Gun, with Occasional Music

'Gun, With Occasional Music' is a science fiction noir mystery. As with all crime noir, I must compare it unfavourably with Raymond Chandler. Sorry, but there it is. That done, I do recommend this novel as an entertainingly weird twist on the lone PI investigating a mystery with the world against him. Lethem's style can be found about equidistant between Jeff Noon and The Great Chandler.

I very much enjoyed the details of the world evoked in this book. Free drugs for everyone, evolved animals doing most of the menial jobs, and wordless news updates. All this was presented in the deadpan, hard-boiled narration of the former-cop-current-detective-for-hire. Probably the least interesting part, though, was the mystery itself. Perhaps this show more was an intentionally postmodern element of the book, but I had little interest in whodunnit or why. I was more interested in the self-destructiveness of the narrator and pondering what on earth was going on with the creepy 'babyheads'.

Thus I can't wholeheartedly recommend 'Gun, With Occasional Music', although I love the world within which it is set. I think Jeff Noon does the mystery-in-bizarre-near-future thing more effectively in 'Pollen' and 'Nymphomation'. A lot of amusement can be had from reading this novel as a stylistic parody of the noir genre, though. On balance, I liked the parts better than the whole. show less

A hard-boiled detective with a Raymond Chandler mouth fights for justice in a near-future Oakland. What a wild ride! This novel is full of sheep and kangaroos that talk among other strange things, but manages to be very darkly humorous and wonderfully entertaining. While the dialogue and some of the narrative is downright campy at times, the story simmers with restrained guffaws of realism. Overall a stunning first novel and a riotous romp of triumph. "She was either looking good for fifty or bad for thirty-five..."

A lot of this book felt like a cheesy noir detective story, from the bantering that always leaves our hero with the last word to the predictable sexual conquest. On top of that, the writing had some pretty big flaws. Of many, here is one example:

The big man chuckled. "What would be my motive for telling you that?"
"Simple. I'll find out one way or another. Either you tell me now or I bother your loved ones about it."
"Very well. There's something I like about letting you go on thinking your threats are effective with me. I suppose I admire your bluster."

See how the author has to have the big-man character explain his motive for revealing information? That's because the author is having that character do something that makes no sense show more given what has already been told to the reader. Major no-no.

So, three stars? Really? I think yes, and it's because of the twist 2/3 of the way through the book, and the way that the twist sustains itself to the end. I was phoning it in with this book, just getting through it for my bookclub, until that twist. Then I sat up, tucked my feet under myself, and dove on in. show less

My reaction to reading this novel in 1995. Spoilers may follow.

The strange title makes sense at the end of the novel when mechanical devices, including guns, often have musical accompaniments. This is another mystery written in direct stylistic imitation of Raymond Chandler. I’ve never read Chandler himself though I’ve come close by watching Double Indemnity which he scripted. I suspect the plot of the book – a lone cynical detective trying to unmask the corruption of the world around him – mirrors Chandler’s private eye heroes.

The corrupt world of this book, sometime in the middle or early 21st century, is a sf dystopia of baroque touches. Evolutionary therapy has created intelligent animals. (We meet a talking sheep -- who show more gets murdered, a kitten, an ape, and a vicious, gun-toting kangaroo who the narrator detective kills at the novel’s conclusion.) Cryonic suspension is a punishment. “Babyheads” (all children now have accelerated growth) form their own babbling, beatnik type subculture. Neural surgery permits lovers to exchange sensory input from their genitals. (The hero’s old girlfriend has left him with female type wiring in his genitals while she has his penis wiring.). Memories can be edited. Most significant and disturbing of all, lots of drugs: addictol, Regrettol, Acceptol, Forgettol with effects you’d expect given their names. Technology – of the hardware sort – is relegated to an anti-gravity pen the narrator carries, and he wittingly makes the observation that significant new technology often announces itself in tacky advertising products.

