At its peak moments ["The Spiral Road"] is a shattering novel, a book that purges in its power and luminosity, and enthralls with its sweep of narrative, its exotic richness, and its occasional Rabelaisian humors. It is a shining book.

You could say that it belongs almost equally to two categories of perennial appeal—the doctor novel or the religious novel. Yet to call "The Spiral Road" either or both of these is too restricted. It is what the novel should be, a complex and intense story about almost the full gamut of human behavior, befuddlement, anguish, achievement, and quest. (p. 14)

With all these human elements, its elaborate jungle mystique (I wonder if some of it touches cliché), with its color, with its plot so large that at times it almost slips from De Hartog's hands, "The Spiral Road" (evolution is the title's reference) suggests by texture and...