The main character is named Anthony Beavis, and Huxley jumps backward and forward in time while following his life, weaving a narrative that crosscuts between his Anthony’s life before and after the suicide of his best friend Brian, a tragedy that he seems to feel responsibility for, both as a personal betrayal, and as the loss of a friend who seems to represent the conscience of Anthony’s sensitive, passive but caring and thoughtful persona. The other main characters are Mary Amberly and her daughter Helen, a pair of women who Anthony orbits in a kind of romance that comes into focus as the book continues, and is clearly, increasingly doomed. There is no great external conflict, other than a man struggling to come to terms with himself, and a doomed love affair–a lot of the novel’s conflict is internal–with Anthony trying to find his place in the world, and here Huxley’s writing is fascinating, as the character’s attempt to find some kind of balance between his ideals and desires to make the world a better place, and his awareness of his own weaknesses, and those of the world around him. When I write it out like that, it sounds as though there are some similarities with J.D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye‘, and I guess there are. Although the two novels tread similar ground, the overlap is limited. Holden Caulfield is a teenager, and an equal-opportunity critic. Everyone is a bum or a phoney. Beavis, on the other hand, is an adult throughout much of Huxley’s book (which identifies the fact that soul-searching, contrary to the wishes of some, doesn’t end as soon as you get out of high school or college) and is able to rank different people and ideas in his head. Indeed, you could say that in some ways, he’s the inverse of Caulfield. Salinger’s narrator thinks everyone else is a phoney. Beavis’s problem is that he thinks he’s a phoney, and every time he tries to rectify the problem, something happens to make it worse.

There is some awkward philosophizing by characters late in the novel that almost feels like a form of exposition, trying to wrap up the book the way Huxley wanted it, but it’s more than balanced by many of the passages throughout–Huxley’s ruminations on society, his portrayal of Beavis’s grief over the death of his mother, and the wedge it drives between him and his father–his quixotic, and knowingly stupid pursuit of Mary, and her daughter Helen’s just as knowing, and frustrated attempts to navigate society in her own way. It’s a very good book, but even better than that, for me, it’s a book that stayed with me, and that I’m still turning over in my mind. The books that disappear from memory right after you close them are the ones that you can skip reading in the first place. The ones that make it all worthwhile are the ones that stay with you for years after. I think I’ll be adding this one to the list.

I mentioned John Connolly’s very fun novel The Gates in my last posting, and since then, I’ve read several more books. Of special note I’d like to single out China Mieville’s twisting detective story The City & The City about a murder in a fictional city that’s part of a divided pair with a secretive and torturous history. Mieville’s prose  continues to mature, but it’s still the crisp, energetic writing of someone who loves what he’s doing (that is, building imaginary worlds) and is very good at it. The distinctive geography and legal issues raised by Mieville’s setting make for some good, thought-provoking twists and turns.

I also was very struck by a novel called Almost Dead by a writer named Assaf Gavron, who I’d not heard of before (sometimes it’s good to pick books up on a whim). The front cover of the book bills it as a comedy in the vein of ‘Catch-22′, and that seems apt, if a little overly confident on how much of the book’s focus is on the jokes. Not to say it isn’t a funny book, at times, in a blackly deadpan sort of way, but it felt like a serious story when I was reading it, and the book’s final chapters are quite tense and dramatic. The story is set in Israel, and follows two narrators, each first-person, in alternating chapters.  One speaks primarily in the past tense and is nicknamed ‘Croc’, a young Jewish yuppie from Tel Aviv who survives several terrorist bombings, and becomes a hapless symbol of resistance in the Israeli media. The other is Fahmi, a young Palestinian who drifts back and forth between the hospital bed where he is confined, and the past, and who increasingly, in the past that he is recounting, finds himself drawn into a collision course with Croc. Several tragedies occur that I won’t spoil, in case any of you pick up the book, but I will note that for someone like myself, who is not an expert when it comes to Israel and the West Bank, the setting and characters of this store were vividly described, and compelling. It felt like a minor miracle, but the characters were sympathetic across the board, and in contrasting Croc’s point of view with Fahmi’s, and making both individuals well-r0unded and compelling, Gavron has crafted a novel that demands to be digested thoughtfully, and lingers long after you’ve finished reading it, regardless of what one’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are.

