"Tunnel in the Sky" by Robert A. Heinlein

Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Going into this book I knew the author and the title and little more.

I wasn’t surprised in the beginning when it appeared as though this might go all space wizardry with worm-hole like transport to distant planets. However the story didn’t take the Tom Swift route. It turned slightly domestic as it followed the main protagonist, a teenage student named Rod Walker, from lollygagging about, to his trip through a tunnel from the east coast to his home in the southwest, dinner with his parents and sister, his school, and finally the survival assignment that would set the main stage for the novel; a weekend on an unexplored but hopefully habitable planet.

Rod is dropped off, as are numerous others, for his weekend of survival. However catastrophe leaves them stranded on the planet and soon Rod does begin encountering fellow students. His first conscious encounter, after having been mugged, is with Jack. Jack is actually the female Jackie but, it appears due to her competence, Rod never actually catches on that she is not a male. It is another student who first makes this observation.

Eventually the colony attracts others. It is here that the story takes a turn that reminded me of Lord of the Flies. However, in Tunnel in the Sky the stranded survivors attempt to avoid any sort of regression by recreating the civilization that they left behind. They form a governmental body with marriage certificates, and stabs at democracy.

The book was written in the mid-fifties and it’s hard to totally ignore the times from which it came. The women are on the cutting edge of equality when survival is questionable but expected to fall back into the traditional roles of domesticity as conditions allow; skirts for formal square dancing and all. This isn’t a criticism; just interesting. At the time it was probably a bold step forward; today it reads like one foot stuck firmly in the door.

I did have a problem with the main character. It may be a 50’s thing but by the end of the story, in spite of being portrayed as a savior of the community, I think he’s evolved into a whiney, who- gives-a-damn hindrance to the colony. For reasons that aren’t logical he decides against his own proposal of moving to a safer, defensible area. When rescue does happen he acts sullen and spoiled, like a dictator who enjoys the illusion that he was overwhelmingly elected.

In the end this is a well-written, sometimes exasperating book. The characters are observed and recorded but their motivations weren’t , at least to me, very clear. Lately, I find , that I prefer books that are more involving yet able to avoid crossing the line into navel gazing. Three stars seem fair. This is a good book, but not one that I’ll be thinking about much after this review..


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"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Judge a book by its cover and you might think that “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet” is simply the story of Jacob De Zoet, a clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company who arrived in Dejimi, a port off the coast of Japan in 1799. But this book is a thousand times more ambitious than simply the story of an honest clerk. It’s about everybody he meets, and the culture, and the crime, customs, traditions unrequited love, and forbidden practices. De Zoet is not some superhero who marches into all these situations and saves the day. In some cases his influence barely rates a ripple; in others he remains forever unaware.

The story is broken up into sections that sometimes feature a cast of characters within only the slightest connection to De Zoet. Yet, De Zoet never feels far from the action even when separated by time and distance.





****Possible Spoiler***




I clicked on the 4-start rating and immediately felt as though I had clicked one-star too few. This is easily a 5-start book—almost.

While reading I did get caught up in the life of De Zoet; what he did, what he might do, what he should do. The novel is certainly involving on that level. Maybe my disappointments with De Zoet are actually my own. After nearly 20 years living off the coast of Japan he remains unavoidably affected yet essentially unchanged. When he is forced to leave, leaving his son behind, one hopes for a desperate action, even if knowing it would be doomed to failure. No desperate action happens and De Zoet returns “home” where he is celebrated as a wartime hero. The extraordinary life that De Zoet’s has lived seems to have had little effect on him. For better or worse he lives out the remainder of his days as the same humble, honest, hardworking and loyal man that he sought to be from the beginning.

A great novel, a truly great novel, but I think I’ll leave the 4-star rating—at least for now. The book is put away, yet the story continues to play in my head. What was, what could have been—but wait! It’s only fiction. Probably the highest 4-star rating I’ll ever leave.


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