Lucy reviews A Visit From The Goon Squad

Hard at work on my next blog entry.

I don't mean to brag, but I liked Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad long before it won the coveted 2011 Rooster from The Morning News Tournament of Books.  Then it won the Pulitzer, and people really started paying attention.  HBO reportedly picked it up and will begin production on a series.

Before I get to my review of A Visit From The Goon Squad, I'm going to list a few other things I liked before they were cool:

1.   Tricycles
2.   Global warming
3.   Polar bears

4.   Stomping hippies
5.   Bacon
6.   Sippy cups
7.   Community
8.   Elmer's glue
9.    Axe Cop

A Visit From The Goon Squad is either a novel, a set of interconnected short stories, or something else.  I'm not quite sure how to classify something that features an entire story/chapter told via Powerpoint.  It really doesn't matter, I guess.  All you need to know is that it features a huge cast of characters that are all somehow connected to aging record producer Bennie Salazar or Sasha, his kleptomaniac assistant.  We jump all around in time, from the late 1970s to the future.  We have multiple points of view.  The action takes place on both coasts and in foreign countries.

So what's it about?  Egan's theme can be summed in one exchange between Bennie and his former band-mate Scotty:  “Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?”  Hardly anything new.  Heck, I was considering this theme months ago (back when I still slept in a crib) as I slogged through that piece of crap Middlemarch by George Eliot.  Thankfully, Egan doesn't spend any time complaining about trains and what they might do to nature (answer: make it more awesome) like that pansy Eliot. 

 

Looks riveting, huh?

Characters come and go, but they all have one thing in common:  they are looking forward to the future, to where they'll be in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years or they're looking to the past.  Not a single one is concerned with the present.  So Egan gives us glimpses of the past and one mildly unsettling glimpse of the year 2020 (2020?  20/20 vision?  Hindsight is 20/20.  Man, I'm a clever little bugger) where everyone has become so connected thanks to the internet that it is hard to find a truly unique experience that hasn't already been streamed, live-blogged, and shared with the world.  Entertainment is instantaneous (and boring) and somehow impure because so many cooks were in the kitchen when it was created, and its distribution is sterile and devoid of interaction.  Bennie, nearing  the end of his career as a music producer, stops looking forward and reaches into his own past to pluck out a man who never succumbed to the digital age, never had a profile on Facebook, never blogged anything, and never even owned a computer.  He plops that man up on a stage in New York city with a microphone and a guitar, and guess what happens?

One more thing:  If you want to belabor the Middlemarch point, you can analogize all of Eliot's bedwetting over trains with Egan's bedwetting over the internet.  Back in the 1800s, trains were a big deal because they connected people across a country in a way they hadn't been before.  Same thing with the internet, except it's all digital.  Seriously, Notre Dame, just give me a diploma now.  I can spout crap like this all day with one hand tied behind my back.

I'm not going to lie.  Egan isn't saying anything new or groundbreaking in A Visit To The Goon Squad.  But she is saying it in a way that it hasn't been said before.  And she crafts an entire chapter/story into a Powerpoint presentation that somehow ends up being the best in the book instead of a lame, hipster-y gimmick.  Pretty amazing, if you ask me.  I've embedded that chapter below:

Great Rock and Roll Pauses

View more webinars from JenniferEgan

I award A Visit From Goon Squad 8 out of 10 juice boxes.  I deducted one juice box because I don't really like the way she bashes the internet.  The internet is where I find loads of cool stuff, like this:

I deducted the other juice box because I drank it. 

So next time you're in a bookstore, pick this one up.  You can trust me.  I have my finger on the pulse of our nation, and I know whether a  thing's cool or not, oftentimes before you even knew that thing existed.

Lucy Reviews A Game Of Thrones

This is Ned.  He's about to chop some dude's head off with the giant sword.

I'm a little late to the party on this one. George R.R. Martin wrote A Game of Thrones, the first volume of his Song of Ice and Fire series, in 1996. And I may never have picked it up if not for HBO and the buzz around its new series based on the book. HBO, consequently, has been putting just about every other network to shame with its offerings. Word on the street is that they picked up Thrones for a second season AND greenlit another series based on Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad, easily my favorite book of the last year or so. Anyway, back to A Game of Thrones.

