Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.89 You Save: $10.11 (67%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.21 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Motherless Brooklyn
Book Review: A big cut above your average thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
Burned by some much-hyped misfires by young lions, I waited until "Motherless Brooklyn" came out in paperback to pick it up, and even then it sat around for a while as I prepared myself for another disappointment. Was I wrong! Jonathan Lethem does a great job creating a fascinating character in Lionel Essrog, and he has a real talent for plot and pacing as well. But the best part of the book are Lionel's riffs on language, prompted by Tourette's syndrome and often erupting from him at the worst times. It never feels exploitative (unlike parts of "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time") and Lionel's character remains complex and his actions unpredictable in a good way. Great book by an inspired writer whose work I'll start seeking out in earnest.Book Review: A fine parody ("ALPINE CHARITY, EATMEBAILEY...")
Summary: 4 Stars
Excuse the above. Couldn't hold it in any longer..."Have you ever felt, in the course of reading a detective novel, a guilty thrill of relief at having a character murdered before he can step onto the page and burden you with his actual existence?" Lionel Essrog, the narrator, asks about a third of the way through this book. Up to that point, it was reasonable to assume that Lethem would play his detective story straight. But this question ups the ante a touch. It was at this point that I worried Lethem would take the path worn by Paul Auster (see his brilliant 'New York Trilogy') where the elements of the hard-boiled detective novel would be used purely for the sake of post-modernism. Auster's detectives never solve their crimes, and frankly, it doesn't matter. His ideas are bountiful enough for the reader to hold on to. Lethem, on the other hand, needs his narrative resolution. His ideas aren't in Auster's league. Sure, he sprinkles some Zen Buddhism over here, and questions of identity over there, and his main character has a disease that borders on the stream of consciousness style that contemporary literati find so intriguing (I don't). But they just don't have the same weight. Thankfully -- and I worry here that I'm giving away too much of the ending -- he follows the genre's conventions just enough to keep the reader happy.
There's a great line near the middle of the book, when a patron in a restaurant, complaining of Lionel's use of a cell phone in a public place, says: "people talking to themselves in a public place like they got some kind of illness!" Lionel, narrator and protagonist, is a wonderful creation. His Tourette's Syndrome, which at first came off as a hackneyed device, actually serves to elevate the entire book. It was wonderful to hear the series of Tourettic thoughts going through his head, and what the final culmination of those thoughts were when they would eventually escape through his mouth. I often thought that if the people he was speaking too were any brighter, then Lionel's cover would be consistently blown because you always knew what his hidden thoughts were. Luckily, the "Minna Men" he hung with were as low rent as the detective agency they worked for.
Lethem does a good job creating his world, his seedy little section of Brooklyn (and its outskirts, and even a sidetrip to Maine) for his characters to roam around in. The details seem just right, if a little self-conscious at times (a minor character is named "Welcome", a byproduct of her hippie parents but really of no use to the story). He takes the classic detective genre, and adds elements from the '90's to make it more relevant (like a "soundtrack" peppered with Funkadelic, Boyz II Men, and most tellingly, Prince). And you've got to admire an author who has the confidence to begin a chapter: "There once was a girl from Nantucket. No, really, that's where she was from."
Book Review: A gift from a friend on Court Street in Brooklyn
Summary: 5 Stars
An old friend of mine gave me this book as a gift. He is my only real connection with Brooklyn. I visited him there several times when he lived on Court Street and we walked its length while he told me stories about his experiences in the neighborhood and the minor wiseguys who sat at the table outside the Italian grocery across the street from his apartment.
Motherless Brooklyn was a gift he chose presumably because of this brief, shared Court Street experience. Much of Motherless Brooklyn takes place on our around Court Street and its place names like Cobble Hill and Carroll Garden are familiar to me. It was a sweet gift.
I've just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it. It was difficult to put down.
It is an endearing story of New York - endearing in spite of its themes of homicide and betrayal. The narrator - an orphan, a borderline gangster/hood with a serious case of Tourette's Syndrome endears himself to the reader.
I loved a scene later in the book that took place in Coastal Maine. It was written by someone who clearly understands and loves the region.
Book Review: A minor masterpiece of character
Summary: 4 Stars
In another writer's hands, the concept of a narrator suffering from Tourettes', and trying to solve a murder could have been a gimmicky mess. Instead, Jonathan Lethem's MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN turns out to be an intriguing, original and fascinating novel. Lethem is not afraid to take chances and his gamble paid off here. While I agree that the mystery itself is secondary to the character studies (and a drop disappointing), the resulting glimpses into the short-circuiting manners of a Tourettes' victim is a minor masterpiece in character study. In fact, the other realm described here, the motherless world of orphans, is equally brilliant and convincing. Give this book a read--I highly and hugely recommend it.Book Review: A murder mystery with a difference
Summary: 5 Stars
As I'm sure you've heard or read, this book's protagnonist and narrator suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, and his verbal tics seem to require the spontaneous creation of Joycean wordplay.
This *sounds* like a recipe for a psuedointellectual disaster of a mystery novel, complete with unnecessary MFA-level artsy flourishes, but Lethem is a very fine writer and he not only makes it work, it works very well indeed.
While the plot didn't quite have me on the edge of my seat, the loving, finely drawn characterizations of Lionel, the narrator, and his struggle with the crossed wires in his head, kept me captivated to the very end.