Jessica Woodbury's Reviews > Deliverance

I read this book years ago, back in the days when I used the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list to guide my reading because I didn't really understand modern literature outside The Canon. It was one of the books that really stood out to me and I've always remembered it fondly. An Audible sale gave me the chance to experience it again and re-evaluate it with more years behind me and a much broader understanding of modern lit. It was not at all what I expected, and it still stands out with a handful of other novels that are much more thrilling than the rest.

Dickey was a poet before he was a novelist and his prose is observant and exhilarating, just like the story itself. It's an excellent pairing of writing and plot, the two flowing together perfectly. At first I thought the book might be a critique of masculinity, a kind of a laugh at the macho suburban man and his belief in his own power. I saw the character of Lewis, the suburban dad who's also a militant survivalist, as a rather obvious satire in the beginning, which sent me along that line. But I don't think Dickey quite sees it that way. I get his point of view but he and I differ ultimately on what the story should mean.

What makes the book work so well, regardless of my disagreements with Dickey, is the voice and the brain of Ed, the main character. Ed is sharply aware of his own place in the world, of his limitations, of the joys and woes in the suburban monotony of his life. If Ed didn't observe the world and the people in it as keenly as he does, the book may not have the kind of muscle it does. He may not be a very realistic character, I've certainly never encountered a man of his age with such acute understanding, but it works for the book. This isn't a story for an unreliable narrator. I don't know why I trusted Ed's voice so immediately, but I did. That is part of what Dickey does so well. It's hypnotic.

In the end, Dickey sees a grandness that may be in nature or may be what man can pull out of himself when confronted with nature. Either way, he sees Ed as a bigger person when the book is over. Whereas I see a group of shortsighted assholes who willingly walked themselves practically into their own graves. This is where Dickey and I differ, though you can read the book the way I do pretty much until the last few pages and still keep it in your head just fine.

It is rather interesting to me that this book (though really it's the movie more than the book) has been distilled entirely down to murderous, raping hillibillies. And it's interesting to me that while the book and the film dared to depict a man as a victim of rape, that it's become so singular as the symbol of this in pop culture that you almost never see it elsewhere. It's particularly frustrating when you think of just how often the rape of a woman is cheerfully depicted as a plot device. It is, to me, another commentary on masculinity and homophobia, on how we see the rape of men as emasculating, as instantly removing masculinity. (I don't think it's an accident that the victim in the book is the pudgy, nice guy rather than any of the tougher dudes.)

Anyway, this book gave me a lot to think about, even if Dickey and I don't see it the same way, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.