Stitch on 21/12/2006 at 23:32
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER EH CHAPS
First and foremost, Motherless Brooklyn is a wonderfully written book. The sentences are so beautifully constructed I wanted to crawl inside them and bob along contentedly over the warm ebb and flow of words. Jonathon Lethem is nothing less than a virtuosic writer, and I'm tempted to seek out more of his work.
Motherless Brooklyn was also a fantastic read, and I wound up tearing through the book at a much faster clip than anticipated, even as I reread particularly savory passages. Unfortunately, I also found myself rereading other passages to determine just what the hell was going on; my sole complaint with the book concerns Lethem's cavalier treatment of clues, as I often found Lionel making connections between things that I had apparently forgotten existed.
The biggest question in Motherless Brooklyn, however, does not involve clues or even writing, of course, but Lionel himself: why tourettes? What central purpose did it serve Lethem to give the protagonist a constant stream of nervous tics?
Lionel is as far from a noir antihero as you can get, thanks entirely to his condition. The Marlowes of the genre are calm and collected, rocks of self-sufficiency too cool to sink into the waves of chaos that surround them. Lionel, on the other hand, can't control the forces of chaos inside himself, let alone those in the outside world. Lionel can't even easily slip into the scenery the way a good detective can, as he's constantly at the mercy of attention-drawing tics.
Could Lionel and his perspective which shapes the book possibly be any less noir? Tourettes is the vehicle through which Lethem utterly destroys the noir genre. And yet, in the end, it is through Lionel's tourettes that Lethem fulfills many of the genre's standards.
Lionel is a terrible private investigator and yet it his tourettes-linked obsessive compulsiveness that gives him an investigative thoroughness, as well as a strange resolve to see the case through. Anyone else might toss in the towel but his tics won't let him do anything other than stumble towards the finish line.
Lionel's relationship with Kimmery is another perfect example where his tourettes breaks the rules of noir while still fulfilling the standards. Noir anti-heroes are too cool to get close to dames, and even if they have sex they end up back out on the lonely streets, free to continue their relationship with their one true love: booze. Lionel, of course, fucks this all up by falling hard for Kimmery--obsessively, of course--and yet like a true noir protagonist he keeps himself distant, thanks to the relentless nature of his condition. Even during the inspired sex scene the erotic or emotional nature of the moment gives way to comparisons with Don Martin's spastic cartoons. At the end of it all, of course, his obsessive compulsiveness pushes her away, as a noir protagonist can't end a case with a the dame still in his life.
Which is what it all boils down to: noir antiheroes can't ever change; they've got to end the book exactly as they started it, albeit with one more case under their belt. They can't win the girl, they can't grow too much as a person, and they can't rise above their initial station through wealth or promotion. After Lionel spent an entire book uncovering the secrets of Frank's death it would seem he would be a likely candidate to replace him as head of the agency, but that would be far too much change for a noir book. As such, Lionel's condition causes him to end the book just as he had started, a two-bit flunky taking orders from a superior.
Motherless Brooklyn is an amazing hat trick, a perfect noir book that feels as far from noir as you can get. The pieces are all there, but they're twisted beyond recognition.
Utterly brilliant.
Kyloe on 22/12/2006 at 06:59
Spot on analysis, Stich. I completely agree.
Jennie&Tim on 23/12/2006 at 16:43
I am carefully not reading the posts already present, December got unusually busy for me, so I hope to read the book after Christmas and make some comments at that point. I did read the first chapter, and I love how he makes his metaphors from today's experiences.
ignatios on 31/12/2006 at 23:45
Stitch pretty much said everything I wanted to say, but I want to address a couple of things:
I grew up with Tourette's. Most of my tics disappeared when I hit puberty; only a few subtle ones remain and I hide them well. However, it used to be pretty bad. I remember that my mother used to come pick me up at school and I would just get the day off without really knowing why, reason being that my teachers just couldn't handle it any more. I would do head jerks, throat noises, and strange things like having to twirl around once before going through doorways. I didn't have Lionel's echolalia and (unfortunately) didn't shout profanities, but I had it pretty good/bad. Consequently, I identified pretty strongly with the main character.
Lionel's descriptions of things feeling right (or not) are dead on, like when he knocks only five times on the Zendo door and is "startled by a sudden sense of completeness." When you have Tourette's, things never feel right. Everything is unfinished. You're constantly making little adjustments here and there, striving for that brief, fleeting moment of peace, like scratching an itch. You can't concentrate on anything without something else presenting itself to you in the most profound way, if only temporarily.
I get the feeling that Lethem intentionally tells his story in spurts to give you the feeling of being constantly interrupted by inconsequential things that you can't just ignore. In fact, I don't think Lionel could have experienced the plot in any other way, and therefore neither should we. The expository bits do cover a lot of ground, but I don't think stretching them out would have worked nearly as well.
All in all, I loved it.
