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A review by arachne_reads
Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem
4.0
Review 1: It went down easy and left me with little to chew on. It seemed to lean morally toward this idea of family as means to combat the disjoint nature reality and sorting out one's identity, and many of the oddnesses Lethem has Chaos encountering seem like over-large shadow puppets of things in American culture. I wanted more from it. (Initially gave it 3 stars)
Review 2 (after thinking about it and chewing on it much much more): I was completely wrong. That "moral leaning" I was on about was kind of my own knee-jerk reaction to portrayals of family, and my own fraught relationship with mine. It becomes hard for me to see past it sometimes.
I think what Lethem has done here is far more expansive than what I initially thought. Chaos has the ability to push his dreams on those around him: he faces a crisis because other characters, characters with an ability the same as his, try to manipulate, force, and coerce him into joining their particular vision of a re-made world, try to harness his dreams toward their ends. We as readers see how abusively this power is used by others-- Kellogg appears to be an example of this, as well as Ian and Ilford. Kellogg rings a little differently, father-figure like, as Chaos comes to realize his ability to reject the totalitarian possibility of his own dreaming and aid Edie, Melinda, and Edie's sons. It reads like a rejection of force, and some of the more detrimental notions we culturally attach to masculinity.
By the end of the book, what I initially read as "happy family" propaganda has much more of a ring of respect for others' identity in it. When Chaos dreams Edie and sons back to the forms we'd met them in as readers (as opposed to Ian's projections onto them in order to better control Edie), one of Edie's sons mentions that he really liked the tail Ian's dreams had given him. We get treated to the implication that Chaos will restore that-- not unlike the pieces of identity people toss at us and we decide we'll pick up and keep along the way.
Chaos's return to Edie still read a little like a rescue, the damsel in distress, especially with Ian's treatment of Edie being so abusive. That pushed a button. But overall, there's some pretty subversive patterns and rejections in there. On second thought, I like it much more than I thought I had on the first pass. There was in fact a LOT to chew on.
Review 2 (after thinking about it and chewing on it much much more): I was completely wrong. That "moral leaning" I was on about was kind of my own knee-jerk reaction to portrayals of family, and my own fraught relationship with mine. It becomes hard for me to see past it sometimes.
I think what Lethem has done here is far more expansive than what I initially thought. Chaos has the ability to push his dreams on those around him: he faces a crisis because other characters, characters with an ability the same as his, try to manipulate, force, and coerce him into joining their particular vision of a re-made world, try to harness his dreams toward their ends. We as readers see how abusively this power is used by others-- Kellogg appears to be an example of this, as well as Ian and Ilford. Kellogg rings a little differently, father-figure like, as Chaos comes to realize his ability to reject the totalitarian possibility of his own dreaming and aid Edie, Melinda, and Edie's sons. It reads like a rejection of force, and some of the more detrimental notions we culturally attach to masculinity.
By the end of the book, what I initially read as "happy family" propaganda has much more of a ring of respect for others' identity in it. When Chaos dreams Edie and sons back to the forms we'd met them in as readers (as opposed to Ian's projections onto them in order to better control Edie), one of Edie's sons mentions that he really liked the tail Ian's dreams had given him. We get treated to the implication that Chaos will restore that-- not unlike the pieces of identity people toss at us and we decide we'll pick up and keep along the way.
Chaos's return to Edie still read a little like a rescue, the damsel in distress, especially with Ian's treatment of Edie being so abusive. That pushed a button. But overall, there's some pretty subversive patterns and rejections in there. On second thought, I like it much more than I thought I had on the first pass. There was in fact a LOT to chew on.