Deep River

by Shusaku Endo, Van C. Gessel (Translator)

Overview

"Endo has successfully dramatized the discovery that the sacred river of humanity flows within ourselves."—National Catholic Reporter

In this moving novel, a group of Japanese tourists, each of whom is wrestling with his or her own demons, travels to the River Ganges on a pilgrimage of grace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811213202
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/17/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	456,238
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Shusaku Endo (1923–1996) is widely regarded as one of the most important Japanese authors of the late twentieth century. He won many major literary awards and was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. His novel Silence was recently made into a major film directed by Martin Scorsese.

Van C. Gessel is a professor of Japanese at Brigham Young University, and has a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Columbia University. After joining the Church of Latter-day Saints in 1968, Gessel served as a missionary to Japan from 1970-71. He was given a lifetime achievement award from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture of Columbia University for his translations of modern Japanese fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Japanese novelist Endo combines a harsh critique of the emptiness in modern lives with a religious vision of spiritual rebirth. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A trip to India becomes a journey of discovery for a group of Japanese tourists playing out their "individual dramas of the soul." Isobe searches for his reincarnated wife, while Kiguchi relives the wartime horror that ultimately saved his life. Alienated by middle age, Mitsuko follows Otsu, a failed priest, to the holy city of Varanas, hoping that the murky Ganges holds the secret to the "difference between being alive and truly living." Looking for absolutes, each character confronts instead the moral ambiguity of India's complex culture, in which good and evil are seen as a whole as indifferent to distinction as the Ganges River, which washes the living and transports the dead. This novel is a fascinating study of cultural truths revealed through a rich and varied cast. Endo, one of Japan's leading writers, (The Final Martyrs, LJ 9/1/94) skillfully depicts the small details of life, investing them with universal significance. Highly recommended.-Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.

Library Journal

"…Mr. Endo is a master of the interior monologue, and he builds ‘case’ by ‘case,’ chapter by chapter, a devastating critique of the world that has ‘everything’ but lacks moral substance and seems headed nowhere. "

Robert Coles