It’s also quite notable this month that Amazon.com, the online bookseller, announced a first-ever milestone. For the first time ever, e-book sales for the Amazon Kindle surpassed hardcover sales to customers. Longtime readers will be aware that I’ve been…..suspicious of e-books in the past, to put it kindly, but I can see the writing on the wall: Clearly, this isn’t a fad. Electronic texts have reached the point where they’re as viable as paperbacks–and possibly would be as common if they were a little bit cheaper.  As an interested reader, this leaves me with several questions–first of all, if I am going to get a Kindle or other E-book reader, what should I buy, and why?  And secondly, what does this mean for people who make their living from books?

Bookstores have become an increasingly endangered relic over the past few years, and I imagine that, as hardcovers become more of a boutique item, that will only continue. At the same time, I’m curious as to how widespread use of kindles and other e-books is affecting how we read and how we share books. For instance, I know that if I’m sitting in a cafe scribbling in my notebook, and I look over at the next table where someone is reading a hardcover, I can make a note of the author and title, make a snap judgment about who that person is and why they’re reading that book, even perhaps strike up a conversation.

If, on the other hand, the person is reading a kindle, I’m out of the loop unless I broach the silence with a quick ‘What’re you reading on that thing? There are numerous other differences between a book that’s a physical object, of course, and a book file that’s stored on an electronic device–lending to friends, for instance. As the E-Book reaches maturity, however, I guess I’m going to have to start getting accustomed to those differences sooner, rather than later.

Well, now that we’re into July, I’ve had my first  pleasant surprise for the Summer of 2010. This is due to a novel called ‘The Gates‘ by John Connolly, an Irish writer whose last novel, The Book of Lost Things, I also enjoyed. The Gates is the sort of book that I would have loved to read when I was ten or so and my imagination was firing on all cylinders–it’s about a boy who has to save the world from the local coven who ‘accidentally’ open a gate to hell, while also managing to be about the Large Hadron Collider and quantum physics. The tale itself is a darkly humorous one, and the demons, for all the loving descriptions Connolly uses, are not that threatening.

The heroes of the book are a young boy named Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell, and the story begins with them stumbling over the demonic plot while Trick – or Treating. The plot unspools from there, with Sam trying to alert others fruitlessly to the fact that his neighbors have been replaced with demons and are planning to take advantage of the LHC to ‘open the gates’ so to speak, between Hell and Earth. In other hands, this might come across as grim and epic as, say, Stephen King’s The Stand. Connolly, however, has a very light touch, and the resulting tale that he spins has more in common with something like Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s  Good Omens.

It is, pardon the term, a family-friendly apocalypse, and one that manages to find a happy ending. The prose is light and whimsical, the chemistry between the young hero and his dog is charming, and the cover, festooned with all sorts of fangs and spikes, will definitely stand out if you take it to the beach with you. It is, in other words, just the right type of book for the season. Here’s hoping I’m as lucky with the next few novels I have stacked  on the shelf to keep me company while I’m in the hammock.

This is a first for me—sitting down and writing a review of a book that I’ve read BECAUSE of Zaptown-a book that’s been sent to me specifically to get my thoughts on it in writing. The book in question is called ‘Quentin Tarantino: Life at the Extremes‘ and it’s part of Praeger’s ‘Modern Filmmakers‘ series. The author is Aaron Barlow. Now, I like movies. A lot. I’ve watched my share. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say I’ve never really connected strongly to Quentin Tarantino. despite being of the generation that came of age in the 1990′s. My favorite film of his is probably Jackie Brown, which I sat down and rewatched after reading Barlow’s book. I have fond associations linking Reservoir Dogs to my adolescence, and I sat in a movie theater last year with my mouth hanging open at the last third of Inglourious Basterds, a movie that I may not have loved, but sure as heck admired. On the other hand, the Kill Bill films left me sort of cold, and my primary association when I think of Pulp Fiction is sitting in my friend’s living room as a teenager, wincing and trying to count the swear words, as his parents sat silently in the next room, pretending not to listen to what we were watching. Death Proof? Haven’t seen it.

