Canada--and peoples it with four vivid, sensitive souls linked by a school-bus tragedy: the bus driver; the widowed Vietnam vet who was driving behind the bus, waving at his kids, when it went off the road; the perpetually peeved negligence lawyer who tries to shape the victims' heartaches into a winning case; and the beauty-queen cheerleader crippled by the crash, whose testimony will determine everyone's fate.<p>We experience the story from inside the heads of the four characters in turn--each knowing things the others don't, each misunderstanding the facts in his or her own way. The method resembles Faulkner's <I>The Sound and the Fury</I> and Gilbert Sorrentino's stunning <I>Aberration of Starlight</I>, but Banks's achievement is most comparable to John Updike's tales of ordinary small-towners preternaturally gifted with slangy eloquence, psychological insights, and alertness to life's tiniest details.<p> Egoyan's film is haunting but vague--it leaves viewers in the dark regarding several critical plot points. Banks's book is more haunting still, and precise, making every revelation count, with a finale far superior to that of the film. It's also wittier than the too-sober flick: the lawyer dismisses the dome-dwelling hippie parents of one of the crash victims as being "lost in their Zen Little Indians fantasy," which casts a sharp light on them and him, too. He's lost in his calculations of how each parent will fit into the legal system, and the ways in which he fits into the tragedy are lost on him. If only he and the Vietnam-vet dad could read each other's account of their tense first encounter, both of them might get what the other is missing. <P> Banks's wit is pitiless--it's painful when we discover that the bus driver, who prides herself on interpreting for her stroke-impaired husband, is translating his wise but garbled observations all wrong. The crash turns out not to be the ultimate tragedy: in the cold northern light of its aftermath, we discover that we're all in this alone. 1446 1991 The Sweet Hereafter total:1677|5:413|4:738|3:403|2:87|1:29| 1677 6458 2128 161 3 1 false false Sun Nov 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 05 14:34:43 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 09 06:23:18 -0800 2008
In fact, and one doesn't often hear this, especially on Goodreads, but th...more...]]> 5 1 true false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 08:04:01 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 24 09:21:49 -0800 2007
Having said that, I love both the book and the movie, for reasons I'm not s...more...]]> 1 2 false false Mon May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Sep 02 11:56:20 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 11:56:35 -0700 2007
I hated the way it was written. I didn’t like this fellows style at all. None of the characters came off as especially likeable, or real, or endearing, or brave… or anyth...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 18:10:51 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 18:10:51 -0700 2009
Mad effective use of multiple first-person narrators, despite the challenge of starting with a captivating and hefty first chapter then expecting the reader to instantly switch to a new character's voice. Incredible characterization. Dolores Driscoll is a superb narrator who holds al...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Dec 15 16:49:44 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 15 16:50:06 -0800 2008
Definitely a worthwhile read. I had seen the movie years ago and of course, the book was way better. I did think the use of the "Pied Piper of Hamlin" in the movie was poignant but the po...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 16 17:34:16 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 04:00:31 -0700 2009 The Sweet Hereafter.

Accidents like the one in Banks’ novel are only a pindrop in the daily news we hear, but through his shifting perspectives the reader is left knee-deep in the small town of Sam Dent an...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 08:38:01 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 09:11:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed May 13 04:36:55 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 17:28:02 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 04:36:55 -0700 2009 For some reason, I could never really get into the flow of this book and the characters. The story was very good about how a school bus crash affects the lives ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Oct 28 11:27:31 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 11:28:20 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Mon Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Sun Mar 22 19:43:25 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 03:11:35 -0700 2009
From the back cover:

"A haunting novel which reads with all the tension of a mystery. When fourteen children from the small ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 23:43:44 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 26 11:29:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Wed Jan 02 15:51:06 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 02 17:07:41 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Nov 05 18:15:23 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 11 14:47:04 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 02 09:34:33 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 02 09:34:33 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 08 10:35:28 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 09 13:06:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Nov 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 07:16:12 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 07:23:49 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 11:30:38 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 11:32:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 20:02:05 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 20:07:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Aug 29 13:16:38 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 08:47:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Mar 24 15:02:27 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 15:09:07 -0700 2008 more...]]>