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I'm seriously thinking I don't want to review for The Guardian any more, after they cut today's review of Fortunate Son. Here's their version:
When worlds collide
Michael Moorcock enjoys Walter Mosley's masterful dissection of present-day America, Fortunate Son
Saturday August 12, 2006
The Guardian
Buy Fortunate Son at the Guardian bookshop
Fortunate Son
by Walter Mosley
320pp, Serpents Tail, £11.99
More than any other contemporary novelist, Walter Mosley's work affects the reader on an immediate, visceral level. His anger is as infectious as his humanity. In his urban adventure stories featuring the unwilling sleuth Easy Rawlins and his friend Mouse, Mosley has plotted the history of black life in Los Angeles from shortly after the second world war (Devil in a Blue Dress) to the present. His metaphysical fantasies, such as The Wave, are strongly reminiscent of Charles Williams, while in literary novels such as RL's Dream and The Man in My Basement and non-fiction such as Workin' on the Chain Gang he writes relentlessly on the subject of race, individual conscience and the American dichotomy.
Article continues
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Mosley's latest literary novel develops an earlier American tradition represented by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, with its emphasis on social injustice and the great gulf between the American dream and American actuality. In prose soaked in the rich warmth of an east Texas bayou, he tells a story as gripping as Dickens, instantly drawing us into contrasted worlds. Like Dickens, Mosley stands confidently on the social borderline. His lucid style resists sentimentality while constantly offering fresh insights into the mind-set of complex characters, drawn from a wide spectrum of American race and class. Moving between worlds, gathering information, testing ideas, he presents a wealthy, emotionally bewildered white doctor as convincingly as a poor, angry black mechanic. Apparent stereotypes, such as his high school campus queen, become complete individuals. Both furious and forgiving, he assumes our common awareness of social injustice and concentrates instead on what we might have missed. And on the strength of this remarkable book alone, his best to date, Mosley must be considered one of our great novelists.
Fortunate Son has a plot worthy of any great Victorian novel: it involves two boys who early on bond as loving brothers, one a sickly black kid with his roots in the ghetto and the other a sturdy white boy from a distinctly upper-class background. Tommy is a "bubble" baby, unlikely to survive, watched over in the hospital by his single mother Branwyn. Understanding her to be alone, Minas Nolan, a recently widowed doctor at the hospital, offers her a lift home one night. The relationship between the black working-class woman and the white upper-class doctor deepens and they become lovers. In the face of criticism from her own people, knowing this to be Tommy's best chance of gaining health, Branwyn moves in with the doctor. Owing her son's life to Nolan, she loves him but can't bring herself to marry him; the chemistry between herself and Tommy's father, which she resists, underlines the fact that she does not feel the same passion for the white man whose own young son, Eric, is a lusty, bawling, brawling golden boy.
What the adults bring to their relationship is reflected in the qualities the two sons bring to theirs. Tommy is sensitive, observant and imaginative; Eric is athletic, aggressive, extrovert. Both receive the benefits of the doctor's wealth and social position until catastrophe throws Tommy back into the ghetto in the uncertain keeping of his father. From then on the two boys, while continuing to recall and even yearn for each other, are separated and experience utterly different lives. Imaginative, artistic Tommy sustains himself on the street as a drug-dealer before he is 10 years old, while extrovert Eric shines as a high school hero, admired by his friends, lusted after by the prom queen.
Bullied, shot up, imprisoned, raped, the visionary Tommy barely survives a brutal, horribly violent childhood, becoming a street bum. Eric's career is smooth, brilliant, mundane, conventional, with problems of conscience rather than survival, his ride on the golden escalator only interrupted when he has to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Yet both boys are complicated, motherless, somehow certain that they bring bad luck, even death, to those they love. They carry psychic and spiritual burdens which they cannot easily express and keep to themselves, as if airing them will bring worse disaster to those close to them. In avoiding familiar temptations, they fall prey to less obvious ones. How their lives move apart and eventually come together is the substance of a beautifully engineered story constantly asking which of the boys is actually the "fortunate son". · Michael Moorcock's latest book is The Vengeance of Rome (Cape)
And here's my version (the main changes are in bold):
CRYING OUT LOUD
Fortunate Son
Walter Mosley
Serpents Tail £11.99
320 pp.