I mention this because I want to be clear. While I really like reading about movies, and have nothing against Tarantino, I don’t consider myself an ‘easy audience’ in this case. The worrisome thought had crossed my mind that I might open the book, start reading, and draw a blank on what to say. This concern came back in the preface, where Barlow points out that the book itself is a work in progress, and that the focus of each individual chapter, whether Mr. Tarantino’s life itself, or the individual movies being analyzed, could support books of their own. I was concerned, imagining a book that either would be a simple summary or one that wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already think—albiet from the perspective of someone who liked Tarantino quite a bit more than I did.

Always pleased to be proven wrong, I turned to the first chapter. I’ve always thought of Tarantino as a somewhat postmodern, ironic filmmaker. Barlow—politely, gently, but firmly, asserted in the first chapter that this was a misunderstanding on my part and he was going to tell me why.  So much for simple summaries. Indeed,  Barlow’s starting point for his entire  examination of Tarantino’s films is that Quentin is NOT postmodern at all, despite being given the label early in his career.  My curiosity was piqued, it didn’t hurt that Barlow drew some parallels between one of my favorite writers, Philip K. Dick, and Tarantino as two individuals who were misunderstood for the way that they used genre trappings.  Maybe I’ve been wrong about Tarantino all these years? I turned the pages, increasingly curious to see where Barlow’s argument was going.

What followed were several short chapters that are packed with information and arguments about Tarantino, and the way he’s acted as a marker of sorts in changing way audiences relate to the films that they see.  Especially interesting, (although I’m not sure I was entirely convinced)  is the way that Barlow examines Tarantino’s films as a series of farces, at least in the way that they deal with violence (Tragicomedy, he points out, is not the same as gratuitous exploitation). When Barlow moves on to discuss the individual films in the framework he has established, giving each a chapter, he does so in succinct, vivid terms. The tone here is strengthened by the way Barlow’s writing allows his personality to come through—he mentions early on walking out on Jaws because he found the soundtrack an overt attempt at managing his emotions, for instance, and the effect of such anecdotes is that of  listening  to one interesting film-lover discuss the work of another. The analysis of Reservoir Dogs, and that film’s use of music (compared with Jaws, f’rinstance) is one place where I found myself nodding my head at articulation of something I had found effective, but never really recognized,  and the chapter on Inglourious Basterds where he points out (with an accurate turn of phrase, I think) that by (Spoiler!) killing Hitler, Basterds kills the genre of the ‘serious’ WWII movie.

Each of the film-centric chapters has several such points where I found myself nodding my head in agreement, or thinking about elements of Tarantino’s films in a new light. The book went by much more quickly than I expected, and when I came to the end of it, I found myself having really enjoyed Barlow’s company and more than willing to welcome him back to my bookshelf in the future. And while the text didn’t shift Tarantino to the top of my list of favorite directors,  it did make me quite a bit more sympathetic to the man’s accomplishments, and curious to revisit his films from a different perspective in the future.  Anyone who enjoys Tarantino’s movies and wants a greater context to place them in(which, last I checked, IS a sizable number of people) or simply would like to share in the enthusiasm of a knowledgable narrator while thinking about issues such as violence in film and how we react to it would find it well worth their time to peruse the book.

One of my particularly favorite fantasy novels, as a younger person, was Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood, the tale of an enchanted wood (or was it? In the Arthur C. Clarke sense, this could actually be a Science Fiction novel) and the effect it has on a dysfunctional family, on a pair of brothers and their estranged father, and the ghost of a woman they’re all chasing. It was a terrific book, and it spawned several indirect-sequels also dealing with the wood, the mythagos in it, and the stories of various people drawn into the wood.

Robert Holdstock died last year. His last novel, Avilon, was a direct sequel to Mythago Wood. Continuation of the characters and the story of that original story. A story, that, at the time, had had what I felt was a perfect ending. And on the other hand, aware that Holdstock was gone, that this was, so to speak, his last word on the subject, I opened his last book, and found that yeah, there was Steven and Guiwenneth and their children. Even Christian, not dead after all. It is a story, as Holdstock says in his introduction, about Resurrection, about life and death, and the places where we cross.

