More on Moore

 

Greetings, friends. This one, given the circumstances, will be a little shorter than usual.

Saturday, August 27th, marks a full year since Thomas G. Moore left us holding the bag of post-modern doom and gloom. One can’t blame him for getting while the getting was good, though I’m still a little upset about it. So much has happened during the past twelve months that would have benefited from his observations. But while he was here, he certainly did his part.

His Amazon author’s page says much: “Thomas Moore writes historical fiction, recognizing that certain events from the past impart dramatic power to his fictional scenarios set in the present. He seeks to entertain as well as illuminate, to engage the heart as well as the mind.” That last bit says it all and is bolstered by a great Faulkner quote: “The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.”

So it is. Tom recognized the fact. He liked to say that good fiction allowed for a better imparting of genuine ideas, better than the best dialectical diatribe because it engaged the reader’s heart and emotion instead of simply the mind. It grants a degree of participation.

Sometimes a novel will plant a little seed that doesn’t sprout for some time. Tom and I had a few mutually favorite books. One of them, which I need not name at this time, brought an idea to my mind recently, something that I witnessed and was able to confirm, even though the connection came years after the fact. It had to do with a certain cinq ans period. I could not convince most readers of the truism therein even as many or most of them have lived through the exact experience. C’est la vie.

At any rate, there is plenty of illumination and heart in Tom’s published works.

I’ve declared that A Fatal Mercy (2019) is one of the best Civil War fictional stories ever written. Had it been published in 1959, it would have probably sold ten million copies. It’s one of the best books your not reading – the shame is yours.

The Hunt for Confederate Gold (2014) ain’t bad either. Tom declared it a little amateurish, but I liked it nonetheless. I think rather than being a dilettante work, it merely pushes hard, timely concepts at a faster pace than perhaps the author intended. However, it does so within an excellent storyline.

To my shame, I have not yet read No Villains No Heroes (2012). Tom spoke highly and exuberantly about it, so it must be with the effort!

He also wrote the non-fiction School for Genius (2006, N. Am.) about the ETH in Zurich, a book that answers one question of what Einstein and von Braun had in common. For the gifted young American student, here’s an independent tidbit to illuminate some things and enrage, er, engage the heart: one can get a comparable education at MIT for only … 35 TIMES the annual tuition cost. USA! Usa. U ass eh?

And, there was more. So much Moore.

Requiescant in pace, Frater.