The Postman's Round Book

Our postman of the story, Bilodo, has an insatiable curiosity regarding people who write real letters to each other instead of using electronic mail or phoning each other. His curiosity eventually finds him steaming open random letters to read before re-sealing them and sending them on.

Then, he happens upon a correspondence where a woman sends only a single haiku in the envelope. Bilodo is very moved by this and makes a point of opening each of her offerings before re-sealing them and delivering them to the intended recipient.

Bilodo is transfixed and mesmerized by the haiku he reads, and he rapidly becomes enamored with the writer. She sends a picture of herself in one of the envelopes and he makes a digital copy of it before dutifully passing the envelope along.

Due to a series of circumstances, Bilodo eventually attempts to pass himself off as the original recipient of the woman's poetic offerings, and does everything he can to match the style and writing of the fellow. He researches haiku, Japanese writing, and the haiku masters and spends many hours and goes through a lot of paper before he is finally satisfied with his first offering.

Where all this leads Bilodo and how it affects those around him, including his co-workers and his daily contacts at the place he lunches every work day generates a story that is as fascinating as it is, at times, unsettling.

The poetry in this book is quite amazing, especially considering the author re-wrote the entire book when he decided to use haiku instead of prose as the medium of communication between the man and the woman. He then taught himself (in parallel to our postman) how to write them and not only that, but we are reading them in two voices, and sometimes three as Bilodo's confidence takes off and he strays from the texture of the original man's poems into his own style.

This book is to have a sequel, and that is good news for this reader as I definitely want to learn more about these characters and where they evolve to next.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys multiple instances of symbolism in their books, and anyone who enjoys a generous dollop of poetry in their cup of prose.