Book Review: The Colors of the Mind (Ed Krizek)Reviewed by Anne KaierColors of the Mind, an engaging short book by Ed Krizek that can be read in an afternoon, has some definite things going for it. For starters, there's a likeable hero. Bob Jones is a young carpenter who sees "colors" or auras emanating from the people he meets in his relatively small circle of friends and acquaintances in Philadelphia. He's troubled by this sensitivity, not knowing what to make of it. By Chapter Two, however, he's met a charming woman who becomes, not his girlfriend, but his coach. With Anne as his guide, he sets out on a series of adventures, mainly in the Philly real estate trade, which can easily pass for the proverbial wasteland, to find out what he is meant to do in life. Herein lies the second virtue of the book. We want to know what happens to the hero and Krizek rewards us by keeping the plot moving along fairly crisply through Bob's ups and downs. In fact, Bob reminds me of a hero of chivalry, a veritable Knight of the Round Table, who wants to do good in this world, but has endearing moments of fear and bafflement until the climax of the story. When we first meet him, Bob is pretty aimless at least in his day to day life. He picks up odd jobs as a carpenter, never reaching for the lucrative career ladders that his classmates at the University of Pennsylvania have been pursuing. But his college buddies are in his orbit. His friend Brian, looking to score in the Philly housing boom, has hired Bob to do some remodeling on a row house in the gentrifying Art Museum area. Here's where the bad guy shows up: one Joe Disher, a corrupt inspector for the infamous Philly department of Licenses and Inspections. One morning when Brian isn't at the worksite to protect him, Bob has a threatening visit from Disher, who's looking for his normal bribe before he will pass the property as habitable. Bob is too honest even to understand that Disher has his hand out, literally. But Bob is almost overwhelmed by the bad vibes emanating from the evil L&I guy. He sees "a black sphere form over the man's head." It gets worse as Disher threatens to close the work site down: "Bob saw the black sphere grow to the size of a basketball over Joe Disher's head…Then all of a sudden a yellow lazerlike streak that looked a lot like lightening to Bob emerged from the black ball and hit Bob's chest." This is fantasy territory. Bob is the good knight and Disher the evil one. There's a lovely maiden in the story, too. Julia is a charming, beautiful singer who falls for Bob's sweetness even if she doesn't totally understand his ability to see auras. Bob is enchanted from the outset, when he first meets her at a club and sees her "red glow." What are we to make of these auras, this thread of fantasy in a story otherwise set firmly in day to day life in the Philadelphia real estate scene? Bob's guide, Anne, who is a modern guru, explains that Bob is gifted, able to be in touch with the "cosmic energy of the world" and it is his mission to bring positive energy to the people in his life. Anne believes this. Bob comes to believe this and like knights of old, accepts his mission to be a "healer." However, Bob doesn't really seem to be in charge of his life. His creator, Ed Krizel, is clearly pulling the strings in this story. Without giving away the plot, it's fair to say that some of the incidents beggar belief. Bob finds a nineteenth century will, hidden behind a brick in the house he's been renovating, that has a positive influence on his future. On one occasion Bob is able to perform an act of healing that would not embarrass Jesus himself. I confess my credulity was seriously strained. I have other quibbles. The book's women all exist to listen to and minister to the men. Granted the story is told from Bob's point of view, but even in scenes constructed mainly of dialogue, the women seldom reveal their own thoughts. They are there to mirror the men. Perhaps this is just another indication of the fairy-tale atmosphere of the story—the women bend as silkily around the men as any princess might. Krizek's prose is utterly elementary. His short sentences never get beyond a simple noun + verb structure. In a frightening sequence which is set in a mental hospital—Bob's ordeal or passage unto hell—Bob makes a beautiful talisman in the hospital's Occupational Therapy department, "He finished sanding all the surfaces. The sphere never got completely round, but rather seemed to have different facets or faces to it. Bob made sure there were no rough edges and then stopped his work. He looked at the sphere and for some reason unknown to him he liked it very much. He felt one with it. He felt connected to this piece of wood." It's an important scene, but the almost childlike simplicity of the prose style undermines its power. And even if Bob doesn't know why he likes the talisman, surely the narrator could hazard a guess about why this sphere attracts him—except that it is so obviously an antidote to the black sphere that hangs like a cloud over Joe Disher's evil head. The sequence in the mental hospital brought other questions to my mind. Krizek explicitly sets these scenes in the "psychiatric unit of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania" (page 119). In his story, Penn physicians use electroshock therapy to treat a character against her will and she dies of cardiac arrest. What facts did Krizek draw on to construct this sequence? He gives no acknowledgements in the book, although he is a Penn grad himself. It's one thing to imply that electroshock killed patients in mental hospitals in general, in unnamed mental hospitals. It's another to imply that this kind of thing happened at 34th and Spruce at the Penn hospital. Krizek needs to indicate his sources here. However Krizek feels about Penn, it's clear that he loves Philly. Carpenter Bob has a real feeling for the craftsmanship of the Philly rowhouse he's rehabbing. He walks by the Schuylkill River when he needs to think. He and his guru admire the river view from the gazebo in the gardens of Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Look around you," coach Anne tells him. "Next to you is one of the world's finest collections of art. Across from you the beautiful river. If you turn your head to the left a little you can see the best view of the Philadelphia skyline. You are in a wondrous place and this is a wondrous spot." It's this affection for a real place—as well as the very likable hero—that stood out for me in Colors of the Mind, when all the verbiage about auras and cosmic energy had faded.
Title: Colors of the Mind
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