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A Visit From the Goon Squad
I must give this another go. The first time I gave it a bash and it just lost my interest after 80 pages or so.I heard the PDF chapter is interesting, though.
When I got to the power-point chapter (on Kindle), I was told that the chapter was not compatible with my reader. I was referred to Ms. Egan's website where the chapter could be read properly. Amazon neglected to tell me this when it sold me the e-book (and neglected to respond to my complaint).Although I liked Sasha and found her to be one of the few sympathetic characters, I did not care enough about her and Drew to go to the website.
There were some things about the book, however, that I liked.
I really liked this book. Read it all today and still processing. I liked the way a minor character in one chapter would become the protagonist of a later chapter. Loved the way it shifted back and forth in time - it brought poignancy to chapters where you knew what was going to happen to a character in the future.It also spoke to me from a generational standpoint - Egan's a little bit older than me, but I related to a lot of the pop culture and music references (listened to the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag in high school, Nevermind came out when I was in college).
I read this in March of 2011. I didn't really dislike it, but I wasn't enthusiastic enough about it to want to read it again. I see I was confused about the ending, but right now I don't remember at all what the ending was. Maybe it'll come back to me as the discussion develops.Here's the review I posted then.
What I thought of this book depended on where I was in it. When it started out I thought, "Oh no, another drink, drugs, and gritty sex book. Yawn."
Then when I realized it was going to hop about with multiple time frames and multiple POVs, I became more interested. Trouble was, though, that Egan often didn't give enough clues for me to realize who the hell was talking now. But still, I liked it for the most part.
Then the ending left me puzzled. What was all this noise about? What did I accomplish by reading this? What did Egan accomplish by writing it?
Jane wrote: "I just finished reading for the second time and loved it again. Have several cool things to share. Some from Jennifer Egan's site, probably after we've talked a bit...but one is perfect at any time..."Yesterday when I read your note, I was on my iPhone, and clicking the link sent me somewhere, but it was too small for me to read. Today, when I click on the link, it doesn't work. I was really looking forward to that interactive thingy.
I found the character map, but it wasn't as much help as I thought it would be. But it was fun. I really think I need to read this again soon, like now before I forget things. Kenneth, I can understand your frustration about having the slide-show not work on your Kindle. I bought the paperback for that very reason. But I thought the slide-show was the best part of the book. It was quite moving in one part especially. I'm going to look at it on her website, because I think there is sound. The idea of graphing the pauses in songs is brilliant, I think.
The slide show was also one of my favorite parts and central to what I got out of the book. Throughout the story, time beats up on the characters, and some of them don't make it (Rob, Rolph) or wind up quite broken (Jocelyn). Whereas Sasha is one of the survivors and gets a realistic version of a happy ending. We know Drew knows about her past in Naples, so he loves and accepts her for who she is. She's managed to channel her kleptomania into producing art with found objects. She uses the scraps of their daily lives -- "She says they're precious because they're casual and meaningless. 'But they tell the whole story if you really look.'" Drew has trouble understanding Lincoln, but in the end we see that he helps Lincoln with those graphs for the pauses in the songs.
They don't always get along, or understand each other, but they have love. As Alison says in the slide show, "Living here all together was so sweet. Even when we fought."
I also read this book on my Kindle. I was traveling so I didn't have access to a computer. I did figure out that you can enlarge pictures on the Kindle, so I could at least read that part. Even with these limitations, I thought that chapter was really touching and got to the heart of a 12 year old girl, who is wise beyond her years. Sasha's family turned out more than all right, which can't be said about many characters in this book.Now I have watched the slide show on my computer. in color and with sound - very cool.
I read this as a library book. I remember no mention of anything like a slide show, and I'm pretty sure I'd remember something as unusual as that. Where can it be seen?
When I first read the Powerpoint chapter I thought the choice to write like a presentation was a gimmick. I had the same reaction to the short, almost dizzy style of writing Egan used in sections. But when I gave Egan's writing some more thought, I began to see the reasons she had for making the choices she made. The Powerpoint section showed a filtered, analytic attitude for the narrator (Bennie's daughter – I can't remember her name). And the sections with abrupt writing showed the unfocussed attitude of a drug culture. When I was done with the book I was loving her writing style.I had mixed feelings about other aspects such as places where the point of view was from someone whose name wasn't revealed until the chapter was half over. I never understood the reason for that, but maybe I was missing something. I was also confused when Bennie's daughter was crying at the end of the Africa section. I thought something had happened between her and the “warrior” but I wasn't certain. Anybody have any ideas about that?
Ruth,Check out the slide show at http://jenniferegan.com/books. The slides that refer to the music with the pauses also have sound. There is a sound icon on the bottom of the screen and you need to click on that to make sure you get the sound on. That way you can really "hear" the pauses in the music.
