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Round the Bend
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BOTM Jan 2020 - Round the Bend
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Dec 28, 2019 05:24PM
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I am waiting for my library hold to arrive.
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Born in Somerset Road, Ealing, Middlesex, the Norway family house is described in Trustee from the Toolroom. He was educated at the Dragon School, Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford; he graduated from Oxford University in 1922 with a third-class degree in engineering science. Shute's father, Arthur Hamilton Norway, became head of the Post Office in Ireland before the First World War and was based at the main post office in Dublin in 1916 at the time of the Easter Rising. Shute himself was later commended for his role as a stretcher-bearer during the rising.[2] On 13 June 1915 his elder brother, Fredrick Hamilton Norway, aged 19, was wounded at Epinette, near Armentières, and was evacuated to Wimereux where he died, on 4 July, with his parents by his side. He was buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais.[3]
Shute attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and trained as a gunner, but because of his stammer was unable to take up a commission in the Royal Flying Corps in the Great War. He served as a soldier in the Suffolk Regiment, enlisting "in the ranks" in August 1918. He guarded the Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary, and served in military funeral parties in Kent during the 1918 flu pandemic.
An aeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, he began his engineering career with the De Havilland Aircraft Company. (He used his pen-name as an author to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels.)[4]
Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities for advancement, he took a position in 1924 with Vickers Ltd., where he was involved with the development of airships, working as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on the R100 airship project for the Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929 he was promoted to Deputy Chief Engineer of the R100 project under Barnes Wallis and when Wallis left the project he became the Chief Engineer.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, Shute was already a rising novelist. Even as war seemed imminent he was working on military projects with his former boss at Vickers, Sir Dennistoun Burney. He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a sub-lieutenant, having joined as an elderly yachtsman and expected to be in charge of a drifter or minesweeper, but after two days he was asked about his career and technical experience. He reached the "dizzy rank" of lieutenant-commander, knowing nothing about "Sunday Divisions" and secretly afraid when he went on a little ship that he would be the senior naval officer and "have to do something".
So he ended up in what would become the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. There he was a head of engineering, working on secret weapons such as Panjandrum, a job that appealed to the engineer in him. He also developed the Rocket Spear, an anti-submarine missile with a fluted cast iron head. After the first U-boat was sunk by it, Charles Goodeve sent him a message concluding "I am particularly pleased as it fully substantiates the foresight you showed in pushing this in its early stages. My congratulations."
His celebrity as a writer caused the Ministry of Information to send him to the Normandy Landings on 6 June 1944 and later to Burma as a correspondent. He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves (RNVR).
Shute's first novel, Stephen Morris, was written in 1923, but not published until 1961 (with its 1924 sequel, Pilotage).
His first published novel was Marazan, which came out in 1926. After that he averaged one novel every two years through the 1950s, with the exception of a six-year hiatus while he was establishing his own aircraft construction company, Airspeed Ltd. His popularity grew slowly with each novel, but he became much more famous after the publication of his third last book, On the Beach, in 1957.
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Shute's novels are written in a simple, highly readable style, with clearly delineated plot lines. Where there is a romantic element, sex is referred to only obliquely. Many of the stories are introduced by a narrator who is not a character in the story. The most common theme in Shute's novels is the dignity of work, spanning all classes, whether an Eastern European bar "hostess" (Ruined City) or brilliant boffin (No Highway). His books are in three main clusters, early pre-war flying adventures; second world war; and Australia.
Another recurrent theme is the bridging of social barriers such as class (Lonely Road and Landfall), race (The Chequer Board), or religion (Round the Bend). The Australian novels are individual hymns to that country, with subtle disparagement of the mores of the United States (Beyond the Black Stump) and overt antipathy towards the post-World War II socialist government of Shute's native Britain (The Far Country and In the Wet).
Shute's heroes tended to be like himself: middle-class solicitors, doctors, accountants, bank managers, engineers, generally university graduates. However (as in Trustee from the Toolroom), Shute valued the honest artisans and their social integrity and contributions to society more than the contributions of the upper classes.
Aviation and engineering provide the backdrop for many of Shute's novels. He identified how engineering, science, and design could improve human life and more than once used the anonymous epigram, "It has been said an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound."
