Outerbridge Reach

Rating:
Summary: Solo circumnavigation in small sailboats ...
Review: Definately a haunting book. I am surprised that none of the previous reviewers mentioned the incident that inspired this book: The events of the first solo round the world sailing race in 1968. Outerbridge Reach is one of a number of books that followed "The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst" which first brought to light the events that inspired Robert Stone to write Outerbridge Reach. Those readers in the sailing/racing/crusing communities will easily recognise the connection. After reading Outerbridge, I want to read the Crowhust story even more (as soon as I find a copy). Many other Stone readers may want to do the same.

Rating:
Summary: Stone has worked his magic once again
Review: How does Stone do it? In this book, he has taken a decent plot about a man attempting to sail around the world and filled it with so much philosophical reflection and relationship analysis that it becomes absolutely unforgettable. Anne is remarkably well-written, with honest human emotions and flaws, and Owen and Strickland both serve as great examples of various extremes of the human character. I particularly loved the aspects of the book dealing with Owen's relationship with his daughter and Anne's relationship with her father. While Outerbridge Reach is undeniably disturbing, it is an incredible tale that deserves to be read over and over.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of American literature.
Review: I've read this novel four or five times and consider it one of the best works of fiction by an American writer. The prose is simply perfect - not a false note or glob of fat. The characters have positive and negative qualities that make them believably human - but Stone finds a mote of corruption that he spins into consequence. Owen Browne's flaw is a penchant for glib surfaces - he is a PR man - and he is undone by a boat that is PR perfect but deeply flawed; his tragedy unfolds slowly while he is isolated at sea and the ship reveals itself. Strickland is a brilliant documentary filmmaker with an unfailing instinct for "the lie" and insufficient wariness of the perils of his clear-eyed objectivity. The novel confronts American situations - the Vietnam War, American capitalism, American documentary news. And so on - to the chagrin of readers on this board who were unprepared for Stone's realism. If you don't like realism of the Balzac variety, you won't like this book. But I consider it, along with A Flag for Sunrise, to be a masterpiece of the very highest order. And Stone's other books partake of all his virtues as a writer - less impressive only because they lack the felicitous focus of these two books. Stone writes a book every five years, so his oeuvre is modest: you can pile them on your nightstand and work your way through them over a winter. But begin with Outerbridge Reach. It reaches through surfaces to the corruption underlying ideals - personal and national - as surely as A Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick.