You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
Too much telling, not enough showing. Granted, that telling is really well done, since Lethem is such a good writer. Lots of beautiful phrases and even some interesting philosophy here, but the characters don't do enough.
Great characters and unique situations -- just don't take it too seriously.
Overlong but I'm giving it a fourth star because it's still one star better than other similar books. I miss weird Jonathan Lethem.
slow-paced
Lethem is a really remarkable writer at the sentence level. Every sentence is charged and gleaming. Quotes abound throughout. He’s also got a knack for writing about ideas while still developing strong characters.
There’s so much going on here; Dissident Gardens could support a few solid dissertations. It’s a novel superficially about New York, communism, Jewishness, family struggle and class struggle, theory and praxis. It’s about the different identities available to us each and how we select the ones that define us. If you are a Jewish communist New Yorker of German ancestry with a daughter, an ex husband, and a lover, which of the intersecting identities is the real you? How do these identities interact with one another over a lifetime? How do they get passed across generations and interact with trauma?
But as a reading experience, this failed to hold together for me. I read it at a time when I didn’t have a lot of headspace to dedicate to a sustained reading, so it’s possible something was lost on me, but the jumping around that happens in Dissident Gardens really didn’t work for me. I generally love and seek out multigenerational novels; I think the structure is such a rich way to explore some of the most interesting questions that novels ask us. But in this novel, several strands of the story feel too far afield of the core story. We lose central characters very unexpectedly and are then flung out into another storyline in a way that was unsatisfying to me. This is intentional, to be sure, but it still didn’t work.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Worth it alone for the imagined love affair with 70s tv character icon chapter
The story was a little long-winded and rambling (and it took me a while to finish). So, here is a long-winded and rambling review. I had other Lethem books on my to read list, but this one was available from the library when I was looking for something to read and far from my pile of books at home. The story left me thinking, which is generally a good thing. Reading a couple of reviews (Yiyun Li in NYT and Alex Preston in the Guardian) that talk about a left view of American history, orphans and orphaning, and revolutionary legacies helped me process a bit. My thoughts are with the theme of family - each generation in the novel becomes more distanced from Rose's Communist foundation, mostly because they are challenged in their relationships with each other. Even Rose loses her connections and she becomes defined by her oppositions. Her legacy is passed on most effectively to Cicero, who is not related by blood, but is more of a mentee. As with many genetically-bonded families, their relationship is complex and evolves through a range of emotions, not all of which are warm and fuzzy. Miriam and Sergius wander through the politics they feel connected to in what seems like less than thoughtful ways. They are so absorbed in themselves, that they don't see the larger context they are lost in, attaching to symbols rather than fully engaging in their worlds. The characters will stay with me though, their stories were engaging as each of them evolves over time, growing up or older and struggling to find a place as the world changes around them.
Why do I do this to myself? I swear to God, every time I read a Lethem novel, I'm like, "never again," and yet here we are again, thanks to the neighborhood free box.
About 30% of this book--the parts set entirely before 1965 or so--are actually pretty good and made me remember the time, in the distant, fading past, when I found Jonathan Lethem to be considerably less annoying. The rest is basically two hundred odd pages of overwritten, name-dropping eyeroll.
About 30% of this book--the parts set entirely before 1965 or so--are actually pretty good and made me remember the time, in the distant, fading past, when I found Jonathan Lethem to be considerably less annoying. The rest is basically two hundred odd pages of overwritten, name-dropping eyeroll.