And when I realized it was a direct sequel, it suddenly became a much trickier book for me, as a reader, because I’d liked the end of Mythago Wood, so much. And Avilon takes the characters and their children to some very different places. The book unfolds slowly, but the locus of the plot is that Steven and Guiwenneth have had two children, Jack and Yssobel, who are essentially half human and half ‘mythago’, due to the influence of their mother. At the same time, Steven and Guiwenneth’s marriage life has become strained–the tension between the legend ending and life going on/another story starting? Either way, it isn’t long before Steven and Guiwenneth have become physically separated in the realm of the wood, and Jack and Yssobel take separate paths to try and reunite their family–Yssobel chasing her mother deeper into teh forest, and Jack heading to the outskirts of the wood, to try and find some solution to the problem in the Huxley family home, abandoned on the outskirts of the forest.

The story that unfolds does not provide the same sort of mythic simplicity as the end of the original novel, but it does have the force of legend and the ring of truth to it, and there is a great degree of reflection on life and death in the book’s final chapters especially. It did make me want to go back and read the rest of the Mythago cycle, and though I’m not sure I’ll have the time anytime soon, I definitely am curious to see what I make of the original book, next time I re-read it, knowing (as I now do) that the end of the story is not really the end.

I was originally going to talk about how Spring has swept in  over the past few weeks–how the birds have come back, and it’s been warmer, and the trees seem to be blooming. However, since then, we’ve had a cold couple of days, even with flakes of snow falling out of the air!  My original idea was to mention a few different books that I associate with Spring—that work best when you’re sitting on the back porch (or the front porch, perhaps) reading them, rather than the beach. Books like Travels with Charley or Watership Down or even Thoreau’s Walden. Y’know, classics. However, this past week, which managed to be both colder and dryer than expected, threw a bit of a scare into me, so I’d like to share something else with you. (I might talk about the other three books next time, though. In the meantime, run out and read them, if you haven’t yet had the chance).

I was going back through the modest poetry section on my bookshelf, and reading some of the old American poets in my collection, when I stumbled across a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that I’d never really read before–Endymion (Not to be confused with the Keats). Now, Longfellow was incredibly popular a hundred-hundred and fifty years ago, but I’m not sure if he’s widely read, or liked, these days. Nonetheless, I thought the poem itself, with its evocation of the Greek legend, had some kind of uncommon resonance for me, and couldn’t quite figure out why. Here’s the poem:

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,–the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,–
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds,–as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
“‘Where hast thou stayed so long?”

I’m not sure why I like it, but I do–it has a bit of the feel of some of Yeats, for me. It’s very pastoral, but despite feeling very far removed from the reality of 2010, there’s something about the imagery Longfellow’s using that reminds me of the birds flyingover water and the wind in the trees that I can see right now anytime I look out my window. And in any case, isn’t such a discovery what Spring is all about, finding new things to like–(or love?) and not knowing quite why they connect to you the way that they do? The other lesson that I’m taking from this is that, even with the release of the iPad, I don’t need to worry about the impending death of books, or wht to buy, every week I write a column—there’s probably  a collection of stories and poems on my bookshelf already that I don’t even realize I would enjoy–I certainly have never thought of Longfellow as one of my favorite poets, but there’s something perfectly balanced between hope and pastoral melancholy in those verses for me, and despite Longfellow’s strict adherence to rhyme, the structure doesn’t seem a hindrance. I wonder what else I’d find, if I opened some of the other books already on my shelves, more often.

I liked Larsson’s book quite a bit, as the novel manages to be two things simultaneously–it’s an unabashed page-turner mystery, a cold case locked-room (or in this case, locked-island) murder where the two protagonists aren’t detectives, but computer wielding information-gatherers drawn in by circumstance. The reader spends the bulk of the book’s plot getting to know these two erstwhile investigators as much as they do the people that are being investigated, and the characters feel three-dimensional, vividly drawn, but with minimal unnecessary detail. However, the book also served as an interesting slice of 21st century mainline culture for me–touching on issues such as psychology of relationships, the financial crisis, and media ownership in a way that seemed relevant without being shoehorned in. This is a novel that throws a lot of information at the reader, but never really needs to slow down to allow it to be digested. Long stretches of the book consist primarily of communication, either dialogue or email, and description is (in English at least) kept to a minimum of utility–when details come, they often stand out as vividly as protagonist lisbeth Salander’s tattoos.

