Chapters 7-12 provided some help to my unanswered questions about the first half dozen chapters. They went into more detail about Steve and Nathaniel's unique friendship that helped me to better understand the reasons behind it. Lopez wanted to learn more and more about Nathaniel (as did I) and even spent a night with him on the streets to see what it was like. As Lopez tries and tries to persuade Ayers into moving to somewhere a little safer than skid row, he notices how controlling his schizophrenia can be. Despite the fact that Ayers is reluctant to some of Steve's ideas, Lopez is determined to make things right for this promising violinist who was impaired by mental disorder and left with nothing but a shopping cart full of his belongings. When Steve tries to help Nathaniel get things out of the cart so that they can sleep, he is struck by the fact that Nathaniel keeps everything in that cart in order and can find whatever he is looking for in that organized mess that he carries around with him. Lopez starts to get more serious about Nathaniel and tries to get some gigs for Nathaniel to get started with on his road to excellence. Hopefully the rest of the story will be as interesting and compelling as these first 12 chapters have been.
Focus: Was this a good follow up to my previous post? What do you think i could have done differently to make this post more effective?
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I think it may be a good follow-up. You seem to be honing in on what Lopez's interest in Ayers may be. For your final two posts, I would suggest looking a closely as possible at specific moments in Part 2 of the novel that might help you to answer the question you posed in your first blog on The Soloist. I'd like to see some close textual analysis for these subsequent posts that will bring us closer to Lopez's motivations for telling Ayers' story.
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