The Age of Terror

by David Plante

Book Overview

Set in the seamy world of the Russian sex slave trade, The Age of Terror is the harrowing story of Joe, a disillusioned young American expatriate and lapsed Catholic who searches for life's meaning in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: B0000CHRA9
• Release Date: January 1950
• Publisher: Faber
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Misery loves company

A young man comes to Russia, becomes involved with a woman who makes her living in the white slavery business. Through her he meets her totally diabolical ganster partner, also an American expatriot. He also meets her 17 year old son, the entire meaning of her life, a secret which she keeps hidden from her evil partner. Our hero, God bless him, manipulates the situation so that her partner thinks she has betrayed him and he also learns about the existence of the son. Soon her son disappears into the white slavery void, which the reader is lead to believe is a living death. Our hero has now deprived this woman of the meaning in her life, she is now ready to be his partner in suicide. Beautifully written, this nightmare novel, hints at a spiritual vacuum within the young American. Somewhere deep inside he thinks that God ignores petty sins, and that only a vast and terrible betrayal will get God's attention. Like the hero in Paul Bowles' Let It Come Down, those without meaning in life are revealed to be the most dangerous type of humans. Greed or revene or lust pales in comparison to those who are filled with nothingness. Plante's hero seems to be escaping from a Christian nation, doubting all the lessons of his culture and childhood faith. Bowles's hero in comparison carrys a mask of normalcy even though he has broken ties with any social contract.

STELLAR PROSE - SHATTERING STORY

I sat out most of 1998 reading hundreds of novels and non-fiction entries, and the only one I can vividly recall is David Plante's mesmerizing AGE OF TERROR. Yes, it is utterly depressing and bleak, but the beautiful aspects of the human soul shine through in its gorgeous poetry and vaguely - though craftily - skteched imagery. The story of a young American who journeys to post-Communist Russia to encounter love - and the most grim aspects of capitalism - gently snakes to a climax that is just... shattering.

The Age of Terror: grand, deep and prophetic.

This is a harrowing and wonderful book. As the recent reviews in the New York Times seem to prove, it is impossible to do justice to David Plante's work within the format of a book review, because one ends up analyzing the content and missing the force and clarity of the writing. This novel, moreover, has an allegorical and mythic dimension that is quite stunning, particularly when coupled with the almost hallucinatory quality of Plante's focus on small, precise details. The fact that Plante is getting thematically bolder and more expansive in every book lends an added excitement to the experience of reading The Age of Terror. Perhaps in the near future Plante will be considered prophetic for trying to remind the world of what it would like to forget, and perhaps has already forgotten: the vast, dark expanse of suffering that is Russia.