I confess I don't know how Nevil Shute does it. This novel, written about 1951, purports to be the autobiography of an airline entrepreneur after WWII. He starts in England with a single small plane and gradually builds an airfreight empire centered in Bahrain. He has no interests other than his business, and he achieves success by pluck, unremitting hard work, sinking every penny back into the business, and hiring the best people as mechanics, engineers, and pilots, even if they aren't white Europeans. His narrative is plain, spare, un-ironic, and toneless. First this happened, then this. It sails very close to boring. His philosophy seems to be "Forget prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude; the real virtues are competence, practicality, honesty, and once somebody has demonstrated those, open-mindedness towards his possibly strange and foreign way of life." The real subject of the story emerges only very slowly and with increasing fascination--it is that his oldest friend and chief engineer seems to be some kind of religious nut who has gone "round the bend." He preaches a kind of mindful work ethic to his co-workers. "Good work and right thinking are as one." Do your job carefully and with respect. Done that way, it will be God's work. His presence and charisma are apparently irresistible. Slowly he begins to attract followers and his reputation grows. He attracts Muslims in the Mideast, Hindus in India, and Buddhists in the far East. The narrator (his friend and boss) is only slightly aware of all this, but he is happy to let it go on--he has a supremely expert workforce and marvelously well-maintained planes as a result. What's not to like? But gradually political and other tensions grow. Finally his friend is diagnosed with leukemia and dies the calm death of a holy man, worshiped by many thousands. Gradually the book has completely shifted from its apparent subject. The narrator can't quite believe in his friend's holiness, but even he in his skepticism has been moved. Near the end he admits with typical simplicity, "I don't think about things in quite the way I used to." And neither does the reader.
I have read every book by Mr. Shute and the screenplay I am aware of, and he remains my favorite author. I think this book is his best, and it remains my favorite book I have ever read.Perhaps what I like best is that is seems the last kind of book a post-Victorian English Man would have written, especially one born into the “upper middle class”. He treats the "non-Europeans" like people, and not "wogs". He shows disdain for Europeans who do treat people like "wogs". As a wog myself I appreciate this especially. As an “Air Force brat” the aviation aspects were a great read. All the religions mentioned were handled rather more even-handedly than I would have expected. None were denigrated. The Arabs were not demonized, there were no jingoistic references and the only people dealt with critically were members of the diplomatic core who behaved in a stupid fashion. The story has inspired me to live my life better. It (the story) calls attention to injustice in many forms (especially racism and religious intolerance) and shows that people of good intention can affect solutions to common problems. I related to both one character’s love of flying and the other’s “collecting religions” as a way to better understand how different people see the world.I like this book so much it has become the only book I give as a gift on a regular basis. I find it to be thought-provoking and hopeful. It explains why his work remains popular to this day.
What do You think about Round The Bend (2002)?
Fabulous read. About how a aeronautical mechanic with mystical leanings, spreads a philosophy across different Eastern religions that doing good mechanical work is also doing God's work. If done to the best of one's ability, any work, whether humble sweeping or intricate mechanical engineering, is an offering to God and mankind.The book also contains interesting detail of the day to day running of an air freight business based in the middle east, and it's expansion to the far east.Both practical and philosophical, this is a fascinating read.Highly recommended.
—Muriel Schwenck
Too bad that most people only know Nevil Shute for On The Beach. He wrote many other wonderful books, of which Round The Bend is one. Tom Cutter, a young Englishman, goes to the middle east right after World War II to start an airline freight charter service on a shoestring. Through luck and hard work, he succeeds beyond his expectations, and along the way reconnects with a Sino-Russian friend, Shak Lin, from his youth. Shak Lin is a crack airplane maintenance man, and goes to work for Cutter. The book is concerned with Shak Lin's growth into a cult hero among middle eastern airplane mechanics, and the further growth of Cutter's business and, not least, his world view. The book's genius lies in its exploration of what a leader and a vision can mean to humans in their own development, and at what point inspirational leadership crosses the line to spiritual enlightenment. An important subtext is the parallel (or not?) structure of Cutter and Shak Lin's lives, and the extent to which each fulfills his destiny. Highly recommended
—Al
My favorite Shute book. A no-nonsense engineer grapples with the disturbing possibility that his best airplane mechanic may in fact be an incarnation of the Messiah. Imagine Richard Bach’s “Illusions,” except not written by a drugged-up hippie. Now visualize “Atlas Shrugged," except not written by a fascist propagandist. Mix non-violently and you have this weird, compelling, unique fable about a man trying to reconcile Modernism with Mysticism, finding spiritual value in technical precision, and grudgingly opening up to the possibility of the divine.
—Stuart
