I suppose Goon Squad is postmodern in the way that Dracula is postmodern.
― Bon Ivoj (jaymc), Sunday, 8 January 2012 16:47 (twelve years ago) link
Postmodern like How I Met Your Mother...
― s.clover, Sunday, 8 January 2012 22:46 (twelve years ago) link
http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6685358-L.jpg
― Fanfare for the History Mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 January 2012 22:56 (twelve years ago) link
I like Mr Clover's post!
― the pinefox, Thursday, 12 January 2012 09:29 (twelve years ago) link
I am terribly nostalgic for the time when I was reading this book, not admiring it, and imagining that my life was not going very well. I had no idea.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 12 January 2012 09:30 (twelve years ago) link
You mean things are worse now? I am sorry if so.
I haf downloaded some more Egan books. I might give one a try. THE KEEP, I think.
― PJ Miller, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 19:10 (twelve years ago) link
Oh, they're much, much worse now. The decline has been almost unimaginable, at least to me with my limited imagination.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 19 January 2012 13:17 (twelve years ago) link
One thing this has shown me is that I was largely mistaken to think that they were bad then.
re: Bennie and his electrician dad, I see no logical issue with that passage. I work in construction because my father did. There is zero chance I would be doing so otherwise.
Not all sons and daughters of contractors become contractors themselves, but trades and skills being passed via family is hardly an unknown concept.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 31 January 2012 07:01 (twelve years ago) link
Typing on my phone is a pain, but I thought the last chapter was an enormous misstep in an otherwise very good book. Baby iPods and oh those wacky prim post-Millenials &c., the entire chapter felt out of place and unnecessary.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 31 January 2012 07:03 (twelve years ago) link
I am sorry to hear that (one month late), The Pinefox.
I hope things have improved.
― PJ Miller, Friday, 24 February 2012 13:03 (twelve years ago) link
Thanks for your thoughts, PJM.
Things have improved in the sense of stabilized a bit and allowed me to function more normally, but I do not really imagine that they will ever get back to how they were when I daftly thought they were not very good when we started this thread.
I am looking forward to the Pines' US tour, though.
― the pinefox, Monday, 27 February 2012 11:38 (twelve years ago) link
Yes, that tour is going to ROCK.
I have deleted my Facebook account, so I am a bit out of the loop.
Perhaps I should start another one.
― PJ Miller, Monday, 19 March 2012 11:12 (twelve years ago) link
I am rereading this novel.
It feels somewhat better second time around. For one thing I am reading it more quickly. For another the hype was blown away by the first time. For a third, the relations between the sections strike me as slightly interesting (and the chronology is not entirely clear in my mind). It seems not offensive, not badly written, just a bit flat and not as interesting or exciting as one would want it to be.
I am only on p.140.
― the pinefox, Monday, 19 March 2012 13:31 (twelve years ago) link
What on earth prompted you to read it again!
― Fizzles, Monday, 19 March 2012 13:38 (twelve years ago) link
Professional reasons.
― the pinefox, Monday, 19 March 2012 14:40 (twelve years ago) link
Ah. *touches nose*
― Fizzles, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
a couple of chapters seem better: 2 + 10. The descriptions of NYC on p.203 are really OK, and I always quite liked the 1993 period flavour of that chapter, and the prediction of the www / social networks on p.199.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 09:40 (twelve years ago) link
fake pinefox
― Radio Boradman (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 20 March 2012 10:47 (twelve years ago) link
the Naples chapter remains good too -I always thought it a highlight. But I still have a problem with motivation here - everyone is so fascinated by the Sasha character but there is no coherent sense of why she does what does, what she wants, at least prior to the powerpoint bit. Which is the problem I started out with c. April 2011.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 11:02 (twelve years ago) link
There is a rather simple thing that seems clearer about the book this time round - that it is a novel by a middle-aged woman about middle age, about time inexorably passing, about getting older, about grieving for the loss of youth that will never return, but which can be ironized, revisited or rethought by this temporal-cut-up narrative.
Which seems a valid enough, indeed poignant and real, sort of subject - yet not especially what I ever thought anyone (the media or whoever) was saying the book was primarily about or primarily interesting for. Perhaps people here were saying it, I don't know.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 11:57 (twelve years ago) link
Perhaps everyone everywhere was saying it, and I didn't notice amid the sense that this was meant to be a hip / youthful / rock & roll sort of book.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 12:00 (twelve years ago) link
i thought the time passing theme was reasonably clear from the title and the few allusions to it dropped along the way - "time's a goon", and a few less subtle "where are the snowdens of yesteryear?" moments - but i don't think it was tackled with any kind of panache or insight.
― ledge, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 13:43 (twelve years ago) link
A book about middle-aged aestheticization of youth would be interesting. But that would a be a book about this book, not this book itself.
