A Book Review of Ed King by David Guterson

I just finished reading Ed King, a novel by David Guterson, who is also the author of Snow Falling On Cedars. This was not something I was aware of when I got this book. If I had this knowledge beforehand there is a very good chance I would not have chosen to read this book.

After reading the first couple of chapters I realized that I was finding this book boring. The boredom happened in varying degrees and at about the time when I was ready to stop reading the book altogether it would pick up with the promise of becoming suddenly exciting. The fact that I found the story of Ed King boring is amazing because of the many ways the story mirrored the story of Oedipus, a character in a Greek tragedy who kills his father and marries his mother.

In this novel by David Guterson, Ed King is the illegitimate child of Walter Cousins, a mild mannered actuary, and Diane Burroughs, the sexy not legal British au pair who takes care of Walters children one summer while his wife is in a mental hospital suffering from a mental breakdown.

When Ed is born Diane leaves him on a doorstep, abandoning him in the hope that he will go to a good two parent home. This of course happens in due time. Ed lives life very much as other children do. He grows up, goes to school, participates in sports, etc. At a point in the story it is discovered that Ed King is a genius. He goes on to become an internet tycoon worth billions of dollars. Ed becomes an international celebrity and king of search who is moving through life toward a fate he may not be able to shape.

There are many issues this story deals with from infidelity to incest, from death to murder in a way that I have to say seemed very boring to me. I have to admit though that the end of Ed King asked some great questions. The type of questions that have you wondering about the great mysteries in life, right down to the last anagrams between Ed and his pilot.

As I think about it there may have been some messages or ideas that I can take away from this book that are actually very true. That may be the reason why I kept reading Ed King.

http://relijournal.com/religion/ed-king/