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anabradley's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Set in Arizona, in a hotel at the edge of the Grand Canyon, Vita Sackville-West imagines a world in which the Nazis have defeated England. The USA has signed a peace deal with Germany, but, inevitably, a peace that spans the grand canyon between evil and relative good is doomed to be broken. Written before the end of the second world war, S-W speculates on a vastly uncertain future. However, to describe 'Grand Canyon' purely as speculative fiction is only to recognise a facet of its substance.
For me, S-W is much more concerned with the canyon between life and death and the role of nature in human activity than she is with Nazism. In fact, the evils of Nazi doctrine are barely even brushed upon. Instead, those with Nazi sympathies appear to act with some sort of impartial desire to wreak destruction. In one such act, the patrons of the hotel are forced to take refuge within the walls of the canyon. Here, surrounded by the natural world, they are able to connect on a much deeper, more human, level.
The guests are kept informed of the plight of the outside world through radio bulletins reporting on the Nazi invasion of the USA. However, the world of the guests is confined to the walls of the canyon. They are neither here nor there, dead nor alive. 'Physical events, however terrible, however multiple, were neither larger nor smaller than the capacity of the heart to interpret them', remarks the narrator, demonstrating the detachment of the novel from its subject- war. 'Grand Canyon' is a novel of personal depth more than it is a speculation on a grand scale. It is also a novel that deplores the impartiality of war, in its tendency to harm everyone, regardless of good or evil.
In her final pages, S-W's dystopian New York is plagued by bombing, which triggers cataclysmic natural disasters. Soldiers and civilians from sides of the war are killed, demonstrating nature's 'grand impartiality', and the ultimate horror of war. 'Grand Canyon' is so much more than the speculative fiction it is described as. It is closer to a philosophical examination of what it means to be impartial.
For me, S-W is much more concerned with the canyon between life and death and the role of nature in human activity than she is with Nazism. In fact, the evils of Nazi doctrine are barely even brushed upon. Instead, those with Nazi sympathies appear to act with some sort of impartial desire to wreak destruction. In one such act, the patrons of the hotel are forced to take refuge within the walls of the canyon. Here, surrounded by the natural world, they are able to connect on a much deeper, more human, level.
The guests are kept informed of the plight of the outside world through radio bulletins reporting on the Nazi invasion of the USA. However, the world of the guests is confined to the walls of the canyon. They are neither here nor there, dead nor alive. 'Physical events, however terrible, however multiple, were neither larger nor smaller than the capacity of the heart to interpret them', remarks the narrator, demonstrating the detachment of the novel from its subject- war. 'Grand Canyon' is a novel of personal depth more than it is a speculation on a grand scale. It is also a novel that deplores the impartiality of war, in its tendency to harm everyone, regardless of good or evil.
In her final pages, S-W's dystopian New York is plagued by bombing, which triggers cataclysmic natural disasters. Soldiers and civilians from sides of the war are killed, demonstrating nature's 'grand impartiality', and the ultimate horror of war. 'Grand Canyon' is so much more than the speculative fiction it is described as. It is closer to a philosophical examination of what it means to be impartial.
nwhyte's review
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2973364.html
Sackville-West tells us in her foreword:
"In Grand Canyon I have intended a cautionary tale. In it I have contemplated the dangers of a world in which Germany, by the use of an unspecified method of attack, is assumed to have defeated Great Britain in the present war. Peace terms have been offered on the basis of the status quo of 1939 and the Germans have made a plausible appeal to the United States Government (who have meanwhile satisfactorily concluded their own war with Japan) to mediate in the name of humanity to prevent a prolongation of human suffering. For the purposes of my story I have allowed the United States Government to fall into the Nazi trap and to be deluded into making this intervention as "the nation which, in its hour of victory, brought peace to the world." The terrible consequences of an incomplete conclusion or indeed of any peace signed by the Allies with an undefeated Germany are shown. Such a supposition is by no means intended as a prophecy and indeed bears no relation at all to my own views as to the outcome of the present war."
