Book Club: Motherless Brooklyn

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Just thought a separate thread would be apt.

MB may have been the first detective fiction I've read (aside from that kids book with Wexler or something about the rich guy who disguises himself and a girl is the detective (Westing Game!)), and so what might've been the genre cliches were lost on me.

That said, it engrossed me like few books have lately, probably due to the deft handling of suspense on Lethem's part. The short sections allowed a lot of suspense to be built up slowly in very small increments without my necessarily noticing and when it does reach a noticeable level, the effect was captivating.

That's one reason I think I liked it. I agree that the Tourette's was a literary trope, but it also reverberated to Lionel-as-character. Taking a cue from the title, emphasis on the "Motherless" denoting an absence of what should be there. And what I caught onto was that of the five senses, which in L's case lack a unified central self. He's listening inside the building but can only see its exterior while eating greasy burgers -- if you add these experiences up, you might get a cubist rendering. I felt that the completion and unification of senses would come not for L (he still isn't top dog at L&L, he doesn't get Kimmery (a grebt name, btw), the orphan thing remains unresolved) but for the reader. All these sensations are recorded for or into the reader, and it's up to us to sort it all out. Once we've gotten all of the story, it's our turn to do the detective work, hence the closing "Tell your story walking." It's simultaneously expelling us fromthe narrative but also suggesting that we've inherited a part of it.

I had a better idea about the "Tell your story walking" but I forgot what it was, so this is what I'm able to manage.

― Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 11 December 2002 07:58 (twenty-two years ago)

It toys with hard boiled detective fiction trappings (ie the tell the story while walking, the idea of the Minna Men as detectives) but this is of course a sleight of hand. It misunderstands the difference between detective fiction and mystery fiction, and gets a bit bogged down in making the mystery work (which it doesn't). SO about halfway I started to lose a bit of interest since I found the lead much more interesting than the hoops the plot was making him jump through. Plenty of lovely bits, and the style is very beguiling but I was disappointed at the end.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 11 December 2002 11:02 (twenty-two years ago)

when i mentioned 'cliche' i was fishing for a reason why i noticed something shift for me around the third chapter. i may not have nailed quite what i felt... just a change from a more generic storytelling to "ok, now i have to make this a murder mystery" (i haven't read a detective story before either)

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 11 December 2002 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I've read loads of crime fiction, and I think there are loads of terrific and mostly underrated writers in that field. My preference is the American stuff, and I can't say that I'd rank Lethem as highly as Chandler, Hammett, Cain, Macdonald, Burke, Jim Thompson, or Block, just off the top of my head.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 11 December 2002 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm gonna try to remember to take notes as i go on the next one

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 December 2002 01:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was more about Lionel trying to be less of an orphan than it was a detective story. In that respect, it seemed to be moving very fast in terms of his history and development and such and then slowed down disappointingly at the end...things were left unfinished in a way that would make me look for sequels. I think that's because the Tourette's as a device really appealed to me, all of the random rearrangements of words were delightful sounds and they kept it from getting dull.

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 12 December 2002 01:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i found it interesting that most people he ran into reacted fairly calmly to his tics. i'd like to know what it's like for someone with tourette's as they go about their business and have to deal with the public (again, can i rely on this novel to give me an accurate picture)

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 December 2002 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

(I said I wasn't gonna comment, but whatever.) Recall that Lethem was a fantasy writer (in the broadest sense) before he wrote Brooklyn, and recall that fantasy gets no respect as literature. Don't know if writing a dick story was a bid for respectability or anything, but he seems less comfortable with the genre elements here than he was in the other book of his I've read, the postapocalyptic road trip Amnesia Moon. Still, Brooklyn is better because the central characterisation is so well-observed and well-observing, esp. in how he entwines his backstory with Brooklyn history.

― B.Rad (Brad), Thursday, 12 December 2002 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Oliver Sacks has a bit in _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat_ about having a case of Tourette's pointed out to him for the first time, and then abruptly noticing two more Tourette's people as he walked home that day.

― Douglas, Thursday, 12 December 2002 02:34 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yeah, it was of course great to have characters named 'minna'. i feel like there was another ilx relevant name, but i can't remember it now

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 December 2002 04:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i think it was just that they were driving a tracer right

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 December 2002 04:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Douglas - that is one of the things about mild tourettes, ie non-ticking tourettes. I know a number of people with that who study and once you have been told the symptoms it becomes a lot easy to notice in others.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 12 December 2002 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Was Lethem trying to go hardboiled on us? Or even trying to do a genre-exercise? Maybe the idea of mystery solving is a trope for the Tourettic conspiracy-finding/thread-connecting, to serve as a familiar analogue for the reader.

Also, as much as I enjoyed the novel, I didn't find that the constant permuting of words and phrases did a whole lot, that there wasn't a whole lot of development, linguistically or for the plot, to it, that it was a one-note joke.

― Leee (Leee), Friday, 13 December 2002 07:59 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

OMG: Read Lethem's piece in the new Harper's.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

― g00blar (gooblar), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:18 (eighteen years ago)

I'd mention Negativland but Mark S would cry.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:20 (eighteen years ago)

haper's went all adbusters this month

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:22 (eighteen years ago)

five years pass...

Never knew there was this whole thread, or forgot it.

I need to reread this novel - so I repeatedly told myself and others as I walked around Brooklyn last week.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 18 April 2012 17:59 (thirteen years ago)

actually Leee's account at the top is pretty good.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 18 April 2012 18:05 (thirteen years ago)

Just read the opening of this novel for the 3rd time and can't easily imagine why anyone wouldn't be compelled by it. The trip from Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn still gets me.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 19 April 2012 22:56 (thirteen years ago)

The only novel of his worth a damn.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 19 April 2012 23:00 (thirteen years ago)

was gonna say this was the LAST novel of his worth a damn. Prefer all three of his prior sci-fi novels to what came after (altho he still did some great short work, the best perhaps being "The Shape We're In")

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 19 April 2012 23:01 (thirteen years ago)

i would go with 'another sort of okay novel of his' tbh

― thomp, Friday, 20 April 2012 03:01 (thirteen years ago)

i should reread it now i have increased cultural familiarity with things like 'new york' and 'white castle sliders'

― thomp, Friday, 20 April 2012 03:01 (thirteen years ago)

It is my favourite of his novels and I find it exciting, vivid, compelling and enjoyable like few other novels I can think of.

― the pinefox, Friday, 20 April 2012 13:01 (thirteen years ago)

i did not enjoy this book. and it kept me from reading any of his other books.

― scott seward, Friday, 20 April 2012 13:12 (thirteen years ago)

to me it read like a treatment/pitch for a terrible indie movie. directed by wim wenders. and featuring gary oldham.

― scott seward, Friday, 20 April 2012 13:13 (thirteen years ago)

one month passes...

The film is allegedly out next year and set in the 1950s.

I do not quite get that last fact.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 22:38 (thirteen years ago)

as long as there are still prince records in the '50s

― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Wednesday, 30 May 2012 22:39 (thirteen years ago)

can't have a noir plot take place any other time than the 50s I guess

― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 30 May 2012 22:41 (thirteen years ago)

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