Deliverance Paperback – September 10, 1994

The film Deliverance is one of my top ten favorite movies of all time, and after recently rereading the James Dickey novel for I think the third time, I would have to count it among my all-time favorite books as well. Published in 1970, Deliverance is certainly one of the greatest novels of the second half of the 20th century. Fans of the film will find the novel every bit as riveting as its cinematic adaptation, and the book also provides a deeper insight into the characters, setting, and plot elements. Ed Gentry (the Jon Voigt character) narrates the story in the first person, which gives the reader an intimate connection to his thoughts and feelings during what develops into a very tense and harrowing experience. The course of events before and after the canoe trip is more thoroughly explored than in the film, and the reader learns a lot about the characters’ everyday lives—their occupations, their families, their everyday personalities—making it all the more compelling when they are forced to fight for those lives.For those who have never seen the film, Deliverance is the story of four men who decide to take one last canoe trip on a soon-to-be-dammed wild river in a remote North Georgia wilderness. The adventure is more than they bargained for, however, when the party is attacked and forced to fight for their survival. Deliverance is a gripping adventure novel, but it is also an insightful examination of modern masculinity. Ed Gentry is happy to skate through a life of good-enough contentment that borders on complacency. His friend Lewis Medlock (the Burt Reynolds character), on the other hand, only feels alive when he is pushing himself to the limits of survival. Though more of an everyman realist, Ed can’t help but admire Lewis for his uncompromising machismo. For Ed, the canoe trip is his chance to embark on some sort of Lewis fantasy camp. When things get out of hand, however, what started as grown-ups at play in the wild turns deadly serious, and Ed finds himself faced with the greatest challenge of his life.Deliverance is the best wilderness survival film ever made. Truly good wilderness adventure movies are hard to find, and the same is true for literature. Dickey may be the best wilderness adventure writer since Jack London. Reading this book gives one a visceral experience of the beauty and deadliness of the wild. Dickey makes the reader feel the woods, the river, and the rocks like few authors can. In addition, he brings a rich psychological depth to the characters that is on a par with writers like Hemingway or Steinbeck. Though the first person narrative occasionally veers into stream of consciousness, the book never succumbs to modernist excesses of verbal cleverness. The prose is taut and relevant, and the gripping story never relents.Another unique aspect of Deliverance is that, unlike most action/adventure stories, after the life and death struggle takes place, the survivors must return to civilization and explain themselves. This adds another dimension of realism to the story that really elevates it above typical genre fiction into the realm of great literature. Author James Dickey (who played the sheriff in the movie) considered himself first and foremost a poet. He only wrote three novels, which is a shame considering how great this book is. His subsequent novels, Alnilam and To the White Sea, didn’t quite measure up to the same standard of greatness, but Deliverance will always stand as a masterpiece of modern American literature.

One word: proofreader. This e-book had a particular aversion to the letter F, as in there were many of them missing from the copy. Still readable, but distracting. Get the paperback.

Beautiful book, one of the best American novels of the 20th century. The reader can feel the river flowing with the canoe, the spray across the face, the heat and exhaustion entailed in moving through mysterious woods filled with flora and fauna of every description. And, the utter heart-pounding nightware of being the hunter/hunted in an alien environment peopled with savage mountain men who would rather kill or rape you than look at you. But, there are compensations, let's admit, such as the complete delight in wiping out the bad guys with timely arrows in the back or throat. Go on and admit it. They are animals and so we surprise ourselves by becoming just like them. As our characters discover, they too can kill and lie with the best of them. We can call it self-defense or is it our inner caveman? It's the intensity of all these feelings invoked in the reader that make Deliverance so compelling, so instructive and so completely absorbing. Forget the banjo, give me the 150lb. crossbow with night vision and scope!There are major themes woven in this unique plot: like Lord of the Flies, the thin line between civilization and savagery, the rapidity at which we can get down and dirty, the warrior ethic buried in each of us. There are other themes/observations as well: the softness and flabby character of the "civilized" person, our couch potato silliness and the fact that, ultimately, many of us have lost our edge, physically and mentally, and really couldn't hack it in the wilderness. Also, there is the observation of the contempt which "city folk" feel for the rural lifestyle and its denizens, many of whom, notwithstanding our mountain men butchers, are more noble, self-reliant and capable than their counterparts, the modern day city wusses. I think Dickey delighted in the stark terror rendered in the city slickers with their little weekend jaunt down the Cahulawassee and contempt for the inbred banjo player upended, like their canoes, by the realization that the locals feel their hatred and mean to repay it in kind.Have we lost our edge? Are we truly civilized? Or are we just thinly veneered animals at heart not any better than anyone else? Or, are we truly rounded humans capable of anything but in shape and under self-control and not sneering at the next guy? Deliverance confronts us with these issues.Modern day America has experienced Deliverance in the age of terror. We have lost our comfort zone and silly pretensions. We are in the jungle, dealing with the worst "mountain men", and we mean to do them in. We have a president, bless him, notwithstanding his class and charm, willing to do them in by all means available, whether by Seals gunfire, a drone, an arrow or a poisoned banjo. We are way down the river on this one and the warrior ethic has set in. Dickey, a Georgian and true patriot, would have been proud.

This is a frightening book. In particular, the theme of an alien country within a country. The narrator can spot 'to the block', precisely where 'suburbia ended and red-neck South began'. Yet within an ordinary afternoon's car ride, the protagonists enter a country frighteningly different and unsafe.It is unsafe from both the moral outlook of it's inhabitants and from the power of Nature. Ed and his friends live in a country where all decisions are made by white middle class men and they seek 'the promise of other things'. In this other country, the game is played by different rules and they are not the masters.Given the publication date, it is tempting to draw analogies with the Vietnam War. One wonders about the novel's later influence: 'The Deer Hunter' anyone? Or 'Never get out the boat!' in Apocalypse Now?I found the ending oddly ambivalent and sensed, rightly or wrongly, that Mr Dickey was unsure of how to end it.

Good story so far, not finished it yet, slightly different from the movie (from what I remember), in point of fact makes me want to revisit the movie.I am surprised to tell the truth with all the remakes of movies nobody has done one of this?

bought this book to research how James Dickey managed to make the story so compelling. As an author I am constantly trying to learn from the masters of my genre. I loved the film, even though it was so cruel and shocking, and the book was just as good.

great read, felt like I was there with these guys.

A wonderful film revealing the true nature of mountain men in the USA when "smart city types" decide to go native. By the way the service from the seller was excellent.