Qwilleran, now finally free of his inheritance's contractual obligation to live in Moose County, decides to take a three-month-long vacation to ponder the options set before him. On a friend's recommendation, he sets out for the faraway Potato Mountains. It turns out, though, that the Potatoes are not the best place to rest; the mountains are being systematically strip-forested to make way for condos, and the murder of the newspaper magnate behind the development has the town divided - the jet-setting Spuds believe unequivocally that young environmentalist Forest Beechum committed the crime, but the down-to-earth mountaineer Taters think that the wrong man was sent to jail.
Yes, you read it right; the local factions in this little drama are called the Spuds and the Taters. The nearby river is also called the Yellyhoo, and the town is called Spudsboro. The dominant socialites of the region are the Lumptons, and they run a little something called the Hot Potato Fund on the side. And consider yourself fortunate if you can get through the utterly cloying, precious "Potato Peelings" column in Chapter 3 without choking on your gag reflex - that is, if you haven't already O.D.'d on the cholestrol from all those self-conscious potato puns. Big problem - the book wants to tackle "big" issues like environmentalism and prejudice, but any attempts at a serious study of such topics are derailed by the overbearing cutesiness. Enough, please.
Which brings me back to why I pined so for Moose County after reading Mountain. It appears, for a while, that Braun may indeed have been considering moving Qwill to the Potatoes - she pays unusual attention to establishing and detailing the environment and local characters, and scenes where Qwilleran's having lunch with Sabrina Peel, consoling Vonda Dudley Vix, etc. - all in all, just setting a tone for how he interacts with each of the various locals - seem for all the world as if our author is laying the groundwork towards a future relationship with them. And still it appears that Braun had Moose County yet on her mind, for it appears that much of the backdrop for Moved a Mountain is taken from Pickax - the domineering-yet-incorrigible Lumptons are reminiscent of the Goodwinters in the early country installments; über-friendly and energetic grocery store manager Bill Treacle acts like a socially conscious Junior Goodwinter; decorator Sabrina Peel is plainly meant as a near carbon-copy of Fran Brodie - except that Sabrina's sumgness and self-satisfaction just *got* on my *nerves* and made me appreciate Fran's easy charm. In fact (here we go again), just about everything about the Potatoes got on my nerves - the mountain people are too hokey and backwater, the citizens of Spudsboro are, if not self-centered and disagreeable, then downright distasteful, and their (the Spuds') reactions to the life and death of the editor (an expletive-worthy dastard if there ever was one) were infuriatingly puzzling - certainly Hawkinfield had a lot of power, but why did all the residents allow him to lean on it so? When he was killed, why were there such calls for blood among the Spuds in retaliation for his death? Wouldn't they have been glad to just have gotten rid of him, no matter who killed him? Probably so that they could have their condos, I guess - shows you how dangerous a combination self-interest and class-consciousness and be if there's no sense of civic responsibility to keep them in check. Forgive me for sounding like Dan Quayle, but there's no feeling of community here. The characters, for the most part, lack the dimension, common sense, and - well, just plain niceness - of the normal country cast. Here, we have a lot of little pieces that never fit together to make a believable universe.
Not that I found Qwill's vacation totally disagreeable. Qwilleran's taped observations on the inconveniences of travel - especially his diatribe on rampaging kids at restaurants - are amusing, and Koko has one of his little wunderkind moments early on involving a car horn. The beautiful vista that greets Qwill on Tiptop's observation deck in Chapter 6, the gorgeous view of the mountains, forests (what's left of the forests), and the "dragon-like clouds that rampaged across the sky as if in battle, the sun highlighting their golden scales" made me want to be at the manor myself. And I liked the tough mountain woman Chrysalis - she's one of those "rampant individualists" that Moose County always claims to house but rarely produces (and the only way in which the Potatoes trump Pickax). But, see, once again, save for Chrysalis, these elements have nigh nothing to do with the main plot, and the scene that really stuck with me (besides Qwill's exciting escape from Tiptop at the climax) had nothing to do with the Potatoes at all, but rather with affairs back in Moose County. Near the end, Qwill makes a routine call to check up on Polly, and she, in near panic, tells him that she was followed home and accosted by a unknown would-be assailant, whom she has just narrowly escaped. Qwilleran's unblinking, unhesitating promise to return immediately (and his ensuing rush to fulfill it) is a classic moment in the series - the way his simple outburst of a stressed "because I love you, Polly!" crystallizes how much this woman has come to mean to him - how, in view of his previous dithering, he decides right there that his place is in Pickax with her - was sublimely sweet.
I've said a lot more bad than good about Moved a Mountain. I don't think it's a bad installment, though - if anything, it's merely average - just that it has some bad elements. Which actually, come to think of it, sums up what I - and, apparently, Qwilleran - have come to think about Moose County; no matter how much one complains about the faults of its inhabitants, it's a lot nicer place to live - and to spend time in - than most. If Qwill can learn to live with it, I think maybe I can too. At least until the next book, anyway.
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