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
new yorker's blog seems p good
so i read the first installment of this. i liked it, it works, but it means 'using twitter' in a way that's really not much like anyone in the world uses twitter? -- several dozen connected tweets, one of which ended with a fucking semi-colon, requiring the reader to make some kind of attention commitment -- oh well.
― thomp, Friday, 25 May 2012 09:52 (twelve years ago) link
Good thread imo
― just sayin, Saturday, 5 January 2013 00:20 (eleven years ago) link
timely revive: am just going through old notebooks, transcribing then into my computer. Found a bunch of stuff on Goon Squad. Still like this book. Miss the pinefox.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 5 January 2013 08:55 (eleven years ago) link
as always the single malt of the pinefox's often considerable insight is diluted by the tesco value cola of his sometimes plain baffling conceptual filters
holy
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Saturday, 5 January 2013 17:17 (eleven years ago) link
I loved that post. As I do all posts of the Pinefox.
― anatol_merklich, Saturday, 19 January 2013 15:57 (eleven years ago) link
The Italy part was great, though I'm enjoying the whole thing.
― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 03:16 (eleven years ago) link
Way better than Super Sad and Freedom, though the former was more terrifying in terms of future fic
― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 04:06 (eleven years ago) link
I'm not sorry I read this but yeah Alfred "vaporous" seems appropriate
― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 04:07 (eleven years ago) link
One thing that caught me is the idea of even in the semi distant future being able to lose people thoroughly, despite the surveillance culture we're all complicit in expanding further: that human nature is such that we'll probably ALWAYS lose track of people or be lost track of ourselves...
― Raymond Cummings, Thursday, 4 April 2013 02:41 (eleven years ago) link
But the moment in 1993 when Bix says in the future we'll never lose anyone really quite moved me.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 4 April 2013 11:21 (eleven years ago) link
Me too
― Raymond Cummings, Friday, 5 April 2013 03:59 (eleven years ago) link
this book is insuff and the writing is so plain, which has the effect of making the odd occasions where she tries out some ~writing~ (every 10 paragraphs or so) as awkward as a sore thumb
abandoning 100 pages in
― cozen, Friday, 24 May 2013 22:10 (eleven years ago) link
Just finished the Safari chapter and I'm not sure if I'm blown away or very frustrated. She has a great knack for exploring the dynamics between the characters she writes about - the relation she creates between Lou and Rolph is particularly memorable - but there's just so much going on and so many characters that it's pretty hard to absorb. Or maybe that's just me.
― josh az (2011nostalgia), Sunday, 25 March 2018 03:49 (six years ago) link
absolutely loved the first three chapters though. Especially Sasha's one.
― josh az (2011nostalgia), Sunday, 25 March 2018 03:55 (six years ago) link
i reread this a while ago, i acquired a beat-up copy of it from the bookshelf of someone i had a thing with who is now no longer in my life, it seemed appropriate
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 28 March 2018 02:27 (six years ago) link
saw someone reading this on the train yesterday. reminded me that i enjoyed it and i was slightly surprised by some of the heavily adverse criticism it got in places.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 28 March 2018 05:08 (six years ago) link