Review: A Visit from the Goon Squad

A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan, got mixed reviews from some of my cohorts on GoodReads, so I was intrigued when GoodReads decided to start their Book Club Challenge (which, btw, I hadn't heard about before this book, but I hope they continue it with other selections). If you're interested, the Book Club Challenge runs through the end of July, so there's still time to sign up.

The Blurb (from GoodReads):

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

Doesn't really tell you a whole lot, does it? And, I promise you, this blurb does not prepare you for the experience.

Author Jennifer Egan
Photo courtesy of SFGate.com

The basic concept of the book follows the two characters through time and around the world in their lives, yes. What the blurb doesn't tell you is that each story is told in a different point of view (at least two are 1st person, neither of which are from Bennie or Sasha's perspective, one in second person, and a myriad of 3rd person close narratives), only two of which directly highlight Bennie and Sasha (chapters 2 and 1, respectively). Other stories deal with these two "main" characters through tangential connects or sheer-chance encounters, though they all serve to tell the stories of these two characters in a non-traditional sense.

The question that people keep posing, though, is: Is it really a novel? Or is it a collection of short stories?

In my not-so-humble opinion, I'm going to go out on a limb and call it a novel. I really believe it is, though it stretches the boundaries of what the traditional definition entails. All the stories revolve around either Sasha or Bennie. The exceptions are, perhaps, chapters 4 and 5, in which I find no clear, direct connection, but only a tangential (in the mathematical sense of touching at one point, not in the conversational sense in which something is an off-shoot) way.

The way Egan weaves the individual stories, though, made me want to keep reading despite the initial disjunction between the stories. I had been forewarned about this apparent disunity by reading my friends' reviews on GoodReads, so I felt prepared, and I think this helped in my appreciation of the offering. If I had gone in to reading this without that knowledge, I might have been irritated by it as well.

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons

In an interview, Egan compares the story concepts to a music album—an apt structural comparison given the subject nature behind the stories. Thirteen "tracks" that all come together to make a whole. In buying an album, we as listeners do not expect each song to have the same subject, or the same tempo, or even the same singer in the case of, say, the Beatles. Yet we feel the wholeness of the album. In this same way, Egan has compiled her stories, each individual in their own rights, which together construct a complete piece.

My only real complaint about the book is about how the stories stack together. I love the increased pace that runs throughout the book, which I believe culminates in chapter 12 "Great Rock and Roll Pauses". This chapter is powerful, not only in its plot and characters and emotional thread, but also in how it's presented: it's a visual narrative, created as a slide show diary entry from the POV of Sasha's daughter. This is, in fact, my favorite story of the book (with chapter 10, "Out of Body", as a close second). My complaint actually stems from the final story, which, after such a powerful chapter 12, seems to fall flat. I didn't feel the emotional resonance that had echoed through each of the previous stories, raising to concert levels in chapter 12. Perhaps my eardrums couldn't atune themselves to the acoustic guitar of chapter 13 after the amplified light show. Either way, it felt anti-climactic at best, and left an unsavory residue to associate with the book as a whole.

Bummer, because, otherwise, I really loved the book.

The bottom line: Read this book. Be prepared for a non-traditional novel experience. And let yourself be carried along for the ride. It's worth it.

What other non-traditionally structured novels have you read?

The Social Networks

Yup, that's plural. This post is not about the movie (which I haven't seen).

I first heard about social networking (though it wasn't called that) maybe years ago with Friendster. I created an account, invited some other friends to join, and then had no idea what to do with it. I let it sit there, and finally closed that account about a year ago.

When we got to the university, I opened a Facebook account. This was back in the day when only people with a .edu email address could get an account. Back in the day when each status update automatically started with "is". It was fun keeping up with my friends and making up gerunds and bad progressive-tense constructions ("is liking" *blech*) to create sensible status updates beyond "is in the library". Posting pictures inspired me to take more pictures in the age of the digital camera. All in all, I could easily keep up with it, and was liking it quite a lot :)

Today, however, Facebook isn't enough. For me, I also have this lovely blog, a Twitter account, an account on Ravelry (for lovers of fiber arts), SparkPeople (for those needing a cyber fitness community... this is usually the first to be forgotten by me) and Goodreads. Each one is different (although, I swear I will never full understand Twitter) and serves a different purpose.

But recently, I've been getting more invitations to other networks. Select2gether (I'm pretty sure this one is just spam, though). LinedIn. Academia.com. But where do you draw the line? The people who invited me for the latter 2 are good friends and reputable people, but I can't figure out how these networks are any different from what I've already got.


How do you social network? Where do you draw the line? Or is there no line to draw? Should we all participate in everything with the hopes of inspiring those heavy book sales someday? And if you use a number of different networks, how do you manage everything?

Goodreads Reading Challenge

One cannot be a writer without reading. But how much do you read?

I don't normally pay attention to how much I read. I read what I like (and things that I don't like—usually for school), but I don't think to myself, "Oh, it's already March and I've only read 27 books." Or whatever. I can't even tell you if that's a lot or a little. I also tend to read multiple things at once, which adds to the confusion.

I would like to challenge myself by setting a goal for the year, but I don't have any idea what kind of arbitrary number to assign myself for 2011.

So my question is this: If you were doing this for yourself, how would you decide the number? Just say 52, i.e., 1 per week? Through a dart at the board for how many you would read in a month? Pick a number from a hat? Or something more "scientific"?

Thanks :)