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58th out of 100 books
—
20 voters
Men and Cartoons
A boozy ex-military captain trapped in a mysterious vessel searches for his runaway son, an aging superhero settles into academia, and a professional "dystopianist" receives a visit from a suicidal sheep. Men and Cartoonscontains eleven fantastical, amusing, and moving stories written in a dizzying array of styles that shows the remarkable range and power of Lethem's visio...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
November 8th 2005
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 2002)
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Lethem's second short story collection isn't a bad effort at all, but funnily enough (considering how good an essayist he is), I'm not sure the format suits him. Several of the pieces here feel like outtakes from a longer story, that sacrifice the character and thematic developments of a novel but don't quite pack the punch of a great short story. If you've read Fortress of Solitude (and you should) there's really not much new in stories like The Vision or Planet Big Zero, and sci-fi stories lik...more
An Intriguing Blend Of Fictional Styles, But.....
"Men and Cartoons" is an all too brief return visit to the fictional worlds created by Jonathan Lethem in his memorable novels "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude", with more than a passing nod to such classic early work from him like his literary debut "Gun, With Occasional Music". Hence it is an interesting, often fascinating, blend of literary styles from quasi-cyberpunk science fiction to hard-boiled noirish detective stories remin...more
"Men and Cartoons" is an all too brief return visit to the fictional worlds created by Jonathan Lethem in his memorable novels "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude", with more than a passing nod to such classic early work from him like his literary debut "Gun, With Occasional Music". Hence it is an interesting, often fascinating, blend of literary styles from quasi-cyberpunk science fiction to hard-boiled noirish detective stories remin...more
So, there's a story about a retired superhero named Super Goat Man. Super Goat Man has round table, wine-and-pot-soaked communals with students at a small New England liberal arts college. Everyone digs the goat man. Our narrator knew him as a kid and then meets him again at the college. SGM is part creepy uncle, part cool older brother, but, mostly ... as someone up here mentioned, an icon for the failures of the boomer generation to (a) properly inspire their children, and (b) fulfill the prom...more
Seemingly out of nowhere, I've been on a big Jonathan Lethem kick the past week or two. I started with his novel Motherless Brooklyn, a overall good read with a few moments of excellence. Next I found an incredible essay he wrote on the subject of plagiarism entitled, "The ecstasy of influence: a plagiarism." This I highly recommend. And so finally, my Lethem kick comes to a close with his collection of short stories: Men and Cartoons. I'm not normally a big fan of short stories; I believe the g...more
I can remember, quite vividly, a time in my childhood when I was playing barefoot in my back yard. I was, arms stretched out in front of me, flying back and forth at the base of the porch, wearing my Superman pajamas (complete with cape and all). Without warning, I stubbed my toe on a rather large rock protruding from the ground. The pain shot through my body and my eyes involuntarily filled with tears. I looked down at my bloody toe and felt so profoundly stupid. Superman was not supposed to ge...more
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Pretty damn fantastic. This is the first of Lethem's works that I have read, and now I can't wait to sit down with some more. As is inherent with any collection of short stories, there are a few standouts and a few misses, but all in all, I really enjoyed the collection as a whole. It's funny; I don't even remember how it is that I happened to purchase this particular book, and it has sat on my shelf for some months, but now I feel like I should thank whomever it was that brought this collection...more
Fans of Lethem will recognize his favorite themes, trademark wit, and verbal dexterity sprinkled throughout this unusual collection. A few critics sense staleness, however. It's as if these stories were written years ago, and have been sitting in a drawer ever since. In fact, many are old and served as inspiration for Lethem's novels. Some of the tales are sharp ("The Glasses"), a few are unsurprising ("The Spray"), most are bleak, and a couple of them are stellar examples of the genre. Everyone
...more
"You wonder to know whether you can stand never to know the touch of a fresh hand, the trembling flavor of a new kiss, and I'm desperately trying to keep from telling you the little I know: it's sweeter than anything, for a moment. For just a moment, there's nothing else. As to all you're weighing it against, your wife and child, I know less than nothing. The wisdom of your ambivalence, the whimsical, faux-jaded wit you share in your letter, as you contemplate the beauties around you, all that p...more
A good collection of quirky stories with a modern feel. A couple contain characters who either are or consider themselves to be superheros and concern their relations with "normal" people. Another portrays a characters adventures in a dystopian world where some people live in apartments and the rest live in their cars, and there is no crossing over except for hire. In another, the narrator is named "the Dystopianist." One narrator's life is defined by a few chance encounters with a woman he feel...more
Lethem's stories are intriguing in their necessary focus on fraught relationships--guilt, regret, revenge--while calmly backed by fantastic settings: an elite corporate class technologically isolates itself from the traffic-jammed masses; a yesteryear comic book hero arrives to teach college classes; two people inexplicably meet over and over in remote locations. In each, Lethem offers no apologies or explanations for their failings, for their struggles. Like all of our lives, the conflicts are...more
These screwy stories introduced us to half-finished protagonists lingering somewhere between the two-dimensional worlds of their cartoonish fixations and adulthood. Lethem is a talented writer (and good reader), able to make me squint at the CD player, shake my head, and smile in the course of a story. I chalk up the abrupt endings and occasional flights of fancy to the same eccentricity that lifts these story out of the mundane. Men and Cartoons are stories whose currency are solidly in the lat...more
The stories in Men and Cartoons show what Lethem does best, blending the fantastical with the literary. Tales of magical sprays and kids with superhero identities explore themes of loneliness, relationships, nostalgia, and more. Though uneven at times, the good stories more than compensate for the weaker ones. Lethem is a throwback to a time when writers just wrote and never worried about genre. If you like his other work, then you'll like this. If you've never read him, this is a good place to...more
This is the first book I've 'read' as an audiobook, which was an interesting experience. The short stories collected here (with the exception of one or two, for the voices) certainly feel better listened to than read on a page, which says a lot for the flow of Lethem's writing. And unlike most collections, there's more than one tale that lingers in my memory long after, despite me not having read a word. But those stories, like 'The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock...more
If you've read and enjoyed Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, you will probably also enjoy these short stories. I liked them very much. If you haven't read any of his work, I'd just say that he has a way of creating back doors into moments of emotional poignance and makes it seem easy to get there. In any particular story, he may or may not make use of speculative fiction devices, but as fun and interesting as those ideas might be, the real payoff is in consistent surprises of recognition--genuine e...more
Despite the fact that there were a few good stories, I wasn't really into it. The reality-bending, superhero-mixed-with-normal-life, sci-fi-or-maybe-not type stuff didn't really do it for me. I often felt like things were happening in the stories that I didn't quite understand--not necessarily plot things, but human emotion things. Like people were acting for reasons I didn't understand. I don't know.
I did really like "The National Anthem," and a few other stories had some interesting thoughts,...more
I did really like "The National Anthem," and a few other stories had some interesting thoughts,...more
"It's a joke about futility, and at the same time a joke about will, and subjectivity. If we filibustered the glasses into existence between us did it matter that the paper-and-tape glasses didn't persist? Worlds seemed to hang in the balance of that unspoken question, and in a way they did. Our worlds. The glasses stood for our own paper-thin new sensibilities, thrust against the bronze of the adult world. Were we viable? Did we have to convince others, or was it enough just to convince ourselv...more
Jun 24, 2011
Levi
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fiction fans
Shelves:
fiction-short-stories
This is my first taste of Lethem's fiction, and I picked a great book. Nine solid stories in a volume with beautifully quirky cover art that is appropriate to the tone of the fiction. The title suggests the skewed reality of the characters and the settings they find themselves in. Half the stories have an odd, magical realism twist and the other half feature men stumbling through parties trailing old lovers or opening up their sad insides to a friend. But he doesn't use a downer style common to...more
"The Vision" - if you're familiar with the game "werewolf" Lethem reworks it (or there's an alternate in here called Mafia).
"Access Fantasy" - normally I like Lethem, but this one had me waiting for it to end.
"The Spray" - didn't do it for me. But it was short.
"Vivian Relf" - really didn't get it. Reminds me a little of that "someday you may wake up to realize that someone else is married to your husband" quote from When Harry Met Sally.
"Planet Big Zero" - Not for me. Too literary, too meanderin...more
"Access Fantasy" - normally I like Lethem, but this one had me waiting for it to end.
"The Spray" - didn't do it for me. But it was short.
"Vivian Relf" - really didn't get it. Reminds me a little of that "someday you may wake up to realize that someone else is married to your husband" quote from When Harry Met Sally.
"Planet Big Zero" - Not for me. Too literary, too meanderin...more
Just finished this collection of short stories, which is the first thing I've read by Jonathan Lethem (other than his excellent essay for the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Singers of All Time issue (Rolling Stone's editorial approach is blatantly whorish, but even within that context they hit on something now and then).
Speaking of which, this collection was hit and miss. I thoroughly enjoyed and may reread stories such as The Vision, Planet Big Zero and Super Goat Man. The only reason I would rerea...more
Speaking of which, this collection was hit and miss. I thoroughly enjoyed and may reread stories such as The Vision, Planet Big Zero and Super Goat Man. The only reason I would rerea...more
This is my first read of Jonathan Lethem. I heard his story "The Spray" on the NPR show Selected Shorts, and I was rather impressed, so I tracked down this collection. I am not familiar with any of his novels.
