ILX Book Club - Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad

xxpost i've been meaning to read that! so it was good?
Very good. I liked it so much that I immediately bought one book with a similar cover color scheme- I guess they are both Harper Perennials- but I couldn't get into the other one, which was What He's Poised To Do.

Ha, pinefox, I was thinking same thing whilst typing.

Oh

'His father had been an electrician; Bennie could light anything'.
Novelists seem to be keen on this kind of statement

completely otm.

Thanks Fizzles for your approval + for your interesting comments above.

But

people forming bands happens quite a lot at school

what school? not any school I ever went to.

Which goes back to the whole point about finding things exclusive - which doesn't make the writing bad, but does make it harder for me to like the story.

re Mitchell I believe I was specifically referring to Ghostwritten. But sure, I don't say that this novel is really much like that. As far as I can tell, JE is a much less gifted writer than DM (though not awful). It was just one relevant comparison that came to hand.

The 'btw this African tribesman 35 years later was an art dealer in NYC' thing I can understand working in the abstract -- I just don't think, somehow, that JE pulls it off in practice, hence 'clumsy'.

Actually, guess what? People do not necessarily inherit the skills and knowledge that their relatives have. Any one of us could say 'my mother was X, but I can't do xyz things that her job required'.

people forming bands happens quite a lot at school
what school? not any school I ever went to.

Bog standard comp, five form and sixth form I guess. It just seemed to be something people did. Not many of them performed in any meaningful way. Glee it wasn't.

As I say, I feel that exclusion is the whole deal with the first half of the book, although obviously that's not at all saying that if you feel excluded from the book, the characters' feelings of exclusion are going to feel at all sympathetic. They're not the same, clearly.

I thought Goon Squad did seem quite gifted really. I liked her easy way with the psychology of social interaction. The mechanics of how we get on with people. I feel I'm perhaps being a little critically naive tho. Is this what Alfred Lord Soto meant by it being a pop novel? As in pop psychology, or was that just to do with the music?

Now I'm hearing in my head Jerry Garcia and Christopher Walken harmonizing the words "upon all the living and dead." Must drive it out with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy27p86zjF4

Also will probably have to pay the $9.99 for the rest of the book to continue participating in thread.

I liked her easy way with the psychology of social interaction. The mechanics of how we get on with people

I think that this sounds like excellent subject matter for a book, or an excellent thing for a novelist to do well.

In the first 100pp or so, I don't think I've found JE doing it especially well.

All things considered, I've realized that I don't the first 120pp have been very good in any way at all.

But, there is a long way to go and I think that numerous things could change.

i like that optimism!

well, the book is more protean than most - if any book could improve radically halfway through, this one seems a candidate.

Didn't make too much of an impression. None of this -- manias, the scene, time jumps -- particularly bothered me one way or another. Nor did the 'not real anymore' guff that Egan/Bennie mouth off as it does reflect what people at a certain time and place would think, and would keep thinking. Many think it today.

Having said all that I'm looking forward to the Powerpoints. Don't care if its a gimmick as long as it works on some level.

But so far, its clearly nowhere near as exciting as The Last Samurai.

Has anyone come across any negative reviews for "Goon Squad"?

After I finished the book and felt pretty let down by it, I went googling for dissenting views and I didn't find any. Although, I lost my stomach for the search after reading one too many lines like this (from The Denver Post):

"Here, in ways that surprise and delight again, she transcends slick boomer nostalgia and offers a testament to the redemptive power of raw emotion in an age of synthetic sound and glossy avatars.

Turn up the music, skip the college reunion and curl up with "The Goon Squad" instead."

(That's in reference to the ending, which I am really eager to discuss but .... gotta wait, right? )

I felt the same and eventually came across this vaguely mixed review:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-visit-from-the-goon-squad-by-jennifer-egan-2264678.html

she transcends slick boomer nostalgia

Precisely what it doesn't do.