At the same time, this is a book that certain readers probably will be somewhat uncomfortable with. The murder-mystery plot that drives the story deals with several issues,  from white-power movements and eugenics to sexual sadism and assaults against women (The original title for Larsson’s book was, I have read, MEN WHO HATE WOMEN–if that rumor isn’t true, then, as the bard says, it oughtta be).  This leads to some upsetting scenes and descriptions (kept largely offstage, but still described in frank, spare prose—the most cringeworthy was, for me, one murder scene involving a parakeet). Your mileage may vary–for me, it didn’t feel exploitative, but I’d be slightly concerned if I happened to be sitting on the bus and caught a ten-year-old reading it.

The discomfort is intentional, though-through the reactions of his protagonists, and the long chain of events being investigated, it’s clear that Larsson is indignant about the damage one human being can do to another without being punished for it. In this respect, there’s something  cathartic about the way that Salander and Blomkvist, the investigators at the heart of the case, handle the secrets they unearth. This is a book that works perfectly well on its own terms, but the closing chapters do leave one curious as to where Larsson’s characters are going to go from here. Good thing there’s a film version coming out in North America, along with the two published sequels.

Suffice to say that in the same way that The seventh book of the Dark Tower series felt like it could have been a natural spot to King to retire on, if he chose to, a sort of philosophical metafictional capstone, if I can get a little bit crazy with the labels, Under The Dome has the same heft. The town of Chester Mills and its fictional inhabitants, though singularly themselves, also fill a cornucopia of types that King’s dwelled on in the past–there’s the hypocritical housewife, the overly-bright teenager, the shambling, insane derelict who unwittingly brings aid and destruction, the crazed minister, the well-meaning minister with a crisis of faith, the heroic corgi, and on and on…..the effect is rather like watching a magician who spreads ALL the cards on the table, face up and says ‘Here….for my next trick, I’m going to use them all…………’ The characters are undeniably themselves—Big Jim and his fixation on eating, for instance, is a nice little vivid character detail that also serves to provide a slice of subtext.

Readers who are (I suppose there must be some) new to King shouldn’t feel that anything’s lacking if they haven’t read Salem’s Lot or Insomnia or The Stand, for instance, but readers of those books–I imagine a lot of them have a nice comfortable, RELAXING sensation, like sliding into a tub full of warm suds at the end of a hard day. And in that sense–which may be a reach, but it was my point of view going into the second half of the novel, there’s some interesting commentary here. Because the characters spend most of their time feuding with each other and tearing each other apart, rather than dealing with the source of the dome. In a sense, the (curiously, somewhat science-fictional) source of Chester Mills’s imprisonment could be seen –again, not wanting to give spoilers here–as a bit of a stand-in for the author himself. And in that sense, I was reminded of nothing more curious than the end of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by the end of the book. I don’t think this is King’s last book–I’m pretty sure there’s more down the road–if he’s still putting out big, enjoyably DENSE novels like this and Duma Key, that seems a sign that there’s more to be harvested next season—but it can be taken as an intriguing commentary on a writer’s relationship to his characters–and coming from a man who penned both Misery and The Dark Half, I’d doubt that the thought hadn’t occurred to Mr. King himself. An entertaining read that can now intimidate visitors on my bookshelf.

I regret to report that I am still not through UNDER THE DOME. However, I’m getting closer. In the meantime, I had an interesting conversation that got me thinking about how I’ve changed as a reader, and seem to be slowing down as I get older. I was talking to a friend who asked if I was reading anything good, and I replied something along the lines of, ”Well, I’m reading UNDER THE DOME and it’s not bad so far, but I’m not sure where it’s going, and if I’ll like the ending or not.’ and they kind of coughed and asked how long it was. I said it was about as long as The Stand and they nodded, and said it had taken them a while to read that, and the conversation dropped into one of those awkward lulls where someone realizes the other person isn’t exactly a fan of the author/musician/whoever that is being talked up.

