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?

Delinquent Me: Eat Pray Love - Love +

A week late is better than not at all, right?

Finish Indonesia and discuss general feelings on the book. How did it affect you? I read this book at a time in my life when I was really struggling and it had a profound effect on me so I am curious to see what others thought of something so deeply personal. 

Will you go see the movie? Will you read Committed which is Gilbert’s follow up to Eat Pray Love?

What are some of your favorite quotes from the book?

 
I really enjoyed the book, and the Pray section impacted me the most.  In fact, I would go so far as to say my deep love of her time in India got me hyped up enough that her time in Indonesia was a real let-down.  That's not to say it was bad, but it wasn't amazing in the way I'd anticipated.  That being said, I loved our medicine man and his Bali meditation:  have every part of your body smile, even your liver.  I need to work on that.  I'm not sure my liver is accustomed to smiling.


Will I see the movie?  Probably not in the theater.  Netflix will send it to me in six to eight months, and by then I will have enough distance from my reading that one will not affect the other.  

Will I read Committed?  Again, probably not, mostly due to my disappointment in the last section, and assuming Committed is based on her time with Filipe.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm thrilled that Liz found true love and could move on with her life a healed woman, but the healing was more interesting to me than the love she allowed herself in the end.


Most of my favorite quotes can be found in my last post on Pray.



Award!

Thank you, Medeia!

I've decided to follow a theme in passing on this award.  I'd like to share this with the EPL book club, since I have so enjoyed reading the book along with other people.  It was a fantastic idea, and I am especially grateful to The Book Vixen for organizing it.

Jamie at Three Cheers for Literacy
Nicole at Home Grown Me
Charlie at Life Happens
Lily of Darkness at Lilium's Realm
Erika at Kiss My Book
Jamie at The Book Junkie's Bookshelf
The Book Vixen


Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the book.  It's been delightful reading along with you.

Monday Montage

Update from Saturday's Post

Thank you, everyone, for both your empathy with my cyber-struggle and your suggestions.  I've decided to try a system of scheduled visits—though I haven't worked it out yet.  Of course, if I work out my schedule this week it will be interesting to see how well I can keep up with it over the next month with classes ending, two weddings to attend, my mother visiting, and classes starting again.

Bottom line:  I'm not ignoring you!  I'm trying to get my cyber-bum around to visit everyone, but it will be sporadic for a while.

Writing Update

Instead of being a cyber-junky this weekend, I did some hardcore revising of chapters 1–4 (now chapter 1–6).  More will still need to be done, and my notes are quite extensive, but I'm feeling pretty good about it.  Again, thank you to anyone who shared encouragement or sympathy on Thursday's post.  They helped keep my motivation up all weekend, and I'm still going strong this afternoon.

EPL Book Club

I'm a little delinquent in my reading of EPL.  My final book club post will be up by the end of the week (hopefully...)

Last Week's Random Act of Awesome

Well, it's not entirely random.  I've been planning this for a long time.

PS—Don't EVER get a tattoo on your foot unless you're a true masochist.

Eat Pray Love - Prayer

"I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore." (178)

Historically, I'm not a religious person.  I was raised Catholic, went through 12 years of Catholic school, had a Catholic wedding... the whole nine... no, nine's not enough yardage.  But, to be perfectly honest, I don't consider myself to be the least bit Catholic.

My apologies to any friends and family members out there who might be shocked by this.  I'm not entirely open about it.

This is not to say that I don't believe in anything, because I do.  This is not to say that I completely abhor organized religion, though I do a little (mainly due to my personal struggles with Catholic hierarchy).  I consider God an integral part of everyone's lives, and that God can be seen in everyone, but I don't need to wave my personal flag about it.  For me, spirituality is an individual journey.  I realize this is not the case for everyone, just me.

Now, religion is a loaded and touchy subject, so please don't take offense by anything I say from here on out.  I am only speaking for myself.  We each have our own paths.  My path may not work for the next person as his or her path may not work for me.  That doesn't mean we can't end up at the same place at the end of our journeys.

So, a little introduction to my path thus far...

My junior year of high school—don't forget, Catholic school—I met a girl named Leia.  She transferred to our school from the twice-as-expensive prep school on the south side of town.  We met in 1st year German because the teacher sat us alphabetically, and she sat right behind me.  We were the only non-freshman in the class, so we bonded quickly.

