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Rising
Sabino - the outcast member of a rich mine-owning family - is renowned for his arrogance and brutality. For reasons of personal revenge, he agrees to lead an expedition to crush saboteurs who are attacking a vital railway line. Leading his struggling army of half-starved men across the arid and treacherous landscape, Sabino also embarks on a journey of the soul. "Rising", first published in 1976, was R.C. Hutchinson's last novel. It is a powerful re-creation of an episode of South American history, and also a profound and poignant exploration of the complexity of human relationships, and of one man's attempt at redemption. At its heart lies the burning struggle between good and evil.
- GenresFiction
359 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
158 people want to read
About the author
R.C. Hutchinson
17 books5 followersRay Coryton Hutchinson was a best-selling British novelist. His 1975 novel Rising was short-listed for the Booker Prize.
He was born in Finchley, Middlesex and educated at Monkton Combe School, near Bath. He received his BA at Oriel College, Oxford in 1927 and joined the advertising department at Colman's in Norwich. He married Margaret Owen Jones in April 1929.
His first novel, Thou Hast a Devil, was published in 1930. It was followed by The Answering Glory (1932), and The Unforgotten Prisoner (1933), which sold 150,000 copies in the first month. Subsequent novels also sold very well and in 1935 he left Colman's to begin writing full-time.
In March 1940 he joined the army, and in July was posted as captain in the 8th Battalion of the Buffs Regiment. He travelled widely during the war, while continuing to write. In October 1945, after preparing the official history of the Paiforce campaign, he was demobilized with the rank of Major.
After the war he wrote many more successful novels, often recommended by book clubs. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in June 1962.
He died before completing the last chapter of his novel, Rising (1975). It was published in September of the same year and short-listed for the Booker Prize in November.
His published work comprises 17 novels and 28 short stories, as well as one play, Last Train South (1938).
He was born in Finchley, Middlesex and educated at Monkton Combe School, near Bath. He received his BA at Oriel College, Oxford in 1927 and joined the advertising department at Colman's in Norwich. He married Margaret Owen Jones in April 1929.
His first novel, Thou Hast a Devil, was published in 1930. It was followed by The Answering Glory (1932), and The Unforgotten Prisoner (1933), which sold 150,000 copies in the first month. Subsequent novels also sold very well and in 1935 he left Colman's to begin writing full-time.
In March 1940 he joined the army, and in July was posted as captain in the 8th Battalion of the Buffs Regiment. He travelled widely during the war, while continuing to write. In October 1945, after preparing the official history of the Paiforce campaign, he was demobilized with the rank of Major.
After the war he wrote many more successful novels, often recommended by book clubs. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in June 1962.
He died before completing the last chapter of his novel, Rising (1975). It was published in September of the same year and short-listed for the Booker Prize in November.
His published work comprises 17 novels and 28 short stories, as well as one play, Last Train South (1938).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 30, 2019
Working toward the final chapter of what he reportedly regarded as his most important work, Ray Coryton Hutchinson was interrupted by the arrival of friends. He was never to continue, as a heart attack killed him later that day.
A postscript by his widow Margaret, based on her husband's notes, sets out what would have been the concluding events of this colourful, ambitious novel. A twist was still to come, but the general direction of travel of the soldier Sabino toward catharsis and redemption had long been clear.
Yet while the circumstances of the book's premature end are inevitably dwelt upon, it would be as interesting to speculate upon its inception. Hutchinson was 68 when he died, and there is no reason to suppose that he had any premonition of untimely death.
But if he had wanted a summation of his vision of compassion, of a love that washes away sins, this fine exposition would stand as a worthy legacy.
The story is set at the turn of the twentieth century in a remote district of a Latin American country, possibly Peru or Bolivia, where Sabino is engaged to take a ragtag unit of peasants to counter insurgents who are disrupting the rail transport of a copper mining company, but diverges from his commission to pursue an old hatred.
That hatred is directed against Papac, a doctor venerated by the rebels, whom Sabino wrongly blames for the desertion of the woman he loved.
There gradually emerges the double meaning of the book's title, referring not so much to the insurgency as to the mysterious and unexplained resurrection of this Christ-like figure whom Sabino had supposedly most horribly killed some years before, by having him eaten alive by ants.
It is apparently the same Papac who now, with sublime forgiveness, saves Sabino's life, thus putting him on the road to a rather improbable conversion from sinner to saint.
Hutchinson was a top-selling author in his day, some at least of his other books similarly drawing upon his military experience, and set in vast landscapes. He had a severely disabled child - reflected no doubt in this novel in Sabino coming to care so tenderly for his loyal, deformed servant Ugil - and the entire work is riven through with pity and humanitarian values.
Much of the book is concerned with the main characters' arduous journeys through the Andes, and the description bristles with the specialised terminology of the landscape and its peoples. Keep a dictionary to hand too for the exuberance of the vocabulary - 'a cincture of demilunes', 'divarications', 'indefectible' all appear in a single paragraph. I loved the language, never used simply for show, always adding depth or subtle modulations of meaning.
Rising was short-listed for the 1976 Booker prize. What a wonderful year that was - deservedly won by David Storey's Savile, but with other contenders, Andre Brink's An instant in the wind, and The children of Dynmouth by William Trevor at least as worthy of the prize as many winners in the previous eight years. (I have not yet read the highly-praised King Fisher Lives by Julian Rathbone.)
Hutchinson's final novel, on which he laboured for four years, is just as good. Seek it out.