― s.clover, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
I'm not sure who Rusty Egan is, but it would make a good title for whatever you're writing about this, PF.
― PJ Miller, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 18:39 (twelve years ago) link
Ha, Visage, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_Egan
― PJ Miller, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
Also I have just realised that The Pines will be involved in some kind of duelling banjos scenario with STEVIE JACKSON.
― PJ Miller, Tuesday, 20 March 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
True!
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:37 (twelve years ago) link
i'm about 100 pages into this and i'm not really sold. everything that happens is too important, if that makes any sense. every person is constantly being arrested by a memory that they can't shake or a sudden flash of intense emotion that they have to hide or the sudden realization that this is the moment where everything is going to be different forever etc etc. it feels very soapy to me. maybe there's something stylistic about young people (and those that wish to be them) that i'm missing, idk.
the interconnections and the time-shifting are keeping me going tho.
― goole, Monday, 23 April 2012 14:24 (twelve years ago) link
PJM, I didn't really get to duel banjos but I did sing harmonies during his set till he said I should come up on stage.
Then another night we were backstage and I said he should play 'black and white unite' and he started working it out on his acoustic, which was good to hear, and saying of one bit 'It's all Buffalo Springfield, simple as that'.
― the pinefox, Monday, 23 April 2012 14:38 (twelve years ago) link
it is kind of soapy, tbh
― horseshoe, Monday, 23 April 2012 15:07 (twelve years ago) link
The book was written as if for people skeptical of the possibilities of the novel ("See? You can write about Africa, Italy, and rock!").
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 April 2012 15:09 (twelve years ago) link
Good stuff, PF.
― PJ Miller, Wednesday, 25 April 2012 19:56 (twelve years ago) link
i think this is pretty bad tbh.
the punk teenagers segments kind of had me going, and i wanted to follow bennie himself, but none of the rest of this is ringing true or insightful to me at all. the pop-cultural stuff just feels off: "the conduits"? "kitty jackson"? the melting lamp celebrity disaster? the characters are both "too interesting" by occupation and circumstance but not interesting in themselves. escapist and kind of trite. people's crazy lives!! they're so sad!!
right now i'm mired in the piece of celebrity meta-journalism and basically hating it. are we meant to understand that this guy's DFW act is irritating? i wanted to soldier through to the powerpoint chapter to see wtf that's about but eh
― goole, Thursday, 3 May 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
yes I hated this book
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 May 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
I thought it was ok at the time and now -- naaah
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 May 2012 18:59 (twelve years ago) link
that said on a micro level egan is all right. the novel about the disfigured model sounds intersting
― goole, Thursday, 3 May 2012 19:00 (twelve years ago) link
written as if for people skeptical of the possibilities of the novel is pretty accurate as to why i liked and didn't love this, i think
― thomp, Thursday, 3 May 2012 19:07 (twelve years ago) link
egan makes pseuds corner this week w/ this:
"I've always been interested in terrorism, for the same reason that I've always been interested in modelling. I mean, they're so much alike."
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 4 May 2012 06:00 (twelve years ago) link
They're definitely not alike.
This isn't much dafter than DeLillo's comparison of terrorism and novel-writing in / around Mao II - which a lot of people seem to have taken fairly seriously.
― the pinefox, Friday, 4 May 2012 10:51 (twelve years ago) link
i would like to see the context, because that reads like a joke more than anything
delillo's line was more nuanced but unfortunately did not appear to be a joke
― thomp, Friday, 4 May 2012 11:50 (twelve years ago) link
don't have my private eye to hand, but think the quote comes from a recent telegraph interview
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 4 May 2012 11:58 (twelve years ago) link
I mean, they're so much alike.
They're about making statements usually in some graphic fashion.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Friday, 4 May 2012 14:54 (twelve years ago) link
the novel about the disfigured model sounds intersting
It's pretty good and quite funny at times.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Friday, 4 May 2012 14:56 (twelve years ago) link
The book was written as if for people skeptical of the possibilities of the novel
this one of the books better qualities
― Lamp, Friday, 4 May 2012 15:34 (twelve years ago) link
Maybe it's a generational thing (she's a few years older than me) but I have generally enjoyed her novels.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Friday, 4 May 2012 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
I liked Goon Squad!
tweeting tho?
http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/05/coming-soon-jennifer-egan-black-box.html
― Fizzles, Thursday, 24 May 2012 14:06 (twelve years ago) link
i know, right
― thomp, Thursday, 24 May 2012 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
no thx
― goole, Thursday, 24 May 2012 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
I'll try it
― Love Max Ophüls of us all (Michael White), Thursday, 24 May 2012 15:46 (twelve years ago) link