Deep River

Deep River is an authentic and rewarding story that peers directly into the heart and mind of one of Japan's really great writers. I opened it and could not close it until I had finished it.This short (200 page) novel packs more emotional punch and character depth is a paragraph than most books do in a chapter. I was quickly taken in on Endo's portraiture of the main characters. Isobe grieving for his recently deceased wife is captured so well - the classic suffering in silence of a late middle age salaryman suddenly and for the first time unable to suppress feelings and emotions. There is Kiguchi. Endo deftly uses spare but gripping language to describe the desperation of the Japanese soldiers of WWII retreating through Burma at the tail end WWII. It's both a physical and mental hardship which plays on Kiguchi even 40 years later.Then there is the intriguing interplay between Mitsuko, 20 years removed from the beguilingly smart and beautiful college student who is now in middle age, divorced and still bothered by Otsu, a student at the same time as she, who is committed to Christianity but is insecure and inarticulate about his faith and position in life. She sees him as weak and yet cannot quite convince herself as she herself looks for something to commit to in her own life.These and others cross paths on a seemingly innocent group tour heading to India. Using the backdrop of 1980's India and the deep spirituality of the people coming to the Ganges in pilgrimage provokes something in each of our characters to lead them further on the path of life. The story ends with some characters finding what they were looking for and for others there remains lots of ambiguity.For me this was a deeply satisfying snapshot of men and women of various stages of life confronting emotional and spiritual needs.This is a well paced story with universal themes, empathetic characters and full of provocative challenges to the meaning of faith or friendship or alienation. It's done earnestly and intelligently.Equally I liked the very Japanese manner and tone. Endo questions the materialism creeping into modern Japan by then. He shows the growing generation gaps between characters of different ages. And he clearly has doubts about Christianity's role in Japan or Asia. He is willing to express where others may have only been thinking or burying deep within them. In Japan those are rare traits and because of that this is a gem.

I absolutely loved this book. It was a requirement for my Japanese Literature course and I'm very glad I got to read it. It's very interesting, especially because you along with the characters have no idea where it's all headed. I wouldn't describe it as 'eventful', but rather it goes through the book introducing various Japanese characters that are very unlike each other and how they all come together in the Ganges of India, each one searching for their own sense of understanding or closure in their lives. If you're familiar with Indian or Japanese culture, this may be of interest to you. I am personally interested in both, so I was pleased to see a lot of cultural blend. The author of this book, Endo Shusaku, was a Japanese Christian and struggled with that identity, trying to make sense of it, which does reveal itself in the pages of this book. It offers interesting perspectives and I would recommend to read with an open and thoughtful mind.

The last 2 CD's were duplicates of an earlier CD! Disappointed. The author and story were great - sure would like to know how it ended!

I bought this book to decide ir I wanted to take a short course about it. This book is the amazing story of 4 individuals, each with their own back story, going to India and the Ganges River specifically. Themes include feeling of apartness, responsibility, differing cultures, religions, good and bad within each of us, promises, etc. etc. A novel about people and less about plot. An amazing read for such a short book.

This novel is about a few Japanese tourists visiting India, especially Varanasi. I chose to read the novel originally because Varanasi is probably the most amazing place to which I have traveled, a holy Hindu city on the Ganges in India (also known as Benaras). So this novel would probably appeal most to people who have either visited or would want to visit Varanasi or an exotic place of spiritual importance like Varanasi.On the other hand, the novel is more about the characters of the individual Japanese: a man grieving over the death of his wife and hoping to find her reincarnated, another who has haunting memories of wartime in Burma, two rather shallow (but not atypical) tourists, a couple, one of whom just wants to take pictures without any real interest in the culture and his wife who wishes she were in Europe where everything is neater and cleaner, and a woman who is partly cynical about everything but who also gets drawn into elements of Indian spirituality.The novel would appeal to people interested in spirituality generally. The author seems to have a cosmopolitan view of spirituality, but the novel also has a Christian element. One of the characters, not mentioned in the previous paragraph, could be thought of as a Christ figure. Many will find him the most powerful figure of all.I enjoyed the novel and found the characters interesting. I don't know Japanese, but it seemed well translated or, I should say. written quite well in English.In sum, this is a good novel even if not an example of the greatest literature.

This novel by Shusaku Endo follows several Japanese tourists from their homeland to India and the holy waters of the Ganges river. The characters each face spiritual and moral crises in the course of the book. The author does an excellent job at intertwining the multiple story lines and setting the tone.Endo is also the author of Silence, and given the recent movie by Martin Scorcese, some may feel a need to reach that first. But it seems to me that both books, though similar in style and tone are stand alone books, one set in feudal Japan and this set in contemporary Japan and India.Highly recommended.

Book arrived as described. Good condition. Thank you!

Son needed the book for college class. The best price found was here. Arrived on time and book was in good condition.