The setting is, surprise surprise, the Grand Canyon, where a tourist hotel hosts a number of European exiles have ended up fleeing the devastation of the other side of the Atlantic. The first half of the book sets the scene of a sedate romance between Helen Temple and Lester Dale; but the inevitable German attack happens, and in the second half of the book, the hotel guests flee to the bottom of the canyon, on a journey that is not at all what it seems to be at first. The metaphors are obvious but not laboured, and the situation of Helen, Lester and the other characters is rather well conveyed.
Sackville-West tells us in her foreword:
"In Grand Canyon I have intended a cautionary tale. In it I have contemplated the dangers of a world in which Germany, by the use of an unspecified method of attack, is assumed to have defeated Great Britain in the present war. Peace terms have been offered on the basis of the status quo of 1939 and the Germans have made a plausible appeal to the United States Government (who have meanwhile satisfactorily concluded their own war with Japan) to mediate in the name of humanity to prevent a prolongation of human suffering. For the purposes of my story I have allowed the United States Government to fall into the Nazi trap and to be deluded into making this intervention as "the nation which, in its hour of victory, brought peace to the world." The terrible consequences of an incomplete conclusion or indeed of any peace signed by the Allies with an undefeated Germany are shown. Such a supposition is by no means intended as a prophecy and indeed bears no relation at all to my own views as to the outcome of the present war."
The setting is, surprise surprise, the Grand Canyon, where a tourist hotel hosts a number of European exiles have ended up fleeing the devastation of the other side of the Atlantic. The first half of the book sets the scene of a sedate romance between Helen Temple and Lester Dale; but the inevitable German attack happens, and in the second half of the book, the hotel guests flee to the bottom of the canyon, on a journey that is not at all what it seems to be at first. The metaphors are obvious but not laboured, and the situation of Helen, Lester and the other characters is rather well conveyed.
atticmoth's review
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
SPOILERS IN LAST PARAGRAPH:
This is definitely a book with a purpose, as declared in Vita's "Author's Note" at the start. I almost wish I hadn't read that, or had gone into this knowing nothing, because I think I would have enjoyed the worldbuilding a good deal more. For me the greatest value of this was its historicity-- this was published in 1942, which makes the alternate history scenario much more terrifying, because it was written by someone who literally didn't know how the war was going to end! That also may be why this book never became a "classic" and is so hard to find, too. It's definitely intended for a contemporary audience rather than enduring.
"Grand Canyon" is divided into two parts, at the hotel and in the canyon. I actually found the first part more interesting, where nothing happened. I could honestly see Kazuo Ishiguro writing something like this, with all the themes of reminiscing on a bygone era and all. (Maybe this is what happens if Lord Darlington's plan in Remains of the Day actually worked out! lmao). It's very very British, and kind of funny to read about the Southwest from such a British voice, but I did kind of like the comedy of manners that she plays with.
The actual attack is more than halfway through the book, and while not exactly anticlimactic I found the second section less interesting than the psychological novel bits in the first. The worldbuilding went from subtle to lazy, and at this point I got kind of sick of the rambling conversations which seemed more like vessels for philosophical jargon. Needless to say yes there is a twist and I'll mention it down here... it's a massive spoiler!
SPOILERS BELOW
So, I read a first edition copy I got from UT's library, and in my copy part 1 ends with "She carried his poor little naked corpse carefully down into Bright Angel Trail. A bird’s body is very light."
However, the version on Project Gutenberg ends part 1 with:
"She carried his poor little naked corpse carefully down into Bright Angel Trail. A bird’s body is very light. What Madame de Retz did not realise and what the others did not realise, was that they had all been killed on their way to the head of the trail. Grigori had died outright because he had no soul.
The others went on. They had to go on. They had to complete their fate in spite of their apparent death."
The version I read keeps the literal M. Night Shyamalan plot twist until the very end, and just drops it in a really jarring way that I'll admit did shock me, though I saw it coming with all the miraculous healing. I'm really glad I didn't read the digital edition of this, because I would have liked the book a lot less if that had been spoiled for me before even getting to part 2.
