Rating: 
Summary: GAUTREAUX REALLY WAS LISTENING...
Review: ...when he sat around those old fellows talking about the horrors they witnessed and experienced first-hand in World War I. He expresses his thanks to them - and to several others, including his father - on his acknowledgements page at the first of this, his second novel. It's obvious that he listened not only with his ears and his mind, but with his heart and his spirit - for he has taken what he learned from them and written an incredibly moving novel that conveys not only the historical facts surrounding the lives of those who passed through those times, but the indelible marks left on their souls as well. As in the case of those who fight in any war - or those who are traumatized in some other way - those lives are forever marked and changed. There is no going back to make things easier or different - there can only be a grappling with the past in order to make sense of it, to make it fit somehow within the context of the life lived since those events occurred.There is also - as is the case with just about everything I've read by Gautreaux - a strong sense of family that pervades this story. There are ties that exist between family members that friendship, no matter how deep and enduring, can never equal - even in the case of estrangement, as in the story he tells here. The is great love along with desperation to be seen in the efforts of Randolph Aldridge and his father to find and bring back into the family fold Randolph's wandering brother Byron, damaged beyond imagining by his experiences in France during the war. Randolph finds Byron working as a constable in a rough, almost completely uncivilized lumbering operation deep in the Louisiana woods, then goes there after his family buys the mill to manage it and gently but firmly draw Byron back from the dark brink on which he has been living. There's a lot of violence in this novel - but the setting is a violent one, and there's no getting around that aspect of the story. Rather than glorify it, Gautreaux wisely chooses to present it vividly as the dark force it is - and he pits his characters' basic goodness and strengths against it in an attempt to turn its ugly tide. In doing so, he shows us that sometimes violence is necessary to combat violence - a hard lesson, but one that should be considered by everyone. The anguish experienced by his characters - in particular, Randolph - in dealing with this force is portrayed in a very moving, believable manner, a tribute to Gautreaux's talent and style. When I wrote my review of his first novel, THE NEXT STEP IN THE DANCE, I mentioned that between it and his short fiction, I preferred his stories. With the publication of THE CLEARING, I can say that - at least for me - Gautreaux has taken a big step forward. The story - as well as the characters - in this second full-length work is deeper and more well-developed than in the first. He's an extremely talented writer - he deserves wider attention.
Rating: 
Summary: Writing can't disguise the weakness of the plot
Review: Gatreaux knows how to write. You can flip the book open to any page and pull out something worth reading aloud and for that alone, I'd take my hat off to the man. But beneath the distracting beauty of the prose is a very familiar story. A good man returned from a bad war in a small town with a dark side, in this case, Sicilian gangsters, including the worst of the worst, a one eyed knifeman. Sound familiar? It is. Gatreaux is at his best when he's wrapped in descriptions of the little lumber town called Nimbus, but the characters who populate it are prone to portentuous talk and symbolic actions. We have riffs on Greek myths, serpents in beds, man mountains engaged in knife fights in rivers, but I found little to persuade me from the thought that Gatreaux was bluffing with a weak hand. Namely, that at the center of the novel, lie a pair of brothers that he doesn't seem to have a handle on. The war veteran has apparently killed scores of men, so that he is accustomed to doling out death in close quarters, yet over 95% of men in World War One were killed through shelling or machine guns, both distant intervention. It was this, the blindness of fate, that you couldn't see who you were killing, or who was killing you, that was responsible for much of the pressure described as shell shock. Gatreaux's veteran comes across then as a mythic figure, but the author seems to want us to believe in the grit and truth of his town. I found it ultimately impossible, when I couldn't believe in the grit and truth of his characters, leaving the book with a hollow beauty, disappointing despite the promise.
Rating:
Summary: great stuff
Review: I agree with the other reviewers who said that this is a great, evocative, and fascinating novel. The story is compelling and the writing is taut. I read it in one weekend. I loved the historical details. You really feel like you're right there in the timber camp in the twenties.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written - best book I've read in years
Review: I can add little to what has already been contributed by the majority here except for my own enthusiasm for what was, for me, the best novel I've read in well over a year. I found the plot and conflicts riveting, the characters beautifully drawn and involving and the setting and atmosphere, first and foremost, almost overwhelming, the stuff of nightmares, which is offset by the sheer beauty of the writing. Towards the novel's end, Gautreaux describes the sound of a distant train whistle as that of the cry of "a white ibis caught in an alligator's jaws," a phrase that could well apply to THE CLEARING. A week on, I've yet to be able to stop thinking about it and have added it to a shelf of alltime favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: a powerful story
Review: I enjoyed this moving story of two brothers and their effort to build something decent, despite the fact that they lived in difficult times and within difficult environs. I've never been to the swamps of Louisiana, but I felt like I had been after reading this fine book. The bugs, snakes, and best yet, the people who inhabit such places came to life within this book. I was quite caught up in the brothers' story, and their struggle against what only could be called evil.
