As I write these words, it's late April. The last books I read were the ones I read at the lake last November.
I think I'd forgotten what reading was. Not literally, of course, but it had been a long time since I just
Within a few pages I was sucked into the maelstrom of the plot -- just like the main characters in the book. What a fine piece of writing!
When I began writing these pages back in the '80s, I was searching for some kind of critical lodestar: a standard by which to evaluate what I read. I've toyed with demanding realism, but then I remember and reread parts of Catch-22. I'm still pretty dedicated to well-woven plots without stupid gaps, but love Huck Finn. I do insist on characters that are at least two-dimensional, but that's a pretty minimal expectation of any author over 12 years old. I really like irony and cleverness and subtle humor. But more and more I'm thinking that the really good booksãfiction and non-fictionãare the ones that create empathy.
On that scale, Mosley does very well. I recognized the intellectual and emotional conflicts in Paris Minton, the main character. The physical dangers are out of my league, but so is the racism experienced by Mosley's cast of characters.
The story is set in Los Angeles in 1954, but it involves art stolen by the Nazis, Israeli intelligence operatives, and minor-league crooks, arson, murder, love, and sex. It's a buddy story and almost cinematic enough to be a movie. I read it in an afternoon and an evening. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to get lost in a book. I'm glad Mosley reminded me. This is a story that created a lot of empathy for me.
At the end of March, I found myself at Sidetrack on the shores of frozen Little Blake Lake. A half-foot
of snow covered most of the shady ground. Someone had plowed the road, so we didn't have to walk
in. That was especially nice since we'd have been carrying several gallons of water from the public road
a quarter mile away. We did have to shovel out a parking place and chip ice off the stairs. The cabin heated
up quickly as we watched some of the last tenacious anglers sitting around holes drilled in the ice. Like
every other time at Sidetrack, we were apart from the rest of the world. No computer. No TV. The
phone doesn't ring. Snow too slushy for skiing or walking. Read. Play games. And for David, paint
Warhammer game figures.
read for fun. In preparation for that last weekend in March at the lake, Nancy and David had been
to the library. They were glad they didn't have to walk in to the cabin with the 15 books they'd
checked out. Since they couldn't read them all at once,
I grabbed one: Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley.
Write Tell a little bit of the world what you think.
By Ken Wedding. 08.17.02 Updated 08.19.02.
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