This is definitely a book with a purpose, as declared in Vita's "Author's Note" at the start. I almost wish I hadn't read that, or had gone into this knowing nothing, because I think I would have enjoyed the worldbuilding a good deal more. For me the greatest value of this was its historicity-- this was published in 1942, which makes the alternate history scenario much more terrifying, because it was written by someone who literally didn't know how the war was going to end! That also may be why this book never became a "classic" and is so hard to find, too. It's definitely intended for a contemporary audience rather than enduring.
"Grand Canyon" is divided into two parts, at the hotel and in the canyon. I actually found the first part more interesting, where nothing happened. I could honestly see Kazuo Ishiguro writing something like this, with all the themes of reminiscing on a bygone era and all. (Maybe this is what happens if Lord Darlington's plan in Remains of the Day actually worked out! lmao). It's very very British, and kind of funny to read about the Southwest from such a British voice, but I did kind of like the comedy of manners that she plays with.
The actual attack is more than halfway through the book, and while not exactly anticlimactic I found the second section less interesting than the psychological novel bits in the first. The worldbuilding went from subtle to lazy, and at this point I got kind of sick of the rambling conversations which seemed more like vessels for philosophical jargon. Needless to say yes there is a twist and I'll mention it down here... it's a massive spoiler!
SPOILERS BELOW
So, I read a first edition copy I got from UT's library, and in my copy part 1 ends with "She carried his poor little naked corpse carefully down into Bright Angel Trail. A bird’s body is very light."
However, the version on Project Gutenberg ends part 1 with:
"She carried his poor little naked corpse carefully down into Bright Angel Trail. A bird’s body is very light. What Madame de Retz did not realise and what the others did not realise, was that they had all been killed on their way to the head of the trail. Grigori had died outright because he had no soul.
The others went on. They had to go on. They had to complete their fate in spite of their apparent death."
The version I read keeps the literal M. Night Shyamalan plot twist until the very end, and just drops it in a really jarring way that I'll admit did shock me, though I saw it coming with all the miraculous healing. I'm really glad I didn't read the digital edition of this, because I would have liked the book a lot less if that had been spoiled for me before even getting to part 2.
morgandhu's review
4.0
In 1942, Vita Sackville-West published Grand Canyon, a speculative novel - a future history with a strong element of the fantastic - in which Germany has overrun all of Europe, and established a sort of truce with America. The time period is vague; it’s far enough in the future for a means if extracting electricity from the air to have been discovered, for new dance crazes to have developed. European emigres wander through the American landscape, detached and lost, while life goes on around them.
The novel is set in a tourist hotel by the Grand Canyon. Among its guests are the serene and enigmatic Englishwoman, Helen Temple, the cynical Lester Dale, the exotic and emotional Madame de Retz, the blind Czech refugee with his silent German attendant, the deaf Englishman who carries a skate around his neck to enable communication, and a gaggle of young American college students, co-eds, on holiday, one of whom, Lorraine Driscoll, is worried about something. Most of the staff are nameless, save for the consumptive maid Sadie. A band of black musicians perform “whizz music” on the dance patio. Next to the hotel is a village of deliberately picturesque Hopi, who sell overpriced souvenirs and perform “Indian dances” as part of the evening entertainment.
Nearby is a camp of military personal preparing for “manoeuvres,” not much further as the crow flies is an airbase; some of the soldiers and airmen frequent the hotel for dinner and evening entertainment.
Living secretly in a long-abandoned cave dwelling is an English author and professor, his presence apparently known only to Mrs. Temple and the local Hopi people, who is referred to only as the hermt.
And finally there is Mr. Royer, the Hotel Manager, an obnoxious man who also happens to be a German agent, waiting for orders to set fire to the hotel.
All these things we learn in the first few pages, as Sackville-West slides the perspective from one character to another as they interact in the course of an early evening, preparing for dinner at the hotel, setting the scene and characters.
