Reading Jonathan Lethem ...?

:/

he lost me after disappointment artist and i haven't been interested since, but i'm still enjoying catching up on the 90s sci fi

i'd like to cosign all the :/

i ended up liking chronic city a lot; it's more uneven than fortress or motherless brooklyn but the end segment is pretty affecting

Re-read GUN for the first time since 2001. Holds up better than I expected, particularly the gutpunch of those last few chapters.

here's hoping he snaps back with a trim, tightly constructed new novel. soon.

― m coleman, Monday, 23 July 2007 10:39 (2 years ago)

chronic city LOL

I liked CC but found the PKD-inspired elements and the Perkus Tooth/Paul Nelson character exhausting and ultimately kind of irritating, too.

cronenberg making a movie of 'As She Climbed Across the Table'...

god, i completely missed the publication of chronic city

I was house/cat-sitting this weekend and read and really enjoyed "The King of Sentences" in Best American Short Stories 2008.

I liked CC but found the PKD-inspired elements and the Perkus Tooth/Paul Nelson character exhausting and ultimately kind of irritating, too.

Aww, I loved Perkus. Really enjoyed the whole book. I don't know how he made things like pot and ebay so interesting, but he did. And, the bland narrator's voice, potentially a weak spot, worked as well:

I employ language the way a dog drives a car, without grasping how the car came to exist or what makes a combustion engine possible. That is, of course, if dogs drove cars.

I admired Fortress of Solitude, but I loved Chronic City.

They Live reads like a Perkus Tooth riff. I'm using that as a blurb, mind you.

ALSO: I'd like to heartily recommend his OMEGA THE UNKNOWN comic (w/ Farel Dalrymple), which hasn't been mentioned on this thread.

i read chronic city the other week, it was definitely not awful

just finished chronic city, which i enjoyed with reservations. i had no trouble buying into the PKD/pynchon-style paranoid-critical alternate universe, but was less than satisfied by the earthbound explanations eventually offered for all the fantastical nonsense. (no one ever thought to google "chaldron"?) agree w matt upthread that the final chapters are moving, an arguably worthy pay-off, but the hard left from the more antic first two-thirds of the novel threw me. not sure how i feel about it in retrospect.

among other things, it's about the fluidity of reality, or realities, right? about the struggles that take place at the intersection of personal, consensus and objective realities, and how new york stands in constant flux on that shore, is never less than a million cities fighting against and conspiring with one another. on that level, it's also about the ways in which the present must somehow eradicate the past in order to make space for itself, the inevitable agonies of that process. and 9/11 too. which would seem like an impossibly broad set of concerns, but it's all pulled off surprisingly well, benefiting from the fact that CC limits itself, for the most part, to loopy riffing on these and other themes - compare to fortress of solitude, which came to seem oppressive in its more serious attempts to summarize and solve for a moment in The City's life.

i notice that lethem's got a thing about using placid middle-class observer characters to report on the annihilation of their fringier and/or more passionate friends (fortress, omega, a couple of the short stories). odd pet theme, but i suppose it's well-suited to the new york stories he chooses to tell.

question: how are we to take the ending and chase's place in it? in addition to all the above, the novel concerns the ways in which we inevitably acquiesce, most of us, to the realities we're offered, to a comfortable sort complicity. chronic city mourns the human sacrifices offered in the name of "acceptable" compromise, but like chase and richard, seems ultimately to find a sort peace in surrender. what does it mean that our beautifully vacant dupe of a narrator exits focusing himself on another beautiful but pointless time-killing conquest, the angry ghost of the anarchic 1980s finally exorcised? there's an odd ambivalence to the whole thing, which i suppose suits the novel's themes: you can make of it what you will.

I've never even seen it, it's like it just never reached the radar here. He seems to have fallen away entirely as a serious figure after Fortress, but you make it sound like the opposite. I don't even know whether this is out in paperback yet (I presume so, it's been out for what, years now?).

also love lethem's early sci-fi novels, especially amnesia moon, as she climbed across the table, and girl in landscape. some talk of gun, with occasional music upthread. anyone else struck by the strong parallels between that novel and rudy rucker's wetware? similar play with hard-boiled detective tropes, created beings and realities. would need to read them both back to back (as i did several years ago) to more clearly make the case, but the, uh, debt of inspiration seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time.

i tried reading wetware a few years back but the style didn't hold my interest, idk

lethem's got a thing about using placid middle-class observer characters to report on the annihilation of their fringier and/or more passionate friends

This seems like the natural narrative position if you're: (a) a bookish type writing what you know; and (b) putting everything at stake. Certainly if I was inserting myself in anything heavy, I couldn't really do it any other way.

He seems to have fallen away entirely as a serious figure after Fortress, but you make it sound like the opposite.

not sure. haven't followed lethem's critical fortunes over the last few years. i wasn't interested in you don't love me yet (great song tho) and prefer his early to his recent short stories. like fortress, chronic city is a big, ambitious city novel, worth a read if you've liked lethem in the past. situated somewhere between fortress of solitude, pynchon/PKD homage and helprin's winter's tale? maybe?

He seems to have fallen away entirely as a serious figure after Fortress, but you make it sound like the opposite.

yeah, rucker's an idea guy more than, you know, a writer guy. love him anyway, especially the master of space and time.

never read Wetware but my assumption would always be that there are 100 Dick knock-offs or followers (maybe good) and JL's is only ever one among them. That is, not at all surprised at the idea that his novels aren't that distinctive in this respect.

CC, yes - fond of it, despite the flaws. above, the phrase 'loopy riffing' is key - it doesn't feel very structured. Though when I sort of put this to JL once he gave the impression that this was not deliberate, and it should feel more driven than it does.

agree about the real-world incoherences, too, no doubt. the business with the chick writing letters from the astronaut - I'm still not sure I got that; or maybe I've just forgotten already how it made sense, if it ever did.

being destroyed in an earthquake was a tough way for a waitress to escape P Tooth's interest.

I think JL reuses the word 'zaftig' in this book, a word I'd never seen pre the prison sequence in Fortress, and I'm still not sure quite what it means, though it is something to do with attractiveness.

He also uses the phrase 'life during wartime' maybe 3 times in CC, which is probably 2 too many.

Stevie told me that the book referred to REM's 'carnival of sorts' but I could not find a single reference to it outside the title.

Are you and he chums, pf?

It would be nice to say yes, but no I've only met him twice and corresponded a bit.

btw, thinking about the 'placid observer' theory, it might have to adapt a bit when it comes to Motherless Brooklyn.

Apart from that novel's games, I don't think JL has varied narrative voice that much, considering how much he's written. At some level his style is quite consistent.

zaftig

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tAugm-UtTIw/TE1Er-4WbcI/AAAAAAAAEM8/-NE-1J5ViJo/s1600/hendricks.jpg

agree about the real-world incoherences, too, no doubt. the business with the chick writing letters from the astronaut - I'm still not sure I got that; or maybe I've just forgotten already how it made sense, if it ever did.

one of my big questions coming away was whether or not we're meant to take chase's eventual understandings (chaldron as virtual treasure, janice as his own role's fictional backstory) as "really real", or whether these merely reflect the defeated version of reality he ultimately chooses. chronic city walks the narrator through his final disillusioning brush with massive civic power out into an eternal winter in which nothing he does or says will ever be anything more than personal, superficial.

i guess i'm tempted to read it as an indictment that, for some reason, swallows its own outrage at the last moment, a silenced indictment of both chase and his city. i say silenced because, in the end, there doesn't seem to be any other way out of the past into the future, no aerie from which he (or we) might oppose the consensus inflicted by wealth and power.

side note: it occurs to me that chronic city, like fortress of solitude, is divided by a brief section in which one narrative mode (first person, here) is exchanged for another (third person), during which massive changes in narrative topography take place. not sure it means anything, but it's an interesting device, the change in voice signaling a change in the world.

I don't even remember the 3rd person bit in CC! Oh, OK - Tooth going to the doctor, is it?

Your writing about this novel rather reminds me of Lethem!

It's great how someone who hasn't even posted to this thread for 2 years, I think, can pop up and tell me what zaftig means, so vividly.

I never would have guessed that from the book (Fortress), though.

I don't even remember the 3rd person bit in CC! Oh, OK - Tooth going to the doctor, is it?

it's the section during which chase loses track of tooth after the tiger's assault on jackson hole. think we get two short segments describing the wanderings that bring chase to the canine apartments and the subsequent reordering of his life.

i have overused the word "massive" itt

think we get two short segments describing the wanderings that bring chase to the canine apartments and the subsequent reordering of his life.

by "chase" i mean "tooth"

OK but then this reminds me that there IS the *earlier* section with Tooth going to the doctor, in the 3rd person too, non?

I recall the business with Tooth and the dog being rather lengthy.

i guess you're right. shoots my neat little theory to shit, unless i can argue that each of the novel's major shifts takes place in a third person segment unobserved by it's bad-detective narrator. would be a cool trick given chase's ineffectuality, but i'd have to read it again with that in mind before staking anything on the idea.

and yeah, tooth's interlude with ava is only brief relative to a 500-page novel

contenderizer makes me want to read a Lethem novel; wow!

admittedly, I've made a massive ass about Lethem in various threads here on ILx, mostly bcz I was disappointed in Fortress of Solitude, but I alwyas thought Motherless Brooklyn and now Chronic City seems really interesting as well. Don't know about the early stuff.

being destroyed in an earthquake was a tough way for a waitress to escape P Tooth's interest.

life is like that, I guess? but yeah this seemed a bit heartless

one of my big questions coming away was whether or not we're meant to take chase's eventual understandings (chaldron as virtual treasure, janice as his own role's fictional backstory) as "really real", or whether these merely reflect the defeated version of reality he ultimately chooses.

Ha! Good question. It certainly feels less real than most of the book up to that point.

As for the the third-person sections, the question “Who is writing this?” (in a novel about ghostwriting and fakery) is significantly more interesting than usual.

I don't know: I don't think Lethem is interested enough in that kind of jiggery-pokery to put enough clues in for 'aha!' readings: I mean, I'd very much like to make the central Perkus Tooth section by the writer chick, say. But that would probably not be doable.

The section with Perkus at the doctor is contextualised as Chase reporting it, though only in a vaguely after-the-fact way.

Re: Lethem and Rucker: that schtick is very much a thing now, isn't it? 'SF noir' or whatever. Richard Morgan wrote a series of them, M. John Harrison did one for his return to SF (not v. good), I'm sure other people could name more.

I've never even seen it, it's like it just never reached the radar here. He seems to have fallen away entirely as a serious figure after Fortress, but you make it sound like the opposite. I don't even know whether this is out in paperback yet (I presume so, it's been out for what, years now?).

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 22 April 2011 17:52 (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah I got this for like four pounds off of amazon when I was reading it, upthread: it's in mass-market paperback, yet. I'd never seen a copy here and then when I was in New York at the start of the year I saw a bunch of remaindered copies (of the UK edition, specifically) at the Strand.

And cosign about middle-class observers: I think this is a pretty respectable thing to do, though.

Gun, With Occasional Music - i do not like parodies of hardboiled writing
Girl in Landscape - very good
Fortress of Solitude - gave up around 200 pages in

which is better, the UK or US cover of CC?

and is the text inside different? Probably.

I wouldn't want to read the LITTLE Faber edition of CC - it's too little.

But then I did read Fortress at the same size, so that doesn't make much sense.

I don't know: I don't think Lethem is interested enough in that kind of jiggery-pokery to put enough clues in for 'aha!' readings: I mean, I'd very much like to make the central Perkus Tooth section by the writer chick, say. But that would probably not be doable.

Yeah, I didn't mean that there were clues and stuff. I just like to think about things like that.

And cosign about middle-class observers: I think this is a pretty respectable thing to do, though.

Yes. And this time it was a joke -- the most bland, least writer-ly narrator possible.

above, the phrase 'loopy riffing' is key - it doesn't feel very structured. Though when I sort of put this to JL once he gave the impression that this was not deliberate, and it should feel more driven than it does.

But once Perkus goes to the doctor, it picks up momentum and seriousness (for Perkus), doesn't it? I can't remember how far in that was, and I've loaned out my copy.

I have just been reminded by this thread what zaftig might mean.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jennifer-egan-just-jonathan-lethem-occupy-wall-street-2011-11

This book of collected essays is looking pretty good to me: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/books/jonathan-lethems-ecstasy-of-influence-review.html

I am reading it

it is very much about him and his life and things he has done and thought and felt

Who'd a thunk it?

i'm gonna be in a book with this dude. mentioned it on ilm. should be coming out in a month or so.

http://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/Books/978-0-8223-5108-5_pr.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Pop-When-World-Falls-Apart/dp/0822351080

nice work, scott

that article though

. He’s a novelist who has spent a lifetime creating his own subversive pantheon, a jumpy CBGB’s of the literary soul.

Mr. Lethem’s crowded pantheon, “The Ecstasy of Influence” makes clear, includes Marvel comic books and misfit writers like Philip K. Dick, J. G. Ballard, Shirley Jackson and Charles Willeford. It includes improvisational filmmakers like John Cassavetes, little-known bands like the Go-Betweens and rumpled, bohemian critics like Manny Farber.

yeah er

that free-wheelin' j lethem, and his fondness for non-canonised and under-critically-recognised things like philip dick and ballard and kirby and the go-betweens

Yeah, I know. I liked most of the quotes from JL himself but that reviewer sounds like he just dropped in to see what condition his condition was in.

that's such an american thing. that ramshackle iconoclast thing. you look at author bios in shaggy obscure books from the 30s and 40s by american authors and you see stuff like "in his travels he has worked as a carnival sideshow barker, a gold prospector, and also dined with the Duke of Windsor." or something like that. that's why bob dylan was such catnip to journalists. and woodie guthrie before him.

>>> that free-wheelin' j lethem, and his fondness for non-canonised and under-critically-recognised things like philip dick and ballard and kirby and the go-betweens

I AGREE

these things are mostly hugely recognized or in some cases even overrated

though I suppose he could point to his fondness for obscure rather than famous superheroes

He does!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_the_Unknown