ILX Book Club - Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad

horseshoe, did you know that invisible circus got made into a movie?!

yes but i am afraid it's terrible (i know nothing about it, really) so i've never seen it.

cameron diaz was on the cover of my copy of invisible circus like she wrote it or something.

i think i am a little weird about books i like :/

egan will supposedly be a consultant but yea makes me sorta :|

I just finished it!

I should wait for my impressions to coalesce, but like n/a I'll recommend it. It's a good pop novel: Egan doesn't linger over the pathos longer than necessary, and most of the chapters are well paced (the Africa interlude is an unfunny joke though: the worst parts of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and Henderson the Rain King). The Powerpoint section sunk under the weight of its novelty. Not only will it date quickly, but the best parts of the Lincoln-father relationship deserved elongation in conventional narrative.

My favorite chapter, and I don't see it mentioned much in reviews curiously: the uncle visiting Sasha in Italy. It reminded me of James' The Ambassadors yet contained so much unsaid.

alfred when you get a chance, you should read the keep

i liked this book a lot. i don't remember a lot of the details anymore but it was so much better than "freedom" which seemed to be the other contender of big novel of 2010

haha otm - also i kinda feel like i posted a lot about it already & have nothing more 2 say

I could not feel any connection to this condition or way of grasping it, and the book seemed to make no effort to help me make such a connection.

Well you get the first person view of what's going through her head as she takes something, you get her own post-hoc rationalisations of her motivations, and you get her psychiatrist's alternative analysis - what else do you think would help you make this connection?

i dunno, from

"I can't identify with this kleptomaniac lady. There are lots of human traits, some of them dangerous, that I could identify with, like alcohol dependence, lust, fear, depression, resentment and aimlessness; but the urge to steal things like this lady has just doesn't make any intuitive sense to me."

to

"I could not feel any connection to this condition or way of grasping it, and the book seemed to make no effort to help me make such a connection."

is kind of a step in the right direction

yeah er i gave my copy of this away so i'm not going to be a lot of help in this thread. good book tho

here is a really rather dense review by someone i vaguely know, if that helps

I am not far into the book, so perhaps the kleptomaniac issue will be clarified or enriched later.

Perhaps other readers do feel that this trait is fully realized and made plausible and understandable by the author.

My own angle, again: when John Self in Money says he wants a 6-pack of beer and a dozen Blastfurters for breakfast, we wouldn't exactly imagine ourselves doing this, and we know it's a comic exaggeration -- but we can grasp the idea, the impulse, because we like eating and drinking a lot too, and can possibly imagine wanting to live like this, sometimes, if there were no ill consequences or moral prohibitions. But -- when Sasha in Good Squad steals a wallet or a bit of paper, or keeps all her stolen items on a table, I can't imagine wanting to do it, and can't see why she wants to do it, because I don't think I share that basic impulse to steal things. Her impulse is alien to me - just as it always seems bizarre and hard to understand when eg Lindsay Lohan steals a bracelet.

In this situation, I think that some onus is on the author to make the character's action comprehensible to the reader. Unlike other readers, I don't really feel that the author has yet succeeded in that, at this early stage in the book.

we wouldn't exactly imagine ourselves doing this, and we know it's a comic exaggeration

Speak for yourself, mister.

pinefox how do you deal with books featuring

i. people who own land or other serious capital
ii. people of different sexual orientations to yourself
iii. literal aliens
iv. metaphorical aliens
v. childbirth
vi. politicians
vii. violence
viii. symptoms of mental illness that aren't kleptomania

i'm guessing thats covered under -

In this situation, I think that some onus is on the author to make the character's action comprehensible to the reader. Unlike other readers, I don't really feel that the author has yet succeeded in that, at this early stage in the book.

One answer is that, as I said earlier, I often find it quite hard to relate to these very different experiences. Politicians, though, don't seem so different, as most of us have political ideas and feelings.

Another is that, as I indicated in my last post (and just saying says), an author or a book can work to make these things more understandable and fully imaginable.

Maybe, as I also said, some people think that Egan did succeed in that; or maybe she does so over the longer course of the book, just not at the start.

I don't think I feel much of a need to relate to the characters within a novel, or understand them. Personally I don't think it's essential to what a novel is.

'what a novel is' is a very big category and certainly one should be careful about prescriptiveness in it.

Maybe the most one can say might be: this seems to be a Type A / P / X novel and in that kind of novel it seems important that xyz is done right.

Having said that, I don't think I share your feeling or view, NV, and I do want 'understanding' of character at least.

I am going to take a guess that the kleptomania business will turn out not to be that important in the book, and 300pp later the reader will have been bombarded by lots of other things, so that issues around kleptomania will not seem important.

Even if this is true, though, I think it is still OK to report on how things seem as a book goes along - these details are precisely what easily gets forgotten once you've finished a book. And I think that I imagine that such ongoing response is part of the point of this 'book club'.

xposts --

I don't really feel like there are a basic human set of desires which it isn't the author's job to make comprehensible: so I distrust the argument from eating and drinking, etc.: it's ____-centric, I can think of at least two things to fill in that gap without thinking too hard

I think, also, that there's a clue in the word 'kleptomaniac', which we're using, and which I think is used in the book: a kleptomaniac Wants To Steal Things. In much the same way, if we're presented with an 'alcoholic', we will accept that they Want To Drink Things. similar with 'anorexic', say. (And it's fairly obviously wrong to say 'well, I have an automatic empathy with alcoholics because I fancied a pint after work yesterday', or with anorexics because I want my suit to fit better.)

Which we can imply causative things for, if we want. We can write a novel in which Jim Broadface is an alcoholic because, say, his mother beat him and his husband left him, or in which Sally Okayface is anorexic because of women's magazines and daytime television. But, I mean, these are pretty boring novels, which I'm writing; and I don't think that they're actually doing anything to explain what's wrong or interesting about Jim and Sally. Which, anyway, is what it feels like you want done with Sasha: either that you can't understand that someone's wiring might just make them Want To Steal Things, in which case, well, that's kind of your problem? or that you want the novel to supply that, ah, Sasha wants to steal things because (x).

xp

Yeah I was trying to open up my thoughts about character. I know there are people who would argue that it is central to The Novel. Disputing about how well developed a character is feels like primarily a question of taste, whereas the question of how important that development is is more a question of what we want a novel to be.

also, yup:

I am going to take a guess that the kleptomania business will turn out not to be that important in the book, and 300pp later the reader will have been bombarded by lots of other things, so that issues around kleptomania will not seem important.

ding ding -- also, there's at least three reductive versions of (x) you could go for, if you wanted, which is part of why i don't like the book so much

i think i dislike the use of "cause (x)" in fiction because it feels like a fictional account of human consciousness, for me it doesn't reflect the reality of our interactions with other people

or with ourselves, either. many people with, for example, addictions have stories that they tell themselves about how the addiction came to be, but they aren't reliable judges imo

In this situation, I think that some onus is on the author to make the character's action comprehensible to the reader. Unlike other readers, I don't really feel that the author has yet succeeded in that, at this early stage in the book.

I think she deliberately leaves some things incomprehensible, or comprehensible to some readers and less to others. I can't really identify with kleptomania and suspect that a lot of readers can't. At least part of the book is about impulses that are difficult to understand. The kleptomania stuff isn't that important over the course of the novel, although you could say it's one of many symptoms.

My favorite chapter, and I don't see it mentioned much in reviews curiously: the uncle visiting Sasha in Italy. It reminded me of James' The Ambassadors yet contained so much unsaid.

This is OTM. As a book it's full of gaps, temporal gaps but also gaps in how the characters understand one another (and how we understand them).

Also "pop novel" is an excellent description.

I had fun reading it. I am mystified as to why it won the Pulitzer.

I had similar feelings to Pinefox about the kleptomania at the start of the book, but Matt is right that it isn't important from the perspective of the novel as a whole - and also, I think, in his explanation why. Peoples' motives are often inexplicable, sometimes even to themselves, and that's one of the realities the novel reflects. Too much of that kind of stuff would make the novel frustrating and dull but Egan doesn't over-indulge.

Just read the magazine profile chapter over lunch, which seemed to confirm my feelings about pastiche - felt like a pale imitation of DFW/Eggers-y manically footnoted journalism, though obviously taken to certain gonzo extremes. And then the next chapter I've just started feels like an exercise in second-person narrative, like an early Lorrie Moore story. I can admire Egan's versatility, but it's not really involving me or moving me, or really even impressing me on simple prose level. I didn't particularly like FREEDOM, but it feels like a more serious or significant book than AVftGS, so far.

in retrospect i really really hated "freedom" but there's probably a better thread for me to post about that

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. The novel didn't suck me in right away. And I did a lot of eye-rolling with all of the 'pop' elements. I have a really hard time with band references in novels ... not sure why ... maybe it just feels like shorthand for characterization, or, like the author is trying to convince you that she is cool ... or that the book is trying too hard to appeal to people who want to consume fiction that reaffirms their own self-image of a person of xyz tastes.

But then, last night, I ended up reading 100ish pages pretty late at night when I should have been sleeping. The device of switching focus to different characters is done really well and creates a unique reading experience. So I end up with thoughts like: "yeah, I was wondering what happened to that person" and "I hope I can get see more of that guy" etc.

The pop references in this are generally less cringeworthy than those in Freedom (which are astonishingly cringeworthy, especially the Bright Eyes scene).

I never knew 'The Invisible Circus' was made into a movie!

yeah i thought the band stuff in AVFTGS was pulled off better than that kind of stuff usually is

I don't know much about the kind of bands Egan writes about so I'm liable to miss awkwardnesses that might grate on others. All the same, I thought the "music used to be real but now it's all overproduced, over-commercialised, manufactured pap" theme running through the novel was pretty silly. It was a point of view mainly identified with Bennie but it was obvious Egan endorsed it (confirmed in an interview I saw). Egan seems too intelligent to fall for this kind of guff. It didn't ruin the book for me but it was a definite weakness.

All the same, I thought the "music used to be real but now it's all overproduced, over-commercialised, manufactured pap" theme running through the novel was pretty silly.

Definitely a theme in punk and post-punk era in SF.

Those remarks fit the characters who utter them; I saw no evidence that the book endorses those views, especially when you realize the characters themselves are pathetic.

They're kids, ffs!

My gf passed me this earlier this year. Egan is a little older than we are but the SF parts were eerie in their versimilitude.

A theme for punks everywhere of course, but I'm talking about a much later nostalgia for that the punk period itself (and earlier) compared with the more recent past. I think it's absolutely fine to have a middle-aged music producer think music has gone to the dogs - most of them probably do - but it's Egan's job as an intelligent observer to have some perspective on why his judgement might be suspect. I'm wary of spoilers for folk still in the early stages of the book, but this all feeds through into Scott's concert, easily the silliest thing in the novel.

Alfred, Egan made it very clear in a tv interview that she agreed with Bennie's views about music being less "real" now. Although I think it's clear there in the book as well.

i think i dislike the use of "cause (x)" in fiction because it feels like a fictional account of human consciousness, for me it doesn't reflect the reality of our interactions with other people
― bell hops (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 4 May 2011

I cheerfully and wholeheartedly agree with your implicit call for an art or fiction which is realistic in giving us a depiction of the subtlety, contingency and fascination of real people and real life. I have made this call for years and years, not that I have ever expected anyone to answer it.

I think your critique of 'cause x' is something of a straw target shoot, as it ought to be possible to imagine kinds of determination and causality that are not crude or reductive. (It must be, because real life is presumably dominated by all kinds of determination.)

Unlike you, perhaps, I am not sure that I found quite this subtle, realistic depiction of real life, etc, in the first chapter of the novel.

On the next theme, re music and sound, I also noticed this Benny or Bennie character saying that everything had been ruined by being too digitally precise. I found this line asinine, if that's the right word. As someone who has tried, and failed, to record things, a bit of precision would not come amiss. I am not that surprised to hear that Egan perhaps agrees with him, though of course he is only a fictional character. Of course, I should admit that 'recording techniques are worse' and 'modern music is worse' are two somewhat different claims.

but it's Egan's job as an intelligent observer to have some perspective on why his judgement might be suspect.

No it's not! Could a lecherous, middle-aged man in the music industry have plausibly said something along those lines at the time and a teenage girl believe him or at least defer to his better judgment? Absolutely! I was going to concerts at the Mabuhay, the On Broadway and the Farm and whatnot in the early 80's and it reads quite true to me.

>>> a bit of precision would not come amiss <<<

I'm afraid I was accidentally conflating two different things here:

1. the chance to record anything successfully without things going wrong would not come amiss -- a feeling specific to me, not really relevant to the novel; after all the recording artists probably don't have such problems and have people to make things OK for them

2. precision is good, full stop, in recording -- this is the real point that is relevant to the novel and makes B's thought seem vapid to me, if I am not misremembering it.

ch 2 I thought not great, but not terrible. It reminded me a bit of The Sopranos, a programme I do not like, but without the criminal dimension that is the reason I don't like it.

I wonder slightly if this is a novel where characters have their gimmicks: the kleptomaniac, the bloke who has lost his lust. But, I should admit that the Bennie character is a bit more fully drawn than that. JE seems to want to take this character very seriously.

ch 3 seems to be about people's cool youth. Here I have a standard problem, which is roughly, envy and exclusion, because people in fictional narratives always seem able to have cool youths in a way that was never offered to me. This makes me resentful and / or sad. But then, also, I don't generally much like punk rock, so I wouldn't really want to stand around hearing it like these cool youths do.

So far I agree with Stevie's view that the novel is not especially distinguished at the level of prose. Very little writing as such has impressed me so far. This is a bit surprising given the novel's reputation, if I can say that it has one already. But, I understand that there are other ways for a story to be good. Maybe the relative plainness is delberate or will stop.

I think the pop references are more cringeworthy than the pop references in Freedom, or at least they make you feel sad, because you are old now, whereas in Freedom you are believably bratty and young.

I think JE does female hopeful sad dissolution best.

Egan actually created a soundtrack with a song for each chapter:

http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2010/07/08/soundtrack-to-a-visit-from-the-goon-squad/

(If you're a music snob, you might not want to check it out.)

I just finished the book. Now I'm going to crawl back into my hole.

More thoughts later, but a few notes, having just finished it:

Really enjoyed it, but slightly surprised at the sheer scale of the love for it.

Blurb was totally misleading, making me think it would be all about Sasha and Bennie, so it took me a while to realise that the chapters about other people were not interludes (not Egan's fault, obviously)

Powerpoint bit worked well, despite my reservations about gimmicky nature of same

Every review I've read made it seem as though it was about the music industry, which it really wasn't

Changing Earth's orbit for global warming reasons? There's no fucking way this could be done, what the fuck, that's a mad idea, so out of place, argh

Alfred, Egan made it very clear in a tv interview that she agreed with Bennie's views about music being less "real" now.

Not surprised, but I wipe the floor with authorial intention.

ch 3 seems to be about people's cool youth. Here I have a standard problem, which is roughly, envy and exclusion,

I get sort of the opposite feeling--as someone with a deeply uncool youth, I'm deeply envious when I read pieces like this chapter (though sometimes relieved at what I escaped), and the only way I'll ever experience things like that is fictionally, so bring it on, as long as it convinces, which this chapter really did

The final Scotty concert really didn't work, though, in that world-altering musical events like this never seem to convince in fiction. And how do these "pointers" work, anyway? If babies are downloading stuff, presumably their parents are paying for it, otherwise where's the money coming from that fuels the market that the producers are so keen to get into? Why are they choosing to pay for stuff on the basis of semi-random reflexive movements?

no thx

I'll try it

new yorker's blog seems p good

so i read the first installment of this. i liked it, it works, but it means 'using twitter' in a way that's really not much like anyone in the world uses twitter? -- several dozen connected tweets, one of which ended with a fucking semi-colon, requiring the reader to make some kind of attention commitment -- oh well.

Good thread imo

timely revive: am just going through old notebooks, transcribing then into my computer. Found a bunch of stuff on Goon Squad. Still like this book. Miss the pinefox.

as always the single malt of the pinefox's often considerable insight is diluted by the tesco value cola of his sometimes plain baffling conceptual filters

holy

I loved that post. As I do all posts of the Pinefox.

The Italy part was great, though I'm enjoying the whole thing.

Way better than Super Sad and Freedom, though the former was more terrifying in terms of future fic

I'm not sorry I read this but yeah Alfred "vaporous" seems appropriate

One thing that caught me is the idea of even in the semi distant future being able to lose people thoroughly, despite the surveillance culture we're all complicit in expanding further: that human nature is such that we'll probably ALWAYS lose track of people or be lost track of ourselves...

But the moment in 1993 when Bix says in the future we'll never lose anyone really quite moved me.

Me too

this book is insuff and the writing is so plain, which has the effect of making the odd occasions where she tries out some ~writing~ (every 10 paragraphs or so) as awkward as a sore thumb

abandoning 100 pages in

Just finished the Safari chapter and I'm not sure if I'm blown away or very frustrated. She has a great knack for exploring the dynamics between the characters she writes about - the relation she creates between Lou and Rolph is particularly memorable - but there's just so much going on and so many characters that it's pretty hard to absorb. Or maybe that's just me.

absolutely loved the first three chapters though. Especially Sasha's one.

i reread this a while ago, i acquired a beat-up copy of it from the bookshelf of someone i had a thing with who is now no longer in my life, it seemed appropriate

saw someone reading this on the train yesterday. reminded me that i enjoyed it and i was slightly surprised by some of the heavily adverse criticism it got in places.

The last few chapters let the book down very badly, imo

I probably made my feelings about this book known here years ago.

What I’ll say in its favor: the stuff about “what future generations might be like” has stayed with me, it made an impression.

Anyone read the Candy House?

Pauses in songs seems like a thread for ILM. A Faulty Chromosome has a good example. I think they were from Texas and existed when myspace existed. I think there is still a case for music from the suburbs. Does anyone have an equivalent for Croyden in the United States? Could it be compared to Brooklyn?

Do you mean the UK borough of Croydon?

It's somewhat comparable to Brooklyn but realistically Brooklyn might be better compared to the whole of South or South-East London.

Yes. Are any of the subjects in the Michael Apted 7 up series from SE London? It seems like a place where there would be enthusiasm for English breakfasts with toast racks and crumb catchers/sweepers as well as football clubs.

It turns out that A Faulty Chromosome are originally from Los Angeles, the original suburb (based on some notion of cars and sprawl).

The Candy House, so far, is a better book.

I must read it!

books. lots of books.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/interactive/2023/jennifer-egan-home-library/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f005