The reason I mention this is because Leia was (still is, presumably) Buddhist.  To my rebellious teenage mind this was perhaps the coolest thing I had ever heard.  What?  Someone who lives in the Midwest who's *not* Christian?  It took me a while to wrap my mind around it.  She introduced me to her parents, who answered lots of questions from me, showed me their prayer room, and even took me on a trip with them to visit the temple in Chicago.

The whole experience had a huge impact on my vision of what religion could be.  Since that time, I have been fascinated with Eastern religions and philosophies.  I won't lie and say that I've actively pursued anything—there's a Tibetan monastery just outside of the city limits and I've never been even though they have open prayer meetings on Saturday mornings—but my fascination lives on.

So, reading this portion of EPL had a strong impact on me.  Liz took her amorphous love for God—whoever and whatever that may be—and molded it into something concrete for herself through the guidance of Eastern traditions.  She found tremendous peace in a time of pain and suffering that helped her transcend normal prayer, or perhaps the other way around.  And it made me want to do the same.

Some of my favorite quotes from this section:

"The Yogis, however, say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity.  We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality.  We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature.  We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character." (122)

"So I sang the Gurugita to my nephew Nick, to help him sleep.  Sometimes he has trouble sleeping because he cannot still his mind....  I filled the song with everything I wished I could teach him about life....  And, of course, I called my sister the next week and she said that—for reasons nobody could understand—Nick suddenly wasn't having trouble falling asleep anymore." (169)

About her hour of perfectly still meditation: "When it was all over, I stood up, walked to my room and assessed the damage.  I counted about twenty mosquito bites.  But within a half an hour, all the bites had diminished.  It all goes away.  Eventually, everything goes away." (174, emphasis mine)

"The former Catholic nun (who oughtta know about guilt, after all) wouldn't hear of it.  "Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress.  Don't fall for it, my dear."" (183—gee, I wonder why this resonates with me...)

A quote Liz gives us:  ""All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop," wrote the sage Kabir." (199)

"The Hopi Indians thought that the world's religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join.  When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of the dark cycle of history and into the next realm." (208)



Now, for the actually book club discussion :)

Richard is a major character in this part of the book. He really is a true friend and is brutally honest. I think everyone has a Richard. Who is that person in your life?

After all that I wrote above, can you believe this is hard for me to answer?  I think I've had a couple over the years, though none were quite as tactless as Richard could be.  Not to give the obvious answer of my best friend and husband, the best example would have to be my friend Joey, also from my high school years.  While he might try and sugar coat it just a little, he never feared telling me exactly what he thought—and it definitely upset me a couple of times.  But through it all, Joey was one of my closest friends.  Oddly enough, he still is.  We lost touch with each other once we went to college, but a couple of years ago he found me on MySpace (just because I deleted my account).  We exchanged phone numbers and one evening talked for close to two hours.  It was as if no time had passed.  We don't talk on the phone much now, but we're friends on FB and he's one of my followers here (Hi, Joey!).  Hopefully someday we can get back to the point where he'll give me the naked painful truth again, but I think we have to talk more frequently for that :)


Okay, this was a really long post.  If you made it this far, thanks!  Give yourself a round of applause! :)

Eat Pray Love - Eat

"...the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity" (115).

I just finished the first part of EPL (literally thirty seconds ago).  The last chapter of this section is all about Sicily, a.k.a. the land of my grandmother's heritage.  Liz travels from town to town, enjoying the ecstasy that is the food while marveling at the poverty and corruption.  Certainly, Sicily is the extreme example of the Italian heritage, or perhaps the living museum of Italy's history with their mafia-induced peasantry, and perhaps the majority of those amazing Italian artists, musicians, dancers, singers, etc. are/were not Sicilian (I actually don't know, but I would say it's a fair guess).  Nonetheless, the disbelief in power structures that leads to only a belief in art and beauty** is epitomized in this island's lack of modernity.

The romantic in me would love to attribute my own desire to pursue beauty to the small part of me that comes from this culture.  It's in my genes.  It's in my blood.  But it's not all of my blood.  It continually fights against my northern European heritage that likes order, cleanliness, and potatoes.  It also explains my "About Me" quote (see?  it's over -->-^).  My brain suffers, trying to find what it considers it's "correct" path, when perhaps there's more than one (multiple personalities, anyone?).  Perhaps this is why the first part of Liz's journey is so appealing to me, along with those various characters I mentioned in my last EPL post.  Perhaps, deep inside of me, there's a true Sicilian trying to fight her way to the surface.

The realist in me (darn those northern genes!) tells me that it has nothing to do with my Italian grandmother and everything to do with some blocked childhood memory that will only reveal itself after years and thousands of dollars of psychotherapy.  Oh, well.

