_The Perfect Thief_

David Silberstein (DASBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Mon, 27 May 96 21:52:04 EDT

Have you ever dreamed of being in a bookstore where you found a book
that you were hunting for in real life (while awake, that is)?
I have, often. When I was younger, it was the Oz books. But for the
past year or so, when I started keeping an eye out for "The Perfect
Thief", I've dreamt a couple of times about finding the book. One
time a had a feeling that the bookstore was in the south - which
could have been anything from Renton (WA) to San Diego (CA).
Another time I dreamed I found it back east, in downtown Manhattan.

Just goes to show you how accurate my dreams are. I returned to
Seattle for the holiday weekend, and stopped by a bookstore in
the downtown area.

And there it was. Practically in my own back yard (and in fact,
both north and west of where I live).

_The Perfect Thief_, by Ronald Jay Bass, and pretty damn good
condition for an 18 year old book.

I'll try not to give any spoilers, but here's some first impressions:

There really isn't that much of Voleur in Trent. Oh, there's a
definite resemblance (it made me wonder where Suzanne Montinget
got Trent's genetic material from), but Voleur is so very
humorless, so very much in control of his emotions at all times.
There's no way you could imagine him dressing up as a Clown from
Mars, or even laughing out loud.

On the other hand - there are those points of resemblance.
Voleur does have a sense of ethics. I don't know if he
doesn't believe in killing, but he does seem to use his
wits and his tongue to get himself out of trouble, and does
not resort to violence at any point in the book.
At the end of the story, where (nearly) all is explained, we
begin to understand just how long and how carefully Voleur
had been planning . So, too, we have seen, in the fragments
that DKM posted in this list, how the *mature* Trent is
running simulations and laying groundwork for a long, long
campaign.

Some more thoughts :
there is an strong continental feel to the book - most of the
action takes place in the countries around the Mediterranian,
and the depictions of France, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Turkey
are indeed very vivid. Part of this "feel" may have been the
language - somehow, I found it hard to believe that the book
was written by a native-born American. There's nothing wrong
with it, but it seems a shade too formal. Or perhaps I'm just
used to more idiomatic styles of prose.

A couple more points: The "chessboard" sequence that DKM
quotes extensively is right at the beginning.
The cover, as DKM mentioned to me a while back, does not
really do justice to the story (I'd have preferred to see
Goya's "Strange Land" and Voleur's "Je Suis le Fleuve" on
the back, since these are the paintings around which the
story revolves).

"Voleur" apparantly also has the meaning in French ( as well
as 'thief', that is) of 'one who flies or soars'.

Remember that quote from The Exodus Bible "A theft is an
act of communication. So is a blow. Unlike words, neither
one can be ignored." ? In tPF, someone says to Voleur
"Do you think it is possible, Monsieur, for a teacher to use
an act of theft as such a tool? Can an act of theft also...
communicate, Monsieur? Like a blow, or a riddle."

It helps, you see, if you know that the discussion in tPF is
regarding Zen Buddhism, where the teachers use koans (riddles)
and blows to "awaken" their students' minds (recommended reading:
Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, by Tsai Chih Chung. This book
also has the original koan which found its way into DKM's (J. D.
Montgomerey's) "A Barve like That")

I apologize that this letter is so long, for I lack the time to
make it short.
----------------------
David S