Peace Like a River - Leif Enger

What will you do if you come to know that a certain book resembles “To kill a Mocking bird”, in my case I didn’t even give it a much thought and bought “Peace Like a River”. So that’s how I came to know of it, no previous knowledge, no earlier idea, just the fact that PLAR is close to “TKAMB” and I love that book.

So much nice words about the book on starting pages were also the one of driving forces. Before I begun my part of review, I would like to share some of those reviews on front pages :

“Peace like a River serves as a reminder of why we read fiction to begin with.”

“Once in a great while, a book comes along that has such wonderful characters and marvelous prose, that you read it as much for the pure joy it offers on every page as to find out how it ends”

“Book lovers inclined to complain that novelists don’t write gripping stories anymore would do well to pick up a copy of Peace Like a river.”

About the Author and Book : PLAR is Leif Engers first book. He lives in Minnesota on a farm with his wife and sons. He is grown with stories of R. L. Stevenson’s and other such authors read to him by his mother and the effect of it shows everywhere in the PLAR. The book was first released in 2001 and has been awarded as Time Magazine’s top five books of the year, Los Angles Times best book of the year and so on. The book is 310 pages long which a bit too much for a reader like me, but leaving few of the chapters which are bit slower in pace, rest of the book is worth all the pages.

About the Story :The story is narrated by the 11 year asthmatic old boy, Rueben, and it’s the story if his family, Land’s family. It begins with a miracle where Jermiah (Father of Rueben) brings Rueben back to life at the time of his birth, though the doctor has already declared him dead. The mother dies soon afterwards. The family lives happily in a place called Roofing, where Jermiah is a Janitor in a school, children also study in the same school which involve Davy (Rueben’s 16 year elder brother) and Swede (his 8 year old sister) and Rueben himself. Everything was fine till Jermiah saves a girl from two school boys, bad ones, who were trying to molest her. So these boys start disturbing the family to take revenge and one day Davy out of anger kills both of them when they try to kidnap Swede. Davy goes to jail and case becomes the headlines in the town, with some against and some with Davy. Then Davy escapes from the jail. Jermiah along with Swede and Rueben starts a cross- country search for his outlaw son. Their journey unfolds, with ups and downs, with miracles happening to help them. Whether they succeeds in finding Davy, and what happens to him is for you to find out.

Well, its only a fraction of story, there are lot of other characters of interest, but covering them will make this review too long to write and read too.

There is one chapter in the ending “Be Jubilant, my feet” where Rueben dreams of what happens to people and where they go after death, the description given there of the place and words used to show his emotions are too good. Though I know that’s not what happens afterwards.

What we get from the book : Some of things that I liked about the book are :

1.) First and foremost is the character Swede, who gets into your heart from her very first mention in the story. The mischievous things she do and the caring attitude she has towards her family, her writing abilities, her poems especially the one with Sundown, Here it is :

“    ..and as they approached sunny rose to his feet,

Reading this full poem is a paisa vasool in itself. Genius of writer shows in the poetry too.

Swede please forgive if am not able to glorify your character in a better way, but I would love to have a daughter like you. And I would like to be a man like Jermiah, character very close to Atticus of TKAMB.

2.) The whole story, here and there, is full of miracles which are mostly performed by Jermiah Land. It rebuilts a persons faith in GOD and His Will. God really helps those who believe in Him all we have to do is be Honest and faithful to ourselves and Him. Jermiah is a good example of a character we all should stick too.

3.) This book depicts an ideal family, like all families should be. Ideal not in the sense of happy, rich factors… It’s in the way of things like love between the members and the way they stick to each others in the crisis. How they never let their faith in God fade with circumstances. Even the children of 8 and 11 mould their selves according to the needs and circumstances of the family. Too good.

4.) Since the story is narrated through a boy of 11 it has an innocence of a child in it that’s the most loving part of it, just like “To Kill a mocking bird”. Well that’s the only way it resembles it, story is totally different.

Some lines from the book :

“Be careful whom you choose to hate.

The small and the vulnerableown a protection great enough, if you could but see it, to melt you into jelly”

Below is an extract where Swede tries to tell Rueben how he should make a sacrifice of his desires for the sake of family.

“In ‘Little women’, she said—see?—when Jo cut her hair and sold to pay for Marmee’s train fare—you remember?”

Finally I’ll say that the book is a must read for people who still believe in God and miracles He can perform, who love the culture and times lost long ago when innocence and faith was their in the heart of people. Its also for the people who love books like TKAMB, they will love this one too, though I still rate TKAMB much higher than this book.

Don’t forget to rate and comment, you know, it inspires to write more.

Take care and keep Smiling and Reading.

Vikky Gural

PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA...

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