I liked this chapter because I could really see a preteen girl creating it. There is such an emphasis in the schools now on PowerPoint, audio-visual, etc.
Ruth and Steve, you both mentioned that it was often difficult to figure out who was even talking in the stories. I found that irritating and didn't see the need for it.
At times I felt that I was just reading a book of short stories that weren't connected much. At the end of this book, there was a page saying that portions of the book (8 stories) appeared in other publications earlier.
Greer, I'm glad that you mentioned being able to relate to the music. It was long after my time and I was sure I missed a lot there.
All and all, I did end up liking this book a lot, but I don't think I would have without the last two chapters - the PowerPoint and Alex's concert sponsored by Bennie and attended by characters in the other stories.
Ruth, the "slide show" is the chapter near the end that is written by Sasha's daughter Alison. Interestingly, Egan didn't know how to make a powerpoint when she wrote it, and did it all on paper, then translated it to the computer. On Egan's website you can view it. I had read it so I didn't bother viewing, but I will now.I love the way the themes of time and aging play out through the entire book. And I loved the way characters reappear, become protagonists, etc.
I remember hearing (or reading) an interview with Egan in which she says that she was trying to push the envelope of novel...she wanted to see how far she could go and still have the book hold together as a novel. For those who weren't satisfied, I guess it doesn't work. It absolutely did for me.
The last chapter put me off some, with its imagined future. But I did love that Scotty reappeared. And that Lulu is the one to convince him to go on stage. I thought the message of hope which all those babies represent (in spite of environmental wreckage) was a bit hokey. In general, I think the variety of writing styles and the reappearance of characters in new contexts is fascinating.
And sometimes, it's confusing. For instance, Steve, I think you mean "Lou's daughter," not Bennie's in the Africa section. And I couldn't find where she was crying. But maybe you mean the chapter in which Dolly takes her daughter, Lulu, and the has-been actress Kitty to Africa to set up photo-ops with the evil General B. In that one Lulu is crying because she is terrified about what has happened to Kitty.
I didn't like the author's projection of her characters into the future. I think it made sense...the book's about time and aging and death...at one point, after one of these digressions, the narrator says, "But we're getting off the subject." That's what my fifth grade writers write when they have digressed. It annoyed me.
Still, I think the book is ambitious and I do think the intersecting lives work. The different tones keep amazing me, even as I reread.
And I can't find the chapter that doesn't indicate who the central character is. Which one did you mean, Steve? I agree, sometimes it takes a while to understand this character's connection to the other characters, but I enjoyed that gradual connecting, and my understanding of it.
Interesting that I particularly liked the last chapter, but you had an opposite reaction, Jane. I don't think either one of us is "right." Any other reactions? I just thought it kind of pulled the book together, and being a very linear person :-), I still need that in books.I thought it was funny that in the future everyone stopped having tatoos because when they got old and their skin started sagging they looked so bad. Now that sounds like an old person talking.
The chapter about Dolly as the publicist for the diabolical African dictator was one of my favorites. There was so much of the absurd in it, but life itself is often almost as strange.
I thought I had wasted my time and money when I bought read this book last year. Your discussion here has made me realize that I need to go back and read it again and see how I feel about this Pulitzer Prize winner.
The best Pulitzer Prize winning I have ever read is The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao. What a book! But I don't mean to derail this topic.
Ann, I really liked the chapter about Dolly as well. It is utterly crazy, and about such horrible things, but done with this lightness that is just perfect. Especially given the way Kitty asks him about his atrocities. "So, is this where you bury the bodies?" and then, "Was I not supposed to bring up the genocide?" And it's horrifying for Dolly and her daughter, Lulu...but also wonderfully absurd.
I had a pretty easy time following the shifts in protagonists from chapter to chapter. But I am partial to books with this structure - Catch-22 is my favorite novel, and has an even more complex structure in terms of times, shifting points of view...
Jane, You're right. The daughter I was thinking of was Charlie, Lou's daughter. The section that confused me was when Rolph returned to the tent and got into bed in a cot near his sister. "He assumes that Charlie is asleep. When she speaks, he can hear in her voice that she's been crying." There was something going on between Charlie and one of the guides, so I thought that might have been the cause, but it could have been as simple as wanting to go on the walk with her father.As for the sections when I wasn't sure whose point of view we were in, there were a couple of those. One was the chapter entitled "You (Plural)." It took me a long time to determine that it was written from Jocelyn's pov. In all those cases I found out who was thinking eventually, but some sections took longer than others.
I feel this book is the kind of novel that makes the reader work. Overall, I think that's a good thing.
I am with Ruth on this one. I read this about a year ago and I didn't like it at all. I don't know why now, but I didn't like Egan's THE KEEP either.Carry on!
