Rob Baker > Recent Status Updates

"Power comes not from power everywhere, but from knowing where to put it on.

...My father ws very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things--trout as well as eternal salvation--come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy" (4).

I first read this book back in the 90s when it had a surge in popularity because the movie came out.

It caused a wave of popularity in fly fishing and of people looking for the book "The Compleat Angler", by Izaak Walton (I owned a used bookstore at the time).

I don't recall being super into it, but now I'm 30 years older -closer to Maclean's age was when he wrote it (73) --so maybe I'll feel differently.

"In the cooler lanes of the souk (open-air market place)...rows of skinned lambs' heads seemed to follow Spike, eyeballs bulging as though still coming to terms with their unexpected deaths" (94).

"The rims of his ears broke the sheen of his hair like two dolphins breaching" (92).

"'Agua de beber' Solomon added, switching to yanito, the patois of Spanish, Genoese, English, and Hebrew used by native Gibraltarians."

"The stains on his shirt were of a rusty-brown colour, the tear in his pinstripe trousers just below the knee, giving him the air of a smartly dressed postman savaged on his round" (7-8).

"HIs name was Toby Bell and he was entirely alone in his criminal contemplations. No evil genius controlled him, no paymaster, provocateur or sinister manipulator armed with an attaché case stuffed with hundred-dollar bills was waiting round the corner, no activist in a ski mask.

He was in that sense the most feared creature of our contemporary world: a solitary decider" (52).

Picked this out because it's set on Gibraltar (not many books are!), which I am considering visiting in the fall.

So far it hasn't gone into much detail about the setting itself, but still fun to picture it taking place there :)

Shift and persist.

"If you don't know where to go, go where you're needed."

"Hope is not defined as a feeling, but as a defiant act against the darkness."

"When I find myself getting impatient about racing to a finish line, I try to ask myself the opposite question: 'What's the least amount of change I can follow through with consistently, to be able to reach my goal eventually'" (163).

"When we apply a 'curious scientist' mindset to life moving gorward, we're moving from one experiement to the next. We're simply trying something to see if it works for us.

The point isn't to 'win', but to conduct a successful experiment. As long as we keep experimenting, even if some experiments fail, we give ourrselves the best chance to find a path that fits our life and situation" (94)

During Covid, I stopped going to the gym, but found a great home- exercise routine online on a website set up by this author. Been following him ever since (and still using the home-exercise routine :)

In his newsletter, he's been telling enhustiastic stories about the approach of the publication date, so I wanted to read it!

So far, lots of helpful ideas about failure and success, told with a fun sense of humor.

Lots of beautiful writing in this grim, bloody novel:

"...and his big idea is to open his stupid eyes, which he doesn and he sees a raft of rain arrows fired from sagittarii of holy archers, a soggy debauch of dead roads and buildings and humans, and a foothill of brick that fell so close it covered Bagger in a pale dust that the rain is turning to grime" (156).

"...and though the angel is carried like Hestia's flame, night falls anyway" (119).

Had to look up the allusion to "Hestia's flame":

"The eternal, sacred fire of the Greek goddess of the hearth and home. Representing warmth, community unity, and purity, it was kept perpetually burning in the public hearth of ancient cities and taken by colonists to light the fires of new settlements" (per Google search)

"...except now slaughter seems pointless to Bagger...and isn't it possible the angel was shot down while serving a summons to the human race, subpoenaed to defend the crimes they mistook as valor" (100).

“and Bagger dares a glance at the others, even amid the death, rumbles and offal stink, perhaps because of it, they have the translucent look of Bishop Bagger’s rapt congregation, because stories are hope, stories have all sorts of fantastical twists, underdog victories, and heavenly inventions, all things soldiers yearn for,” (47).