"Deliverance" by James Dickey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970. First Printing. Jacket by Paul Bacon Studios
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the state's most remote white-water river awaits. Four men embark on a three-day canoe trip down a particularly wild section of the river. They are, with one exception, seemingly average suburban Americans: a mutual funds salesman, a supervisor in a soft-drink company, and a successful art director in a consulting firm who is the story's narrator. For them the trip represents a break in the domestic routine, a chance for adventure with few real risks, and the last occasion to see a beautiful valley unvisited and free before the river is dammed up. Their leader, an enthusiastic outdoorsman and champion archer, is obsessed by the desire to pit himself against nature.
When, the morning of the second day, two of the group are attacked viciously and perversely by mountaineers, a mildly adventurous canoe trip explodes into a nightmare of horror and murder. Men stalk and are stalked by other men and the treacherous river becomes a graveyard for those without the strength or the luck to survive. The narrator, forced to assume the leadership of his group and to pursue a dangerous multiple deception, must call upon all his resources to try to achieve deliverance.
A critically successful yet disturbing movie based on the book was produced in 1972 and it starred Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. The most uplifting scene in the movie is where Ronny Cox plays "Dueling Banjos" on guitar with a banjo-playing country boy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8
The most disgusting scene in the movie is the notorious male rape scene, "Squeal Like a Pig," with Ned Beatty doing the squealing.
"Deliverance" by James Dickey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970. First Printing. Jacket by Paul Bacon Studios
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the state's most remote white-water river awaits. Four men embark on a three-day canoe trip down a particularly wild section of the river. They are, with one exception, seemingly average suburban Americans: a mutual funds salesman, a supervisor in a soft-drink company, and a successful art director in a consulting firm who is the story's narrator. For them the trip represents a break in the domestic routine, a chance for adventure with few real risks, and the last occasion to see a beautiful valley unvisited and free before the river is dammed up. Their leader, an enthusiastic outdoorsman and champion archer, is obsessed by the desire to pit himself against nature.
When, the morning of the second day, two of the group are attacked viciously and perversely by mountaineers, a mildly adventurous canoe trip explodes into a nightmare of horror and murder. Men stalk and are stalked by other men and the treacherous river becomes a graveyard for those without the strength or the luck to survive. The narrator, forced to assume the leadership of his group and to pursue a dangerous multiple deception, must call upon all his resources to try to achieve deliverance.
A critically successful yet disturbing movie based on the book was produced in 1972 and it starred Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. The most uplifting scene in the movie is where Ronny Cox plays "Dueling Banjos" on guitar with a banjo-playing country boy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8
The most disgusting scene in the movie is the notorious male rape scene, "Squeal Like a Pig," with Ned Beatty doing the squealing.