Jane wrote: "I am with Ruth on this one. I read this about a year ago and I didn't like it at all. I don't know why now, but I didn't like Egan's THE KEEP either.!"Nor did I, altho it's quite a different book.
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD.Can we discuss the title?
I think it has to do with the destruction that time imposes on us all. Time especially seems to be a theme in this novel because the stories go back and forth to different periods in the past and even the future.
Bosco , the sick, aging rock star wants Stephanie to document every humiliating detail of his final concert. He says, “This is reality, right? You don’t look good anymore twenty years later, especially when you’ve had half your guts removed. Time’s a goon right? Isn’t that the expression?”
Jules, Stephanie’s brother with serious mental health issues, says “I’ve never heard that.”
I’ve never heard that either. Has anyone else? Is this the same as saying, “Time is a bully”?
In the last story, when Bennie is desperately trying to get Scotty to go on stage, he says to him “Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?”
Scotty replies, “The goon won.”
Of course, maybe Scotty beats time (the goon) this once, since he does go on to give a wildly popular performance.
Any thoughts?
Good catch, Ann. The goon squad is the guys they send to beat you up.
Partly due to life getting in the way, I haven't finished this book- I’ve only read 45%. Partly I'm not sure I want to finish it. Yet sometimes I enjoyed the writing and other times elements bugged me.As has been previously mentioned it seemed rather disjointed and the digressions left me wondering if there was a point to them or not. For example, on the African safari with Lou's kids, the author goes off on a tangent about what happens to a warrior and his descendant 35 years in the future. Do all these tangents really come into play later?
And I agree that with a few of the chapters it takes a while to figure just whose point of view is the current dominant one. I don’t mind needing to think about a book to get a deeper meaning but I didn’t like having to read quite a few pages into a chapter only to discover it was a different female band member than I thought it was at first.
This book did not interest me at all, but I am enjoying the discussion.
Janet,I really thought that the book got stronger as it went. At least the later stories appealed to me more. Also, as you read on, you find that many of the same characters reappear at other stages in their lives in other stories. I found this very interesting.
Sasha's story is told with the most detail through several stories. Bennie seems to be on a downward slide through most of the book, but he keeps reappearing. And so on...
Then again, some characters are more or less dropped with just a few sentences to let you know what happened to them later - for example, Rhea. That dis jointedness bothered me some.
I think I saw "The Goon Squad" a little differently. I saw it as death. As I age, I see death as the problem, not time, although time and its passage is clearly propelling me towards death. Given the title, I thought the chapter about Dolly and the General was brilliant. He commandeered a literal "Goon Squad," sending many people to their deaths. And Kitty insists that he face that. When she makes the decision to ask the General where he's buried the bodies, is she essentially saying, "I don't give a damn what you do to me"? Or is it a political protest? (this seems unlikely), or a way to get back into the limelight? Is she that prescient? I couldn't tell, but I loved her character. I think that we could talk for the entire month about the themes explored in this book--of course, we've already mentioned time and death, and perspective, and aging. How about music? And silence?
There's a passage at the end of chapter one that connects so clearly to the "Powerpoint" section about the pauses in Rock and Roll songs. Sasha and Alex have gotten together and Alex has left. Coz, Sasha's therapist is meeting with her.
"There was a pause, during which Sasha was keenly aware of Coz behind her, waiting." She assumes he is waiting for her to announce a change she's made and she wants to please him. To say, "I'm changing: I've changed!... God how she wanted those things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?"
"Please," she told Coz. "Don't ask me how I feel."
"All right," he said quietly.
"They sat in silence, the longest silence that had ever passed between them..." Sasha just listens to the rain, looks out the window and "the faint hum that was always there when she listened, and these minutes of Coz's time: another, then another, then one more."
Here we have it. Time passing. Silences. Life going. The Goon Squad lurking in the background. Aargghh. I love the way this book keeps being about itself.
Yes, Ann, I agree. It took me a while to get into this book, for all the reasons mentioned. But I did get hooked. I think it was the Kitty/dictator chapter that did it for me. Then the PowerPoint deck chapter really grabbed me. Usually, I don't go for "writing" that seems gimmicky, and this could have been. But the reader really does get the whole picture of this girl's pov, just like in a typical chapter. Only this format works better, because it lends itself to sound, graphs, intersecting circles, etc. One slide even contains the dictum "A chart should illuminate not complicate", poking fun at the PowerPoint culture. So I ended up liking the book, when I didn't think I would.
Mary Anne,If I hadn't had the CR discussion to look forward to, I might have bailed early on like others who have weighed in here. Sex, drugs and rock and roll isn't really my thing. But like you, I was glad that I stuck with it. I especially liked the chapters you mentioned. .
