My Thoughts on "The Visit From the Goon Squad"
Not a rave:
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
George Bernard-Shaw once famously said, "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." After reading this book, an inexplicable recipient of two of the literary world's most prestigious laurels--the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction--I'm wondering if GBS really meant to substitute "professions" with literary elite. Or maybe the author Jennifer Egan had blackmail photos or compromising videos of these highbrow literary arbiters because I can't think of how anyone with a modicum of taste and judgement not altered by narcotics or insanity could give this rambling, boring, disjointed, indulgent mess (replete with a maddening 50 page PowerPoint--yes POWERPOINT presentation on some idiotic banality not worthy of wasting the paper it's printed on) any kind of honor. I know Egan has been a darling of the literati since the publication of her first book. Okay, I have no issue with that. But to laud to the heavens unalloyed dreck like this because Egan is a hallowed name among the literary in-crowd is astonishing. A perfect example of the old emperor is wearing no clothes parable.
Not that the book is without merit. It does start off with some promise and flourish. As a fan of the late 1970s/early 1980s Punk/New Wave music scene, I was very intrigued by a novel set in that milieu. Unfortunately, that excitement soon degenerated into unrelieved irritation as the story began to encompass a constellation of uninteresting, tertiary characters. Then suddenly, the PowerPoint presentation from hell materializes from nowhere and my life flashes before my eyes, with each interminable minute seeming like a metronome ticking away into eternity.
Not recommended.
View all my reviews
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer EganMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
George Bernard-Shaw once famously said, "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." After reading this book, an inexplicable recipient of two of the literary world's most prestigious laurels--the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction--I'm wondering if GBS really meant to substitute "professions" with literary elite. Or maybe the author Jennifer Egan had blackmail photos or compromising videos of these highbrow literary arbiters because I can't think of how anyone with a modicum of taste and judgement not altered by narcotics or insanity could give this rambling, boring, disjointed, indulgent mess (replete with a maddening 50 page PowerPoint--yes POWERPOINT presentation on some idiotic banality not worthy of wasting the paper it's printed on) any kind of honor. I know Egan has been a darling of the literati since the publication of her first book. Okay, I have no issue with that. But to laud to the heavens unalloyed dreck like this because Egan is a hallowed name among the literary in-crowd is astonishing. A perfect example of the old emperor is wearing no clothes parable.
Not that the book is without merit. It does start off with some promise and flourish. As a fan of the late 1970s/early 1980s Punk/New Wave music scene, I was very intrigued by a novel set in that milieu. Unfortunately, that excitement soon degenerated into unrelieved irritation as the story began to encompass a constellation of uninteresting, tertiary characters. Then suddenly, the PowerPoint presentation from hell materializes from nowhere and my life flashes before my eyes, with each interminable minute seeming like a metronome ticking away into eternity.
Not recommended.
View all my reviews
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