I have held onto my copy of To The White Sea by James Dickey for many years. It came out in 1993 and I have a first edition hardcover. Several times, I have almost given it away, but the setting and premise of a man walking north from Tokyo to Hokkaido appealed to me.
So, was it worth the wait?
In 1945, a young tail gunner stationed overseas is being briefed on the next mission, the firebombing of Toyko.
"We got to go burn the Japs up". "That's right," I told him. "Napalm and white phosphorus, that's going to be our big play", I grinned.
If you are into war and think that's a plan exciting enough to grin over, you might enjoy this book more than I did.
They fly over Toyko and in the middle of battle his plane is shot down, breaking up over the water. He manages to find shore, where the city is an inferno and the residents are running amok. He needs something else to wear, so he kills a guy. He needs shoes, so he kills another guy. After hiding for a time in a sewer pipe, he begins to walk towards the north. He was once in Alaska and thinks if he makes it north, he can hunt, fish, and live freely. The rest of the book is his journey sleeping rough, foraging for food and evading Japanese. The few times he meets someone, whether it is a woman at the local waterwheel or a couple eating in their house, he kills them without a thought or hesitation. I know it is wartime, but the callousness and dispassion of removing what is in his way continues through the book, and makes it a depressing read. There are a few moments where he stays near a waterfall, stumbles on a zen monastery, and relates to the power of the animals, but mainly he is shallow and unempathetic to his surroundings.
The cover of one edition says it's a World War II Classic. The Coen Brothers were trying make it into a film starring Brad Pitt being shot down over China. With the central figure wandering through the countryside and minimal dialogue, it could have been interesting. So, some people like it.
I was waiting for him to lose his fighting ways, become more in tune with the land around him, and possibly end up a more peaceful person, at least gain awareness that other people in the world besides himself have purpose and value. Some kind of personal transformation would have been nice. If you are a hunter this might appeal to you, he has that mentality throughout, but I was looking for a deeper experience of the land and the people. I thought he was a self-centered American at the start and didn't see any growth. The finale offered me no hope as well.
James Dickey wrote Deliverance in 1970, the basis for the hit film, and is also a poet. He was the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966. The writing is pure and often beautiful. However, I found 275 pages of walking, hiding in fields and sharpening his knife dreary by the end. The quote on the cover says "Heroic" - I would say the adventure was but the character was arrogant and unpleasant.
The feeling at the end of it was distasteful. Wanted to like it, can't do it.
Not recommended.
1993 / Hardcover / 275 pages
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