Round the Bend

Rating:
Summary: Doing good work can be spiritually fulfilling
Review: "Round the Bend" is an adventure book that will take you with the protagonist through the pioneering atmosphere of early aviation, from the daredevil "barnstorming" era through early commercial aviation. In this book, Nevil Shute has a lot to say about the importance of finding your calling and doing good work. Besides eating, drinking, sleeping, and relating to loved ones, work is a fundamental dimension of human life, well captured by Shute in his portrayal of people's motivations, the conventional wisdom, and an encounter with a not-so-conventional attitude toward work in general that has promising implications for story characters and readers alike.

I first read this book at university, in a political theory course that read twentieth-century novels (as well as important essays) as a springboard for discussion of the best way to live in society (the ancient problem of reconciling the One and the Many). This book gives an intriguing vision of how impersonal society at work becomes a dedicated community through devotion to good work. Just as importantly, such devotion is individually enriching: airplane maintenance, and all good work in general is, at a deeper level, soul work.

A truly marvellous, inspirational story.

Rating:
Summary: A Story Told Straight
Review: A very interesting and different book. It reads very much as a man telling a story about a chapter in his life. Very straight forward and readable. No long descriptions of scenery, or extensive dialog. This is a tale of two men. One is in love with airplanes and starts his own service, after WWII, in the Middle East. He is the primary character and the story teller. The other, a boyhood acquaintaince and later an employee, increasing becomes involved with religion and philosophy. It is a captivating tale but not one of action or suspense. Based on my experience with this book, I have acquired two more of Shute's work.

Rating:
Summary: A Story Told Straight
Review: A very interesting and different book. It reads very much as a man telling a story about a chapter in his life. Very straight forward and readable. No long descriptions of scenery, or extensive dialog. This is a tale of two men. One is in love with airplanes and starts his own service, after WWII, in the Middle East. He is the primary character and the story teller. The other, a boyhood acquaintaince and later an employee, increasing becomes involved with religion and philosophy. It is a captivating tale but not one of action or suspense. Based on my experience with this book, I have acquired two more of Shute's work.

Rating:
Summary: Zen and the art of aircraft maintenance
Review: I'm not entirely sure that there is a "typical" Shute book, but this one is both typical and atypical. It is typical in that it is mostly about post-WWII era aircraft operations, and rather more intense on the aircraft angle than most of his other books. Also, like several of his other books, it pokes about at the meaning of morality.

On the atypical side, "Round the Bend" is somewhat alegorical and "preachy" in the same sense as "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Robert Pirsig read "Round the Bend" before he wrote "Zen".

Folks comfortable with Shute's writing will find that "Round the Bend" has his trademark writing style -- spartan, yet with a delicious amount of descriptive detail, intense, yet without an identifiable climax. As usual, he's not given to plot twists, but rather focuses on the development of human character and the way it plays out under unusual circumstances.

Rating:
Summary: Zen and the art of aircraft maintenance
Review: I'm not entirely sure that there is a "typical" Shute book, but this one is both typical and atypical. It is typical in that it is mostly about post-WWII era aircraft operations, and rather more intense on the aircraft angle than most of his other books. Also, like several of his other books, it pokes about at the meaning of morality.

On the atypical side, "Round the Bend" is somewhat alegorical and "preachy" in the same sense as "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Robert Pirsig read "Round the Bend" before he wrote "Zen".

Folks comfortable with Shute's writing will find that "Round the Bend" has his trademark writing style -- spartan, yet with a delicious amount of descriptive detail, intense, yet without an identifiable climax. As usual, he's not given to plot twists, but rather focuses on the development of human character and the way it plays out under unusual circumstances.

Rating:
Summary: Shute's best, at tale of better living through competence
Review: Tom Cutter, tired after World War II and the loss of his wife (he blames himself for her suicide), comes to the Persian Gulf to begin a small-scale aviation business. He throws himself into the business and makes a success of it. The business really takes off after he hires childhood friend Connie Shaklin as chief engineer, and soon after, Connie's sister Nadezna, as his secretary. But Cutter soon notices--Shaklin is giving semi-religious talks as he works, which are attracting attention and support not only from his co-workers, but from the Arab population, as they previously did in Cambodia, and when Shaklin is forced to go to Indonesia, again, he attracts attention and support, somewhat to the confusion of Cutter, who nevertheless is unfailing in his support of Shaklin, who seems to be beginning a religion that crosses religious boundaries.

Shute's most thought provoking of novels, as a new prophet arises in the form of an aviation engineer who adamantly denies he is a prophet, somewhat to the confusion of his friend and his sister.

Even the small characters (a gunrunner who, in seeing Shaklin and his work, is reminded of the small town and church in the Midwest where he grew up, for example) are finely drawn. And Shute often gets rather subtle--Cutter, whose first name is Thomas, three times denies Shaklin's divinity in a talk with the British officer, Captain Morrison.

Beautiful and gentle work by a master storyteller. You will look for villians in vain in this book. His best.

Rating:
Summary: Shute's best, at tale of better living through competence
Review: Tom Cutter, tired after World War II and the loss of his wife (he blames himself for her suicide), comes to the Persian Gulf to begin a small-scale aviation business. He throws himself into the business and makes a success of it. The business really takes off after he hires childhood friend Connie Shaklin as chief engineer, and soon after, Connie's sister Nadezna, as his secretary. But Cutter soon notices--Shaklin is giving semi-religious talks as he works, which are attracting attention and support not only from his co-workers, but from the Arab population, as they previously did in Cambodia, and when Shaklin is forced to go to Indonesia, again, he attracts attention and support, somewhat to the confusion of Cutter, who nevertheless is unfailing in his support of Shaklin, who seems to be beginning a religion that crosses religious boundaries.

Shute's most thought provoking of novels, as a new prophet arises in the form of an aviation engineer who adamantly denies he is a prophet, somewhat to the confusion of his friend and his sister.

Even the small characters (a gunrunner who, in seeing Shaklin and his work, is reminded of the small town and church in the Midwest where he grew up, for example) are finely drawn. And Shute often gets rather subtle--Cutter, whose first name is Thomas, three times denies Shaklin's divinity in a talk with the British officer, Captain Morrison.

Beautiful and gentle work by a master storyteller. You will look for villians in vain in this book. His best.