Rating:
Summary: Reading Club Fodder
Review: I first saw this book on a display of books for reading clubs. It certainly is a good one for discussion groups. It has such issues as: WWI veteran with post traumatic stress disorder, love of brothers, capitalism, deforestation for profit, race relations, organized crime and police corruption. I am sure any group can add to that list of themes and subthemes. Somehow in all of that was a plot.
There is something dark and haunting about this book. In 1923, the wealthy younger brother comes to a depressing swamp in Louisiana to operate a sawmill where his brother (veteran with ptsd) happens to be the sheriff. The brother is there to reap the profits from clear-cutting the cypress forest and bring his older brother back into the family fold. Against this backdrop is a running feud with the mafia.
There is a constant motif of death and injury in this horribly depressing locale, yet somehow the book and characters keep plodding. I think that is the root of the haunting nature of the book. The reader is forced to think - why are they still there and still doing what they are doing?
Teh two brothers are good characters as is another sheriff. The other characters are not nearly so well developed and seem to be cut-outs whose only function is to serve the brothers' plots.
I can not say the plot is a great one. Nor are the characters ones that a reader can warm to or root for. However, taken all together, this is a dark and well-written book worth the effort. It started slowly, but picked up to an ending that one would not have anticipated at the outset. I expect this will be a book that stays with the reader long after completion.
Rating:
Summary: brothers battle geography, memory and evil in bayou epic
Review: In Tim Gautreaux' spellbinding novel, "The Clearing," Randolph Aldridge sets out to locate and reclaim his shell-shocked and spiritually lost older brother, Byron. Randolph's odyssey takes him not only to the most remote, primitive and violent region of Louisiana bayou virgin forest, but to the extremities of human nature as well. Randolph, the lumber mill manager, confronts an untouched geographic environment and must also face his worst fears: the primitive qualities of the human heart, an unalloyed fear of death, and his own capacity to comprehend vengeance and to exact it. In its exploration of the consequences of war, of good people's need to be just in the face of withering evil and of the human heart's capacity to love, "The Gathering" is nothing less than brilliant.
In search of meaning and purpose, Randolph and Byron are equally lost souls. As the younger brother, Randolph struggles with his place in the family, and he chafes at his subterranean disappointment with his life. His acceptance of his father's demand that he discover the whereabouts of his older brother and be the means of his brother's redemption presents an opportunity to not only discover the definition of manhood, but to become one on his own terms. Randolph's actions, which ultimately involve his own liberation, create a genuine interdependence with Byron.
It is Byron's existential despair that gives the novel its power. Ruined by the degradations of World War I, Byron has consciously sought to efface himself from his family and the nation which precipitated his emotional ruin. After reluctantly recounting but one horrific episode of his experiences in the trenches, Byron "stared down...and his face seemed like something carved by wind out of the side of a mountain." As a representative of the "Lost Generation," it is not surprising that Byron has chosen to enforce law and order on a population that, in Gautreaux' capable hands, appears incapable of civilized behavior. As a lawman, Byron's justice is swift, calculated and brutal. He offers no apologies but is fully aware of the human toll his work exacts.
As events spiral out of control in the "The Clearing," Gautreaux requires his readers to consider whether good men can overcome the antagonistic influences of geography, post-trauma distress and humans' ability to inflict pain, suffering and disgrace on each other. The novel's deterministic fatalism contrasts sharply with the brothers' understated heroism, and it is this tension between light and dark, degradation and realization that makes the novel a riveting read.
We face the "jaundiced anger" of battle-scarred World War I veterans and realize it is only the most delicate of lines which makes one man an amoral, vicious killer and another a despairing, driven lawman. Descriptions of the Louisiana cypress bayou are so meticulous and forbidding that we sweat sympathetically and our hearts palpitate in fear of primordial insects, snakes and alligators. Even those of us committed to non-violence may experience a diminution of belief as Randolph and Byron use whatever means necessary to prevail.
