The paradox of Prose

I like Wanda Rushing's book. A lot. She knows her Memphis History well. She seems to have a love/hate thing going for the city, something to which I can very closely relate. It was a little slow to start. The first few pages were very droll, but the book very quickly picks up speed. It reads like a novel, not an informative book. More like prose than an informative text, I like the forward momentum the book carries. Once it picks up speed, it's a hard book to put down. I'm behind in my reading, as I am in my blogs, but everything I have read so far has been easy to understand. I can't say that everything she has written has been to my liking, but then again not everything in Memphis is to my liking. My one big complaint with the book is the idolatry. She idealizes Memphis. She paints Fed-Ex as this big saving grace economically avoiding the fact that college students drop out of The University of Memphis to make an easy $40K a year doing mindless labor. She points out all the good things about Memphis and, although she does mention the bad side, she tends to focus less on it. You can't have the Yang without the Ying and I just wish she had focused a little more on what makes the city part of the "dirty south" today. She does a very good job in this regard when it comes to the founding and formation of the city, but the negative side dies off later in the book to make way for a dreamer's vision of what the city is and what it can be. Memphis is Memphis. Memphis has always been Memphis. And Memphis will always be Memphis. There is no salvation, no drop of water to cool its tongue.