Immanence of God in the Tropics

I am re-reading this book (published last year) --a collection of short stories by someone I went to high school with.

It's funny, he just did a reading from it at the Public Library in the town where he spent his childhood, Glencoe, Illinois.

Since writing this review I wrote for Amazon last year, I have gotten to know George a lot better. We have a lot of interests in common...like a fondness for the music of Kurt Weill, and some lesser known folk singers like Kate and Anna McGarrigle.

Other topics we have disagreed about a lot-- such as how viable Mexico really is as a country now and what its future prospects are.

I have been the pessimist in this and George the optimist ( one of the more memorable stories in this book takes place in Mexico) -- I still feel some skepticism but George was not a high school champion debater for nothing, and he makes very convincing arguments. I may not feel exactly sanguine about what is going to happen South of our border but I can see that there is potential there for a much better future than I had imagined...

Just one of several topics we have wrangled about...but I enjoy disagreements with people if they can remain civil and respectful, and our relationship is definitely that. 

Found to my complete surprise that as small kids we lived on the same street (Jarvis) in Rogers Park in Chicago, and while my family moved to the suburbs before his did, we both spent a little time at the same local school there. Smaller world all the time than you think...

It is sort of funny because it is another one of those relationships all on the internet--
I also have him as a friend on Facebook...the last time I saw George in person was back when he was with his first wife, another high school friend.

I bought George's book when it first came out last year and I liked all the stories I read...well, the following is a review I wrote about it for Amazon at the time...

I will put any present day remarks in bold face...

First of all, let me say I know the author, George Rosen, but not extremely well. And I have never known him as an author before. We went to the same high school North of Chicago after which he married a friend of mine. Some years later I saw them and loved their stories about their time in the Peace Corps.

If you are looking for some escapist world or fantasy like J.K. Rowling, this is not the book for you--but it is just as exciting to the imagination.

The stories are written with great dexterity and range over time and space ( from back in the 1970's and to such places as Mexico and Africa..)

These stories deserve all the praise I have heard about them in other places...they have echoes of Joseph Conrad and also remind me some of Chekhov's short stories! I would say this even if I did not know George...

But they are not what you would call "easy reads." They are very thought provoking and pithy.

My favorite--like the other reviewer on this  (Amazon) site I noticed-- is "Mobley's Troubles" about an aging white aid worker in Africa who more or less adopts an African boy and does his best to help him...however, the boy's high spirits get him into trouble in a society that is often Draconian in its threatened (or real) punishments --nothing like the juvenile court system we have in the States that makes conservative people so irate about "coddling young criminals."

One aspect of the story that is very deftly drawn is the way different groups of missionaries are competing with each other in this African country and how they have no interest at all really in the subtleties of the native culture, just their own agendas.

The main character, Mobley, is one of those skilled mechanics who can't explain how he does what he does to other people, he can just DO it. So typical of the real world.

Summation of all the far flung stories: reminds us once again that around the world we are all cut from the same cloth. 

Now, to get back to the stories I did not read the first time...there are a couple...I may also want to re-read some of the others and see if time has changed my perception of them.