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Title: A Single Pebble by John Hersey ISBN: 0-394-75697-5 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 11 February, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Single Pebble
Comment: A single pebble is probably one of the few books in my life that I would read more than once. I like the clash between cultures because it is something we could all relate to if we have traveled to another country. The story is about a young engineer who goes on a journey up the Yangtze River trying to find a good spot to build a dam to make the river safer for boats. The young engineer is faced with many challenges such as the language barrier between himself and the boats crew and the fact that no one else on the boat wants him there because they think he is bad luck. He also starts to think that he is bad luck because on the trip their lead tracker falls into the river to his death, and he blammed the the trackers death on himself. Over all, the book was good with a mix of a little bit of action and some suspence to make you want to keep reading.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not Among Hersey's Greatest Works
Comment: Many of Hersey's other books are moving, memorable stories. A Bell for Adano and Hiroshima are among Hersey's best, and these books should be read by any well-rounded individual. A Single Pebble, however, is more forgetable. Hersey does do a good job presenting the clash between traditional Chinese culture and modern Western culture in the early twentieth century. However, the clash between the main character, an engineer representing Western culture, and another leading character, a boatsman representing traditional Chinese culture, is so artificially strong that the reader can sympathize with neither character or position. The book anticlimaxes and concludes with some overly abstract thoughts on the future of China. Ultimately, it is not a book of the same quality as many of Hersey's other works, nor is it a story of the same quality as other stories (in multiple media) that probe the differences between East Asian and Eurpoean culture.
Rating: 5
Summary: Revisiting A Single Pebble
Comment: Although published almost 50 years ago, this book deserves another look using a modern, critical lens. Overshadowed by Hersey's other works, specifically Hiroshima and A Bell for Adano, A Single Pebble offers a great deal to the reader. The book is far more than a fictionalized travelogue of a trip up the Yangtse River. It is a work that documents exposure to the acts and ideas of another culture by an American used to thinking of himself as representative of all that is modern and educated, and therefore all that is to be considered as desireable or superior. As a reader, I came away from the book with the idea that all that I think glitters may not be gold. It should be noted, however, that this is not an American-bashing book; both sides--the narrator and the Chinese people he meets--are guilty of a type of national myopia when viewing the "Other" in their midst. Those interested in Postcolonial and Cultural studies will find plenty to occupy them, whichever side of the debate they fall on.
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Title: River Town : Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler ISBN: 0060953748 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 24 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The River at the Center of the World : A Journey Up the Yangtze and Back in Chinese Time by Simon Winchester ISBN: 0805055088 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze's Three Gorges by Deirdre Chetham ISBN: 0312214170 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 18 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna, Robert Shenk ISBN: 1557504466 Publisher: United States Naval Inst. Pub. Date: July, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang ISBN: 0385425473 Publisher: Anglophone Sa Pub. Date: 03 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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