Walkin' the Dog

Rating:
Summary: A Moral Message
Review: A dozen linked episodes form the return of Socrates Fortlow, the 60ish ex-con who first appeared in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Of course, when the main character is named Socrates, you shouldn't be surprised when his story turns out to be a metaphor. Socrates is a man whose daily life is suffused with his past (he spent 27 years in jail for murdering two friends), and is engaged in a constant struggles break free of that past and try and live somewhat normally in the Watts ghetto he calls home. He's cautious and tentative about new opportunities and options before him, seeing traps and pitfalls in every deviation from his simple, spartan life. It's not difficult to see how Mosley is using Socrates to embody disenfranchised black men everywhere and give voice to their (and his) own inner conflicts as black men in contemporary society.

Central to this is anger�a theme that pervades not only Socrates' life, but that of those around him. Throughout the book, Socrates bubbles with an undefined rage at his surroundings, and ultimately he must find some way to accommodate that rage without letting it consume him. Even so, the good side of Socrates is always plainly evident: he's a father figure to a young boy, cares for his two-legged dog, and saves the life of a drunk. That's not to say that he's a "good" person, because he has killed people, but he is a man that's trying to do good things with life despite his past and despite the turmoil within him. Through his interactions with a neighborhood discussion group (a somewhat clumsy device) and a self-styled revolutionary, Socrates comes to discover that he has a right to be angry, but it's how that anger is channeled that will decide his fate. This is played out in a rushed and melodramatic final story that fits thematically with the rest of the book, but is kind of jarring.

Ultimately, the book's message is reasonably clear. Black men need to translate their anger into productive action and free themselves of the mental shackles that keep them from fulfilling their potential. For every person, this means something different, but even those who have committed the greatest sin can live a moral life. Which is not to say their aren't evil people in the world�or in their own community�but just because one lives in a ghetto doesn't mean the only solution is to leave. Rather, stay in the community and try and make it better�even though the man is trying to keep you down.

Rating:
Summary: Tried to like it, but.....
Review: I read this book shortly after I read Devil in the Blue Dress. These are the only two Mosley books that I have read. First, let me say that I admire those novelists who do not stick to a formula of the same character, same type of plot, same type of result, etc., etc (e.g., Tom Clancy, & Patrick Robinson). However, that does not mean that Mosley will score big for every effort.

I very much enjoyed Devil in the Blue Dress, and I wanted to like Walkin' the Dog, but it didn't happen. The author presented a good study of the street language used by his main character and supporting characters. The first half of the book was able to easily keep my interest.

The problem was that the author never decided to make a novel out of his short stories. This resulted in story lines that disappeared and the regurgitating of previously expressed ideas so that I sometimes dreaded turning the next page. How many times did we need to know that Socrates (the main character) is a big, black, "bad man" who has done bad things in his past? Yes, he's big, I get it! He's black, I figured.... Also, months and years seemed to pass without notice or explanation.

The other problem is that the writer wanted to make Socrates a unique philosophical figure. His philosophical ideas, though, are hardly original, complex, or Socratic. The author also has the character use some misleading ideas of Afrocentrism to support his beliefs (e.g., that St. Augustine was black because he was from Africa. He was from the coastal area now known as Algiers, but that would not make him black as anyone familiar with Algiers would know). The latter is not a major problem, but by that time in the story, I was a little irritated by the flow of the book. In sum, I am pleased that Mosley sought a different type of story, at least he is trying to be a legitimate author. He just missed the mark with this book.



Rating:
Summary: Walkin' the Dog
Review: I was glad to see Walter Mosley return to Socartes Fortlow after his novel "Blue Light" which I couldn't get into. "Walkin' the Dog" shows what an excellent author Mosley is with his clear and concise writing. "Walkin' the Dog" is actually a collection of stories which continue to deal with Fortlow's transition into society after being in prison, a theme that was also explored in the first collection of Fortlow stories, "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned." Fortlow is a character the reader cares about. Walter Mosley is one of the finest writers in American fiction today. This collection is highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Uplifting and thought-provoking
Review: Mosley almost never disappoints. If you haven't read the man and you enjoy good writing get started there is plenty to dig in to. Walking the dog is just damn good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Releasing the Mind-Forged Shackles to Become Free
Review: Mr. Mosley has written a brilliant book that explores the concept that freedom begins and ends in the mind. The physical world may put hand cuffs or handicaps on you, but you choose how you respond to those limitations. The roads you choose not to take limit your freedom far more than what anyone else will do to you. This is a timeless novel that will probably be considered a classic in the future. I encourage everyone to read it. You have much to gain.

Socrates Fortlow is an ex-con who is just trying to survive. His dreams are haunted by memories of his small cell and the murder he committed that placed him there. The book opens to find him operating like a future butterfly in its cocoon. He is constrained by his violent feelings, his distrust of progress and good fortune, and his discomfort with people. Like many who have sinned (all of us), he has many good qualities. He is mentoring a teenager he works with, will do more than his share of the work required, quietly endures mistreatment by white people, and cares for a badly handicapped dog who has only two legs. His great strengths are that he is interested in controlling his own actions (rather than just striking out in blind anger) and making the best moral choice (taking full responsibility for his actions).

Throughout the story, Socrates develops and finally emerges from his cocoon, and begins to seek out new opportunities and experiences. As a result, he grows as a person and as a moral force. Gradually, he begins to lose the mental bonds that hold him back from fulfilling his mighty potential.

The book is filled with much violence, hatred, and inhumanity. That backdrop will disturb many readers. Yet, for many people, life is like a battleground, and what is portrayed here is realistic in terms of inner city life for many black people.

On the other hand, the book is filled with much love, generosity, and caring. Seeing how these positive and negative forces confront and affect each other is extremely interesting in the plot that Mr. Mosley has developed. You will find it difficult to anticpate what will happen next, because of Mr. Mosley's inventiveness.

Like the Greek Socrates, Socrates Fortlow asks many questions and his questions help others to find their own solutions, as well. You will find yourself pondering the questions, long after you close the book.

The dog, Killer, is an astonishing metaphor for Socrates' life (and indeed our own), and will help every reader to appreciate the nuances in this story.

As much as I enjoyed the Easy Rawlins series, this book vastly transcends those fine books to move into the rarified air of great literature. Many will see the obvious similarities to Les Miserables, but I found Socrates Fortlow to be a greater creation than Jean Valjean was. Also, Mr. Mosley does a better job of character development with Socrates Fortlow than Victor Hugo did with Jean Valjean.

After you finish this story, think about where pessimism has stolen choices from you. What else can you choose to do that will set you free from the limitations of your mind? Like Killer, realize that you may need some help from others in order to accomplish everything you potentially can.

Choose to live free of your preconceptions!

Rating:
Summary: Releasing the Mind-Forged Shackles to Become Free
Review: Mr. Mosley has written a brilliant book that explores the concept that freedom begins and ends in the mind. The physical world may put hand cuffs or handicaps on you, but you choose how you respond to those limitations. The roads you choose not to take limit your freedom far more than what anyone else will do to you. This is a timeless novel that will probably be considered a classic in the future. I encourage everyone to read it. You have much to gain.

Socrates Fortlow is an ex-con who is just trying to survive. His dreams are haunted by memories of his small cell and the murder he committed that placed him there. The book opens to find him operating like a future butterfly in its cocoon. He is constrained by his violent feelings, his distrust of progress and good fortune, and his discomfort with people. Like many who have sinned (all of us), he has many good qualities. He is mentoring a teenager he works with, will do more than his share of the work required, quietly endures mistreatment by white people, and cares for a badly handicapped dog who has only two legs. His great strengths are that he is interested in controlling his own actions (rather than just striking out in blind anger) and making the best moral choice (taking full responsibility for his actions).

Throughout the story, Socrates develops and finally emerges from his cocoon, and begins to seek out new opportunities and experiences. As a result, he grows as a person and as a moral force. Gradually, he begins to lose the mental bonds that hold him back from fulfilling his mighty potential.

The book is filled with much violence, hatred, and inhumanity. That backdrop will disturb many readers. Yet, for many people, life is like a battleground, and what is portrayed here is realistic in terms of inner city life for many black people.

On the other hand, the book is filled with much love, generosity, and caring. Seeing how these positive and negative forces confront and affect each other is extremely interesting in the plot that Mr. Mosley has developed. You will find it difficult to anticpate what will happen next, because of Mr. Mosley's inventiveness.

Like the Greek Socrates, Socrates Fortlow asks many questions and his questions help others to find their own solutions, as well. You will find yourself pondering the questions, long after you close the book.

The dog, Killer, is an astonishing metaphor for Socrates' life (and indeed our own), and will help every reader to appreciate the nuances in this story.

As much as I enjoyed the Easy Rawlins series, this book vastly transcends those fine books to move into the rarified air of great literature. Many will see the obvious similarities to Les Miserables, but I found Socrates Fortlow to be a greater creation than Jean Valjean was. Also, Mr. Mosley does a better job of character development with Socrates Fortlow than Victor Hugo did with Jean Valjean.

After you finish this story, think about where pessimism has stolen choices from you. What else can you choose to do that will set you free from the limitations of your mind? Like Killer, realize that you may need some help from others in order to accomplish everything you potentially can.

Choose to live free of your preconceptions!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: Now I know why I listed Walter Mosley as my favorite person. His books are always riveting. I never thought I would like a character as much as I love Easy Rawlins and Mouse. But I couldn't be more wrong. Socrates is now my favorite character. I love Walter Mosley style of writing he reminds me of a modern day Langston Hughes. Another great book

Rating:
Summary: TO BE A POOR BLACK EX-CON IN SOUTH CENTRAL L. A.
Review: The dozen interconnected short stories in Walter Moseley's _WALKIN' THE DOG_ do a lot more than just describe several incidents in the life of his protagonist, Socrates Fortlow.

Socrates, as many of the readers of this review probably already know, is an ex-convict who was convicted of murder(evidently a crime of passion -- his wife was in bed with his "best friend"), served his time, and is now trying to live out his life working an honest job as a grocery bagger, while serving as a mentor for a teen aged boy, and lovingly caring for his two legged dog, "Killer."

A pervasive problem is that too many people, including a racist cop or two, just won't leave him or his conscience alone. One very bad cop, in particular, has brutalized, raped, and murdered defenseless black victims. In addressing this, Socrates does NOT resort to violence, but, wearing a sandwich board listing the rogue cops acts of violence, walks up and down across the street from a police station. When people begin to take notice of him, the police order him to move. He refuses because he believes his actions are legal. When the police try to remove him from the street using excess physical force a crowd including TV reporters and cameras shows up and a riot ensues. Although Socrates is jailed and manhandled, he is released in three days With apologies from the mayor and police chief, and the rogue cop is let go. In line with his personal philosophy, Socrates, having accomplished his self appointed mission, gives no interviews and does his best to disappear "into the woodwork."

This episode is one of the 12 linked short stories in Mosely's novel.

Socrates, like his namesake, is a bit of a philosopher, but the kind who has more questions than answers. One of the big questions that he has a strong need to deal with, revolves around his own anger. He tries to deal with this omnipresent anger by participating in a discussion group and gradually bringing them around to a discussion of black anger in a white dominated society.

He does, when forced to, resort to what we might call physical violence, but only when severely provoked as in the case of a young, very physical, mugger who is determined to do Socrates severe bodily harm. He does, but Socrated prevails by the end of the confrontation.

I felt that Mosely, in this book, gave me some insight into what life is like for poor members of an underclass (in his books, black) in a society that seems determined to keep the class structure status quo. For this reason, along with its readability, I can recommend _WALKIN' THE DOG_ without reservation.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Mosley
Review: Walter Mosley's black, 60ish, ex-convict Socrates Fortlow is a unique hero. To start with, there's his stature: he's an enormous, powerful man with "killer hands" that are "weapons trained from childhood for war." Socrates is "more often than not the strongest man in the room" and his laugh sounds "like far-off explosions, a battery of cannon laying siege to a defenseless town."

Then there's his past: 27 years in prison for murders he committed in some kind of daze. He's not just haunted by the evil he's put into the world, he's possessed by it. He'll always carry prison inside of him--even his dreams return him to a claustrophobic cell--but he's determined to do right and teach others likewise.

He has to "see past bein' guilty" and that includes taking care of those who are helpless, guiding others with probing, Soctratic questions, and in effect nurturing a young black boy he works with. Fortlow may have lost his moral compass, but he's determined to fly right (as he sees it) and not let others do what he's done.

It's the combination of simmering rage and brutality with a hunger for redemption that makes Walter Mosley's new collection of stories about Fortlow edgy and at times profound.

The obstacles are enormous, because for the cops, this murderer is just "a prisoner-in-waiting." They come after him whenever there's a crime committed nearby and even "on a whim . . . just in case he had done something that even they couldn't suspect." Socrates has an ex-con's ability to sink into silence and out wait his oppressors, but in the end he'll take a very bold step--knowing "he had to stand up without killing--in his search for justice.

Socrates' moral sensibility searchlighting his life brings a kind of monumentality to the character, who is larger than life in many ways. With his two-legged dog, he seems a figure out of myth. Ralph Ellison's name is brought up in the book, but for me he recalls figures from the brooding romances of Hawthorne and Melville, a man irrevocably marked by his past.

The prose is finely crafted, supple, clear, powerful. The dialogue natural, and the truths fierce. This book is beautiful and sad, so compelling you may feel torn between wanting to gobble it down and read slowly to savor every insight. Not a bad dilemma.

"Walkin' the Dog" makes you care, makes you think, makes you glad Walter Mosley is writing. This is not a book you're likely to forget, and it's one you'll want to share.

Rating:
Summary: One great character walks and rides LA busses again
Review: _Walkin' the Dog_ is closer to being a novel than the previous stories featuring the menacingly large reformed ex-con Socrates Fotlow, _Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned_. Repetitions of basic information about the characters is rarer. If the stories were published separately, there is no indication of credits.

Socrates remains a compelling figure. He continues to develop, as he manages rage that is often provoked. Unfortunately, his quasi-son Daryl doesn't grow (as a character).

The final chapter/story in the book is particularly gripping, though I remain uncertain that someone conditioned to self-preservation in a long prison sentence would undertake such dangerous public protest. Several non-black, mostly Latino people champion him in his confrontations with police, developers, and coworkers. Mosley's prose is always compelling and any sentimentality rubs against a world of Brechtian pressures and troubles.