Comentarios del público
 Middle of the Road
This book is just okay. I would give it 2.5 stars if I could, to reflect the true averageness of this book. It starts out well, with colorful characters in desperate circumstances. The parts about Kiki's life, Soupspoon's battle with illness, and his early introduction to the blues lifestyle are interesting and well-told. The story peters out about halfway in, however, and one never really shares or believes in Soupspoon's obsession with his past with RL. The last half of the book seems hurriedly written, and contains some unexpectedly hackneyed story elements--the stuff with Chevette, in particular. (Didn't this same ridiculous male fantasy crop up in that other truly average novel "About Schmidt?")
Fecha: 2005-04-29
 Original, engaging, confronting
I don't know that I've read anything like this before - the guy has his own very readable style. It starts a bit like the movie `Paris, Texas', where you suddenly are in the middle of seemingly unbelievable people in extreme circumstances, and then over time you realise how credible they are.
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I don't know how `real' these characters are - everything is always life or death, intense pain and/or emotional climax: is it that Mosley's skipping the bits where `nothing much happened that afternoon', or is he suggesting that this sort of overwhelming life is actually happening constantly? At times it feels like a `Pulp Fiction' style sensory overload fantasy, at others a `serious' character novel.
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The issues they're facing are not mine, but the stories and characters are engaging (and confronting), and well told. There's some background thriller/suspense - well done too - but this is a million miles from a formula paperback.
Fecha: 2004-12-13
 Redemption
RL's Dream is a haunting story that will change the way you see your life. Through this book, you will see ways that facing up to your pain can bring redemption.The book opens as elderly black Jazz musician, Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise, painfully returns to his apartment in lower Manhattan. His respite is brief when the landlord's men evict him for many months of not paying his rent and call Social Services to pick him up to be returned to a homeless shelter. It's cold as Soupspoon lies amidst his few belongings on the sidewalk, and it's getting dark. He's so sick he can barely speak, and has a horrible pain in his hip. He feels death standing over him. While he's been going through this, one of his neighbors, Ms. Kiki Waters, a young white woman is also painfully coming home after being released from a hospital after being stabbed by a young boy. She is appalled to find Soupspoon on the street, for he is the man whose happiness had just cheered her a few days before the attack on her. Knowing her duty as a human being, she orders the men to move Soupspoon into her apartment along with some of his belongings. Kiki nurses Soupspoon back to health, but uses methods that leave her life at risk. In the course of their evolving relationship, each one learns how to turn pain into beauty and goodness. Soupspoon does it by playing and singing the blues. Kiki does it by facing up to and overcoming her fears. The story is beautifully developed around the memories that Soupspoon and Kiki carry around of their younger days in the South. Soupspoon is frustrated that he cannot reach the heights as a musician that his friend RL Johnson could. Kiki carries intense fear from the abuse she suffered at her father's hands. Both are prisoners of those memories until they take steps to move beyond them. Those steps are their redemption. To me the most powerful part of the book is the opening. Imagine yourself riding home on the subway full of stitches from a knife attack. Emerging, you see a poor, old man lying on the street who is your neighbor. Would you stop to help? What would you do to help? Chances are that you would not do as much as Kiki does. Yet we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. Kiki hasn't known much love, yet she gives all she has to Soupspoon. It's a beautiful story, and shows how beautiful life can be. If you also love the Blues, this book will reward you with wonderful sketches of what is was like to create that rich music that grew out of pain in the South during the early 20th century.
Fecha: 2003-07-20
Wonderfully touching
There are some writers whose talent is so special that you want to save their books and make the reading of them an occasion. Walter Mosley is one of those writers. He invests his characters with such depth, such full histories that you cannot help but care about them. RL's Dream is populated by a cast of such characters; even the most minor ones (including a baby) are fully fleshed and very real. Soupspoon and Kiki are two almost-lost souls who bring each other back to life in unexpected ways. It is a credit to Mosley's rare and splendid talent that the book itself resonates with music; its cadence is almost audible in the spare prose, the all-too-human behavior of people who, often, do things without even really knowing why. To comprehend the blues, to put words, literally, to a musical theme and to do so in a kind-hearted and deeply understanding fashion is to deliver magic in the form of a book. This is a "must read" novel.
Fecha: 2001-12-22
first mosley experience, probably not the last
this is the first book i have purchased written my mr. mosley. his descriptions and character development are very good as is the plot. the only issue i have with his work were the romantic relationships and the sexuality described in them. i am hardly a prude and i know that this is fiction but i felt that the sexual liasons that took place were not beleivable and not relevant to the storyline. other than this one issue, this is a very good book and i would recommend it.
Fecha: 2001-07-12
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