MORE THAN that of any other contemporary novelist Walter Mosley’s work affects the reader on an immediate, visceral level. His anger is as infectious as his humanity. In his urban adventure stories, featuring the unwilling sleuth Easy Rawlings and his friend Mouse, Mosley has plotted the history of black life in Los Angeles from shortly after the second world war (Devil in a Blue Dress) to the present. His metaphysical fantasies, such The Wave, are strongly reminiscent of Charles Williams while in literary novels like RL’s Dream and The Man in my Basement and non-fiction like Workin’ on the Chain Gang he writes relentlessly on the subject of race, individual conscience and the American dichotomy.
With the possible exception of Don Delillo, Mosley offers a depth and seriousness which shames the efforts of more fashionable novelists like Roth or Updike. Mosley chiefly identifies with the black underclass which moved from Louisiana and Texas in the 1940s to take manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles as white men were called to the war. They came to inhabit the suburbs of Watts and Compton, which to those of us not familiar with the pointers of wealth and privilege in America, seem considerably more attractive than the ghettoes of Houston and New Orleans but where, in the 1960s, riots occurred advertising an anger most recently expressed in the vertical slums on the outskirts of Paris and are the background of his urban adventure Little Scarlet.
Mosley’s latest literary novel is again true to his themes of race, class and power, developing perhaps an earlier American tradition, represented by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, with its emphasis on social injustice and the great gulf between the American dream and American actuality. In prose echoing the rich warmth of an East Texas bayou, he tells a story as gripping as Dickens, instantly drawing us in to contrasted worlds. By page three of Fortunate Son I was already on an emotional roller coaster, helplessly involved in the lives of its characters. Like Dickens, Mosley stands confidentally on the social borderline. Avoiding the obvious, his lucid style resists sentimentality while constantly offering fresh insights into the mind-set of complex characters, drawn from a wide spectrum of American race and class. Moving constantly between worlds, gathering information, testing ideas, he presents a wealthy, emotionally bewildered white doctor as convincingly as a poor, angry black mechanic. Apparent stereotypes, like his high school campus queen, become complete individuals. Both furious and forgiving, he assumes our common awareness of social injustice and concentrates instead on what we might have missed.
On the strength of this remarkable book alone, his best to date, Mosley must be considered one of our great novelists.
Fortunate Son has a plot worthy of any great Victorianinvolving two boys who early on bond as loving brothers, one a sickly black kid with his roots in the ghetto and the othera sturdy white boy from distinctly upper class background. Tommy is a ‘bubble’ baby, unlikely to survive, watched over in the hospital by his single mother Branwyn. Understanding her to be alone, Minas Nolan, a recently widowed doctor at the hospital, offers a lift home one night. The relationship between the black working class woman and the white upper class doctor deepens and they become lovers. Against criticism from her own people, knowing this to be Tommy’s best chance of gaining health, Branwyn moves in with the doctor. Owing her son’s life to Nolan, she loves him but can’t bring herself to marry him because the chemistry between herself and Tommy’s father, which she resists, underlines the fact that she does not feel the same passion for the white man whose own young son, Eric, is a lusty, bawling, brawling golden boy.
What the adults bring to their own relationship is reflected in the qualities thetwo sons bring to theirs. The boys become mutually supportive. Tommy is sensitive, observant and imaginative. Eric is athletic, aggressive, extrovert. Both receive the benefits of the doctor’s wealth and social position until catastrophe throws Tommy back into the ghetto in the uncertain keeping of his father and his father’s mistress. From then on the two boys, while continuing to recall and even yearn for each other, are seperated and experience utterly different lives. Imaginative. artistic Tommy sustains himself on the street as a drug-dealer before he is ten years old, while extrovert Eric shines as a high school hero, admired by his male friends, lusted after by the popular and pretty prom queen..
Bullied, shot up, imprisoned, raped, the visionary Tommy barely survives a brutal, horribly violent childhood, becoming a street bum. Eric’s career is smooth, brilliant, mundane, conventional, with problems of conscience rather than survival, his ride on the golden escalator only interrupted when he has to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Yet both boys are complicated, motherless, somehow certain that they bring bad luck, even death to those they love. They carry psychic and spiritual burdens which they cannot easily express and keep to themselves, as if airing them will bring worse disaster to those they love. In avoiding familiar temptations, they fall prey to less obvious ones. How their lives move apart and eventually come together is the substance of a beautifully engineered story constantly asking which of the boys is actually the ‘fortunate son’.