At the core of the novel is the developing relationship between Mrs. Temple and Mr. Dale. Too detached, in their own ways, to be actively romantic, nonetheless a kind of intimacy develops between them, contrasted against the flirtatious social lives of the young college students and energetic servicemen who fill the dining room and dance floor of the Grand Canyon Hotel. This unfolding takes place in the midst of the up-to-now unthinkable - a blackout order in the vicinity of the canyon, intended to protect the nearby airbases and army camps from anticipated bombing runs by long-range German planes based in Hawaii, Mexico, and perhaps Brazil. Both Mrs. Temple and Mr. Dale know war, know the nature if the enemy; in their conversations over the course of the novel’s action is the larger debate over the great irony of having to meet the violence of evil with violence for good.
Sackville-West wrote of her choices in writing this novel:
“In Grand Canyon I have invented a cautionary tale. In it I have contemplated the dangers of a world in which Germany, by the use of an unspecified method of attack, is assumed to have defeated Great Britain in the present war. […] The terrible consequences of an incomplete conclusion or indeed of any peace signed by the Allies with an undefeated Germany are shown.”
Written in the midst of the war, and the daily bombing of England, it’s not difficult to see this novel as a warning to an isolationist America that there can be no peace with Nazi Germany, that they must engage before Britain falls, or risk eventually fighting a more powerful enemy on their own soil. But it’s a timely message today as well, as the hateful rhetoric of Hitler’s Nazi Party spreads across Europe and North America, and white supremacists take to the streets and to the parliaments of the West. It reminds us that some things must not be tolerated, cannot be politely contained, and have no place whatsoever in a civil and just society. And it contains a plea, that someday, humans will learn to exercise “the one faculty that mattered, the faculty of being able to arrange his life in accordance with his fellows” - the ability to live in harmony and peace.
The novel is set in a tourist hotel by the Grand Canyon. Among its guests are the serene and enigmatic Englishwoman, Helen Temple, the cynical Lester Dale, the exotic and emotional Madame de Retz, the blind Czech refugee with his silent German attendant, the deaf Englishman who carries a skate around his neck to enable communication, and a gaggle of young American college students, co-eds, on holiday, one of whom, Lorraine Driscoll, is worried about something. Most of the staff are nameless, save for the consumptive maid Sadie. A band of black musicians perform “whizz music” on the dance patio. Next to the hotel is a village of deliberately picturesque Hopi, who sell overpriced souvenirs and perform “Indian dances” as part of the evening entertainment.
Nearby is a camp of military personal preparing for “manoeuvres,” not much further as the crow flies is an airbase; some of the soldiers and airmen frequent the hotel for dinner and evening entertainment.
Living secretly in a long-abandoned cave dwelling is an English author and professor, his presence apparently known only to Mrs. Temple and the local Hopi people, who is referred to only as the hermt.
And finally there is Mr. Royer, the Hotel Manager, an obnoxious man who also happens to be a German agent, waiting for orders to set fire to the hotel.
All these things we learn in the first few pages, as Sackville-West slides the perspective from one character to another as they interact in the course of an early evening, preparing for dinner at the hotel, setting the scene and characters.
At the core of the novel is the developing relationship between Mrs. Temple and Mr. Dale. Too detached, in their own ways, to be actively romantic, nonetheless a kind of intimacy develops between them, contrasted against the flirtatious social lives of the young college students and energetic servicemen who fill the dining room and dance floor of the Grand Canyon Hotel. This unfolding takes place in the midst of the up-to-now unthinkable - a blackout order in the vicinity of the canyon, intended to protect the nearby airbases and army camps from anticipated bombing runs by long-range German planes based in Hawaii, Mexico, and perhaps Brazil. Both Mrs. Temple and Mr. Dale know war, know the nature if the enemy; in their conversations over the course of the novel’s action is the larger debate over the great irony of having to meet the violence of evil with violence for good.
Sackville-West wrote of her choices in writing this novel:
“In Grand Canyon I have invented a cautionary tale. In it I have contemplated the dangers of a world in which Germany, by the use of an unspecified method of attack, is assumed to have defeated Great Britain in the present war. […] The terrible consequences of an incomplete conclusion or indeed of any peace signed by the Allies with an undefeated Germany are shown.”
