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3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
I wanted to like this book more but struggled until about page 200. Then it had me hooked. That said, I felt the character development took too long and it was challenging to pull together all the threads of their relationships. Some great prose but seemed like I had to wade through a lot to enjoy the story.
This is not a three-star book. It's a five-star experience in character development with a one-star plot. Much like Fortress of Solitude, it's a fascinating window on US history through the perspective of various immigrant and minority groups, but nothing much happens. Except that (spoiler) pretty much everybody dies. (Given that it covers about 80 years and three generations, that shouldn't be a big surprise.) The ones who live are unlikeable. The last third is a boring downer that ends at a TSA checkpoint. Seriously. I highly recommend reading the first chapter to soak in Rose's hysterical indignation at being kicked out of the Communist Party by her ex-lover. Bask in Lethem's wordplay. Then go read something else. Like Motherless Brooklyn.
After the first couple chapters, I almost set the book down. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend this much time with the intense Rose. Fortunately, later in the book, other characters take center stage. I didn't like all of these characters, but I enjoyed the multi-generational survey of radicalism in the American left. It ends up being kind of a sad story.
Disappointing. Some sharp observations and clever writing but I didn't really care about anyone and it ended up feeling like a chilly, smartarse outsider's take on life.
It is hard to decide if Jonathan Lethem is more in love with his general self-loathing or his certainty that all else be damned, he is the smartest guy in the room. And mostly he is the smartest guy in the room. His command of 20th century history (social, political, sports, philatelic, pop-culture, etc. and especially anything New York) is breathtaking, edifying, and entertaining. Until it isn't. The constant speechifying on a diverse range of topics left me unable to find any story at all in this book.
I am not a person who needs much of a plot. My tastes definitely run to novels which are more character studies than page turners. Even with character driven novels though, there has to be some story, and this had none. That though, is not the only reason Dissident Gardens doesn't work. The biggest problem here is that the book purports to tell the story of two women, and Lethem apparently knows nothing about women, nothing about mothers and daughters, nothing about the frustration of being silenced because you have a vagina. Many people complain about this issue with respect to several of my favorite writers: Phillip Roth; Saul Bellow; Kurt Vonnegut; Michael Chabon; Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Franzen (who made me laugh when he wrote about "a plague of literary Jonathans.") I can't correct those who complain, they are not wrong. The difference though is that Roth, Bellow, Vonnegut and Chabon did not really try to understand women, their perspective was their very own and the women in their books only serve to help us understand the men at the centers of their respective universes. The Jonathans, Safran Foer and Franzen, have both tried to write from a woman's perspective with varying degrees of success. Lethem though is a total failure. I know Miriam is supposedly based on his mother, but I will say absolutely that Lethem did not know shit about his mother. That seems arrogant, after all it is his mother and I did not know her, but I do know that no human being in history, regardless of their place on the gender spectrum, has ever borne any resemblance to the character of Miriam or her mother Rose. And this book hangs on these women. Since they are badly drawn characters the book fails.
This book took me three months to read, and though I love to savor books I read a lot and fairly quickly. I read 25 other books in the time that I was reading this one. I kept putting it down, and found myself without the will to pick it back up. It sat on my bedside table week after week. Every night I looked at it and it glared back, almost accusatory in its silent presence. When I picked it up I would always think; "Why did I stop reading? This is funny and smart." And then I would come out of whatever entertaining digression I came in on and get back to the central characters. I would then think "ah, that is what I was thinking!"
There are passages of this book that are incredibly delightful, but the whole is a mess.
I am not a person who needs much of a plot. My tastes definitely run to novels which are more character studies than page turners. Even with character driven novels though, there has to be some story, and this had none. That though, is not the only reason Dissident Gardens doesn't work. The biggest problem here is that the book purports to tell the story of two women, and Lethem apparently knows nothing about women, nothing about mothers and daughters, nothing about the frustration of being silenced because you have a vagina. Many people complain about this issue with respect to several of my favorite writers: Phillip Roth; Saul Bellow; Kurt Vonnegut; Michael Chabon; Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jonathan Franzen (who made me laugh when he wrote about "a plague of literary Jonathans.") I can't correct those who complain, they are not wrong. The difference though is that Roth, Bellow, Vonnegut and Chabon did not really try to understand women, their perspective was their very own and the women in their books only serve to help us understand the men at the centers of their respective universes. The Jonathans, Safran Foer and Franzen, have both tried to write from a woman's perspective with varying degrees of success. Lethem though is a total failure. I know Miriam is supposedly based on his mother, but I will say absolutely that Lethem did not know shit about his mother. That seems arrogant, after all it is his mother and I did not know her, but I do know that no human being in history, regardless of their place on the gender spectrum, has ever borne any resemblance to the character of Miriam or her mother Rose. And this book hangs on these women. Since they are badly drawn characters the book fails.
