Book- A Single Pebble

The last couple of books I have read by John Hersey were both disappointments, really not his best stuff. But with A Single Pebble he again is lyrical and clear, subtle and bold in his writing. It was a really good book, and I would really recommend it.

A Single Pebble tells the story of an American engineer who goes to China in the 1920s to figure out how to dam up the Yangtze River. He is the narrator of his own story, told from a large span of years, he is old now. And the sense of his nostalgia is palpable, as is also his sense of disdain for the young arrogant man he once was.

To survey the river he has to travel upriver by Chinese junk, hauled by ropes on the shore by a crew 40. It is a perilous journey for these men, called trackers. Led by the fearless and wild head tracker, who keeps the march going by his songs, the young engineer is first impatient with the slowness of the journey, and then gets lost in the timelessness of it. His first thoughts are of making the journey easier through locks and canals, but his ideas are morphed through events of the long journey upriver...the dangers and skills of the trackers, the acceptance of the crew to their fate.

This is a journey of self discovery for the young engineer, but the discoveries are meted out over his lifetime. His understanding of the journey gets stronger as he gets older. And Hersey writes well that melancholy, that sense of wonders past. He is lyrical and poetic, and never rushed, but never slow. He creates tension as the flow of the river becomes greater, and his words and cadence feel much like the river.

This is a very good little book, one of my favorite of Hersey's...it has moments that I will not forget and it is a book that is not easily shoved to the back of your mind.