Several of Shute's novels explored the boundary between accepted science and rational belief, on the one hand, and mystical or paranormal possibilities, including reincarnation, on the other hand. Shute did this by including elements of fantasy and science fiction in novels that were considered mainstream. They included Buddhist astrology and folk prophecy in The Chequer Board; the effective use of a Planchette in No Highway; a messiah figure in Round the Bend; reincarnation, science fiction, and Aboriginal psychic powers in In the Wet.
Twenty-four of his novels and novellas have been published. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, including Lonely Road in 1936; Landfall: A Channel Story in 1949; Pied Piper in 1942, 1959, and as Crossing to Freedom, a CBS made-for-television movie, in 1990; On the Beach in 1959 and in 2000 as a two-part miniseries; and No Highway in 1951. A Town Like Alice was adapted in 1956 and serialised for Australian television in 1981, and was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1997 starring Jason Connery, Becky Hindley, Bernard Hepton and Virginia McKenna. Shute's 1952 novel The Far Country was filmed for television as six one-hour episodes in 1972, and as a two-part miniseries in 1987.
Vintage Books reprinted all 23 of his books in 2009.
Shute's final work was published more than 40 years after his death. The Seafarers was first drafted in 1946–47, subsequently rewritten, and then put aside. In 1948, Shute again rewrote it, changing the title to Blind Understanding, but he left the manuscript incomplete. According to Dan Telfair in the foreword of the 2002 edition, some of the themes in The Seafarers and Blind Understanding were used in Shute's 1955 novel Requiem for a Wren.
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The novel, written in the first person, adopts the voice and eyes of Tom Cutter, an aircraft pilot, engineer, and entrepreneur.
The novel starts with Cutter's boyhood—he gets a job with the Alan Cobham "National Aviation Day" flying circus, of barnstorming aircraft which take customers up for short joyrides, with other entertainment provided. Cutter meets Connie Shaklin, a boy a little older than himself, half Chinese and half Russian but a British subject, and who even then has a deep interest in religion, taking days off to visit houses of worship. When the air circus folds, the two drift apart.
Cutter apprentices in aviation engineering, and also learns to fly. He marries a co-worker named Beryl, and soon afterwards is posted overseas as a civilian to do military-related aviation work during World War II. While overseas, he learns his wife has been unfaithful. He is stern, but forgiving, in letters to her, but when she learns that he is soon to return, she commits suicide. Cutter blames himself. He cannot stand to return to his old job or remain in England, so he buys and rebuilds a small aircraft and flies it to Bahrain, then a British protectorate, to start a freight business.
His service fills a need in the Persian Gulf, and he gradually expands, acquiring more aircraft but never incorporating his business. He keeps his business costs down by hiring no European staff, only what he calls Asiatics. Hired to take a load to Indonesia, he is surprised to find Shaklin there, working for a gunrunner who has been arrested by the Dutch, then in control of much of the country. Shaklin has maintained his interest in spirituality, but is also a very experienced engineer. Cutter is able to hire him and to purchase the gunrunner's plane. Both prove major assets to his business. As Cutter retrieves the plane from a small village in Cambodia, he notes that Shaklin has become a religious leader of sorts there.
Shaklin proves a major influence both on Cutter's staff, impressing on them the need for good and honest work, and on the local Arab community in Bahrain. Putting his teachings in terms of Islam and the Koran, he soon gains influence over the local sheikh, who offers Cutter a substantial interest-free loan for a large aircraft he needs. He accepts, and when he returns from Britain with the aircraft, finds that the authorities are very much upset about the transaction, decrying Shaklin's influence over the sheikh. Cutter does his best to soothe matters, but the British order Shaklin out of the area.
In the interim, Connie's sister, Nadezna, has arrived from California to become Cutter's secretary. She and Cutter rapidly find themselves attracted to each other.
Since one of Cutter's customers needs repeated trips to Australia, and since his Asian staff are not welcome in White Australia, Cutter sets up a forward base in the idyllic island of Bali, and assigns Shaklin to head the operations there, more as a sinecure than anything. One of the local girls is soon in unrequited love with him, while Shaklin busies himself learning about the local religion.
