Beautiful book

The Assistant, by Bernard Malamud. This is one of the most beautifully written stories I've read in a good while. It is a story that manages to be simple, yet complex, with simple, yet complex characters. In the end, Frank Alpine, the "Assistant," struggles to be a good person, like so many of us. He wants to be good, and manages for awhile, while backsliding often, and then trying to make it up as a way to redeem himself. Morris is steadfast and honest in the way he runs his store. Always perservering, always struggling. Morris seemingly has few moments of pure joy, yet he never shirks his duty to his customers, or more importantly, to his wife and daughter, unless he can't avoid it.

Life is difficult for most of the characters in the book. But they struggle and ultimately, Frank seems to be on the path to being good. He has become the reincarnation of Morris.

I really enjoyed this book and this beautiful story.

Reading: The Autobiography of a Former Colored Man (or something like that).
Listening: Atlas Shrugged. It gets stupider by the moment. At least the Fountainhead was a good soap opera and had a theme of striving for uncompromised excellence. A thoroughl anti-Christian book that touts, "Greed is good. Rich people are good and everyone else is a 'looter.'" Yep. All that looting by people who live in the slums; who didn't contribute to the building of this great country. Yep. That's right. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.