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Jul 12, 2011

Stacey rated it:

Wow. I've been talking about Deliverance to all my friends, who all roll their eyes at me, because I haven't seen the movie.

This was one of the best books I've read this year. The writing is documentary style, but surprisingly lyrical. It's told from a single point of view, and works so well for description, mood, suspense, I absolutely loved it.

Am I the only person in the world who hasn't seen the movie? I'm familiar with the two most talked-about scenes. The banjo scen More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2009

Evan rated it:

Some impressions of the book four months after having read it:

The book, unlike the film, is told completely from the perspective of ad agency studio artist Ed Gentry, and so there's a lot of stuff about his home, work, family and his lust for an artist's model that are completely missing from the film. The filter of having it all told by him, with his analysis, also is not part of the movie. Ed is a main character in the film, for sure, but quite diminished in the screen version.
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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Sam rated it:

I haven’t seen the film adaptation of Deliverance; I’ve only heard of the infamous “squeal like a pig” scene. Having just finished the book, the movie is next up on my Netflix queue, and I can only hope it’s half as good as the novel. The book does what so many of the greats do: tell a highly entertaining, page-turning story while at the same time layering in ideas and themes one after the other without telling you what to think about them. You could write ten or twenty different viable pape More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2008

Bloom rated it:

Like many of you, I imagine, I have a simple rule: read the book, then see the movie. But that didn’t happen with Deliverance. I saw the movie many years ago, and just now got to the book. At first it was hard to read the book—quite brilliant in its descriptive power—without seeing Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Jon Voight. But in a testament to the book, slowly they slipped away and the power of the page prevailed.

The plot is well-known: four buddies embark on a canoe trip down the More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2007

Nathan rated it:

Film narrative and written narrative are two different forms, and ordinarily, I hate the statement "the book was better than the movie." It's usually a meaningless phrase, because the two mediums are so different that comparing the two is rather pointless. In the case of Deliverance, though, it's worth pointing out that you miss quite a bit if you only see the film. Dickey, no stranger to the land he writes about, makes the South a character just as gritty, elusive, profane and poetic More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 27, 2009

Ryan rated it:

It's too bad that there is such an overwhelming popular culture taboo built around this book, because it is one hell of a good book. While I read it, I kept thinking to myself, "Why did none of my college professors ever force us to read this book?", all the while trying to ignore the simple fact that it would have been too much, too risque, too potentially offensive... and that, in a room full of English majors, who are generally not known for their robustness of constitution or even More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2011

Ggazic rated it:

This book might have appealed to me more broadly. I was one of those kids who read and loved survival stories with special vigor. The Hatchet, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Call of the Wild, then finally Tom Brown's Field Guide to Living with the Earth (I still have it!). But this is an adventure story first about man vs. man; & man vs. nature seemed only secondary, to me. Civilization was never too far to walk to. The sense of isolation was subordinate to the sense of the malevolence of stu More...

2 comments like

Oct 15, 2011

Brian rated it:

* Deliverance is set up the same way as horror movies like Friday the 13th are set up: a group of people go off in the woods, meet some bad guys, find life suddenly reduced to its essentials, until one of them rises up and takes a stand. But there's a difference. As all those horror movie sequels tell us, the survivor ends up plagued by nightmares, unable to integrate what happened into their lives. Dickey's novel, though, is all about that integration, and what it means to civilized man.
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Oct 10, 2011

Drew rated it:

A survival novel written by an illustrious poet is a strange proposition. And it certainly didn't work with To the White Sea, with its delirious, hallucinogenic prose and its antiseptically distant narrator. But Deliverance is as close to perfect as you can reasonably get.

I guess it's basically just that you hardly ever find a plot this tight (or guiltily pleasurable) in a literary novel. Dickey's prose is so nice to read: a mix between Saul Bellow's off-kilter metaphor* and Robert More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 30, 2009

Justin rated it:

With the popularity of this book, and the 1972 Burt Reynolds movie, I already had a good idea what to expect going into Deliverance. Despite never seeing - or at least retaining - the movie, I knew enough that a group of city dudes would go out in the woods and be accosted by some hillbillies. The back cover of my used, worn paperback copy even told me explicitly there would be "homosexual rape, murder and revenge."

