I heard great comments about the program, “The Wire.” It was available in the local library, so I figured to crush the whole five years over a month’s viewing. I’d finish by Halloween. Nope.

At the same time as picking up “The Wire,” I checked out The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck. During the first episode of “The Wire” I peeked into the novel. In two pages Steinbeck wrote about drought and wind (upcoming dust bowl). There was incredible movement, and an array of themes triggered in my head most of which would be pushed through the novel – ecology and the environment as types of characters, forces determining the behaviors and activities of human beings. Two pages, I was hooked.

And “The Wire?” Episode One is a set up. It was slow, and slow to make its point(s). Episode Two, also a set up was slow to make its points. I could not devote 23 hours to the first season. A story was being shaped, sort of and slowly. I returned “The Wire.” I may watch it when life has slowed, and I don’t have a novelist knocking me on the head with something completely immediate and approachable.