Customer Reviews

Rain (Richard Kasak Books)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Brutal, honest, raw and exquisitely worded, RAIN tells the story of revolution and one man's discovery of faith and self.

Sandro, a country boy from a wet and fertile sea-side village, walks into the big city on the 1,537th day of the drought. In the city, he becomes a gray man, seeing but not seen. He watches the city crumble around him, enfolding him in its passions and hatreds. Eventually he becomes the Chosen One, a magical Messiah who is prophesied to bring back the rain.

Sandro starts the story as a simple, healthy young man, and by the time he climbs the mountain to seek the rain, he is physically broken and mutilated, nearly unrecognizable as the idealistic kid who walked into the city. His inner journey is as brutal and destructive as the outer one, irrevocably changing him in one of the most powerful explorations of self and destiny that fantasy literature has to offer. The world changes around him, slowly turning to a new course. They are irrevocably influenced by each other.

Bosch uses classic themes in his writing, drawing from classic literature, fantasy and fairy-tales alike. A farm boy who struggles with the knowledge that he is the Chosen One. A city at war with itself, the fall of one power to the rebels, who in turn become the next despotic power. Rain at surface glance is simply an erotic fairy-tale. A brutal, beautifully written erotic story.

RAIN is filled with powerful, tortured characters: the Publisher whose power with words shapes the city, the gypsy-fortune teller who opens Sandro's eyes, the decrepit old throw-aways of the work-camp, La Brujah. Bosch's characters are larger than life, dirty and hopeless, yet clear and memorable. Bosch doesn't go in depth, he doesn't pick them apart. He presents them at face value and the reader is left to their own conclusions.

When I read Rain, I want to brush my hands together to clean off the sand. The work-camp depresses me; the City fascinates me as much as it must have fascinated Sandro. Cell phones, helicopters, wagons, drought and gypsies blend together into a wonderful cacophony of the modern, the mystical and the medieval. I don't think it is possible to label his world, or the people in it. It's a true melting pot of society, of past and present and future.

Rain somehow melds fantasy and science-fiction, modern reality and a chilling look at a possible future where water and words are the power. The style of the book would fit well with the original 'fairy-tale', where things don't always end happily ever after, and people really are that bad. The City could be America in ten years, but looks chillingly like America now, with corporations failing and the government saving them at the expense of its own people.

Rain is an excellent read, although not for those afraid of sex or violence, the the voice of the character echoes long after the book is put aside; it straddles a fine line between fantasy and reality, one that There are many passages that are best written down and considered at great length, and which I often quote. The last line of the book, beautiful on its own, truly resonates and humbles when taken in context with the rest of the story.

"And I have resolved that whatever else happens, on the day I die, when all of these memories pass before my eyes for one last time, I will smile and sat, despite all I have been through, "It's truly been a wonderful life."
And it has." ~Sandro

So great to see Rain out in a revised edition. When it exploded on the scene in 1995, it provoked a number of intellectual and moral questions, which are perhaps even more appropriate for the complex social questions we are dealing with now. Beware, Bosch does not shy away from the passionate and sexual, but the rich language and literary images stimulate both the body and the mind.

This one is worth the couple bucks. Desire and desperation in a post-apocalyptic setting. Wish this author would sit down and write about ten others.

I happened upon this book at a bargin table. What drew me into buying it, was not it's sexual content but instead it's reviews for being a book that will "stimulate intellectual and moral questioning". I found it very captivating and to some extent very disturbing, but enjoyable to read. A few of his analogies at each of the chapter beginings really hit home for me.