When worlds collide
Michael Moorcock enjoys Walter Mosley's masterful dissection of present-day America, Fortunate Son
Saturday August 12, 2006
The Guardian
Buy Fortunate Son at the Guardian bookshop
Fortunate Son
by Walter Mosley
320pp, Serpents Tail, £11.99
More than any other contemporary novelist, Walter Mosley's work affects the reader on an immediate, visceral level. His anger is as infectious as his humanity. In his urban adventure stories featuring the unwilling sleuth Easy Rawlins and his friend Mouse, Mosley has plotted the history of black life in Los Angeles from shortly after the second world war (Devil in a Blue Dress) to the present. His metaphysical fantasies, such as The Wave, are strongly reminiscent of Charles Williams, while in literary novels such as RL's Dream and The Man in My Basement and non-fiction such as Workin' on the Chain Gang he writes relentlessly on the subject of race, individual conscience and the American dichotomy.
Article continues
</IMG>
Mosley's latest literary novel develops an earlier American tradition represented by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, with its emphasis on social injustice and the great gulf between the American dream and American actuality. In prose soaked in the rich warmth of an east Texas bayou, he tells a story as gripping as Dickens, instantly drawing us into contrasted worlds. Like Dickens, Mosley stands confidently on the social borderline. His lucid style resists sentimentality while constantly offering fresh insights into the mind-set of complex characters, drawn from a wide spectrum of American race and class. Moving between worlds, gathering information, testing ideas, he presents a wealthy, emotionally bewildered white doctor as convincingly as a poor, angry black mechanic. Apparent stereotypes, such as his high school campus queen, become complete individuals. Both furious and forgiving, he assumes our common awareness of social injustice and concentrates instead on what we might have missed. And on the strength of this remarkable book alone, his best to date, Mosley must be considered one of our great novelists.
Fortunate Son has a plot worthy of any great Victorian novel: it involves two boys who early on bond as loving brothers, one a sickly black kid with his roots in the ghetto and the other a sturdy white boy from a distinctly upper-class background. Tommy is a "bubble" baby, unlikely to survive, watched over in the hospital by his single mother Branwyn. Understanding her to be alone, Minas Nolan, a recently widowed doctor at the hospital, offers her a lift home one night. The relationship between the black working-class woman and the white upper-class doctor deepens and they become lovers. In the face of criticism from her own people, knowing this to be Tommy's best chance of gaining health, Branwyn moves in with the doctor. Owing her son's life to Nolan, she loves him but can't bring herself to marry him; the chemistry between herself and Tommy's father, which she resists, underlines the fact that she does not feel the same passion for the white man whose own young son, Eric, is a lusty, bawling, brawling golden boy.
What the adults bring to their relationship is reflected in the qualities the two sons bring to theirs. Tommy is sensitive, observant and imaginative; Eric is athletic, aggressive, extrovert. Both receive the benefits of the doctor's wealth and social position until catastrophe throws Tommy back into the ghetto in the uncertain keeping of his father. From then on the two boys, while continuing to recall and even yearn for each other, are separated and experience utterly different lives. Imaginative, artistic Tommy sustains himself on the street as a drug-dealer before he is 10 years old, while extrovert Eric shines as a high school hero, admired by his friends, lusted after by the prom queen.
Bullied, shot up, imprisoned, raped, the visionary Tommy barely survives a brutal, horribly violent childhood, becoming a street bum. Eric's career is smooth, brilliant, mundane, conventional, with problems of conscience rather than survival, his ride on the golden escalator only interrupted when he has to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Yet both boys are complicated, motherless, somehow certain that they bring bad luck, even death, to those they love. They carry psychic and spiritual burdens which they cannot easily express and keep to themselves, as if airing them will bring worse disaster to those close to them. In avoiding familiar temptations, they fall prey to less obvious ones. How their lives move apart and eventually come together is the substance of a beautifully engineered story constantly asking which of the boys is actually the "fortunate son". · Michael Moorcock's latest book is The Vengeance of Rome (Cape)
And here's my version (the main changes are in bold):
CRYING OUT LOUD
Fortunate Son
Walter Mosley
Serpents Tail £11.99
320 pp.
MORE THAN that of any other contemporary novelist Walter Mosley’s work affects the reader on an immediate, visceral level. His anger is as infectious as his humanity. In his urban adventure stories, featuring the unwilling sleuth Easy Rawlings and his friend Mouse, Mosley has plotted the history of black life in Los Angeles from shortly after the second world war (Devil in a Blue Dress) to the present. His metaphysical fantasies, such The Wave, are strongly reminiscent of Charles Williams while in literary novels like RL’s Dream and The Man in my Basement and non-fiction like Workin’ on the Chain Gang he writes relentlessly on the subject of race, individual conscience and the American dichotomy.