Though I would have preferred to read the book without kno More...

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Jan 31, 2011

Dan rated it:

Deliverance is a book about four friends who journey down a dangerous and isolated river on two canoes, seeking adventure (and seemingly deliverance). As their three-day trek progresses, they are pushed into dire circumstances where they must make big decisions for survival.

I don't like to label something as "manly" or "womanly". Many reviewers here have considered Deliverance a manly book, and I don't fault them for it, but I believe words like that play into ste More...

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Jan 17, 2012

Franc rated it:

"Deliverance" has always had a strong pull on my psyche, thought this comes mainly from the movie. The film came out when I was 11, and I went to camp that summer in Tallulah Gorge where they filmed the cliff-climbing / bow-and-arrow climax. The crew had to buy so many identical green wooden canoes to film the whitewater scenes, and I paddled many times in one of these, bought at auction by my next door neighbors after filming wrapped.

I saw the the kosher version ( More...

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Apr 11, 2011

Veronica rated it:

After a very long winter, I've yearned for the great outdoors, however, after reading Deliverance, I may have to settle for the local park... in the daylight...with lots of people...people I know...people I trust. Egads this was quite the distressing read.
As I tried with Lord of the Flies, I did not want to conjure up memories of the film adaption, but it was rather difficult not to hear that banjo strumming or Burt Reynolds fishing with a bow and arrow. James Dickey took me down the ragi More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2011

Claudia rated it:

I have spent two days going back through this book for one reference, early on, to 'deliverance'. Cannot find it anywhere...but as I reread the beginning, the foreshadowing is there -- talk of survival, of being against the elements: "survival depends , well it depends on having to survive." Ed and his buddies think they're just following charismatic Lewis on another weekend adventure...canoeing on a wild river that will soon be submerged into a man-made lake. Ed is so fascinated with More...

4 comments like

Nov 18, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I think my testosterone shot up a few notches and my voices dropped an octave once I finished this. Such a manly book. Not nearly as much squealing as you'd expect.

1 comment like

Nov 06, 2007

Paul rated it:

I'll bet you think you get it because you saw the movie, right? You don't. Its way above your head. Seriously.

I bet you were all,"Look at the inbred kid playing the banjo," and then bugged your friends for like a week because the song was stuck in your head. Or, even worse, you feel the need to utter the phrase, "Squeal like a pig!" every time someone goes camping. You're just a jerk and no one likes you.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 21, 2010

Ian rated it:

My long term desire to read this book has obviously been generated by the film, which is a perineal favourite.

The film is true to the spirit of the book in every way. Man vs Nature, Man losing his masculinaty in the modern world. The characters leap of the pages - narrated by the Jon Voight character about what happens on their ill fated canoe trip down a soon to be flooded valled in Louisiana.

The book is quite slow for so much action. The key moments build and you und More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Jake rated it:

It'd be a cliche to say this narrative is fast and violent like whitewater on a river, but I'll say it anyway. Dickey's voice is a little like that— at first, the dialogue feels hokey in a "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" kind of way, where everything is freighted with deep, important meaning. But then the story gets underway and you realize that it's the real deal. Four city men go on a weekend canoe trip, trying to escape their oppressive, humdrum lives. Well, they esc More...

0 comments like

Dec 17, 2009

Jordan rated it:

This was an interesting read to say the least. I thought it wasn't all that bad, though I don't understand the appeal. It was interesting to see how a group of "normal" people deal with life changing events and the toll they take on even the closest of friendships. There are some events that not even a strong bond can overcome and people are quickly driven apart.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 16, 2010

carl rated it:

We were reading James Dickey in Contemporary Poetry and most of us were
surprised to find that he wrote 'Deliverance'. Not many worthy poets also make the
mainstream fiction list. At that time the movie had been out for some time
and if you hadn't seen it, you certainly knew of it.

