Unique, original, inventive - Lethem's best?
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I'd rate this as Jonathan Lethem's most successful book.
In addition, he manages to create a convincing new angle in the criminal detective genre - a hard thing to do, given all the competition.
He effortlessly paints a vivid portait of Brooklyn, without needing pages of prose. He builds on this with a subtle plot that is perfectly concieved and sustains the reader from start to finish.
Above all, he manages to combine the elements of comedy and pathos, kindess and violence, compexity and simplicity in a most elegant way.
Finally, his insight into the mind of the central character who has Tourette Syndrome is probably the best in any novel.
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Surreal detective novel set in Brooklyn
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Motherless Brooklyn opens with a small-time mobster, Frank Minna, dying of fatal gunshot wounds, leaving his limo service cum detective agency rudderless. One of his underlings lands in jail and two others vie for his position.
Lionel Essrog, one of four orphan boys taken in by Frank years earlier to help run the 'agency', feels his world falling apart. Determined to find out who killed Frank - and why - leads him on an unforgettable and highly dangerous adventure involving gangsters, Japanese monks, the victim's angry widow, a giant and a garbage cop.
To complicate matters further, Lionel has Tourette's syndrome, so that he cannot just blend into the background: everything he does is peppered with gunfire verbal barking and annoying repetitive motions (for instance, touching people's collars over and over). Is it any wonder he is known as the Human Freakshow?
Eventually, after following several false leads, Lionel begins to realise how he has been conned by a man who was not the fine upstanding citizen he had lead the orphans to believe he was. But still Lionel plods on to discover the truth about Frank's (life and) death while trying to avoid the bullets and the bashing that may bring his own life to a distinct and bloody end.
All in all, Motherless Brooklyn wasn't the book I had expected it to be. How I had wanted to love it! I had heard so many good things about it, I was totally convinced that I would find it difficult to put down.
But, for one reason or another, this novel failed to live up to my (high) expectations. Which is a shame.
In many ways, the surreal nature of this book reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk's stuff. The writing is highly inventive and, at times, laugh out loud funny.
The characters are quirky, if a little on the creepy side, but totally convincing. Similarly, the plot is well structured and believable.
The setting is also authentic and perfectly captures the seedy, watch-your-back side of Brooklyn life. It feels suitable grungy, dangerous and unpredictable.
What, then, was the problem?
As a reader I think I just failed to identify with any of the characters. I did not feel for Lionel's predicament, I did not really care whether he solved the crime and so, when I put this book down I found it difficult to pick up again. There was nothing propelling me to read on.
While I appreciated Lethem's ability to capture Lionel's verbal tics so very well (a literary feat in itself, twisting the language in clever, unexpected ways), the 'trick' wore thin after awhile and began to bore me. It felt a little like a one-trick pony.
And as much as I always enjoy reading about other worlds, the world presented in this book was a little too full-on male - violent, macho and red-blooded - for me.
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Exhilirating and Convincing Characters!
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Jonathan Lethem is a true original. His latest, "Motherless Brooklyn" manages to spin a tale of orphan misfits, detectives, gangsters and a main character that suffers from Tourette Syndrome into an impressive, rapid paced melee. The descriptions of the Brooklyn area, the characters and all the necessary sensory perceptions needed come through in snappy prose. Lethem's description of the 'impulses' and 'partly contollable' symptoms of Tourette are dead-on. Never has this reviewer read anything that so accurately captures the essence of Tourette and the personality in a novel. The reader can feel the symptoms of Tourette welling up in themselves as strongly as the character does on the page. Half detective story and half a case study of a young man with Tourette, Lethem intertwines the two deftly, giving the reader little time to breathe between events. The detective story may be slightly hackneyed and the closeness of the orphans and thier Fagan-like detective mentor could have been more intimately detailed, but Lionel Essrog and his Tourette's make fantastic fodder. Lethem goes for broke. This novel describes Tourette and real life on the streets like no other author has before.
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An complex and original "whodunit"
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An Intriguing detective story, where the "detective" is a delinquent member of a gang of toughs, victim of Tourette's Syndrome. The argument is continuous and gripping. The struggle against the syndrome has elements of pathos and humour, and give a uniquely human touch to the sufferer and principal personality. The story is set in Brooklyn, and gives some insight into the virtues and vices of the lives of the . The author is unknown to me, so when I picked the book up and started reading it, I was pleasantly suprised when I found that, not only is the story good, but it is also well written.
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Excellent, genuinely inventive writing, sharp and humourous
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This is the best book I have read this year. Lethem is an excellent storyteller, inventive and unusual in his character depiction and engaging throughout. The dialogue is sharp, witty and perceptive between a collection of orphaned individuals whose universe revolves around the leadership of an exploitative father figure in a shadowy area of Brooklyn. It is part coming of age, part detective story, part sheer inventive storytelling and I liked it immensely.
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