Rating: 
Summary: Walking a mile in his shoes.
Review: DREAMER held a lot of promise and was a very deep read. The story involves Chaym Smith, who offers himself as a decoy/stand-in to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., because he bears too familiar a resemblence to the good Doctor. Told from the perspectives of Dr. King and one of his aides, Matthew Bishop, the novel took us from marches to meetings involving heads of state to the breakdown of Chaym's personality, which was a complete 360 degrees from that of man he was hired to impersonate. The author was able to structure the personalities of the players involved and made the fictional charaters of Matthew and Chaym convincing and compelling. However, the book was so weighed down with thoughts and agendas that were so complex in context, that it was a little hard to get back on track, especially when you have forgotten where you left off, and you are still reading the book. A good read for those wanting something different and four-dimensional.
Rating: 
Summary: Finding the words to say it . . . .
Review: Dreamer is a fictional account that examines Dr. Martin Luther King's life during the civil rights movement. Johnson employs a King look-a-like character who, although has a strikingly similar physical appearance to King, is his antithesis in every other aspect. This allows Johnson to create a complete King like character that has faults and foibles that place him in the realm of humanness that is often times lost in our tendency to elevate King (deservedly so) to godlike status. This is a solid concept for a fictional piece but Johnson falls short in the most basic way - choice and use of language - to deliver on this concept. Johnson's choice of words throughout the first half of the novel created more distance than clarity. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for expanding the vocabulary, but in fictional literature the words chosen must create a rhythm, a flow that maintains the reader's interest and does not distract from the meat of the novel. In Dreamer, the author's choice of "big words" seems forced and awkward. "He felt too tired to move, but his mind, from surface to seabed, kept whirring widdershins." This is only one example of Johnson, poor choice of words. There are plenty more in the novel. Enough to cause me to close the book and move on to a little lighter reading, like the Oxford Unabridged dictionary.
Rating:
Summary: Finding the words to say it . . . .
Review: Dreamer is a fictional account that examines Dr. Martin Luther King's life during the civil rights movement. Johnson employs a King look-a-like character who, although has a strikingly similar physical appearance to King, is his antithesis in every other aspect. This allows Johnson to create a complete King like character that has faults and foibles that place him in the realm of humanness that is often times lost in our tendency to elevate King (deservedly so) to godlike status. This is a solid concept for a fictional piece but Johnson falls short in the most basic way - choice and use of language - to deliver on this concept. Johnson's choice of words throughout the first half of the novel created more distance than clarity. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for expanding the vocabulary, but in fictional literature the words chosen must create a rhythm, a flow that maintains the reader's interest and does not distract from the meat of the novel. In Dreamer, the author's choice of "big words" seems forced and awkward. "He felt too tired to move, but his mind, from surface to seabed, kept whirring widdershins." This is only one example of Johnson, poor choice of words. There are plenty more in the novel. Enough to cause me to close the book and move on to a little lighter reading, like the Oxford Unabridged dictionary.
Rating:
Summary: Very goodD
Review: Dreamer is the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Chaym Smith, and Matthew Bishop. Chaym Smith is a young guy who's had a lot of misfortuntes in life, plus he look's just like Dr. King, which he isn't to proud of. Matthew hires him to potray Dr. King when he is needed, like right after King gives a speech. Dr. King appears in the book, only in deep throught about situations, and what his next step must be. Matthew is a unsecure young man, who help's Dr. King. Matthew wishes he could love the Lord like Dr. king, but secretly blames God for not letting his mother live. I throught the storyline was very good, but couldn't tell if the author was trying to give credit for Dr. King's speeches to other philospher, that he had copied.
Rating: 
Summary: A waist of Time and Money
Review: Dreamer, while a good concept it lacks something. The story does not grab the reader's attention and for this reason took a long time to read. The idea of the book was good and enough for me to buy it but it did not give a good enough look at Martin Luther King. Dreamer put me off Charles Johnson's books for life and I would not recommend it to anyone. Simple stated a waist of money.
