Random non linear
Jun. 25th, 2005 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysThere were three Jonathan Lethem books on my to read shelf. The makes them a clear winner in my personal procrastination stakes. If I had three in my book queue then I must have read his work before, so what was I waiting for. I don't know either, so today I read Girl in Landscape.
Lethem's books are set in classic SF settings but they really don't conform to usual SF stylistic conventions. Hardly surprising really given that they are usually to be found on the "modern literature" section. I wonder if he denies being an SF author as some others do? I have some vague recollection that he admits if freely but I may be wrong. In any case his work is of the variety that I associate with authors who write just to be deconstructed by academics. Harsh - not really, I like his work. I wouldn't be buying it otherwise. What I like is the way he plays around with human motivation and logic processes. He skews them in strange ways - usually using skewed situations to place them in - hence the SF tie-in.
Girl in Landscape is in the familiar mould. A family moves to another planet and encounters an alien race. But the real aliens are the other human inhabitants. The eponymous girl is going through personal crisis (dead mother), personal change (puberty) and physical change (the effects of the planet). She copes with the change in her own way and comes out of the end somewhat mended even as the colony dies. Lots of room for interpretation and deconstruction here. It is a small book but very dense and enthralling enough to be an all-in-one-go read. I really should read the other two really.
Lethem's books are set in classic SF settings but they really don't conform to usual SF stylistic conventions. Hardly surprising really given that they are usually to be found on the "modern literature" section. I wonder if he denies being an SF author as some others do? I have some vague recollection that he admits if freely but I may be wrong. In any case his work is of the variety that I associate with authors who write just to be deconstructed by academics. Harsh - not really, I like his work. I wouldn't be buying it otherwise. What I like is the way he plays around with human motivation and logic processes. He skews them in strange ways - usually using skewed situations to place them in - hence the SF tie-in.
Girl in Landscape is in the familiar mould. A family moves to another planet and encounters an alien race. But the real aliens are the other human inhabitants. The eponymous girl is going through personal crisis (dead mother), personal change (puberty) and physical change (the effects of the planet). She copes with the change in her own way and comes out of the end somewhat mended even as the colony dies. Lots of room for interpretation and deconstruction here. It is a small book but very dense and enthralling enough to be an all-in-one-go read. I really should read the other two really.