Despite all these baroque touches and talking animals, the plot and style (Chandleresque prose is always fun to read because it emphasizes grim, dark humor and dry wit) make it feel like a ‘40s mystery. If I understood Letham’s point, this novel, behind its sf machinery and its Chandleresque plot of a man “neither tarnished nor afraid” prowling “mean streets” (phrases from Chandler), is about a dystopia of alienation. The hero, Conrad Metcalf, is not a private eye but a private Inquisitor; he formerly worked with the official Inquisitors who in this world are the police. Letham depicts a culture of people alienated from each other and reality. It is considered rude for all but Inquisitors to ask questions, so a major fuel of human interaction is missing. Metcalf, because he has the genital nerve wiring of a female, feels alienated from his own sexuality. The murdered Maynard Stanhunt (whose death opens the novel) is alienated from his own past due to heavy use of Forgettol. Indeed, this alienation proves fatal since, through a series of convoluted events, his employee the gun-toting kangaroo, mistakes him for someone else. The populace itself is somewhat divorced from reality since newspapers (in a manner reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451) only carry pictures, radio news is usually delivered in music and seldom words. After Metcalf is railroaded into a six year cold sleep sentence, he emerges into an even more grim, bizarre world where “time-release Forgettol” is the drug of choice for the population, where people query memory boxes to see what they do and don’t remember. In such a world, Metcalf can’t bring himself to kill Phoneblum, the object of his intended vengeance, since, to all practical purposes, the old Phoneblum is dead already.

Metcalf’s role as an incorruptible figure is further accented when, even though he has a heavy drug habit emphasized from beginning to the very last words of the novel, he refuses to satisfy it with the new personality and memory destroying drugs. He is determined to not only symbolize justice in the world but to be one of the few uncorrupted repositories of past memory. Eventually, he goes back into cold sleep rather than becoming a typical denizen of the world and hopes the world will be better when he wakes up. The only real flaw in this novel is the love triangle between Phoneblum, Maynard Stanhunt, and Celeste Stanlemt is termed as stable before Maynard’s murder but that is never explained nor is Phoneblum’s blackmail hold over Drs. Stanhunt and Testafer. show less

This is tasty futuristic/dystopian noir. It has several of the revolting aspects that make noir darker and seedier than "crime stories." There are things that the story hints at that makes astute readers want to pump the brakes. Such points are real risks that the author took, and I can appreciate that. (Example, what are these evolved animals and how corrupt are the physical interactions these future humans have with them? Taboos and immorality and...and. Are they still brutes if they talk and think and such? Maybe it's a good thing the author left some of this open ended and vague.)

The detective story: a private investigator who is a real louse anyway, gets a case that ends up terribly. Like a good noir story, nobody is saved. It's a show more bad day for everyone.

But the writing is somehow utterly engaging and the world-building with its strangeness is so curious.....

With more payoffs on a few of the elements, this is easily a five star read. Instead, some of the elements just seem too pointless. And this is certainly NOT a novel for *every* reader. It's a bit repulsive at points. But not gore...just cringe. Not crass. Just cringe. All noir (the streets flow with powder and gin). show less

I can't believe I allowed this gem to languish so long. This is noir set in the near-distant future with a cast of characters which includes "evolved" animals ranging from Joey the kangaroo, a vicious thug, to sweet Dulcie the ewe, not to mention "evolved" babies, the Babyheads. P. I. (Private Inquisitor, not Private Investigator; in this future the only people who can ask questions are Inquisitors, Private or Government), Conrad Metcalf has been hired by a man accused of murder (and about to be "frozen" for that crime) to prove his innocence. Conrad must conduct his investigation in a world where everyone, including himself, relies on drugs with varying proportions of Forgetterol, Regreterol, Acceptol, Avoidol etc. etc., but always show more with a heaping dose of Addictol. Everyone must also carry a card showing their "Karma" number, which is constantly subject to reduction by government inquisitors.

What a unique and utterly cohesive world Lethem has created and what a unique genre--sci fi, dystopian, noir?--whatever--it totally works. The tone, too, is unique--depressing but funny. I totally loved this book. Highly recommended.

4 1/2 stars show less

This was one hell of a trip. If you're into the whole noir-style smart-mouthed jaded detective thing, this hits that note really well, but the near-future world it's set in takes everything to a whole new level. Reminds me a little of The Big Sheep, another novel heavily influenced by Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. I loved both novels, but Gun feels a bit less like self-conscious parody, I'd say. It has a lot to say about society at large, not just the sort of low-life characters who caught up in murder mysteries.