Re: the penultimate sentence of that Independent review, although it's an imperfect and in many ways unfair analogy, I do kind of feel that Goon Squad is X&Y to Underworld's OK Computer.

xpost - I haven't, although I only read a couple of reviews. Like most people I expect I don't have the stomach for blanket praise, and find myself obscurely thinking less of the work being reviewed. I start feeling with dissatisfied - disagreements with the reviewer become disagreements with the book. When I read it, I liked it because it felt fresh and fun, but the impedimenta of praise + expectation start making it look 'important' and I'm not sure it can really support that. Actually I think there are reasons why it could be seen as significant, but wdn't want to push them too hard. As I say, I enjoyed it, but when in trying to enthuse as an antidote to disappointment, I find myself wishing I didn't have to. I enjoyed the reading of it, and am pleased if other people enjoyed it, but I don't really want to defend it against those who, perfectly reasonably, didn't enjoy it. That's rather resigned isn't it? Maybe I'm not book club material.

get caught in the tribal violence between the Kikuyu and the Luo and will die in a fire
"will die in a fire"- wonder if this is a tribute to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

will never read this book but enjoying this thread

Interview in the guardian today, can't find it online though.

pinefox linked it upthread

omg beaten at IT by the pinefox :/

... disagreements with the reviewer become disagreements with the book. When I read it, I liked it because it felt fresh and fun, but the impedimenta of praise + expectation start making it look 'important' and I'm not sure it can really support that. Actually I think there are reasons why it could be seen as significant, but wdn't want to push them too hard. As I say, I enjoyed it, but when in trying to enthuse as an antidote to disappointment, I find myself wishing I didn't have to. I enjoyed the reading of it, and am pleased if other people enjoyed it, but I don't really want to defend it against those who, perfectly reasonably, didn't enjoy it. That's rather resigned isn't it? Maybe I'm not book club mater

Yeah, I hear you. I'm pretty sure I would have had a more positive reaction to the book if I had read it pre-hype. As it is though, I'm responding to the hype as much as I am to the book. And I tend to be reflexively contrarian when responding to critic's darlings so I probably had a grudge against the book before even starting it (and I'd bet I'm not the only ILBer in that camp). I definitely agree though that the novel felt fresh and fun. And it is very "of the moment," which I think a lot of readers and reviewers found refreshing, and that aspect speaks to a lot of the discussion of the importance/relevance of novel-reading that seems to be in the air.

It was entertaining, very readable, but the last 1/3 left a bad taste for me. Not a total failure though. And I liked the powerpoint chapter too. I'd definitely like to hear positive responses and reasons why you or anyone else find the book important/significant Obv it is important in one regard: a lot of people are reading it and even seeing it as some kind of cultural touchstone ... and that says something about the present cultural moment ... but, well, dealing with that involves responding to the context of the book which, again, is problematic ... but unavoidable, right? I think that we are probably over-eager to find cultural touchstones, to see ourselves reflected in fiction (which brings up my earlier point re: pop-cultural references), just as the majority of this particular "we" (ILB folk) are probably over-eager to disavow these cultural touchstones that seem (wrongly, arbitrarily) assigned to us.

Oh, and that slightly negative review from The Independent was pretty insubstantial. Where's James Wood when you need him?? Haha.

Agree with the well-expressed negativity above.

140pp in, on the train through SE London, wound up thinking: really, for all the hype, reviews, interviews, for all the fact that we all wanted to read it, and for all my attempts to say something positive about it -- this book has been utterly mediocre so far.

I think that's true, but it's also possible, even likely, that I am 'projecting' somehow from real life as I know it. I suppose the correlative of that is, if I was happy and positive about things, I would like the book. But would I, even then?

I've skipped quite a lot here, but I just wanted to tell you, my real friends, that I did a very strange thing today: I went into and actual book shop and bought this actual book and then, as if that wasn't enough, on my way home I started reading it! And now I'm going to read some more!

FWIW I liked chapter one and had no difficulty relating to kleptowoman. I also thought it was "well written".

MORE LATER...

on the one hand it seems crazy to me to call this book "mediocre," but on the other i think a lot of my favorite books might be described that way, in the sense that they're about people and their relationships and are not...i don't know if "important" is the right way to describe it, but "difficult" i guess? feel like i always end up getting into this kind of argument about books. not just on ilx, really.

Yeah horseshoe i know what yr saying, i mean i have a feeling ppl would say the same thing abt alice munro and shes my favourite author ever so

I enjoyed this a lot more than the last samurai fwiw

snyone who says alice munro is mediocre is a fool

Yeah, pinefox, your microsurgical nitpickery--although entertaining and probably indicative of larger issues you have with the book--seems to suggest that you are a bit predisposed to looking for flaws here (as am I, I'm a fellow prose-snob with my own set of problem sentences).

horseshoe while yr here, which jennifer egan shld i read next

yay! my personal favorite is look at me, but i think that's because thematically the whole women/beauty thing is endlessly fascinating to me. she gets too ambitious with the many-stranded plot and it doesn't really hold together completely. i think the keep might be her best book. it's also crazy imo.

