07-21-2006, 07:24 AM
Amazon link: The Fortress of Solitude
I picked this up from the 'bargain' shelf at B&N hoping for some light summer reading. The jacket promised a nostalgic tale of two inner-city youths growing up together reading comic books and listening to 70s music. What could possibly go wrong?
Many things.
Like filler and more filler. What is the deal with new authors filling pages with endless, detailed descriptions of cracks in a sidewalk or the texture of a brick.
What happened to "The sidewalk was cracked and lined with rough brick houses"?
That sentence would take a page and a half in Jonathan Lethem's style.
Then there's the 'poor, poor, pitiful me' ambiance. I got my fill of that self-pity crap from "A Staggering Work of Self Importance". This book is non-stop misery. Even when something good happens to the characters it's usually a setup for something awful a page or two later.
I'm not saying the book was 'bad', just not my cup of tea. In fact, this is kind of 'chick-lit' for tortured artists. It's a "How many ways can I describe a sense of emptiness?" contest. There were sections throughout that were genuinely compelling, taught narrative about prison life or a cocaine-filled party that goes horribly awry. However the 'good stuff' was sandwiched between pages and pages where NOTHING HAPPENED.
The story? A white kid and a black kid grow up in a tough New York neighborhood. The white kid becomes a writer and moves to Oakland, the black kid becomes a crack addict and goes to prison. The end.
Oh yeah, they share a ring that may-or-may not give them super-powers. See you on the best-seller list!
I picked this up from the 'bargain' shelf at B&N hoping for some light summer reading. The jacket promised a nostalgic tale of two inner-city youths growing up together reading comic books and listening to 70s music. What could possibly go wrong?
Many things.
Like filler and more filler. What is the deal with new authors filling pages with endless, detailed descriptions of cracks in a sidewalk or the texture of a brick.
What happened to "The sidewalk was cracked and lined with rough brick houses"?
That sentence would take a page and a half in Jonathan Lethem's style.
Then there's the 'poor, poor, pitiful me' ambiance. I got my fill of that self-pity crap from "A Staggering Work of Self Importance". This book is non-stop misery. Even when something good happens to the characters it's usually a setup for something awful a page or two later.
I'm not saying the book was 'bad', just not my cup of tea. In fact, this is kind of 'chick-lit' for tortured artists. It's a "How many ways can I describe a sense of emptiness?" contest. There were sections throughout that were genuinely compelling, taught narrative about prison life or a cocaine-filled party that goes horribly awry. However the 'good stuff' was sandwiched between pages and pages where NOTHING HAPPENED.
The story? A white kid and a black kid grow up in a tough New York neighborhood. The white kid becomes a writer and moves to Oakland, the black kid becomes a crack addict and goes to prison. The end.
Oh yeah, they share a ring that may-or-may not give them super-powers. See you on the best-seller list!
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