Most reviewed: The Other
<p>Critical attention this weekend has been wide-ranging, with nine different books receiving a similar number of reviews. Just out in front is <em>The Other </em>by David Guterson (Bloomsbury, 9780747592433, £18.99). The author of <em>Snow Falling on Cedars </em>has returned with his fourth novel, the tale of two friends, one of whom becomes a hermit in the American wilderness. </p><p>Reviews are sharply divided. Archie Bland writing in the<em> Independent</em> calls <em>The Other</em> a "fine novel" of "gentle, intelligent sadness", with only the mildest of hesitations: "Guterson is a writer whose unfailingly appropriate sense of rhythm and diction can actually make the reader long for a bit of linguistic violence," and "we're left with a kind of a shadow book that remains strange, beautiful, and tantalisingly just out of reach." </p><p>The <em>Guardian'</em>s Giles Foden finds much to praise in the "powerful evocation of landscape" but mostly in the novel's thematic reach: "[it is] a highly significant contribution to American literature, touching on . . . Puritan beginnings, westward expansion and journeys of exploration, ecological collapse, transcendentalism, apocalypticism, social decline, mass-media vacuity and the interplay of wealth and bohemia".</p><p>For Louise Dean in the <em>Sunday Telegraph</em>, the novel is "by turns both profound and vacuous". She finds that the themes detract from the hermit character: "There's anti-consumerism and environmental protest lurking here, and where these things are found in a novel, there's often a wooden hero," adding "[he] comes across as a statue striking a pose."</p><p>Melissa McClements, reviewing for the <em>Financial Times</em>, is even more disparaging. She describes the plot as "troubling", and concludes: "Sadly for Guterson fans, this is not a return to form."</p>