The novel does have lyrical qualities and I found it an intense
read of what-happens-next. Partly induced by only having the view
of the narrator, there is also a fog and anxiety o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Keyes rated it:

Indisputably, this book has a great plot. The scenes with Ed waiting for the hunter at the top of the cliff are lurid, tense, and terribly memorable. I rated this 3 stars because some of the brackish writing in the first few chapters made me want to punch Dickey right between his pages. Example: "I had let myself in for it, and I was here in the woods, where such people as I had got myself up a were supposed to be." I don't know if that's bad editing or just clumsy structure, but that' More...

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Apr 19, 2009

Mary Anne rated it:

I saw this book on the high school reading list from the Westminster Schools several years ago. I was very familiar with the movie starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronnie Cox. The movie is almost a cult classic and the dueling banjos theme is known to nearly everyone and conjures an image of Appalachian stereotypes of the worst kind.

James Dickey was an award winning author who grew up in Georgia and taught at University of South Carolina as Poet Laureate. The novel More...

0 comments like

Sep 02, 2010

Richard marked it as to-read

Until the New York Times lauded this book for its 40th anniversary (‘Deliverance’: A Dark Heart Still Beating), all I knew about this was the 1972 movie starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight in their prime. The original book review was also pretty glowing: Men in Groups (March 27, 1970).

The author, James Dickey, center, in a cameo as a sheriff, doing a scene with Jon Voight in “Deliverance.”

I love the ironic tagline from the movie: “This is the weekend they didn’t play golf.” More...

0 comments like

Apr 11, 2009

Millicent rated it:

Did not deliver. Overhyped. Would have been on the edge of my seat suspended with suspense if the most shocking part of the plot wasn't spoiled both on the back cover and the large-print capital lettered reviews on the inside cover!

This is not the kind of survival struggle that haunts my nightmares and wet dreams. Still, good enough to read in one sitting.

EDIT upon further reflection:
(SPOILER ALERT)
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.
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I cannot get over thinking about this More...

3 comments like

May 12, 2010

Derek rated it:

One gets the impression that Deliverance is James Dickey trying on a hat that doesn’t quite fit. His pedigree as a “literary” poet and writer doesn’t make him the ideal candidate to write a terse action thriller, but his strengths make Deliverance superior to your average, pulpy, mass-market paperback. Still, the story stretches the limits of believability a little more often than it ought to, and Dickey seems more comfortable (and noticeably more adept at) describing the characters’ ennui in t More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 27, 2010

Mr. Charley Darwy rated it:

This is a guy's book. It is not The Notebook or Sense and Sensibility. It is the manly outdoors (thumping on my chest) - camping, rapids, bows and arrows and anal rape. Whhhaaaaat?!? Waitaminute, maybe the last thing is not on some lists of "manly" men. It mixes most guys' greatest pleasures (which includes getting away from the wife) and greatest fears (previously stated). Hunting and being hunted a common theme but executed very well in this book. He puts you there and you fee More...

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May 10, 2010

Mark rated it:

Deliverance was not at all what I expected. I never saw the movie although like everyone else in the world I know about the dueling banjos bit. There was a bit of a feedback loop at play in this: the movie goes a long way in creating the picture of hillbillies that we all know even having never seen the movie - but it's this "common knowledge" that allows me to suspend my disbelief in the year 2010. A real primal experience that's made stronger because it's related by a mundane office More...

0 comments like

Mar 06, 2010

Mike (the Paladin) rated it:

I read this book just after I saw the movie, and it's another that can not actually be said to be said to be "enjoyable" due to the "unpleasantness" that invades the "holiday" of the men involved in the story. If you saw the movie, you got the gist of the story. It's unusual that the story doesn't get gutted in a movie, but here they followed the script in basic form at least.

I give this 4 stars because I happen to enjoy the out doors and this does at le More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 03, 2008

Jerometed added it

Thriller that doesn't ask you to suspend your disbelief. I got my friend to read it, and he liked it. Thats a huge recommendation if you've ever tried to get anyone to read a book.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)