First thing you should know about this book is that it's long. 831 pages, including an appendix. Way longer than anything the brilliant Sandra Boynton ever wrote. Man, I thought I had gotten myself into a real pickle: a giant book in a genre (fantasy) that I don't particularly care for, and it doesn't even have the courtesy to feature much, if any, rhyming. Ridiculous.

This is Daenerys.  She is about to eat that horse's heart.  Seriously.

But then I started it. And guess what? This ain't J.R.R. Tolkien or one of his legion of copycats. This book is slick. Martin plunges you into a world where summers can last for years and winters even longer. There is a vague hint of the supernatural/magical, but it all takes a backseat to the characters. And man, are there a lot of characters! It took me about 50 or 60 pages to orient myself, but from there I tore through the rest of the book.

Here's the plot in a nutshell (courtesy of Publishers Weekly):

In a world where the coming winter can last decades, kings and queens, knights and renegades struggle for control of a throne. Some fight with sword and mace, others with magic and poison. Beyond the Wall to the north, meanwhile, an army of the dead prepares to march south as the warmth of summer drains from the land. When Lord Stark of Winterfell, an honest man, comes south to act as the King's chief councilor, no amount of heroism or good intentions can keep the realm under control.

Sounds kind of lame and soap opera-y, huh? Sort of like The War Of The Roses? Yeah, I guess. If The War Of The Roses had a foul-mouthed midget, wolves, and a crap-load of violence. It's hardly an original comparison, but this is more like a medieval version of The Sopranos. And you know what the best part is? Martin can write. Chapters fly by. Characters are three-dimensional, and there are no clear heroes.

Also, don't get too attached to anyone, because Martin isn't afraid to kill a character he's spent hundreds of pages developing. This is a strategy that pays off.  No one is safe, and the reader knows it.  The end result is a built-in level of suspense missing from a lot of books.  These are fully realized characters operating in a fully realized world.  

One of the big failings of the fantasy genre is its tropes. I can write one of these suckers with my eyes closed. A common-born boy discovers he has great power and goes off on a quest with a band of unlikely heroes to combat some dark force in a far away land or destroy some stupid artifact. SPOILER ALERT: He accomplishes his mission. Not so with A Game of Thrones. Though there are echoes of this formula, Martin is too smart to let things devolve into predictability.  Heck, he discards the idea of quests pretty quickly.  Most of the novel's action takes place after characters have reached their destinations, not during the journeys themselves.  This is one of the smartest decisions Martin makes, because nothing makes me throw fits more than having to read about characters searching for edible roots or repairing the shoes.

I award A Game of Thrones 10 out of 10 stuffed bears. Amazon Prime couldn't get A Clash of Kings, volume two of A Song of Ice and Fire, to me fast enough.  Bailey and I waited and waited and waited for the mailman.  Amazon Prime likes to make you think they get things to you right away, but it took two whole days.  But at least I made friends with the mailman.  Turns out his name is Cecil, and he has three prison tattoos.  His pet snake is named Ginger, and Cecil likes to feed her baby kittens.   

Bring me my book, Cecil!  

An Explanation Regarding My Whereabouts For The Last Year Or So

Enjoying a much-deserved serving of yogurt with a side of

gummy bears and democracy

It's time we get back to business here at LEBSAB.  I've got some book reviews in the works for some great new stuff that will be published this coming July.  I've got opinions about the NFL lockout, the Royal Wedding of the kind of pretty girl and the balding dude, and the state of Yo Gabba Gabba! (hint: it's not good--they are focusing way too much of Toodie while characters like Brobie get pushed aside.  Oh, and whatever happened to Biz Markie's Beat Of The Day segment?).

But first, you need to know something.  I haven't spent the last year twiddling my thumbs or playing kick-the-can with Spanky and Buckwheat while this blog collected cobwebs.  No, I was on a mission.  You see, the first thing my daddy taught me was that the when the President of the United States comes knockin', you best answer regardless of your political affliations.   

And one hot July night, Barry O. came a-knockin'.

And answer I did. 

I've already been contacted by a number of media outlets to tell my tale, but I decided I owed it to you, my loyal followers, to get the story first.  After all, you've been very patient.  And I've learned that it is easier to get what you want by being patient and saying 'please' than it is by throwing fits and pulling mommy's hair.  It may not be nearly as fun, but we all must sometimes make sacrifices to get what we want.