This book took me three months to read, and though I love to savor books I read a lot and fairly quickly. I read 25 other books in the time that I was reading this one. I kept putting it down, and found myself without the will to pick it back up. It sat on my bedside table week after week. Every night I looked at it and it glared back, almost accusatory in its silent presence. When I picked it up I would always think; "Why did I stop reading? This is funny and smart." And then I would come out of whatever entertaining digression I came in on and get back to the central characters. I would then think "ah, that is what I was thinking!"
There are passages of this book that are incredibly delightful, but the whole is a mess.
Dissident Gardens has all the heft of a five star endeavor, unfortunately some it stuck to the pan. I read two-thirds of it this weekend, one plagued with incessant rain and a certain personal suffering from seasonal allergies. While reading such I read The Believer article about Dave Chapelle which led me to think about Bert Williams and Lenny Bruce and David Allen's chat show delivery. I thought about this http://www.pbs.org/arguing/ and the legacy of baseball and racially motivated murder.
Jonathan Lethem knows his way around the American psyche. He is familiar with the pressure points and the genealogies. The novel depicts Rose, a Jewish activist, her daughter Miriam and a troika of their "family: Lenny, Cicero and Sergius. The novel ruminates, backtracks and waxes beautifully. Some elements wear better than others. There is a great deal to consider and to ponder. Greg's review works better, in my opinion. The neighborhoods and the experiences are more palpable.
Jonathan Lethem knows his way around the American psyche. He is familiar with the pressure points and the genealogies. The novel depicts Rose, a Jewish activist, her daughter Miriam and a troika of their "family: Lenny, Cicero and Sergius. The novel ruminates, backtracks and waxes beautifully. Some elements wear better than others. There is a great deal to consider and to ponder. Greg's review works better, in my opinion. The neighborhoods and the experiences are more palpable.
Didn't finish. Tried and wanted to as it is set less than 10 blocks from my home but no, no thanks.
Mild spoilers below:
Most Lethem novels have a "but" in their brief descriptors.
It's a detective novel, but..."
It's a bildungsroman set in 70s Brooklyn but..."
It's sci-fi dystopia but..."
Not here. Lethem's most realistic, least tweaked novel makes an argument as his best. The multi-generational examination of a family of Queens communists and their satellites has wide reach, gathering numismatics, the introduction of the New York Mets, Occupy movements, Sandinistas, the irruption of NY's folk scene, game shows, competitive chess, Quakerisms and pacifist video gaming into its arms, to list just a few.
I'm on a bit of a Lethem bender right now, and his characters are often so skewed by an obsession or eccentricity that they become allegories or caricatures. Here though, each oddity and quirk is a deeper dip into a discernable, measurable life. Rose, the domineering Red Matriarch (Alice's Red Queen overtures in tow), puts so much pressure on those she loves that they all squeeze out and burst away from her like failed baloons. Warped cousin Lenny lashes out at any and all as he tries to bring the Sunnyside Proletariats into minor league baseball life, failing so badly to bury his lifelong desire for his cousin Miriam that it sublimates into ineffectual near-rage. Guitar-picking folike Tommy Gaugin/Gogan sees and feels crippled by his own artistic limitations (Who wouldn't when Bob Dylan invades your scene?) Cicero, the corpulent gay son of Rose's black cop lover, hides out in academia and doth protest a bit too much about his unashamed independence and self-createdness. Grandson Sergius is ferreted away to Pennsylvania after his parents' murder in Nicaragua and lives a tamped down life of childish denial until the kind people at TSA frisk him into adulthood.
Each and every character Lethem touches springs to left-of-center life here. I'd know them on the street. That's true of his more bizarre characters too (I'm thinking Chronic City, Feral Detective, and Gambler's Anatomy here), but I'd actively avoid most of his outcasts. These leftist weirdos escaping and circling back to Queens are my kind of weirdos, the human kind, and I'd accost, tail, or engage them each in turn.
I'll let the dust settle a bit before I make bold proclamations here, but early returns report that this is at least the equal of his best work.
Most of my recommendations for Lethem's work come with caveats.
If you like Phillip K. Dick then you might like..."
If you like Chandler then you should really read..."
But this one has no rejoinder. If you like books: you should read this. If you like people: you should read this.