What impressed me about "The Spray" when I heard it, and also when I read it, was its easy style--a couple find that their apartment has been robbed, but when the police come, the couple find that they are not sure about what has been taken, so the police spray the apartment with a substan...more
What impressed me about "The Spray" when I heard it, and also when I read it, was its easy style--a couple find that their apartment has been robbed, but when the police come, the couple find that they are not sure about what has been taken, so the police spray the apartment with a substan...more
In Jonathan Lethem’s home of Brooklyn, New York, on 5th Avenue, there lives a reassuringly odd, tough-looking store called Brooklyn Superhero Supply. Set, when I first saw it, along a row of graying or graffitied businesses, Superhero Supply (”Ever vigilant, ever true”) features “fully serviced capery, workspace for research and development, and industrial-grade services for superpowers,” whatever those might be.
Superhero Supply (actually a storefront for social work by the publisher/literary ma...more
Superhero Supply (actually a storefront for social work by the publisher/literary ma...more
Men And Cartoons is a mishmash of uncomfortably real and uncomfortably speculative short stories that emerge from author Lethem's apparently infinite wellspring of neurosis. the author's highly consistent tone applies itself to a very diverse collection of stories, each stemming from an Interesting Idea.
The best story, without question is The Dystopianist, Thinking Of His Rival Is Interrupted By A Knock On The Door. TDTOHRIIBAKOTD is as screwball as its title suggests, and is delightfully subver...more
The best story, without question is The Dystopianist, Thinking Of His Rival Is Interrupted By A Knock On The Door. TDTOHRIIBAKOTD is as screwball as its title suggests, and is delightfully subver...more
This is really good. The writing is light and easy, and his ideas are fun to chew on. The book really is about men and cartoons: our ideas and the silly-looking but deadly-serious shapes they take, and what we do because of them. The dystopianist story boils it down: our utopias make the real world look dim. From here spins off the resentful power of Everett's awful line ending "Super Goat Man" or the bitter games in "The Vision." The power of cartoony ideas rules the characters in other stories...more
Sep 22, 2007
Nate D
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Lethem fans, Lethem curious.
Shelves:
stories
Lethem has described his older stories as a sort of condensed novel rather than proper story, trying to take on more story and content than properly fits into a short story-length work. Honestly, that feeling is what makes a lot of his older stories so exciting, and the culminations, the two best of that thread of Lethem's writing, are contained here: a "Access Fantasy", a noir set in a future New York where the underpriveledged live in their cars in a permanent traffic jam, dreaming and watchin...more
+ Deft characterizations, deadpan delivery of outlandish premises, fun cover art
- There's not much wrong with it. The last story seems weak as an anchor for the collection.
This is my 4th Lethem and the most delightful short story collection I've read recently. Lethem's focus here is on relationships--with oneself, with others--and the failure of communication. In many of the stories, intrusive encounters and unwitting coincidental meetings (with people previously known and unknown) provide the p...more
- There's not much wrong with it. The last story seems weak as an anchor for the collection.
This is my 4th Lethem and the most delightful short story collection I've read recently. Lethem's focus here is on relationships--with oneself, with others--and the failure of communication. In many of the stories, intrusive encounters and unwitting coincidental meetings (with people previously known and unknown) provide the p...more
A good collection of short stories from esteemed author Jonathem Lethem. Most of what's offered here is solid, with some exceptions. (The penultimate story just didn't click with me and some others were only so-so). A recurring theme seems to be the loss of innocence, a longing for childhood nostalgia and unconditional childhood friendships. A feeling I can relate to, but from time to time Lethem's writing here does border on self-pity. Still, overall a fun read. Recommended for anyone who likes...more
I had heard lots of praise for Lethem, but was sorely disappointed with these short stories. Some of them showed promise early on, or at points throughout, but most were mildly intriguing at best, plodding at worst. Maybe it is simply because I don't 'get' what he was going for in most of them, but on the whole I felt like there wasn't a point, or that the point was too obscure, or that if there were a point it would be silly and annoying. I will say that I enjoyed "Access Fantasy" and "The Nati...more
I once tried to read "Fortress of Solitude" and could not get through it, mostly due to boredom. I thought maybe short stories would be a better way for me to get into Lethem. No. Just...awful. I understand lots of people like him, I just don't understand why. I liked the first story, so I was hopeful. Maybe I will try more of his work sometime, but for now I can only conclude that Lethem is boring. And whiny. With all his white man pain.
Like with many collections of short stories, with this book it was hit or miss. I was disappointed by Access Fantasy, being similar to Gun with Occasional Music (I guess?) I thought I would like it more. The rest of the stories were enjoyable, but often forgettable. Looking through the table of contents now, writing my review, I struggled to form strong opinions on many of the stories. The Glasses? The National Anthem? The Vision? Maybe I just don't like definite articles...
The upside is that al...more
The upside is that al...more
A series of experimental short stories featuring a variety of writing styles, unreliable narrators, quirky characters, a mish-mash of bizarre sci-fi elements and an underlying theme regarding comic-book superheros. Some of these stories are better than others, but none is a masterpiece. A quick read and worthwhile for the experimentation alone; odds are there's something in there that'll give you an idea for your own writing.
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JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of seven novels. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Lethem has published his stories and essays in The New Yorker, Harpers, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and the New York Times, among others.
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