So here it is, in slightly abridged format:

JULY 23, 2010.  A PHONE RINGS IN A ROOM LIT ONLY BY A WAXING MOON.  EMPTY JUICE BOXES AND DISCARDED GUMMY WRAPPERS ARE STREWN ABOUT THE ROOM.  LUCY SITS UP IN HER CRIB AND GROANS.  SOMEONE'S BEEN ON A BENDER.  AGAIN.  BLEARY-EYED, SHE REACHES FOR HER PHONE.

Lucy:  This better be good.

President Obama:  Lucy, this is President Obama.  I need you to report to D.C. immediately.  Your unit has been activated. 

Lucy (yawns):  Do you know what time it is, Barry?

President Obama:  8:45.

Lucy:  Yeah, well my bedtime is at 8.

President Obama:  Duty calls, young lady.  Seal Team 6 needs you. 

LUCY FINDS A JUICE BOX AND TRIES TO TAKE A SIP.  IT'S EMPTY.  SHE THROWS IT OUT OF HER CRIB WITH THE OTHERS.

Lucy:  You're in luck, Mr. President.  I'm fresh out of apple juice.  Have some waiting for me when I get there.  I'll be there in a few hours.

THE OVAL OFFICE, 5 HOURS LATER.  LUCY SITS IN A HIGH CHAIR SIPPING ON A JUICE BOX.  HER THIRD.  PRESIDENT OBAMA EYES HER WARILY.

President Obama:  I've read your file.

Lucy:  Congratulations.

President Obama (opening a manila folder and reading aloud):  Black Ops.  Special Forces.  Demolitions expert.  It says here that you've won every medal we can award.  And you're not even two yet.

Lucy (taking another pull from the juice box):  Early bloomer, I guess.

President Obama (closing the file):  You want to know what I think?

Lucy:  Not particularly.  But you're going to tell me anyway, aren't you?

President Obama (smiling):  I think that you're reckless.  I think that you play by your own rules.  I think you're undisciplined.  But Seal Team 6—they listen to you.  They respect you.  God knows why, but they do.  So here's what your country is asking of you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA SLIDES A PHOTOGRAPH TO LUCY.

President Obama:  I want you to find this man and terminate him with extreme prejudice.

Lucy (whistles):  You realize that if we're successful, you run the risk of alienating all of the pretentious academics who are your staunchest supporters?

President Obama: I do.

Lucy:  Get me on a plane to Guantanamo Bay.  I'll start there.

President Obama (smiles): Done.

Lucy: Do they have apple juice there?

President Obama: I doubt it.

Lucy:  You'll need to fix that.  It's going to be a long few months, but I'll get you an answer.

President Obama: Your country thanks you, and so do I.

Lucy: You should probably send some diapers too.

CAMERA PANS DOWN AND LINGERS ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN.  LUCY CIRCLES HIS EYES WITH A PURPLE CRAYON.

Lucy (whispering):  Looks like we'll be setting up a playdate. 

SCREEN FADES TO BLACK, THEN IS REPLACED WITH A MAP OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.  A DOTTED REDLINE WITH ITS BEGINNING POINT IN WASHINGTON, DC MAKES ITS WAY SOUTH TO GUANTANAMO BAY, INDIANA JONES STYLE, THEN BACK NORTH TO WASHINGTON, DC.

OVAL OFFICE, ONE MONTH LATER.  LUCY BURSTS THROUGH THE DOOR.

Lucy:  He's in Abottobad, Pakistan.

President Obama:  You're sure.

Lucy:  I'm sure.

President Obama:  And do I want to know how you know?

Lucy (shrugging): Your call.

President Obama:  I trust you didn't use any … enhanced interrogation techniques.

Lucy:  You'll have to be a little more specific.

President Obama:  Some people call it waterboarding.

Lucy:  Well, I call it giving terrorists a bath.

President Obama (furious):  You're a loose cannon, kid!  I want you out of my sight.

Lucy:  With all due respect, Mr. President, #$%* that.  Seal Team 6 is manned exclusively by loose cannons.  If you want Bin Laden, I'm the only one who can give him to you.

President Obama:  If we do this, we do it smart.  We need confirmation.  We need to do know for sure.  It could take months.

Lucy:  I've got the time if you've got the apple juice.

And I guess you know the rest of the story if you've been paying attention to the news lately.  If not, I think this gentleman sums up the final result of the operation nicely: