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Loading... Men and Cartoons : Storiesby Jonathan Lethem
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  wilsonknut | Dec 27, 2008 |  Men and Cartoons is a collection of short stories from Jonathan Lethem, which ranges from science fiction to surrealism to literary works. Lethem’s imagination is on bold display and you can see links to his earlier works like Gun with Occasional Music or Amnesia Moon. Some of these stories seem more mature, more layered and more … eerie. Mind you, Lethem has always had an intriguing dark side to his work, but these stories seem just a shade darker than his others. Read my full review at the Used Books Blog: http://usedbooksblog.com/blog/men-and... (  ) ajkohn2001 | Jan 20, 2008 | A quick, breezy read of Lethem's quirky short stories. Very well done overall, although some are more engaging than others. The highlights were: "Planet Big Zero," "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door," & "Super Goat Man." ( ) schwarzz | Jun 13, 2007 | A story collection with not too much of interest, they are all pretty short. A woman that does the Scarlet Witch outfit to get her bloke's crank on, a couple of kids that grow up to be opposing science fiction stylists, as could be seen by their favorite Marvel characters. Those being Doctor Doom for the Dystopianist, and Black Bolt for the Utopianists. Then there is Super-Goat Man, the superhero who lost his comic etc. because of lameness and outspoken political viewpoints, and ended up faculty at a small college after being a hippy. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/cont... http://superprose.blogspot.com/2007/0... (  ) bluetyson | Jun 10, 2007 | Lethem is truly an original. Reading his stories, you are amazed at the places, physical and philosophical, he takes you. I especially enjoyed "Access Fantasy" and "This Shape We're In" (included in the US paperback edition). (  ) TheTwoDs | Feb 7, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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Jonathan Lethem’s new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new readers—nine fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles, as Lethem samples high and low culture to create fictional worlds that are utterly original. Longtime readers will recognize echoes of Lethem’s novels in all these pieces—narrators who can’t stop babbling, hapless would-be detectives, people with unusual powers that do them no good, hot-blooded academics, and characters whose clever repartee masks lovelorn desperation as they negotiate both the stumbling path of romance and the bittersweet obligations of friendship.
Among them:
“The Vision” is a story about drunken neighborhood parlor games, boys who dress up as superheroes, and the perils of snide curiosity.
“Access Fantasy” is part social satire, part weird detective story. Evoking Lethem’s earliest work, it conjures up a world divided between people who have apartments and people trapped in an endless traffic jam behind The One-Way Permeable Barrier.
“The Spray” is a simple story about how people in love deal with their past. A magical spray is involved.
“Vivian Relf” is a tour de force about loss. A man meets a woman at a party; they’re sure they’ve met before, but they haven’t. As the years progress this strangely haunting encounter comes to define the narrator’s life.
“The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door” is a Borgesian tale that features suicidal sheep. (This story won a Pushcart Prize when first published in Conjunctions.)
“Super Goat Man” is a savagely funny exposé of the failures of the sixties baby boomers, and of their children.
Sparkling with the off-beat humor and subtle insights, Men and Cartoons is a welcome addition to the shelf of the writer “whose bold imagination and sheer love of words defy all forms and expectations and place him among his country’s foremost novelists.”
—Salon
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)
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Each one of these stories has its own gimmick, so to speak. I imagine Lethem must have a notebook full of quirky ideas for short stories like these. It's a fun, unique read, but most of the stories don't run very deep.
If you want Lethem at his best, read Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. (