Motherless Brooklyn

by Jonathan Lethem

“Inspectaholic!” “Don’t kill him, Superfly,” said Tony, grinning broadly. “I know it’s pitiful, but he can’t help himself. Think of it as a free human freak show.” “Licorice Smellahole!” Not

this doesn't get tiring. on the contrary it's usually tension-rattling. I wonder if it would normally be irritating, say in the hands of a less skilled author. or, are we jaded to it like Tony and the different characters? speaking of, I like how that's a feature of every person, the degree to which they are jaded about the tics. Like Tony completely ignores it but the detective is still responding earnestly to them (shut up, cut it out) he hasn't yet done anything really obvious with it, like have Lionel blurt out a forbidden name or some clue to the investigation, or implicate himself. which is interesting. that's a very obvious route to take with Tourette's.

cop. And Tony, seeing chinks in the detective’s confidence,

triggered

A bully knows the parameters and half-life of a brandished threat—the only thing weaker than a gun so long ignored was no gun at all.

“California Roll Zen. This is the Zen of sushi so full of avocado and cream cheese might as well be a marshmallow for all you know.

His voice was a dull thing where it began in his throat but it resonated to grandeur in the tremendous instrument of his torso, like a mediocre singer on the stage of a superb concert hall.

Even though its in first person he doesnt tic in the narration

The reflected image was uninterrupted by carpet or furniture,

“I guess I didn’t notice,” she said. “I was, you know—sitting.”

I cant tell if the sitting buddhism is a parody or not

J. D. Salinger, what

Johnny Carson and Salinger. he really doesn't do that many pop culture reference, and even less lit reference

The distance between us had narrowed, but the distance between me and me was enormous.

UGH GOOD

at that moment I felt my hand and mind lose their particularity, their pointiness, their countingness, instead become clouds of general awareness, dreamy and yielding with curiosity.

how can he imagine the tourette's experience of intimacy?

Here was Kimmery’s tic, in evidence at last.

finding tics in other people. what's your tic?

Kimmery. “But yours is, I don’t know, like a beer can that’s been crushed, like for recycling.”

so romantic

In my paltry history I’d never been unveiled without hearing something about it—

We made a circuit: mouths, knees, hands and what they held. The sensation was okay.

LOL

“Tell me something, Lionel.” “What?” “I mean, say something. The way you do.” I looked at her open-mouthed. Her hand urged me toward an utterance that was anything but verbal. I tried to distract her the same way. “Speak, Lionel.” “Ah.” It really was all I could think to say. She kissed me gaspingly and drew back, her look expectant. “One Mind!” I said. “Yes!” said Kimmery.

omfg is this her fetish ahahahahahah his ticcing? ahah

again. This third nun, it’s her turn—Nun-fuck-a-phone!—so this third nun, she looks at the first nun and the second nun and she says ‘Bicker, bicker, bicker.’ ” There was silence, then Gerard nodded and said, “That would be the punch line.”

LOL jokes again

Or perhaps you imagine he crapped money. That’s just as likely.” Was crapped a chink in Gerard’s Zen façade, a bit of Brooklyn showing through?

look how he can't stop talking about brooklyn on da str33ts hah

I was pretty hungry, too, if I thought about it. A stakeout was customarily a gastronomic occasion, and I was beginning to get that itch for something between two slices of bread.

“Yes,” I gasped. I couldn’t think past Tony’s list of sandwiches. My hunger for them was absolute. I had to match Tony sandwich for sandwich, a gastronomic mirroring-tic—I’d understand him by the time I was through the fourth, I figured. We would achieve a Zeod’s mind-meld, with Thousand Island dressing.

I’d seen trees before—so far Connecticut offered nothing I didn’t know from suburban Long Island, or even Staten Island. But the idea of Connecticut was sort of interesting.

a map of New England. Sure enough, the diagonal across Connecticut pointed through Massachusetts and a nubbin of coastal New Hampshire to the entrance of the Maine Turnpike.

hooray it's where i am

I’d expected his voice to come out like Yosemite Sam’s or Popeye’s, scabrous and sputtering. Instead he was so stolid and patrimonial with his New England accent—Ya nawt from around heah, ah you?—that I was left with no doubt which of us resembled the cartoon character.

“You’re not one of them Scientologists, are you?” “No,” I said, surprised. It wasn’t the impression I’d imagined I was making.

He's the first one to identify that our of the blue