falling in and out of love with jonathan lethem

by jackie sheeler on December 29, 2007

i am a voracious but disorganized reader. i graze in the territory of lit fiction, with occasional forays into experimental (carole maso), mainstream (jodi picoult) and self-help (eckhart tolle). you would think, after nearly half a century of reading-as-breathing, that someone with my appetites would have come to lethem sooner. i did read “as she climbed across the table” a couple of years ago, picked it up at an office book swap and did enjoy the quirky read — though not so much that it sent me to The Strand for more of the same. in november, hungry for a good book to read on the plane and fairly annoyed with some of the books that i’d just gone through (the zero; blindness) i picked up a copy of “motherless brooklyn” — a title that has to appeal on some level to most of us born in that borough.

and i discovered a genius! i could not put the book down and was not disappointed for a moment — the character (whose name i don’t remember, but that’s OK, i don’t remember the names of real people that i’ve met either) with Tourette’s is so finely and compassionately drawn… i can still hear one of his tics (eat me bailey!) ringing out at the most inauspicious times. and bravo for the little seeker who slept with him, too. anyway, as soon as i finished the book i went to amazon and ordered everything lethem they had.

as they say, timing is everything. i put my stack of books (over-packaged as usual in amazon’s annoyingly consistent anti-environmental style) on the windowsill where All Books Waiting To Be Read live in my apartment. my sense of well being expanded along with the height of the stack. an embarassment of riches! not wanting to spoil my honeymoon with jonathan, i first selected a martin amis (”money” - great writing as usual, but his protagonists are always so depressing — i finish an amis book contemplating suicide) and only when i got through that did i give myself the gift of lethem.

it turned out to be one of those gifts that are so tawdry and embarassing you hardly know where to put yourself when the blasted thing pops out of its package. the appetizer to my jonamarathon was “gun with occasional music” - great title, right? i hated the narrator far more than i loved the title. the book brought me nothing: a nasty science-fiction detective in a land of talking animals where everyone snorts drugs to live. what a smarmy, self-satisfied, ignorant and pompous narrator! jonathan, how could you? i worried about my windowsill pile. did i have the receipt still? could i send them all back?

but the man who wrote “motherless brooklyn” deserves another chance. after all, lethem is the guy who gave away the movie rights to one of his recent books, to whoever came up with the best treatment. i like boldness. gotta give him another shot.

the gods smiled and i picked up “fortress of solitude”. i haven’t finished it yet, but that’s because i have to take time out to eat and sleep. what an amazing book, what an amazing character dylan is. there’s one scene in a park with dylan and three of his black partners where a well-meaning but nosy white hippiemother fucks up the whole deal and sets dylan back years. some of the writing and imagery is so keen, so well-drawn and insightful that, yes, i’m reading in bed while my eyes are doing the tear thing.

i have about another half day left at the fortress. then what? men and cartoons or girl in landscape? amnesia moon?

please, anybody, don’t let lethem let me down again — tell me what road to travel!