At once a powerful narrative and metaphorical allegory, Tim Gautreaux' "The Clearing" reminds us that our best writers squeeze our national character and wring out its essence. Whether his characters are debased or admirable, Gautreaux distills something vital from each. Through his exploration of family, justice and memory, he has given us a true picture of ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Storyteller's Latest Work
Review: My favorite sentence: "The mill manager rose to wakefulness the way a Louisiana coffin pushes up out of the mud after a week-long rain." Mr. Gautreaux's cypress swamp and his characters ring true to me. His acknowledgements mention "several old men, now dead, who didn't know I was listening." I think he was listening very carefully, and am grateful for his reconstruction of this post-World War I backwoods sawmill. If truth is stranger than fiction, then this fiction is strange enough to be true. Gautreaux knows his characters thoroughly, even the bit players. Pay attention as you read. Little things happen constantly that, coupled with chance, eventually have enormous consequences. I recommend pausing at the end of each chapter to review what just happened. (It's enjoyable, easy reading, but i found myself being pulled along by the story's momentum faster than i could appreciate the subtleties.) At one point i wondered, now if Carl Hiaasen had a villain in this situation. . . Tim Gautreaux's world can be violent, and justice is not guaranteed. I have come to think of Tim Gautreaux's stories as somewhat unique among contemporary writing in having a moral or ethical dimension. I don't feel that he's preaching to me, but after reading one of his stories (including this novel), i often conclude that what kept a particular character from disaster was an inner moral compass, which let him make the better choice in a difficult place, without knowing why. Being a prude doesn't cut it; you have to shrug off imperfections in the other guy and yourself. But when life gets serious, you have to take a stand. As you'll see if you decide to read The Clearing, there are at least three social themes in the story. One or more may be of personal interest to you; if so there's enough detail in Gautreaux's characterizations to engage you. Alternatively, there's a rocking good story to carry you over the deeper issues, if you're reading mainly for entertainment. This may be a book you'll want to read twice.
Rating:
Summary: Two Brothers Reunite in an Eerie Time and Place
Review: Steeped in the history of the Louisiana bayou and so rich in imagery that it reads like an epic poem made over for PBS, this book far surpasses every blurb on its back cover. It succeeds on many levels: as a historical romance set in a thousand-year old stand of virgin cypress; as a thriller that pits a lone country lawman against a band of Chicago thugs; as the coming-of-age story of one brother and the home-from-the-war story of another; and as a family drama that reunites these two brothers, along with their remarkably different wives and their tyrannical father. The tale is told with artistry and great skill. A bygone time is brought fully back to life. All the while, lurking throughout, towering over, embracing and pervading it all--even where there might be a clearing--is the swamp. Here you have the best book I've read so far this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent Plot doesn't make up for Weak Characters
Review: The Clearing looks like a very busy book on the surface; it has many characters, many different subplots and enough violence and death to last you a lifetime. But on closer examination, The Clearing isn't much more than surface gloss. The book never really achieves what it strives to get at, and is nothing like the books it has been compared too (like the more richer, better layered and better peopled Cold Mountain and All The Pretty Horses). Maybe that's because the book is much longer than is should be. I had to drudge my way through the first two hundred pages. And just as I was about to give up, I finally found myself entertained by a plot twist that transformed the entire narrative and somewhat redeemed the novel. Randolph is sent to a Louisiana clearing by his father not only to manage the wood mill, but also to look after his brother Byron who came back from the war a changed man. Randolph tries to change things the moment he arrives at the mill, until he realizes that he can't change the deep-rooted way of life the countryside folks have adopted. Things change for him when his wife comes to Nimbus to help him manage things. When Randolph does the grave mistake of killing a man with ties to the Italian mob, things start going awry for him, his family and the mill workers. This isn't a book about plot, it is a book of happenings, giving the whole thing an episodic feel that is strangely out of place in narrative ficiton. Each chapter seems to introduce a new plot point which is resolved by the end of this very chapter. Although this changes somewhat in the last third of the book, there doesn't seem to be an underlying current that links the different plot points. But the thing that really disappointed me was the way in which the author decided to give us too little about the characters. Because Gautreaux never really tells us what these men (and women) are all about, they end up feeling one and the same. There are no real character traits that differentiate one man from the next, rendering every single character into paper-thin men. The Clearing received a lot of hype when it was first released, and it's unfortunate to realize that it was just that. Hype. I really had to force myself to finish this one, which is a rare thing for me. This one isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
|
