Rob's review of Gun, With Occasional Music: A Novel
Gun, With Occasional Music: A Novel by Jonathan Lethem
Rob's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2008,
own,
science-fiction
recommended for:
curious what Neal Stephenson sounds like covering Raymond Chandler?
status:
Read in July, 2008
In Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem gives us science fiction's worthy successor to Raymond Chandler. Though this is the easy take-home message from nearly every quoted newspaper columnist, book jacket blurb, and miscellaneous reviewer -- they also all happen to be right. Even a cursory familiarity with Chandler's pulp noir will ring through with startling clarity to readers of this novel. The cadence of the narrative, the hard-boiled dialogue, the archetypal characters... Lethem's Conrad Metcalf is a well-executed Philip Marlowe cover song with just a little bit of record scratching thrown into the background for texture.
On the other hand, those same columnist quotes, blurbs, and reviewers all seem to liken Lethem to Philip K. Dick. Personally: not seeing it. It's a bit of a stretch, some optimistic name-dropping to match up Lethem's mystery/noir heritage with some similarly classic science fiction antecedent. The ubiquitous drug use? Sure, okay -- that's...more
On the other hand, those same columnist quotes, blurbs, and reviewers all seem to liken Lethem to Philip K. Dick. Personally: not seeing it. It's a bit of a stretch, some optimistic name-dropping to match up Lethem's mystery/noir heritage with some similarly classic science fiction antecedent. The ubiquitous drug use? Sure, okay -- that's...more
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Just ordered it from an independent seller for him--thanks again1 I might even sneak a peek, before gifting it!
