Carry Me Across the Water

In his Carry Me Across the Water, Ethan Canin enables us to see the profound and indescribable depths of humanity through the most unlikely means. With a non-linear plotline, a snapshot-style narrative, and a protagonist who isn't always the most likeable of men, Canin slowly pulls back the curtain on the life of August Kleinman and a number of life's crucial themes.Unlike many stories that struggle with the inner depths of a life, this is a masterpiece in reduction. By juxtaposing a few brief incidents in August's life, Canin alludes to the many great themes of life without losing us in the inconsequential details. I've noticed from other reviews here that some people feel as though Canin has given us a series of disconnected short stories rather than something complete. To a minimal extent that is true... much like it is true that all of our lives are really a series of seemingly disconnected events, and a focused plotline is something imposed by writers to make sense of it all. Canin shows us that, if you look closely enough, you might be able to grasp at the depths of life, even without the traditional narrative thread.

I bought "Carry Me Across The Water" the day it came out. I was blown away by Canin's book "For Kings & Planets" and had been eagerly awaiting his next one. I wasn't let down.In comparison with Canin's other works, "Carry Me" is short and almost poetic. This sparse novel only runs 206 pages in length, but the story is infinitely bigger. August Kleinman, the main character, is a man driven to complete a task his life has been leading him toward...as a young soldier in the Pacific during World War II, he killed a Japanese soldier. 50 years later, he brings the soldier's family "souveniers" that he collected when he killed the soldier. This book is a lot more than that, though. It is about love, and accepting the passage of time. It is about overcoming fear (particularly during the well-written World War II sequences.) It is also about moving on with your life.I loved every page of this novel. In terms of emotional impact, I would say it is like "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee...it is a short, amazingly suspenseful work that you will think about and remember for a long time afterward.

Wide in scope, yet focused intently on one man's character, this novel entwines you in its world and makes you happy to be caught. The story of August Kleinman's life is compelling not because it is emblematic of something larger (though, of course, it is), but because Canin so exactly draws the events of this man's life that you come to believe not only in the character, but that you truly experieced his life. A great novel.

This is a great book. It's short, but it ranges over continents and decades, and over the pivotal events of this century. I think it is the best of the three books of Mr. Canin's that I've read. I cried--not an exaggeration--at two scenes in the book, and at the end, which was one of the most powerful in my memory. I suppose I wish Mr. Canin had made the book a little longer, but that in a sense is a compliment, too. Most books I wish were shorter. This is serious, powerful, and heartbreaking work.

I loved this book. It's a riveting story of an old man's struggle to come to terms with a lifetime of decisions and their consequences. As Kleinman mounts a series of small, surprising initiatives to fight the boredom and loneliness of retirement and widowhood and to build a relationship with a grown son who distrusts and misunderstands him, he reflects with conflicting emotion on the experiences that have shaped his life. Canin covers an astonishing range of material here -- recognizing fear on his infant son's face in rough play, feeling peace as he and his mother fled Germany for America without his father-- these are moments so disparate in substance and scale and chronology that in most writers' hands the full story would take 600 pages to tell. Not in Canin's. He moves through them so seamlessly that despite my plans to get a good night's sleep I stayed up to finish the book in one sitting. And the compassion and emotional insight for which the author has earned a much-deserved reputation graces every scene. The CPR class Kleinman takes with his wife is alone worth the price of the book. This scene is less than a page (less than a page!), and reading it brought two friends who had not yet even read the rest of the book to tears. For those of you who haven't read Canin's other work, I envy you. Read "The Palace Thief" after this one. I challenge you not to read it more than once.