Jennifer Egan’s
experimental and brilliant book, A Visit
From the Goon Squad came out in 2010. I hesitate to call it a novel – although
it was marketed as one – because it seems to lie half way between a novel and a
collection of short stories. I would
probably call it a collection of interconnected short stories – but I suppose if
Egan had called it that, perhaps less people would have bought it. And I’m not
going to complain about anything that made more people read this book, because
it’s strangely and thoroughly brilliant.
In the first story of
the book, we meet Sasha, PA to the CEO of a record company, with an obsessive addiction
to stealing. In the second we meet Bennie, Sasha’s boss. In the third we meet
Rhea, a friend of Bennie’s from his days of teenager punk rock. In the fourth
we meet Charlie, daughter of Lou, who is the boyfriend of an old friend of
Rhea’s. And so on and so on. Each story is linked in some way to a character
we’ve met or heard of before, often in the previous story. Sasha and Bennie
crop up more than the rest, and threads of families and connections weave
through these stories in the most incredibly exciting way.
I love books like
this. One of the quotes on the back of my edition describes it as a ‘mosaic of
a novel’ (Booklist). In many ways it is like a collage, a patchwork quilt of stories,
people and ideas. We move not only from one character to another, but in space
and time, from the States to Africa to Naples, from the 1970s to today, and possibly
into the future – although sometimes it’s hard to know quite where and when we
are. I don’t say this as a criticism though; I didn’t really mind feeling a
little displaced. Although the book is far from linear, you recognise characters
from one story to the next, and so you know roughly where each story falls chronically
in relation to the others.
And what is this
patchwork quilt of a book about? Music, certainly, and also time, and pretty
much everything else. Sasha and Bennie and a lot of the rest of the characters
work in, or know people who work, the music industry. The motif of music and
the changes in the industry run throughout. By seeing snapshots of these lives
over the course of maybe fifty years we see the world and its inhabitants grow
and age and change in a beautiful and fascinating way. Both Sasha and Bennie
are glimpsed in their teenage years as well as in their fifties, and somewhere
along the way.
The writing is
thorough superb, assured, and different. Egan skilfully creates thirteen unique
narrative voices, whether we’re in first or third or even second person. She is
clearly a very talented writer and I’m excited to have a look at some of her
other books. Her detailed observations of her characters’ personalities and
relationships, of the way they interact with others and what motivates them –
it’s so subtly yet fabulously done. Her characterisation is truly excellent. This
is a book with a lot of characters, and a lot of characters that disappear and
reappear. It’s a difficult feat that Egan’s attempting, and yet we do, I think,
recognise every character when they reappear. Every figure is fully realised, and
is curious enough for us that if they reappear we not only recognise them but greet
them with delight.
A
Visit from the Goon Squad
is inventive in form not only as a whole but within each story. We range from conversational
first person present in “Ask Me if I Care” – one of my favourite stories – to a
third person narrator with an almost unsettling omniscient in “Safari”; from the
inventive pseudo-journalistic style of “Forty-Minute Lunch”, to the unnerving
second person of “Out of Body”. To sustain such a personal story at such a
length in second person is truly admirable. I wasn’t convinced at first, but
Egan really does, somehow, pull it off, and “Out of Body” is possibly my
favourite story in the whole book. Rob is a brilliant character, and his friendship
with Sasha and his mixed feelings towards Drew are so poignantly and
beautifully captured.
However, I wasn’t absolutely
convinced about the form of “Great Rock and Roll Pauses”. Saying that, I’m not
entirely certain that it would have been better in a more conventional form. I’m
undecided. I also have mixed feelings about “X’s and O’s”; although this is
more to do with voice than form, I couldn’t quite match Scotty’s narrative voice
here with his character as we’d seen him before. I know he’s supposed to have
changed with age, but it still didn’t seem quite to fit him. To me these were
the weakest stories in the book – but considering the very high quality of the
rest, that’s not so say they weren’t good.
There are so many
things I love about this book. It is not only inventive and experimental and so
well-written, but it’s also a thoroughly engaging read. The stories are at
times despairing and heart-breakingly sad, but there’s also this sort of hope
in them. Sometimes you find out characters’ endings in stories that are not their
own, and in this sense it’s a very satisfying book to read. We see an immense
pleasure in the act of living, of life and time going on – and you get a sense
of this pleasure when reading because it’s so enjoyable seeing characters turn
up that you recognise from a few stories before. Life is fleeting, times goes
on – and it’s all somehow terrifying and all somehow okay. I have a feeling A Visit from the Goon Squad will be
making its way onto my list of favourite books.
Greatest
strength: I hardly
know whether to say the idea and premise, or just the strength of Egan’s
writing. It’s so good.
Greatest
weakness: As I
said, there were a couple of stories whose form I wasn’t entirely sold on.
However, the writing is I think strong enough to carry this, and it didn’t
overall lessen my enjoyment of the book.
Let’s
finish on a quote:
‘Time is a goon.’
Next week: shall be something a little more
cinematic…
Love your header! It's super chic and classy. Nice to find another book review/book blog. :) You need to put the GFC button on your blog - I would be following for sure!
ReplyDeleteAlisha from Goodreads @ myrainydayreads15.blogspot.com
Thanks Alisha! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I'm enjoying having a look at yours. I have (I think) put a GFC button in now, although google plus is still a mystery to me. I think you should be able to follow me now?
DeleteHi Katie!
ReplyDeleteYou put the Google Plus follower button in, but not the GFC button! TO put it in go to layout on your blog page and the click "add a gadget." A popup window will come up and then click on "more gadgets." Go all the way down and at the bottom it will say "followers." That is the GFC button.
Oh I see. Yep, I've got there eventually! Thank you :)
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