A postscript by his widow Margaret, based on her husband's notes, sets out what would have been the concluding events of this colourful, ambitious novel. A twist was still to come, but the general direction of travel of the soldier Sabino toward catharsis and redemption had long been clear.
Yet while the circumstances of the book's premature end are inevitably dwelt upon, it would be as interesting to speculate upon its inception. Hutchinson was 68 when he died, and there is no reason to suppose that he had any premonition of untimely death.
But if he had wanted a summation of his vision of compassion, of a love that washes away sins, this fine exposition would stand as a worthy legacy.
The story is set at the turn of the twentieth century in a remote district of a Latin American country, possibly Peru or Bolivia, where Sabino is engaged to take a ragtag unit of peasants to counter insurgents who are disrupting the rail transport of a copper mining company, but diverges from his commission to pursue an old hatred.
That hatred is directed against Papac, a doctor venerated by the rebels, whom Sabino wrongly blames for the desertion of the woman he loved.
There gradually emerges the double meaning of the book's title, referring not so much to the insurgency as to the mysterious and unexplained resurrection of this Christ-like figure whom Sabino had supposedly most horribly killed some years before, by having him eaten alive by ants.
It is apparently the same Papac who now, with sublime forgiveness, saves Sabino's life, thus putting him on the road to a rather improbable conversion from sinner to saint.
Hutchinson was a top-selling author in his day, some at least of his other books similarly drawing upon his military experience, and set in vast landscapes. He had a severely disabled child - reflected no doubt in this novel in Sabino coming to care so tenderly for his loyal, deformed servant Ugil - and the entire work is riven through with pity and humanitarian values.
Much of the book is concerned with the main characters' arduous journeys through the Andes, and the description bristles with the specialised terminology of the landscape and its peoples. Keep a dictionary to hand too for the exuberance of the vocabulary - 'a cincture of demilunes', 'divarications', 'indefectible' all appear in a single paragraph. I loved the language, never used simply for show, always adding depth or subtle modulations of meaning.
Rising was short-listed for the 1976 Booker prize. What a wonderful year that was - deservedly won by David Storey's Savile, but with other contenders, Andre Brink's An instant in the wind, and The children of Dynmouth by William Trevor at least as worthy of the prize as many winners in the previous eight years. (I have not yet read the highly-praised King Fisher Lives by Julian Rathbone.)
Hutchinson's final novel, on which he laboured for four years, is just as good. Seek it out.
October 10, 2021
SUMMARY - A book made whole by its shocking incompleteness.
At the end of this book is a postscript by the author's wife. It explains how R.C. Hutchinson had spent 4 years of tremendous labour to plot this novel. It further describes how Hutchinson had a fatal heart attack before it could ever be completed.
Based on the notes, I think it quite likely I may not have liked it as much had it been elevated into a cathartic cathedral-shaped novel of Christian morality. Without spoiling the plot, the unfinished book already gives us penetance, loss, and flickering, guttering, uncertain hope.
It was the tale's irresolution that oddly made this book feel complete. Too many neat tyings up and pairings up would have risked the glibness of musical rolling credits.
We know that some authors like Ernest Hemingway endlessly trialled a whole host of different endings. It could have been that Hutchinson took another turn. But after so many rock scrambles, weary horseback treks, and footsore trudges, the reader has already been richly rewarded with adventure of the body and mind.
Some may find Hutchinson's floridity and arcania old-fashioned. The writing, though, is generally beautiful and only occasionally over worked. The morality tale itself is similarly backward-looking, and harks to Victorian tropes. It's then the darkest-hour-before-dawn that we're left with on the the final page that in its unfinished form plays to a more modern sensibility. We are left not knowing, and after a richly told adventure that was how I am glad it stayed.
At the end of this book is a postscript by the author's wife. It explains how R.C. Hutchinson had spent 4 years of tremendous labour to plot this novel. It further describes how Hutchinson had a fatal heart attack before it could ever be completed.
Based on the notes, I think it quite likely I may not have liked it as much had it been elevated into a cathartic cathedral-shaped novel of Christian morality. Without spoiling the plot, the unfinished book already gives us penetance, loss, and flickering, guttering, uncertain hope.
It was the tale's irresolution that oddly made this book feel complete. Too many neat tyings up and pairings up would have risked the glibness of musical rolling credits.
We know that some authors like Ernest Hemingway endlessly trialled a whole host of different endings. It could have been that Hutchinson took another turn. But after so many rock scrambles, weary horseback treks, and footsore trudges, the reader has already been richly rewarded with adventure of the body and mind.
Some may find Hutchinson's floridity and arcania old-fashioned. The writing, though, is generally beautiful and only occasionally over worked. The morality tale itself is similarly backward-looking, and harks to Victorian tropes. It's then the darkest-hour-before-dawn that we're left with on the the final page that in its unfinished form plays to a more modern sensibility. We are left not knowing, and after a richly told adventure that was how I am glad it stayed.
February 14, 2015
I love this atmospheric novel. It is a tragedy that the author died before completing it...although in the end, there is a kind of beautiful symmetry in the incompleteness of it - an acknowledgement, perhaps, of the incompleteness and futility inherent in all human endeavour - an incompleteness that gives it pathos, grandeur, and beauty in the midst of suffering and sorrow.
June 25, 2025
I found this a bit of a slog to be honest. It seemed to veer off into lengthy passages where I found it hard to follow. The bits I got, I enjoyed very much but I think this was just too ‘writerly’ for me. Shortlist 1976.
February 8, 2020
The plot travels paths unexpected. Redemption is well handled.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews