(On some browsers you'll need to refresh this page in order to see the comment you just left.)
Greg - 2007-07-19 05:35:15
Way back in the day there was a steam pipe explosion in the Gramercy Park area, a real disaster that spewed asbestos all over the place and lots of buildings were evacuated. They did a complete clean-up but that one incident started an exodus that entirely changed that neighborhood. It was weird and sad.
-------------------------------
Mr Lojban - 2007-07-19 08:56:10
Hm. I read everything of Lethem's from Gun, with occasional music to Motherless Brooklyn, and loved them all. It was like a revelation, reading those books.
-------------------------------
The Jestaplero - 2007-07-19 09:36:42
He always starts out strong, and real, and then his stories dissolve into abstract nonsense. Yep. I, too, loved Motherless Brooklyn (then spent about a year and a half trying to persuade you to read it, don't forget!) and bought Fortress of Solitude the day it came out, in hardcover (probably the first time I ever did that, and the last). The first several chapters put me in a reverie as very few books have ever done: although he was conjuring the Boerum Hill of his childhood in the early 70s, it completely sent me back to my own childhood at the same time, even though I grew up in Westchester. Then, as the story developed with his graffiti artist friend, the bottom completely dropped out. I never finished it, never even got to the abstract "comic-book" section everybody was talking about. It was one of the most crushing break-ups I've ever had with an artist I admired and enjoyed.
-------------------------------
Paula - 2007-07-19 11:39:48
The thing is, I have nothing against abstraction--I think, e.g., Aimee Bender rocks, and she's pretty much all id-driven weirdness. Not to mention my love for Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Pollard, K. Hersh, and other assorted psychotic lyricists. (Although the tunefulness of their songs helps to stabilize them).
I think the problem is that I feel abandoned as a reader when a writer starts off grounded in emotional detail and then just takes off into the fanciful stuff, never coming back to resolve things.
One reason I like Michael Chabon so much is that his vivid imagination rarely chokes his sense of emotional realism. He balances both things well.
-------------------------------
Greg - 2007-07-19 11:47:16
I never went beyond Motherless Brooklyn, which I absolutely loved. I don't know why I stopped there. I've picked up his books and read the jackets and put them back down. Something didn't grab me.
-------------------------------
add your comment:
back to the entry - Diaryland
