This Shape We're In
by Jonathan Lethem
On This Page
Description
Lethem, author of the bestselling Motherless Brooklyn , returns in concentrated form - packing twice the adventure into one-eighth the pages. This book could be some kind of allegory book, but it might not be an allegory book at all. It involves people and drinking and people looking for a giant eye. It is among the best things Mr. Lethem has written.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
I love Jonathan Lethem, and I have an unusually high tolerance for quirkiness, but I really wasn't invested in this...story? fable?...until the very end. The narrator is engaging enough, and there are nice absurd flourishes, but the ending is where it's at, and then it's over so quickly that it almost hurts. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who isn't already a fan of Lethem, and even then I think I'd only recommend it to fans of his earlier, more "genre-y" works...and even THEN I'm still not entirely sure because I'm a big fan of the genre-y stuff and I'm obviously rather conflicted about this one.
This is a weird one-off story published by McSweeney’s of a dream-like journey through a bizarre world known only as the shape.
What is the shape? An underground structure for surviving some sort of apocalyptic event? An interstellar spacecraft about to land on a distant world? Neither reader nor narrator discovers the truth until we reach the end of the journey. At about 50 pages, this is a short read that is about as mind-bending as we’ve come to expect from Lethem.
What is the shape? An underground structure for surviving some sort of apocalyptic event? An interstellar spacecraft about to land on a distant world? Neither reader nor narrator discovers the truth until we reach the end of the journey. At about 50 pages, this is a short read that is about as mind-bending as we’ve come to expect from Lethem.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Books Read in 2011
684 works; 19 members
Author Information
100+ Works 24,603 Members
Jonathan Lethem was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 19, 1964. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music was published in 1994. His other works include As She Climbed across the Table (1997), Amnesia Moon (1995), The Fortress of Solitude (2003), You Don't Love Me Yet (2007), Chronic City (2009), and Dissident Gardens (2013). He won the show more National Book Critics Circle Award for Motherless Brooklyn (1999). He also writes short stories, comics and essays. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Rolling Stone, Esquire, The New York Times, The Paris Review, McSweeney's and other periodicals and anthologies. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2001
- Dedication
- Acknowpologies to David Gates and Franz Kafka
- First words
- It began when Balkan came into our burrow during cocktail hour and told us he had been in the eye.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then I started answering the phones.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 329
- Popularity
- 96,235
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.22)
- Languages
- English, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