Written in the midst of the war, and the daily bombing of England, it’s not difficult to see this novel as a warning to an isolationist America that there can be no peace with Nazi Germany, that they must engage before Britain falls, or risk eventually fighting a more powerful enemy on their own soil. But it’s a timely message today as well, as the hateful rhetoric of Hitler’s Nazi Party spreads across Europe and North America, and white supremacists take to the streets and to the parliaments of the West. It reminds us that some things must not be tolerated, cannot be politely contained, and have no place whatsoever in a civil and just society. And it contains a plea, that someday, humans will learn to exercise “the one faculty that mattered, the faculty of being able to arrange his life in accordance with his fellows” - the ability to live in harmony and peace.
justabean_reads's review
3.0
Interesting premise, odd execution. So this is a book that Vita Sackville-West (member of the Bloomsberry Group, sometimes lover of Virginia Woolf) wrote half way through the second world war. I had thought going in it had a similar premise to Farthing by Jo Walton, but no, in this book the Nazis conquered the UK and Ireland, and the US having won the Pacific War made peace with the Third Reich. The story follows a group of characters in a hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon, about a year after these events. The two main characters are both English expats living in the hotel, and there are US air force officers, a bunch of college kids, and a handful of other European refugees, plus the hotel staff. Some of them will be turn out to be Nazi Fifth Column, some will be up to no good in other ways, and war draws closer by the day.
Sounds exciting, right? Yeah, no. It wasn't. This is a short book, and it took my ten days to read it (granted I was busy for much of it, but still!). The two main point of view characters spend massive amounts of page time hanging out and chatting, mostly about their opinions of the other characters, especially one of the college girls. Who does not and never will have anything whatsoever to do with the plot. At all. They also talk about their experiences during the war and current events, but seriously massive page time on stuff that isn't interesting and won't matter to the story.
The style is very dialogue heavy. Everyone gets long monologues either aloud or internal about their feelings about each situation, and absolutely none of it is anything a human being would ever say, though maybe it works for thoughts some of the time. There is also a good deal of racism directed at the black musician characters, including the N-word a couple times, and an ambivalent relationship with the Hopi characters.
However, for all that? I still found it absolutely fascinating. There are some SF elements in the uses of technology (there are supersonic heavy bombers in 1942, and undisclosed WMD that was used to defeat England, and underutilised technology that can draw electricity from the air ala Tesla), and then the last third has a strong fantasy element that I won't spoil but which was used to great effect. I also really liked a lot of the responses to trauma that the female PoV character was working through, and a lot of her interactions. A lot of the writing especially the descriptions of place and emotion were gorgeous.
I think if you're interested in the evolution of alternate histories, especially of WWII, or of Sackville-West. If you're going to be more interested in everything that's happening off page, you might find it incredibly frustrating.
Sounds exciting, right? Yeah, no. It wasn't. This is a short book, and it took my ten days to read it (granted I was busy for much of it, but still!). The two main point of view characters spend massive amounts of page time hanging out and chatting, mostly about their opinions of the other characters, especially one of the college girls. Who does not and never will have anything whatsoever to do with the plot. At all. They also talk about their experiences during the war and current events, but seriously massive page time on stuff that isn't interesting and won't matter to the story.
The style is very dialogue heavy. Everyone gets long monologues either aloud or internal about their feelings about each situation, and absolutely none of it is anything a human being would ever say, though maybe it works for thoughts some of the time. There is also a good deal of racism directed at the black musician characters, including the N-word a couple times, and an ambivalent relationship with the Hopi characters.
However, for all that? I still found it absolutely fascinating. There are some SF elements in the uses of technology (there are supersonic heavy bombers in 1942, and undisclosed WMD that was used to defeat England, and underutilised technology that can draw electricity from the air ala Tesla), and then the last third has a strong fantasy element that I won't spoil but which was used to great effect. I also really liked a lot of the responses to trauma that the female PoV character was working through, and a lot of her interactions. A lot of the writing especially the descriptions of place and emotion were gorgeous.
I think if you're interested in the evolution of alternate histories, especially of WWII, or of Sackville-West. If you're going to be more interested in everything that's happening off page, you might find it incredibly frustrating.
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