Anyway, after the conversation was over, I suddenly realized that I had read The Stand in about a week when I was a teenager, in one fevered burst of consumption. I’m also pretty sure I finished reading IT in about two weeks, maybe two and a half, and It has taken me twice as long to get two thirds of the way through UNDER THE DOME, which is comparable in length. The slow-down isn’t because I’m not enjoying myself, the book, as it is an engaging page-turner—the conclusion I’m left to come to is that I’ve slowed down as a reader. I’m sure I used to read much faster than I do—it might just be nostalgia, but I remember sitting down and getting through some books that I really enjoyed as a ten or eleven year old kid, in just a day or two. It’s not just that I have more to do as an adult—this is back when I had school, other activities, would be out running around the neighborhood—i had just as many distractions then as I do now, apart from the internet. I think that it simply takes me longer to process what’s on the page. I’m sort of curious as to whether or not this is something I should be worried about, as I’m only in my early thirties, and the list of books I’d like to read seems to grow longer, rather than shorter, every year. If I have an ever-increasing number of books to read, and it’s taking me steadily longer to finish each book that I do complete, something is going to have to give, and it’s not going to be pretty.

The worst part of this sneaking suspicion is that it doesn’t just apply to books I haven’t yet read—meaning that books I’ve already read, but would like to reread again, are even more likely to slow me down. For instance, i’ve been thinking about going back and rereading some of my favorite Philip K. Dick stories this Summer, and I’m kind of worried that I’ll get bogged down and won’t be able enjoy them as much. On the other hand, I could be blowing this all out of proportion, and it could just be that years of heavy internet use have simply damaged my ability to focus on the printed page in the way I used to be able to! At least I haven’t tired of my BLADE RUNNER DVD yet…..

In the meantime, I’m working my way through other novels. And what I find is that it’s always refreshing to pick up a book by a writer you’ve never read, but who often seems to be mentioned in glowingly positive terms, and find yourself enjoying the story they’ve put together. More than that, to find the book not quite like anything else you’ve read before, here in an age where libraries can be downloaded in an afternoon, could be construed as a minor (and very entertaining) miracle. At the same time, it’s strangely bittersweet, and once you start enjoying the book, you find yourself muttering (perhaps in a voice that’s supposed to be the book’s) ‘what took you so long, dummy?’

This was the case with Motherless Brooklyn, an award-winning, and much-acclaimed novel published in 1999 that I’ve heard mentioned a fair bit over the years, but never got around to reading, possibly because author Jonathan Lethem seems to be one of those sorts that everyone agrees is really good. (For example, I’ve had the same problem with Michael Chabon–everyone I read or talked to seem to agree how great he was, so I, in my counter-intuitive way, decided because everyone already liked his stuff, I’d avoid it and try to read something different, until I picked up The Yiddish Policeman’s Union a year and a half ago or so, and was bowled over. The moral of this story is that I can be a bit slow to recognize a good thing, sometimes.)

Anyhow, yes, apparently after reading Motherless Brooklyn, the reason why everybody says good things about Jonathan Lethem’s writing is that his writing is terrific! The narrative is a detective story, of sorts. Specifically the sort that is a murder mystery, with a first-person narrator who many of the characters (and the reader) manage to underestimate throughout the tale, and who doles out information about his life in New York City as the story progresses, gradually widening our understanding about what’s happening. The important thing here is that Lethem plays fair-he doesn’t cheat. Everything, by the last chapter, makes sense in the good way. The way where you want to go back and read the book again, this time with the knowledge of what’s actually going on. I’m not sure if Lethem has written other mysteries, or if his other novels have different focuses, but if he wanted to, he could clearly do an excellent series of detective books. I’d read them. And that’s the second point here. Not only does Lethem have that gift of playing fair–constructing a plot that’s full of well-earned surprises that seem natural at the time, but make sense in hindsight, he makes it entertaining. His descriptions are vivid, and just half-cocked enough to keep the book feeling a bit breezier than it might otherwise be. And his narrator/protagonist, the tourettes-afflicted orphan Lionel Essrog, a large, hulking man who’s investigating the murder of his patron Frank Minna, is a vivid, fully-realized character, whose inner conflicts (his melancholy recollection of trying to own a cat, for instance) are the cherry on the sundae of the novel. At just over three hundred pages, Motherless Brooklyn never really slows down to catch its breath. Now that I’ve read it, I have two main conclusions: One is understanding what all those people were talking about when they said nice things about Jonathan Lethem’s writing, all those years. The second is kicking myself for taking so long to pick up one of his books.