Back in the Persian Gulf, Shaklin's expulsion has indirectly occasioned a more reasonable attitude on the part of the British. The Arabs now hold Shaklin in almost divine regard. The Sheikh's health has started failing, and he expresses a desire to see Shaklin before he dies. He and his entourage travel to Bali to visit Shaklin. This pilgrimage both inspires others to similar travel — and stirs up the Dutch colonial administrators, who expel Shaklin from Indonesia. The Sheikh's doctor has expressed concerns about Shaklin's health, and he is soon diagnosed with leukemia — at that time a death sentence.
Shaklin expresses the desire to travel about and meet with the aircraft technicians he has influenced, for by this time his fame has spread throughout Asia. He does so until he becomes too weak to continue, and then he is taken back to the Cambodian village where his teaching started, and where he dies. Given his following, and the fact that so many believe Shaklin divine, Nadezna feels it would be letting them down to marry and live an ordinary life. She goes back to the convent where she went to school, and works with the children, although she is not a Catholic. Cutter resolves to run his air service as a credit to Connie. Cutter is set by Fahad (the Sheik's son) the task of being one of six people who will write a set of Gospels about Shaklin's life — Cutter's volume of these new Scriptures is the book that has just been read. He still believes Shaklin merely human, but is willing to consider the possibility of him being divine.
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I’ve downloaded this book and will start it soon.
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I nominated it for Bahrain which is an island country. 😍
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Okay, cool. Yes, I knew that I was just thinking it was nominated for someplace in Asian Pacific.
I’ve started reading this book. The only other Nevil Shute I have read before is A Town Like Alice but that was very many years ago and I can’t remember much about it. I was shocked by the letter Cutter wrote home to his wife and its tone. I wonder if this was less unusual for the time or does it reflect aspects of his character?
I also have only read A Town Like Alice and loved that book, especially the first half. Round the Bend is a very different kind of book. The Main Character Mr. Tom Cutter, a working class English bloke turned aviation engineer and pilot, narrates his saga in a very no nonsense, chronologically straight forward way. The reader does not know until the end why he is writing/telling us this story. Although the story is very much about Mr Cutter's own life, he is largely trying to capture the life of his chief engineer Connie Shak Lin. We come to understand that Cutter is an entrepreneur and not a writer and all the scenes that could have had an intense dramatic telling, flying over the alps for the first time, landing in Bahrain and not speaking the language, a letter to his wife who has cheated on him in his absence, falling in love with his office manager, are all told in the most matter of fact way. To the point that you begin to feel that Mr. Tom Cutter doesn't really have any strong emotions about anything other than airplane engineering, although he is clearly a decent chap. In this way, the author sets us up to experience a series of events around Connie Shak Lin's life and mission; which is to teach the aviation engineering community that good work is pleasing to god, without any over dramatization.
I very much enjoyed the overview of the early days of global aviation. I kept having to stare at maps to see where they were going and how long it took to jump over countries from Bahrian to Darwin, Australia. I also appreciated the insights into religious practice and the whole concept of what these practices: Islam, Buddhist and Hindu may share across them.
I did find that the fable of the "next" prophet coming to the modern world an interesting construct. Jesus, the carpenter's son who preached to fishermen and tax collectors, would more likely speak to software developers in today's times. Mohammed, the merchant, would also likely present differently as would the Prince who became the Buddha. However, the actual tenets of Connie Shak Lin, were closer to straight Protestant doctrine in the foundations of a strong work ethic being the ultimate reflection of caring about your fellow man. The book does nudge the reader over to thinking about faith and why people move from doing what is right ethically, which is a social construct, to believing in something more, that a perfect man could be touched by something divine. The book does not answer the question but poses it so that the reader is left with those open thoughts.
I have read about a third of the book and am enjoying the matter of fact tone of the narrative so far.I am glad that Tom realized that his cold attitude to his wife may have inadvertently led to the death. He seems to have difficulty opening up in relationships with others.
So far, Shak Lin has been leading prayers and greatly improving the efficiency of the workers.
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A part of chapter 8 reminds me of the story of Peter and Jesus on the night that Jesus is betrayed.
I've just finished the book and liked it, but didn't love it. The ending was a bit of a disappointment in regard to Tom's life in the future.
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