I love a good climbing novel. This one was pretty good. A quick read. I read most of it while doing laundry.

It started out really well, but then bogged down in cliched kinda zen philosophy and quasi-Kerouac-ish-ness (totally a word) towards the end.

great story, but not quite as good as Caught Inside.

Feeling a little let down, now that I finished it. Was waiting for something epic to happen, but was only left to keep waiting. It did had a few good life lessons and lines towards the end, but felt like there could have been more. Maybe it's just me...and something about having "Most of all, I envied the water on the priest's pale, bony fingers" as the last sentence in the book bewilders me.
Nevertheless, makes me want to find my calling in life and strive towards happiness, not in Mo's shadow. I want to create my own shadow.

Great book for those that have hiked or climbed the sierras.

Notes:

Mountain metaphor...perhaps every book is about conquering a mountain

Mo
Ray

Makes the reader think about love of self and others and physical objects and all the meandering thoughts in each of our cavernous minds.

Pseudo philosophy and religion...drags the story...story recovers

I admire Dan's writing immensely.

I remember this story being kind of weird, like about stealing someone else's stories.

Soooo 1998, and reflecting the emotional maturity of an early twenty-something. Squirmily uncomfortable like listening to an overly-earnest person who is searching for their purpose in life and is not yet able to see the fun/contradictions/amusements in the search itself. Seriously, is it actually possible to read about someone else's trip at a Dead concert without gagging?

The climb part itself was the least contrived, if you can make it to that part of the book. Makes me want to go back to Yosemite, even if I still have no desire to climb El Cap...

Ray Connelly failed in his attempt on El Capitan, Yosemite's forbidding sheer rock face, letting down his friend Mo. He is in even more trouble with his friend having "borrowed" the many stories Mo has told him, written a book of them and their climbing adventures together and tried to get it published. Mo is not happy.

Can he repair the rift in their friendship, what hopes of his future as a writer if he must abandon his cherished book, and has he finally found love in the form of Fiona, and how much of this is he prepared to sacrifice in order to make things right with Mo?

Looking For Mo provides and insight into the lives of those young men who pursue the thrills and dangers of surfing and climbing and live life according to their own values. When Ray finally tracks down Mo they make another attempt on El Capitan we experience something of the thrills of the climb ourselves.

This is a well written and engaging novel, Ray has a very high regard for his friend Mo, and when we finally meet Mo it is easy to see why. While the conclusion is positive it gives little clue as to where Ray's life will go from there, I'd like to have known something of what the future now holds for him.

I positively loved Duane's Caught Inside, about surfing. This was a good read but not a great one. I prefer his nonfiction accounts of surfing and mountain climbing; he has a marvelous narrative style.