listen well, sweetness

so for some reason, i held off on reading this book for a long time. lately picking up a book of any substance has been intimidating to me. i think the stress of work and real life make me want to escape into the mindlessness of video games or light comedy like terry pratchett or john hodgman. however, once i started reading this book, i became pretty obsessed with it. i was sitting on park benches on the canal, reading on my lunch break. i would go to coffee shops to read it. i remembered how to just enjoy getting immersed in a great story and enjoying the mystery and living alongside the characters for a little while.

the entire book had such a strange sense of sadness to it. the feeling of existing during the reversion of the jewish land back to america was very powerful. imagine knowing that soon your entire world was going to become a mired mess of confusion and exile, but not really be able to do anything about it.

the little bits of magic and mythology sprinkled throughout the narrative really helped to draw me in as well. i love a good far-fetched fantasy story now and then, but this garcia marquez level of magical realism is pretty much the perfect amount for me. the whole idea of the messiah as a gay junkie is appealing to me, not in a mean-spirited way. i think it is appealing to humanize religion and to temper the divine against the human in a story like this. landsman was always regretting not getting to know shpilman before he died, and i think that feeling was passed on to the reader as well.

after i read this book, i picked up another chabon novel "gentlemen of the road." it's short and easy and great.