The Age of Terror

Rating:
Summary: Misery loves company
Review: A young man comes to Russia, becomes involved with a woman who makes her living in the white slavery business. Through her he meets her totally diabolical ganster partner, also an American expatriot. He also meets her 17 year old son, the entire meaning of her life, a secret which she keeps hidden from her evil partner. Our hero, God bless him, manipulates the situation so that her partner thinks she has betrayed him and he also learns about the existence of the son. Soon her son disappears into the white slavery void, which the reader is lead to believe is a living death. Our hero has now deprived this woman of the meaning in her life, she is now ready to be his partner in suicide. Beautifully written, this nightmare novel, hints at a spiritual vacuum within the young American. Somewhere deep inside he thinks that God ignores petty sins, and that only a vast and terrible betrayal will get God's attention. Like the hero in Paul Bowles' Let It Come Down, those without meaning in life are revealed to be the most dangerous type of humans. Greed or revene or lust pales in comparison to those who are filled with nothingness. Plante's hero seems to be escaping from a Christian nation, doubting all the lessons of his culture and childhood faith. Bowles's hero in comparison carrys a mask of normalcy even though he has broken ties with any social contract.

Rating:
Summary: Buy it now!
Review: David Plante may very well be America's most underrated novelist. Age of Terror is a triumph. It will grab you from the very first page and hold you till the end while it challenges, provokes and surprises even the most well-read readers. Especially those who enjoy books in the tradtions of Dostoevsky, Melville, Goethe or Kazantsakis will feel rewarded and nourished by this book. A spiritual ride through human sexuality, crudeness and search for truth and meaning. The book is courageous and overwhelmingly real, but hopeful and full of love for the human soul.

Rating:
Summary: Buy it now!
Review: David Plante may very well be America's most underrated novelist. Age of Terror is a triumph. It will grab you from the very first page and hold you till the end while it challenges, provokes and surprises even the most well-read readers. Especially those who enjoy books in the tradtions of Dostoevsky, Melville, Goethe or Kazantsakis will feel rewarded and nourished by this book. A spiritual ride through human sexuality, crudeness and search for truth and meaning. The book is courageous and overwhelmingly real, but hopeful and full of love for the human soul.

Rating:
Summary: STELLAR PROSE - SHATTERING STORY
Review: I sat out most of 1998 reading hundreds of novels and non-fiction entries, and the only one I can vividly recall is David Plante's mesmerizing AGE OF TERROR. Yes, it is utterly depressing and bleak, but the beautiful aspects of the human soul shine through in its gorgeous poetry and vaguely - though craftily - skteched imagery. The story of a young American who journeys to post-Communist Russia to encounter love - and the most grim aspects of capitalism - gently snakes to a climax that is just... shattering.

Rating:
Summary: STELLAR PROSE - SHATTERING STORY
Review: I sat out most of 1998 reading hundreds of novels and non-fiction entries, and the only one I can vividly recall is David Plante's mesmerizing AGE OF TERROR. Yes, it is utterly depressing and bleak, but the beautiful aspects of the human soul shine through in its gorgeous poetry and vaguely - though craftily - skteched imagery. The story of a young American who journeys to post-Communist Russia to encounter love - and the most grim aspects of capitalism - gently snakes to a climax that is just... shattering.