

Loading... Motherless Brooklynby Jonathan Lethem
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Top Five Books of 2020 (770) » 18 more Books Read in 2020 (760) A Novel Cure (287) Best Crime Fiction (134) Books Read in 2014 (1,572) Page Turners (55) Books Read in 2004 (48) Titoli bestiali (5) Books Read in 2021 (954) Best Noir Fiction (78) No current Talk conversations about this book. An enjoyable take on the hardboiled mystery - familiar enough to feel cozy, but strange enough to feel new. The Tourette's characterizations triggered some of my own tics while reading. ( ![]() The thing this book does beautifully is to make you feel like you've inhabited a different sort of mind. It's sort of a detective story, but the real appeal is in how you experience the view from behind the eyes of a narrator whose internal (and external) mono/dialogue is so very different from your own. It's lyrical and lovely and playful and sometimes a little heartbreaking. Lethem here takes a familiar genre -- the detective story -- and enlivens it by tweaking the style and replacing (self-consciously) the verbal tics of that genre with the verbal tics of the unusual narrator. I enjoyed this one a lot. It's the third Lethem book I've read, and I figure he's three for three so far. Really clever writing, no idea how accurate a depiction of tourettes sufferer this is but the protagonist is instantly sympathetic and intriguing which keeps you reading. That and the terrible jokes. Some books are more about voice than plot. That is the case with Motherless Brooklyn. And for that reason, I feel fortunate to have listened to the audiobook version, which was phenomenally narrated by Geoffrey Cantor with an amazing variety of voices that made each character distinct--but most of all made the Tourette's Syndrome-inflicted narrator a unique, believable voice at the center of a complex web of loyalties and betrayals involving a small time Brooklyn hood, his brother, his wife, some doormen, an all-night Korean convenience store, a Zendo, a huge assassin, Japanese businessmen/monks--well, you get the idea. As in the other book I read by Lethem, he is never short of ideas or imagination. The noir-ish aspects are a bit too self-conscious, as if he doesn't want them to escape the notice of a reader not familiar with the genre. And the story goes on a bit too long, but thanks to the superb narration, it was a rewarding listen. Some books are more about voice than plot. That is the case with Motherless Brooklyn. And for that reason, I feel fortunate to have listened to the audiobook version, which was phenomenally narrated by Geoffrey Cantor with an amazing variety of voices that made each character distinct--but most of all made the Tourette's Syndrome-inflicted narrator a unique, believable voice at the center of a complex web of loyalties and betrayals involving a small time Brooklyn hood, his brother, his wife, some doormen, an all-night Korean convenience store, a Zendo, a huge assassin, Japanese businessmen/monks--well, you get the idea. As in the other book I read by Lethem, he is never short of ideas or imagination. The noir-ish aspects are a bit too self-conscious, as if he doesn't want them to escape the notice of a reader not familiar with the genre. And the story goes on a bit too long, but thanks to the superb narration, it was a rewarding listen. no reviews | add a review
A walk on the wild side of Brooklyn's criminal underclass with a hero known as "The Human Freakshow," a would-be detective also answering to the name of Lionel Essrog. Essrog is a victim of Tourette's Syndrome; hapless and veering out of control, he fights himself and his disease. No library descriptions found. |
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