**Gilbert attributes these ideas to Luigi Barzini's 1964 work The Italians, mentioned on p. 114.



Aside complete.  Now on to the official book club discussion questions.

Having finished Italy discuss what the first phase of the journey has been like. Something fun could be that in Chapter 33 while sitting in an outdoor café in Rome, Gilbert’s friend declares that every city—and every person—has a word. Rome’s is “sex,” the Vatican’s “power”; Gilbert declares New York’s to be “achieve,” but only later stumbles upon her own word, antevasin, Sanskrit for “one who lives at the border.” What is your word? Is it possible to choose a word that retains its truth for a lifetime?

The first thought that comes to mind for me is "Transience".  In three decades, I have lived in nine cities.  Add to that the four years that I moved between dorm rooms and my parents' house for the summer, and two different apartments in two different cities, and that leads to a total of fourteen homes—an average of one home for two years.  There was even an apartment that my husband and I called home for only one month, but I'm not counting that apartment (or city) here.  Come about year four in any given location, my foot starts to tap.  I can feel the itch on the bottom of my feet.  I need to move.  I need a change of scene, new people to meet, new places to explore.  We've lived in Indiana five years now, and the itch is borderline painful now.  One more year here, and it will tie for the longest location of my life, along with where we lived when my father retired from USAF.

I also need vacations like some people need that first cup of coffee in the morning.  It's refreshing.  It helps get you moving again after eight hours of inactivity.  It's the boost that makes you want to keep moving for the next sixteen.  If I need to be stationary for long stretches, then I need to get out of Dodge periodically.  I need the long car ride or the painful airline delays.  I need the confusion of being lost while trying to find the hotel or the camping grounds (as long as we can find it within about 15 minutes).  I need the excuse to do all the things that I don't do when I'm at home—like finding the pleasure in the food, the atmosphere, the people, going to museums and movies, walking on the beach, hiking in the mountains.  I think it gives me "permission" to unveil my inner Sicilian :)

But it's not just physical transience.  It's mental as well.  I switch gears pretty quickly.  For example, when I started grad, I wanted to be a language teacher—English, Polish, maybe Russian.  I also really loved historical linguistics—how the language changes over time.   Then I got more into theoretical linguistics, and I started working phonology (the study of sounds and how they go together).  After about a year or two of that, I dropped phonology and moved into syntax (how the words go together).  I'm still in this phase, and I love it.  But I loved phonology, and before that I loved historical, and before that I loved teaching.  This, mind, is just since 2005, and just in terms of my "job".  It doesn't include discussion of hobbies or musical tastes or anything else.

Is it possible to choose a word that will retain its truth for a lifetime?  I guess it would depend on the person, and maybe it would depend on whether that person was being honest with him/herself.  For me, I have no doubt that this will be my word.  While I can handle staying put for longer stretched, I complain about it.  I remember asking my father when I was nine or ten when we would be moving again (this was already house number 4, mind you).  Maybe when I'm older or have children I'll get tired of the move.  Maybe as long as I have a good vacation every year, though—still ensuring my own personal transience—I'll be okay.


Thanks again to the Book Vixen for organizing this book club.  I'm really enjoying reading EPL.

Please check out our other book club members (in no particular order):  Charlie at Life Happens, Jen at Jen's Corner, Jamie at Three Cheers for Literacy!!, Nicole Rene at Home Grown Me, Erika Lynn at Kiss My Book, LilyofDarkness at Lilium's Realm, Jamie at the Book Junky's Bookshelf, and, of course, the lovely Book Vixen.

Eat Pray Love - Part 2

Thanks again to the Book Vixen for organizing this book club.  I'm really enjoying reading EPL.

Please check out our other book club members (in no particular order):  Charlie at Life Happens, Jen at Jen's Corner, Jamie at Three Cheers for Literacy!!, Nicole Rene at Home Grown Me, Erika Lynn at Kiss My Book, LilyofDarkness at Lilium's Realm, Jamie at the Book Junky's Bookshelf, and, of course, the lovely Book Vixen.


After reading the book for a week what are your first impressions? So much of this part of the book is about Liz’s battle of modern vs. traditional, where do you fall on the spectrum. Are you married with children or do you never want to get married, or like most I would guess are you somewhere in between?

First impressions:  I was really enamored by the structure of 3x36.  It's a small detail, and simple, but there's something very romantic about it.  Plus, when I'm busy, it's easier to pick up the book, read 2 story-ettes, and set it back down without feeling like I need to keep reading at that exact second.  But it's also engrossing enough that I want to keep going back to it.

