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#5 Platform: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Mar. 20th, 2012 06:41 pmI wish I'd read this book in a more timely fashion.
Book #11: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I bought this book on recommendation as a present for my brother-in-law’s girlfriend, and so I figured I should probably read it before she came back to ask any embarrassing questions about what I thought of it. All I knew at the time was that the clerk at the bookstore really liked it, and that it had won a prize, and that was enough, but you don’t want to let too much time go by and then have the book come back to bite you.
Certainly, that’s the case with a book like this, which is really on some level about time and how it affects people. There’s a very loose web of connections between all the characters who keep popping up in each other’s stories, spouses and parents and co-workers and dates, interviewers and producers and uncles and PR experts. It’s probably closest to say that the story is most concerned with Bennie Salazar, a punk bassist turned music producer, and his assistant, Sasha, but there are so many other characters that get a turn in the writing limelight, all interesting and vividly evoked when their turn comes up, and so it’s hard to say that it’s really specifically about any of them. It’s really about how time gets to everyone, and the ways in which people can be connected, without even really thinking about it; I have a bet that if I read the first half of the book again, I’d notice a whole bunch more connections I missed the first time.
The style of the book is varied, as well, from a travelogue trip to Italy to a celebrity interview to an extended second-person riff from a suicidal college student to the first time I’ve seen an extended Powerpoint presentation as a storytelling advice, put together by a girl in the near future. The tone, then, can be satire, can be tragic, can be wry forecasting of the future; chapter to chapter, things keep changing, but the assuredness of the prose and the preciseness of the story are always there. God knows how long it took Egan to map out all the connections, and where they’d show up.
I think what I like best about this is how you essentially see none of the characters seriously in their best moments. You hear about them, you may even see them fleetingly, but the story is concerned with the rest of the time in your life, where things aren’t as settled, where you’re looking ahead or, particularly, behind at the rest of your tenure on the planet. Most of life is like that, after all; a lot of it isn’t the exciting parts.
But that’s not to say that this book isn’t exciting; it’s a solid, interesting, varied read, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s not life-changing, but it’s expertly done and intricately constructed, and I can recommend it, when you think it’s about time.
Next up: The Emperor of All Maladies.
Book #11: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I bought this book on recommendation as a present for my brother-in-law’s girlfriend, and so I figured I should probably read it before she came back to ask any embarrassing questions about what I thought of it. All I knew at the time was that the clerk at the bookstore really liked it, and that it had won a prize, and that was enough, but you don’t want to let too much time go by and then have the book come back to bite you.
Certainly, that’s the case with a book like this, which is really on some level about time and how it affects people. There’s a very loose web of connections between all the characters who keep popping up in each other’s stories, spouses and parents and co-workers and dates, interviewers and producers and uncles and PR experts. It’s probably closest to say that the story is most concerned with Bennie Salazar, a punk bassist turned music producer, and his assistant, Sasha, but there are so many other characters that get a turn in the writing limelight, all interesting and vividly evoked when their turn comes up, and so it’s hard to say that it’s really specifically about any of them. It’s really about how time gets to everyone, and the ways in which people can be connected, without even really thinking about it; I have a bet that if I read the first half of the book again, I’d notice a whole bunch more connections I missed the first time.
The style of the book is varied, as well, from a travelogue trip to Italy to a celebrity interview to an extended second-person riff from a suicidal college student to the first time I’ve seen an extended Powerpoint presentation as a storytelling advice, put together by a girl in the near future. The tone, then, can be satire, can be tragic, can be wry forecasting of the future; chapter to chapter, things keep changing, but the assuredness of the prose and the preciseness of the story are always there. God knows how long it took Egan to map out all the connections, and where they’d show up.
I think what I like best about this is how you essentially see none of the characters seriously in their best moments. You hear about them, you may even see them fleetingly, but the story is concerned with the rest of the time in your life, where things aren’t as settled, where you’re looking ahead or, particularly, behind at the rest of your tenure on the planet. Most of life is like that, after all; a lot of it isn’t the exciting parts.
But that’s not to say that this book isn’t exciting; it’s a solid, interesting, varied read, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s not life-changing, but it’s expertly done and intricately constructed, and I can recommend it, when you think it’s about time.
Next up: The Emperor of All Maladies.
