A Book Review, of sorts

So who am I to even say anything about Jonathan Lethem’s “The Fortress Of Solitude”? Me, just another whiteboy from almost lilywhite Denmark? Yet, again, the book provokes a number of different attitudes. To get that out of the way: McSweeney’s has a page devoted to Lethem – much to see there; Jacob Siegel’s review in New Partisan is stimulating, and outlines what is wrong with a number of other reviews; and, why not, seek out the horse’s mouth and see what Lethem says in this interview from The New Yorker.

I suppose we can all find our own way to the book, and into it (or not: some hate it. Nevermind.) My own way came by a couple of coincidences: a co-worker mentioned it, and I recalled hearing about it, wanting to read it; we actually were in that part of Brooklyn only a few weeks ago; and, yeah, the wifey hails from those parts: Brooklyn (albeit not Boerum Hill. Still.)

At one point Abigale Ponder asks Dylan Ebdus why he is so obsessed with his childhood. And that is exactly the point, for me: I never played stoopball, never had a spaldeen. Never was yoked, not like that – but close enough in some, other ways. So, somehow, Lethem connects to something about childhood that goes a lot deeper than the games that were being played.

Some experiences I, naturally, cannot share, not like that. Siegel points out that many, if not most, American reviewers sidestepped the perhaps defining issue: race. Simple as that – only that I would be tempted to say race and class – without being too sure if that is, indeed, the correct order of those two terms. Class and race, race and class.

So, Abigale does not understand the childhood thing. Yet she tries to pull one on Dylan by playing her own black card. Not with that much of a success: race and class, class and race. Abigale is black; she is also upper middle-class. She was never yoked, nor did she yoke: she was busy taking riding lessons. Dylan does not quite tell her off, but maybe he should have: something like “Yeah, girl, who are you to talk about being black?”

Mingus knows, because he is black. Sort of. He is, actually, half white. Dylan, of course, is white but Jewish. Inside, outside; outside, inside, One strain in the book is the parallel lives of Dylan and Mingus. Dylan sells some nose candy at his posh college: he gets off lightly, and moves his behind out to Berkeley. Mingus gets napped with rock, the ghetto drug, and his downwards spiral is only accelerated. No mercy there (the whole description of the devastation of the inner city during the crack epidemic, and the impact on the black community, is the most heartbreaking part of the book. Also because Mingus goes down with it. Mingus: the hero that should have been…)

A couple of things before my conclusion (and what other conclusion could there be than: go read it, right?): while the power of the magical ring to make the bearer invisible has been identified as a reference to Ralph Ellison by many reviewers, I would like to add the following: the other power – to make human flight possible – seems to me to point towards Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” (at least I have been demonstrated my bona fide wellreadness…) The ring only does what the bearer wants or needs: making the white boy invisible; making the black boy fly away. And, then, it is used one last time by Robert: but how should we interpret that incident? Perhaps, as some seem to think, the ring enacts a wish of Mingus’s. Perhaps not: perhaps it helped Robert out, after all?

It is an uneasy book: Dylan, the protagonist of sorts, is not an entirely nice person. But, then, neither is Mingus: friends they may be: they both let each other down at crucial times. There are no mothers: the fathers are both passive, but not mean (hey: Barrett Junior even lets Mingus join in when the crack pipe goes around. Abraham is, mainly, just not there.) Yet, again: the book is not topical in that way, but it does have a powerful message about what race and racism will do. Dylan, after all, does get some assistance towards transferring to a much nicer school; Mingus plays hookey for two years, but nobody cares, or even notices. White boy, black boy. Dylan and Mingus have one, final conversation in a confined location towards the end of the book, where Mingus mentions that blacks are always seen a menace. So, a menace they will be. And for an instant he flashes the face of the mean Mingus to Dylan so that Dylan can believe it.

So, let that be a conclusion, for the book has none, either. At least not an easy one. And let this sprawl reflect that the book has many story lines and many loose ends (yet I believe it is a lot more crafted than you would think at first glance.)