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Title: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Contemporary American Fiction) by Charles Johnson ISBN: 0-14-009865-8 Publisher: Penguin USA (P) Pub. Date: 01 May, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent
Comment: Charles Johnson is one of the most neglected writers living today. He, along with William Kennedy, often get shunned aside for their poetic quality in their work. The best story in this series is "Moving Pictures" which gives an excellent appreciation for the arts. His prose is rich and musical- plenty of lines would work in poems. The story about the 2 kids and the old woman was probably the weakest tale. Not bad, but not the best- just goes to show how the most simple of his tales gets all the praise. Johnson takes risks, and takes them well. He is not afraid to be poetic & every work of his I've read has been a pleasure. I highly recommend "Oxherding Tale" because the ending is out of this world. Charles, if you are reading this- keep up the excellent work. There are those who really appreciate your style, and I think in time will grant you more acclaim. Bravo!

Rating: 3
Summary: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Comment: The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a good example for writing, and the inability to write. Exchange Value was chosen by Gardner as one of the best American short stories of 1982 and has become Johnson's most anthologized short story. Two kids steal from a dead old woman who hoarded her money in fear, and they become as eccentric as she. How ironic. Popper's Disease has some interesting insights into racial matters, but then it degrades into a science-fiction story and anti-solipsistic philosophy. Similarly, Alethia starts out promising, with a sexy black woman blackmailing her philosophy professor, but then is swallowed up in dreamlike imagery and the tired notion that thinking is too much dangerous.

Occasionally Johnson displays that Ron Hansen tic of turning respectable nouns into clumsy verbs, while his classroom admonishment to get as specific as possible, is here shown to date stories. Several times he mentions Sanka rather than coffee. Who drinks Sanka anymore? Wendy Barnes in Alethia also uses trim in the sexual sense at one point, which seems terribly dated to me. But the stories aren't bad, entertaining enough, and there are early references to the Allmuseri, Johnson's fictional African tribe in Middle Passage. But I wouldn't seek out other Charles Johnson efforts as a result of this book.