Thanks!

just1n3 might have an egan recommendation, too. i would be interested to hear it!

Shit, dudes, ain't no such thing as a perfect book. Some of us like books that dig into the subtexts of personal relationships more (a la Alice Munro), and some of us are more into books that explore "bigger" questions (a la Delillo, who I've seen AVFTGS compared to in a few reviews). To Egan's credit, she at least tries to go both routes and does it in a stylistically unique way that itself can be seen as a comment on both the inner and outer worlds of her characters. So she gets my "good college try" props (and i'm not trying to be as condescending as I probably sound right there).

'Mediocre', for me, has nothing whatsoever to do with being about people's lives and personal relationships. Lorrie Moore is still probably my favourite living author, despite the car crashes of her last novel.

hopefully we can all agree on the amazingness of lorrie moore

(but probably not)

"The Keep" sounds interesting to me, actually, because I feel like I'm in a bit of a gothic phase right now (with books not looks, thankfully). But it's gotten slagged a lot.

Egan's books in general sound appealing. The summaries all sound really interesting, like books I would go for, but I think I'll stop with this one, mostly because I'm a big prose-snob (with newer stuff but not so much with older books) and I found a few bits in GS that were particularly irksome prose-wise.

(I've tried with Lorrie Moore, but can't seem to be able to get through a whole book. But I have that problem with a bunch of contemporary short story writers that are of the MFA-type school.)

all right i know there's no use arguing this stuff but egan's prose is great you're all crazy!

While we're talking about good and bad writing, a dishonorable discharge for the scene on p.124:

'I don't get what happened to you'.
'I'm like America ... our hands are dirty'.

I think I can see ways that this is pretty awful writing, incredibly naive, sententious and crassly portentous. I don't think I can find a way for it to be good.

which characters are those?

scotty + bennie?

Stephanie and Jules.

ha okay. i mean, jules is kind of horrible!

horseshoe, we are like literary soulmates:

on the one hand it seems crazy to me to call this book "mediocre," but on the other i think a lot of my favorite books might be described that way, in the sense that they're about people and their relationships and are not...i don't know if "important" is the right way to describe it, but "difficult" i guess? feel like i always end up getting into this kind of argument about books. not just on ilx, really.

i mean, i wouldn't be surprised if i'm the only person on ilb who loves a..m. homes and (early) douglas coupland

the thing i love about egan, specifically AVftGS, is that she takes some things i like a lot about other writers and just does them... better.

as for egan recs:
the keep is amazing - just so odd and compelling and surreal
look at me has this really sinister undertone throughout; it's easy to get lost, and def the kind of book that benefits from solid time blocks of reading (i was all over the place with it and don't think i did it justice)
emerald city is great, esp if you like munro-type short fiction
invisible circus is ... i'm not really sure how to describe. it's weird - but not like the keep is 'weird' - good. but it felt sort of bleak to me.

i need to read emerald city

I found the book vaporous -- I haven't thought about it since finishing it on Tuesday. All it boasts is an anachronistically novel way of playing with time and a couple of vivid confrontations.

book dismissed

Just finished ch8, 'selling the general'. The worst yet. Just an atrocious lot of nonsense.

What's striking me, and what contributes a lot to my loathing of this episode: the apparent radical arbitrariness of this book. There is very little sense of moving along a trajectory, through any kind of narrative or thematic logic. We just jump from one thing to another, in no evident order (maybe there's a reason for the order, but after 165pp it is not in any way apparent or intuitively available), as JE makes up one shallow character and empty scenario after another.

I have to try to remember that things could change - that all this could somehow look different later. But I'm nearly halfway through the book - it's a bit late for it not to have developed any kind of momentum or sense of direction.

There is very little sense of moving along a trajectory, through any kind of narrative or thematic logic

Am I allowed to say that I think that's point? While recognising that me saying that is a very good basis for fisticuffs and p'raps the throwing about of phrases like 'precious twat'? (which I originally wrote as 'previous teat' - a better insult imo).

That selling the general chapter is pretty bad tho, agreed. Although again, momentum and sense of direction, not sure this is quite what it's about. Very much short stories with threads I think. I think that's a strength.

I guess it's Sunday now so the rest of the book is fair game...

Yeah I hated that chapter; thoroughly unconvincing all of it, the PR campaign, the disastrous party, the wayward actress who released "several thousand" lemurs from a Disney movie - there probably aren't several thousand lemurs in captivity in all the world. It's all so obviously absurd I think that taking it at face value must be missing the point - but then I have no idea what the real point is.