Jonathan Raymond

One of the very saddest films I've ever seen, but wonderful. Great acting, sad-but-true (and at times uplifting) commentary on American values.

Once I read the description of this book I really wanted to read it. Here is the blurb:

Damon and his girlfriend Amy have had enough of Los Angeles. Fitful and tired and dreaming of a simpler life, they leave the city to go work on a community farm. But they’ve scarcely arrived when their vague hopes start to come unraveled: What are they really doing here? Who are their friends? Are they truly testing themselves, or are they just chasing a fantasy that will never be fulfilled? By degrees, show more they realize that their dreams are not the same. For Damon, a career in the field of branding unfolds almost effortlessly, while for Amy, the menial labor of the farm leads to a satisfying but difficult new path. As the rift deepens, they are forced to evaluate fundamental questions of identity and fate, ambition and betrayal, compromise and lust. This novel is a fresh, searching story about the love of work and the work of love, and the life destinies that we sadly only recognize in retrospect.

Rain Dragon is told from the point of view of the male character, Damon but the story centers around Damon, Amy (Damon’s girlfriend) and Rain Dragon Organics. Damon and Amy live in LA but have fantasies of fleeing the corporate urban world and finding their own way in the world. This idea, this desire to eschew popular culture and every day pressures is just so damned appealing. Although the author never addresses how financially they are able to do this – what about school loans? Credit card debt? Car loans? You know, the things that hold the rest of us back. I was enlightened in graduate school and law school but due to my school loans, my choice of employment and lifestyle were pretty much dictated by how much I owe the government for my enlightenment. Anyway, Damon and Amy apparently are not so encumbered. So the story starts with the couple arriving at Rain Dragon after a long trip from southern California. Immediately it becomes obvious that the relationship is dictated by Amy’s moods and desires, Damon is riding along and taking care of Amy but also governed by her moods and desires. The relationship is not equal:

Damon thinks of Amy's obsession to leave the corporate world behind:

It wasn't the first such obsession that had gripped her.

An example of Amy's almost child like manner:

"We should probably get out and help, right?" Amy asked.
I responded, "I guess so."
"Do you know where my boots are?" She asked.
"Way in the back. Under everything." I told her.
"Ugh." Amy responded.

And Damon's dependance on Amy:

"I couldn't say I was exactly looking forward to what ever was in store, but knowing Amy was happy made everything a little better. If she was happy, I figured, then I must be happy, too."

But the organic farm escape fantasy isn't what Damon expected,

My sense of noble purpose lasted almost an hour. It was around then that my back started to ache and my knees began to hurt. .... a sudden pang of loss bloomed in my stomach. Not that my former life was so definitively behind me, I could it for all its wonderful comfort and ease.

Jon Raymond makes astute observations about the world, corporate and economic trappings, relationship issues, and relationship dynamics on the job. The beauty and interest of this book lies in those observations, "Success is a weird deal. Usually more about what it keeps out of your life than what it lets in." Or: "Who are you when everything is gone?" And this little jewel: "The small bouquet of creases at the edges of her eyes became her. The first strokes of age. Death, the artist, slowly working his magic. Love was grief's becoming, I thought. It was sad but true." But a story has to be more than just brilliant philosphical observations, doesn't it?

The book follows Damon through the problems of hi relationship with Amy, Damon’s ascension at Rain Dragon, the little company on the block (Rain Dragon’s) attempt to go big time, and a constant critique of the corporate world.

Rain Dragon held me rapt during the first 2/3 of the book, I was convinced that Jon Raymond and I were completely in sync in terms of analysis of the corporate structure. But in the end, the last 1/3 of the book lost my interest. What this book was about didn’t end happening and ultimately, it appears to be more of a compilation of observations but the plot and story does not go anywhere. Ultimately, I am not sure what the point of the book is nor what the ending means. Still, the book was an interesting journey that made me think about my life and I am glad that I read it.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review* show less

A wagon train is lost in the Oregon desert.

An excellent movie, but its small budget shows through enough to take you out of it from time to time.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.1/4

I slogged through this, forgetting how much better a book could be until I started the next one. There are two parallel stories, both set in the same landscape near Portland, Oregon, one during the frontier period in the mid-nineteenth century, the other on a commnity of aging hippies in the 1980s. The first, by far the more interesting story, relates the friendship between two men, one a cook for trapping expeditions. They cook up a scheme to get rich by selling vials of a glandular extract show more from beavers in China. There "Cookie" is arrested, put in prison, & abandoned by his friend, who returns to America. Eventually Cookie befriends the Chinese prisoner in the next cell, brings him to American when they are released, only to encounter tragedy. In the other story, two teenaged girls become friends, smoke a lot of pot, & plan to make a film, before, again, tragedy occurs. In both friendships, the person of stronger character is thoroughly dominated by the one who is apparently stronger but fundamentally weaker. In that, the story had potential, but it didn't work very well. (The stories are loosely & ineffectively linked by an awkward story about finding two long abandoned bodies (both male, holding hands) on the property the girls are living on & a dispute over whether the bodies should be turned over to a forensic anthropologist or to local Indians.) The writer got carried away with descriptions, crossing the fine line, for me, between providing the details necessary to bring the characters & their attempts to life, or indulging oneself as a writer in displaying one's powers of description to no useful end. It was also a profance book, not just in the sense of being filled with profanity & drug use, but in that it sees life itself as tragic & unredeemable rather than, as Shakespeare & other great writers do, seeing that SOME people have tragic flaws that prevent them from reaping life's rewards. show less