Rating: 
Summary: cluttered
Review: I truthfully just don't get Charles Johnson. He has the makings of a really first rate novelist, but for whatever reason--vanity about his ability to get away with it?, lack of confidence in the value of his work without it?, skewed perceptions?--he clutters up his work with magic and he strains for a vocabulary and an erudition that sound totally unnatural. His National Book Award winner, Middle Passage (see Orrin's review), could have been a terrific book in the classic American nautical adventure tradition of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (see Orrin's review), Moby Dick, Billy Budd (see Orrin's review), Two Years Before the Mast, The Sea Wolf (see Orrin's review), etc.. But in mid-story he added on a storyline involving a mysterious African God and the whole thing went to heck in a handcart. In Dreamer, he's up to the same tricks and it's a shame. Johnson apparently wrote the book because he wanted to try to understand Martin Luther King as a man and a moral philosopher, absent all of the mythos that has grown up around his martyred memory as a civil rights leader. He does an admirable job of recounting what writings and which theologians most influenced him and of presenting King, in his own words, giving sermons and speeches that develop his own philosophy. But there is another entirely unnecessary, even destructive, plotline in the novel. King's evil twin, Chaym Smith, appears and offers to act as his body double. Smith is violent, profane and cynical but also widely read and deeply philosophical. Johnson plays him off against King with Chaym taking the role of Cain and King of Abel. this allows Johnson room for extended meditations on the Cain/Abel tale, the duality of good and evil, and so on. Eventually, after coaching from aides, Chaym is able to pass for King at public events and even close associates can not tell the two men apart, so that on that fateful day in Memphis, we are no longer sure which one died. Now, first of all, I just didn't feel that the Smith character added much to the story, In fact, because he so often takes us away from the true Martin Luther king, he is more of a distraction, often bringing the narrative to a screeching halt. But there's a bigger problem with this device; if you're going to use this kind of allegorical feature, you had better think through what you are saying with it. Johnson does not appear to recognize how the comparison to Abel diminishes King. Abel was after all a figure of virtual slavery. He was the gatherer, living off the fat of the land, who found favor in God's eyes precisely because he lived as God intended Man to live before the Fall. It is Cain who represents freedom and Man after the Fall, struggling to raise his own crops independent of God and being rejected by God for this very reason. To allude to King as an Abel like figure, when he is actually one of the great freedom fighters in Man's history, seems to me to be a nearly unforgivable sin. Moreover, the implication that King was a kind of passive, slave like creature does the man a great disservice. Ultimately, Johnson has produced two books here--one good and one bad. The sections where King is on stage are vibrant and thrilling. They recapture some of the majesty of the man and the movement. The portions featuring Chaym Smith are flashy, particularly as they allow him to use SAT worthy vocabulary words that trip off the tongue like boulders, but they cheapen the rest of the book. He should have stuck to his knitting, dropped the doppelganger and ditched the dictionary. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: cluttered
Review: I truthfully just don't get Charles Johnson. He has the makings of a really first rate novelist, but for whatever reason--vanity about his ability to get away with it?, lack of confidence in the value of his work without it?, skewed perceptions?--he clutters up his work with magic and he strains for a vocabulary and an erudition that sound totally unnatural. His National Book Award winner, Middle Passage (see Orrin's review), could have been a terrific book in the classic American nautical adventure tradition of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (see Orrin's review), Moby Dick, Billy Budd (see Orrin's review), Two Years Before the Mast, The Sea Wolf (see Orrin's review), etc.. But in mid-story he added on a storyline involving a mysterious African God and the whole thing went to heck in a handcart. In Dreamer, he's up to the same tricks and it's a shame. Johnson apparently wrote the book because he wanted to try to understand Martin Luther King as a man and a moral philosopher, absent all of the mythos that has grown up around his martyred memory as a civil rights leader. He does an admirable job of recounting what writings and which theologians most influenced him and of presenting King, in his own words, giving sermons and speeches that develop his own philosophy. But there is another entirely unnecessary, even destructive, plotline in the novel. King's evil twin, Chaym Smith, appears and offers to act as his body double. Smith is violent, profane and cynical but also widely read and deeply philosophical. Johnson plays him off against King with Chaym taking the role of Cain and King of Abel. this allows Johnson room for extended meditations on the Cain/Abel tale, the duality of good and evil, and so on. Eventually, after coaching from aides, Chaym is able to pass for King at public events and even close associates can not tell the two men apart, so that on that fateful day in Memphis, we are no longer sure which one died. Now, first of all, I just didn't feel that the Smith character added much to the story, In fact, because he so often takes us away from the true Martin Luther king, he is more of a distraction, often bringing the narrative to a screeching halt. But there's a bigger problem with this device; if you're going to use this kind of allegorical feature, you had better think through what you are saying with it. Johnson does not appear to recognize how the comparison to Abel diminishes King. Abel was after all a figure of virtual slavery. He was the gatherer, living off the fat of the land, who found favor in God's eyes precisely because he lived as God intended Man to live before the Fall. It is Cain who represents freedom and Man after the Fall, struggling to raise his own crops independent of God and being rejected by God for this very reason. To allude to King as an Abel like figure, when he is actually one of the great freedom fighters in Man's history, seems to me to be a nearly unforgivable sin. Moreover, the implication that King was a kind of passive, slave like creature does the man a great disservice. Ultimately, Johnson has produced two books here--one good and one bad. The sections where King is on stage are vibrant and thrilling. They recapture some of the majesty of the man and the movement. The portions featuring Chaym Smith are flashy, particularly as they allow him to use SAT worthy vocabulary words that trip off the tongue like boulders, but they cheapen the rest of the book. He should have stuck to his knitting, dropped the doppelganger and ditched the dictionary. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: brilliant but flawed
Review: Johnson is a man whose self-doubts have been erased by his Buddhist faith. His books, while erudite, passionate, sincere, thoughtful, and intellectually engaging, seem to engage the struggle for salvation only obliquely, with the head and not the heart. It is only because his themes are so weighty that this obliqueness becomes a flaw. Like most philosophical novels, Dreamer uses some cardboard characters to enact a morality play. The play -- and its characters -- are interesting enough to sustain prolonged contemplation. They do not, however, live on after the book is closed. Dreamer is original, compelling, and almost great. But its confidence makes it proud, and it stumbles over its eagerness for a message that is in the end all too true.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read.
Review: Johnson weaves a great storyline, smart character studies, and philosophical lineages rather effortlessly. Not really, I'm sure, but it does seem that way. The book works on several levels, none of which contradict or hinder the other. For me, the moral conflict between duty towards the state and duty towards the person is the highlight, coming along side classics like Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" or Ngugi's "A Grain of Wheat" in the area of marrying the conflict of the time, the individual, and their relationship to one another. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A book with a lot of heart.
Review: Like Faith And The Good Thing, Dreamer works as philosophy and social criticism as well as fiction. Mr. Johnson has the personal courage to eschew trendy thinking and to pull together the truth from all corners of the world, ancient and modern. I like reading him because he tells me the truth; I can trust his judgment. He's incredibly erudite and yet there's no jive in his prose style, no textbook tone, no pretension. It's obvious thatl he's learned a few things while becoming a man and isn't afraid to show it. He demonstrates admirably that "rapping" needn't be doggerel. Kudos! Long live Martin Luther King!
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