With the possible exception of Don Delillo, Mosley offers a depth and seriousness which shames the efforts of more fashionable novelists like Roth or Updike. Mosley chiefly identifies with the black underclass which moved from Louisiana and Texas in the 1940s to take manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles as white men were called to the war. They came to inhabit the suburbs of Watts and Compton, which to those of us not familiar with the pointers of wealth and privilege in America, seem considerably more attractive than the ghettoes of Houston and New Orleans but where, in the 1960s, riots occurred advertising an anger most recently expressed in the vertical slums on the outskirts of Paris and are the background of his urban adventure Little Scarlet.
Mosley’s latest literary novel is again true to his themes of race, class and power, developing perhaps an earlier American tradition, represented by the likes of Sinclair Lewis, with its emphasis on social injustice and the great gulf between the American dream and American actuality. In prose echoing the rich warmth of an East Texas bayou, he tells a story as gripping as Dickens, instantly drawing us in to contrasted worlds. By page three of Fortunate Son I was already on an emotional roller coaster, helplessly involved in the lives of its characters. Like Dickens, Mosley stands confidentally on the social borderline. Avoiding the obvious, his lucid style resists sentimentality while constantly offering fresh insights into the mind-set of complex characters, drawn from a wide spectrum of American race and class. Moving constantly between worlds, gathering information, testing ideas, he presents a wealthy, emotionally bewildered white doctor as convincingly as a poor, angry black mechanic. Apparent stereotypes, like his high school campus queen, become complete individuals. Both furious and forgiving, he assumes our common awareness of social injustice and concentrates instead on what we might have missed.
On the strength of this remarkable book alone, his best to date, Mosley must be considered one of our great novelists.
Fortunate Son has a plot worthy of any great Victorianinvolving two boys who early on bond as loving brothers, one a sickly black kid with his roots in the ghetto and the othera sturdy white boy from distinctly upper class background. Tommy is a ‘bubble’ baby, unlikely to survive, watched over in the hospital by his single mother Branwyn. Understanding her to be alone, Minas Nolan, a recently widowed doctor at the hospital, offers a lift home one night. The relationship between the black working class woman and the white upper class doctor deepens and they become lovers. Against criticism from her own people, knowing this to be Tommy’s best chance of gaining health, Branwyn moves in with the doctor. Owing her son’s life to Nolan, she loves him but can’t bring herself to marry him because the chemistry between herself and Tommy’s father, which she resists, underlines the fact that she does not feel the same passion for the white man whose own young son, Eric, is a lusty, bawling, brawling golden boy.
What the adults bring to their own relationship is reflected in the qualities thetwo sons bring to theirs. The boys become mutually supportive. Tommy is sensitive, observant and imaginative. Eric is athletic, aggressive, extrovert. Both receive the benefits of the doctor’s wealth and social position until catastrophe throws Tommy back into the ghetto in the uncertain keeping of his father and his father’s mistress. From then on the two boys, while continuing to recall and even yearn for each other, are seperated and experience utterly different lives. Imaginative. artistic Tommy sustains himself on the street as a drug-dealer before he is ten years old, while extrovert Eric shines as a high school hero, admired by his male friends, lusted after by the popular and pretty prom queen..
Bullied, shot up, imprisoned, raped, the visionary Tommy barely survives a brutal, horribly violent childhood, becoming a street bum. Eric’s career is smooth, brilliant, mundane, conventional, with problems of conscience rather than survival, his ride on the golden escalator only interrupted when he has to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Yet both boys are complicated, motherless, somehow certain that they bring bad luck, even death to those they love. They carry psychic and spiritual burdens which they cannot easily express and keep to themselves, as if airing them will bring worse disaster to those they love. In avoiding familiar temptations, they fall prey to less obvious ones. How their lives move apart and eventually come together is the substance of a beautifully engineered story constantly asking which of the boys is actually the ‘fortunate son’.
I remember once asking Robert Fripp to write a review of Critical Synoptics. He responded, "What? Fripp write a review?" I looked through his condescension and took his meaning, and I looked in the mirror and decided I wasn't going to write any more reviews--and so I stopped at review #15. Anything might be more useful: As Wittgenstien said, he often thought he should devote his life to something more useful than teaching philosophy at Cambridge, like standing at a railroad crossing raising and lowering the gate as the trains went by. I don't mean to sound cynical, but rather advancing a goofy response to the above.
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