And her word choices frequently make me smile.  That's all.

Modern v. Traditional:  I recently read the vignette in which Liz discusses the Italian love for passion versus the American inability to really experience it.  This hit home with me.  Sleepy reflection showed me that I am, indeed, one of these poor souls (those of you who know me in person are probably giggling right now at my overdue realization).  I rarely want to sit on my porch and drink a glass of wine just because (the fact that our yard is a mosquito's heaven doesn't help).  I don't always get the idea of taking a walk just because the weather's nice.  I even remember one time a friend and I were driving through the country to our classmate's isolated home, and she remarked (something to the effect of), "This is so beautiful, driving through this tunnel of autumn leaves in every hue."  Honestly, I hadn't even noticed.  I glanced around quickly while also trying to keep my eyes on the windy road, but I took almost no time to savor it.

So, I tried to imagine myself in Liz's shoes, alone in a foreign country, desperately trying to learn a language, meet new people, and find my way.  And I couldn't imagine myself able to avoid finding "work" of some kind.  Something to keep me busy.  Something to keep me from sitting on the edge of the fountain and staring up at the cathedral and wondering at it's centuries-old architecture.

What I find amusing about this is how I relate to characters in film and fiction.  For example (especially for anyone out there who's a Joss fan), I must admit that Firefly/Serenity are not my favorites.  But, of all the characters in the show/movie, I don't love River—the subconsciously trained, psychic superninja—or Mel (though I won't deny the hotness... sorry, honey).  But I love Kalee—the carefree, naive mechanic who finds pleasure in everything she does.  Or maybe it's fitting that two of my favorite literary characters are similar:  Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Natasha from War and Peace.  Now, I'll happily admit that Holly's got all kinds of baggage, but don't we all?  But both of them simply enjoy being, living, celebrating the people around them... pleasure.  They may not call it as such (especially in reference to Tolstoy), but it is what it is.

If I'm so drawn to these characters, why aren't I more like that myself?  I feel like I'm the antithesis of it, really.  I know I've made huge steps in moving away from my OCD, type A+ personality over the past couple of years, but I do have a long way to go.  Having Liz's example will hopefully help.

The Significant Other:  Yes, I have one.  And he's amazing.  I'm super lucky, and believe me, I know it.  Obviously, it's not all roses and candy, but he's supportive in my mental teeter-totter when I feel like others would have gotten fed up with me long ago.  Thank you, honey!


PS--After reading a few other people's posts, I want to add to mine.  I think I'm connecting to this on many levels, including the depression and the always putting other people before myself.  It took twenty-eight years and the death of my father (yeah, I was definitely daddy's little girl) to finally look at myself and focus on me first, all through the "therapy" of bawling on the bathroom floor/the kitchen floor/in bed/everywhere.  I'm not too good at focusing on me yet.  It's a daily struggle, I admit.  This is yet another reason that I am happy to be reading this book right now, and trying to follow Liz in her quest for passion.

Eat Pray Love - Part 1

I've decided to join an online "book club" for the month of July.  Well, I'm not sure book club is the correct term.  Together, we're reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert over the course of the month.  First, I'd like to thank The Book Vixen for organizing this.  I've been wanting to read this for quite some time, and I'm happy to have the push.

Five times this month, our dear Vixen will post questions pertaining to the book.  I'll respond here, so you can read my thoughts (I make no promises for deep and insightful comments), and I'll back to the Vixen's page with my post.  Maybe I'll even get a little more foot traffic. :)  Chances are good that *I'll* end up adding another 10 blogs to my reading list....

So, to kick it off, here are today's questions:

What have you heard about it? 

Two very important women in my life have read this book (yes, you both know who you are) and have had quite positive things to say about it.  They both follow my blog, so I hope they'll join in the discussion.

I actually met another woman this morning who happened to be in the office when I picked up the book.  She got so excited talking to me about it, asking if I would finish it before the movie, etc.  It definitely helped raise my excitement level (not that it needed much help).

What preconceived notions do you have of the book as a first time reader?
I don't think I really have any, except that I should enjoy the read.  I haven't met anyone who's read it and not liked it.

What do you anticipate going into it? I'm not sure.  That it will make me hungry, make me want to focus on my spirit more, and make me appreciate the love that I have.

A little corny, huh?  Oh well.

Why do you want to read it?

Why not?  It's good for the soul. :)

Okay, I'm off to get started now.  Anyone else who wants to read along, the plan is to finish the Eat part by July 11.  Happy reading!