And if you don't like books and people you should just piss off and reread Art of the Deal you capitalist prickwad.
That review took a surprising turn.
Most Lethem novels have a "but" in their brief descriptors.
It's a detective novel, but..."
It's a bildungsroman set in 70s Brooklyn but..."
It's sci-fi dystopia but..."
Not here. Lethem's most realistic, least tweaked novel makes an argument as his best. The multi-generational examination of a family of Queens communists and their satellites has wide reach, gathering numismatics, the introduction of the New York Mets, Occupy movements, Sandinistas, the irruption of NY's folk scene, game shows, competitive chess, Quakerisms and pacifist video gaming into its arms, to list just a few.
I'm on a bit of a Lethem bender right now, and his characters are often so skewed by an obsession or eccentricity that they become allegories or caricatures. Here though, each oddity and quirk is a deeper dip into a discernable, measurable life. Rose, the domineering Red Matriarch (Alice's Red Queen overtures in tow), puts so much pressure on those she loves that they all squeeze out and burst away from her like failed baloons. Warped cousin Lenny lashes out at any and all as he tries to bring the Sunnyside Proletariats into minor league baseball life, failing so badly to bury his lifelong desire for his cousin Miriam that it sublimates into ineffectual near-rage. Guitar-picking folike Tommy Gaugin/Gogan sees and feels crippled by his own artistic limitations (Who wouldn't when Bob Dylan invades your scene?) Cicero, the corpulent gay son of Rose's black cop lover, hides out in academia and doth protest a bit too much about his unashamed independence and self-createdness. Grandson Sergius is ferreted away to Pennsylvania after his parents' murder in Nicaragua and lives a tamped down life of childish denial until the kind people at TSA frisk him into adulthood.
Each and every character Lethem touches springs to left-of-center life here. I'd know them on the street. That's true of his more bizarre characters too (I'm thinking Chronic City, Feral Detective, and Gambler's Anatomy here), but I'd actively avoid most of his outcasts. These leftist weirdos escaping and circling back to Queens are my kind of weirdos, the human kind, and I'd accost, tail, or engage them each in turn.
I'll let the dust settle a bit before I make bold proclamations here, but early returns report that this is at least the equal of his best work.
Most of my recommendations for Lethem's work come with caveats.
If you like Phillip K. Dick then you might like..."
If you like Chandler then you should really read..."
But this one has no rejoinder. If you like books: you should read this. If you like people: you should read this.
And if you don't like books and people you should just piss off and reread Art of the Deal you capitalist prickwad.
That review took a surprising turn.
Very early, the time extent of the book is established: early 1950s until the present. And the cast of characters is also established early. You're immediately aware that the book will consist of anecdotes from their lives, in nothing resembling chronological order. Main events in the lives of the characters are handed to you in quick "by the way..." style at unimportant moments, to emphasise that these events are not the point.
The writing style is a very dense mass of tangential references and musings, with story details woven in. Some of it is extremely clever; some of it is masturbatory. Forcing your way through this can be tiring, even though it is rewarding most of the time.
The book somewhat runs out of steam for a while, near the end of the third section. (The Archie storyline starts out well, and the character is done well; unfortunately it ends without packing the promised punch) But hang in there. If you make it through the good and the not-so-good parts, you will probably be happy with the end section.
The writing style is a very dense mass of tangential references and musings, with story details woven in. Some of it is extremely clever; some of it is masturbatory. Forcing your way through this can be tiring, even though it is rewarding most of the time.
The book somewhat runs out of steam for a while, near the end of the third section. (The Archie storyline starts out well, and the character is done well; unfortunately it ends without packing the promised punch) But hang in there. If you make it through the good and the not-so-good parts, you will probably be happy with the end section.
anti-clamatic and overwrought. I tried, i tried real hard. I checked this out from the library at the beginning of December because this was meant to be my kick off for Christmas break reading. After three renewals at the library and i'm finally ready to say i am done with this text. What hurts the most is how much i really like Jonathan Lethem. I can easily say that i love three of his books, but this will never be added to that shelf.
This book taught me that my patience and tolerance for a lesser work from an author i like is 159 pages.
This book mirrored the failures of Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue. It focused so much on using regionalism, that it weighed down the narrative. When you setting has more character than your characters, then you have a problem.
This book taught me that my patience and tolerance for a lesser work from an author i like is 159 pages.
This book mirrored the failures of Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue. It focused so much on using regionalism, that it weighed down the narrative. When you setting has more character than your characters, then you have a problem.