Character Profile: Why No More?

This book being based on a true story made the characters lack imagination, which is something I don’t enjoy. When you can picture a character and make them your own it’s something that can make a book even better, and in this book there is no chance to do that. Also the book is limited in main characters, only giving useful information about two of the main character Steve and Nathaniel. The book’s main focus however was on Nathaniel having lots of Background information on him, because Steve who wrote the book also has been looking into his past since he met Nathaniel. In my opinion Steve really should have taken more time to tell the reader about himself since he was the character who’s mind you really got to see into, yet you learnt virtually nothing about his past. Also the only real main characters in the book were Steve and Nathaniel. It doesn’t follow anybody else close enough to consider them an important role in the book. It’s a story of how friendship can change what sometimes seems impossible. For the reasons above I couldn’t give profiles for more characters because nobody was important enough, and also not enough information was given about anybody else.

Character Profile: Steve Lopez

Name: Lopez, Steve
Date of Birth: 1953, N/A
Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California
Ethnicity: Caucasian/Latin American

Background Information: Steve Lopez didn’t talk much about his personal life previous to meeting Nathaniel. His childhood was not brought up in the book except a few sentences about being raised in Los Angeles. However his past jobs were brought up having written for Time, Life, Entertainment Weekly, and Sports Illustrated. Now he works at L.A. Times, where he started the column about Nathaniel. He has a wife named Alison and a young daughter named Caroline, who was only 2 years-old when Steve first met Nathaniel. Besides these small facts brought up in the book he didn’t really tell the reader much about his background.

Characteristics: Steve is a very nice man, which is easy to say but he shows in the book how genuinely nice he actually is. He befriended a homeless man, who he discovered has a mental illness and still remains his friend trying to help him get his life together. He’s tolerant, many times in the book he’s put up against aggravating obstacles and still remains remotely calm and never over reacts. That’s to me is a strong trait to have, patients he said is something he never thought he’d contain but it really shows in the book that he must in order to put up with Nathaniel. Steve is a loving father and husband, who when not working or helping Nathaniel is always enjoying time with his family. 

Character Profile: Nathaniel Anthony Ayers

Name: Ayers, Nathaniel Anthony
Date of Birth: January 22nd, 1951
Place of Birth: Cleveland, Ohio
Ethnicity: African-American

Background Information: Nathaniel lived with his family in Cleveland, where eventually his father left to live in Los Angeles, California. He then became focused on music and was considered musically gifted, being able to play many instruments beautifully. During a time where race was becoming a large scale issue, he spent all of his time practicing on his double bass. Getting into music schools and still practicing getter better and better he finally auditioned to the famous Julliard and got in. However on his second year there he had a mental break down, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was then institutionalized after having public outbursts and with the fall of mental hospitals, was put to the streets.

Characteristics: Nathaniel at first was a homeless street musician, with the appearance of any homeless person on the street. Wearing dirty clothes that don’t match, but playing beautiful music on a violin with two strings. He’s a very kind, well mannered person throughout the novel, however he has dramatic mood swings where he will get very anger and even violent towards people. He’s stubborn and ignorant to anybodies ideas but his own. But the point of this book was helping to change him, so he became more and more trustful of others further in the book.

The Soloist: Book Review

The book "The Soloist" was a book about a homeless street musician who suffers from schizophrenia, yet plays the violin with incredible talent. He is discovered by an L.A. Times columnist who wants to learn about his story, which turns out to be an amazing discovery. I feel that this novel is more aimed towards an older reader, not because of complex topics or a wide vocabulary, but because it loads you with lots of information and takes a long time until something exciting takes place. The book is separated in to Three Parts, the first being introduction where the main characters are introduced and the theme of the book is roughly explained. Part two is more of following the main topic in some parts but basically is loading you with information about the "cause" they’re working hard on, to end the horrible living conditions for mentally ill homeless people who have nowhere to go except the streets. While reading part two there was many times I wanted to put the book down and end my misery, but reading through all the boring stuff a some times was worth it. Nathaniel’s life and his outburts of rage were interesting. Part three is obviously the conclusion, which doesn’t seem to really end the book. As you may know by now the book (which is a true story) is being turned into a movie, so hopefully they make the movie more exciting than at times a bore. I give this book 4 out of 5 bravo’s.

The Soloist: Chapter 29-End

Nathaniel’s sister Jennifer finally comes to Los Angeles to visit her brother and also attend a court appearance in order to take over his financial affairs. Steve drivers her around to see places where Nathaniel would sleep and play music, also showing her famous tourist sites. Also Nathaniel finally gets to meet a musician who he deeply admires, Mr.Yo-Yo Ma. While talking to Yo-Yo he is completely overwhelmed, and having Yo-Yo let Nathaniel play his cello makes him even more ecstatic. Towards the end of these chapters Nathaniel gets a suprise from Steve and Ben Hong, the music studio which Steve promised him was now done and filled with new instruments such as an upright piano and bass. He was as excited or even more excited than a child at Christmas. After that Mr. Hong invited Nathaniel to see him preform at Disney Hall, which Nathaniel deeply enjoyed. Once the concert ends and they leave he tells how we would love to join an orchestra and says he’s determined to play concerts, he never wants the concert to end.

The Soloist: Chapter 26-28

Steve decided to visit Julliard in New York to walk the halls which his friend walked thirty years before him. While there he looked into student files to see Nathaniel’s marks, all A’s his first year. However during his second year his marks begin to drop, even failing some classes. His mental illness was affecting him greatly, but playing music was the only time he was sane. He had to play in front of three judges in order to keep his scholarship and even with his illness he managed to keep the scholarship, only to be sent to Belleview in a straight jacket. However the most climatic part of the book so far was in these chapters, when Nathaniel turns on Steve for the first time. Nathaniel threatens Steve telling him “LEAVE NOW, AND DON’T COME BACK OR I’LL KILL YOU!”, also cursing and constantly threatening to kill Steve. This made him really look at everything he’s done for Nathaniel over the past year and a half. So he left him alone for awhile and eventually biked to the tunnel where Nathaniel told him how he couldn’t believe he said those things. This chapter was to me the climax of the book, nothing can beat this.

The Soloist: Part 3, Chapter 22-25

Part three seems to be the conclusion of the book in some ways, but in others it seems that new problems are coming up. Steve finally realizes that Nathaniel has never visited his house in fear of leaving his cart. So Steve convinces him to leave it at his apartment until he gets back, it took awhile to bring him around to the idea though. Meeting Steve’s wife and two year old daughter while visiting, and also while there he talked to his sister Jennifer on the phone for the first time in thirty years. Nathaniel now lives in his apartment and sleeps there every night, solving the sleeping on the streets situation. However he now seems more enraged with clients at Lamp, if they are smoking he will verbally attack them, and get aggressive. Steve wonder’s what he can do to help fix this, maybe by giving him something to do during the day. So he comes up with the idea to build a music studio for Nathaniel.