Janet,I certainly see death as the ultimate consequence of time, so I don't disagree with you. Thanks for bringing up the dictator's goon squad. I had overlooked that.
I thought the pauses were another reference to the lulls before the ultimate end - also a possible reference to death. This is from Ally's PowerPoint:
"The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL."
I am about 2/3 through the book, and though I can't quite say why, I feel compelled to keep reading. I haven't reached the Power Point chapter yet.I would vote for time, rather than death, being the Goon here. Of course, death gives time its punch, and absent death and the general tendency of material things to "peak" and then decay, who knows if we would have developed a time construct? It just seems to me that Egan's characters lament the damage done by aging even more than they do death - I'm thinking of Bennie & LaDoll/Dolly and the ultracreepy Lou and Bennie's rocker friend who wants to do one last tour. It isn't death so much as time (well, and other factors....more of that later on!) that has turned him into a grotesque has-been.
The thing that is griping me about this book right now, and reminding me that I am well, well into "middle age" - young in the mid-70s, not the 80s, so an earlier generation than many of the characters in the book - is that many of these people are in rotten shape, not because of time, nor our inexorable trip to The End, but because of their own dissolute, irresponsible, self-centered behavior. There. I've said it. I am getting tired of hearing their astonishment that, after 20 or 30 years, they are older than their 20something or high school selves. Had they invested themselves more in developing meaningful relationships and improving the lives of other people, and less in drinking, drugging, cheating and lying, they would not hit middle age isolated, wasted, lamenting the betrayal wrought by their own bodies. (Or if they had, it would make the point about Time or Death being a Goon a bit more forcefully.)
Rhea and Sasha grow. Most of these folks just mold. Same passage of time for all of them...
Great note, Mary Ellen. Please post again when you finish.I loved your last lines: "Rhea and Sasha grow. Most of these folks just mold. Same passage of time for all of them..."
I also look on "time" as the goon; I think there's even a reference in the novel to that effect, but I didn't underline it, so maybe it's lost forever to me! Like all of the characters' "periods of youthful experimentation": lost forever. One of the more poignant aspects of the novel that hasn't been mentioned here are the two brother/sister relationships (Rolph and Charlene, ch.4) and Stephanie and Jules (ch 7 , and also ch 9 for Jules account of events); and though not siblings, sacha's "sisterly" protectiveness of Rob (ch. 10). Scotty's character was also fragile and flawed, and lost.Mary Ellen said: "Had they invested themselves more in developing meaningful relationships and improving the lives of other people, and less in drinking, drugging, cheating and lying, they would not hit middle age isolated, wasted, lamenting the betrayal wrought by their own bodies."
I certainly respect your reaction, but as it is, I have to say that for me, morality and value judgements don't come into the picture when I read fiction; the characters' weaknesses are part of the complexity which makes them human (like Sacha's neurotic kleptomainia, etc.) and ultimately more interesting.
Andrea, you're right. There are a few mentions that time is the goon. Bosco, the former guitarist for the Conduits, says it to Jules, "Time's a goon, right? Isn't that the expression?" When I read it first, I felt that time really implied death, but I think those who see it differently are right. It's not the dying, it's the living as an old person (whether infirm, replaced, lonely, no longer at one's peak) that is hard for the characters in this book.Bosco is the one who doesn't want to fade away, he wants to flame away, and plans to have Jules write about it. Of course, then Bosco actually recovers and begins again.
I just picked up a wonderful collection of essays by Colm Toibin called New Ways to Kill Your Mother, Writers and their Families. It's only slightly about their actual families, more about the families they create in their fiction and the uses to which various family members are put in fiction.
I often read fiction to find out how to live my life, or how not to. Toibin would take issue with that. He writes. "The novel is not a moral fable or a tale from the Bible...it is not our job to like or dislike characters in fiction, or make judgments on their worth, or learn from them how to live (okay...) We can do that with real people, and if we like, figures from history...A novel is a pattern and it is our job to relish and see clearly its textures and its tones, to notice how the textures were woven and the tones put into place. He goes on to give examples in Austen's Mansfield Park. He's describing the way the Fanny's mother and mother figures. All of them are flawed and Toibin argues that this gives Fanny an autonomy that she couldn't have if the pattern were different.
So, thinking about the characters in Goon Squad that way, how do they set each other up, or allow each other to become individuals. Sasha is pivotal for many of the characters. So is Bennie. How do their relationships with each other create tension or allow a character to grow?
I'm not very far into Toibin's work but it affects how I'm thinking about Goon Squad. Families are important in this book too. I like what Andrea says about brothers and sisters. But there are also parents and children. Lou's relationship with Charlie and Rolphe is a good example. And that's a contrast with Sasha and Drew's relationship with their children, Alison and Linc.
So, these characters rarely are guides as to how to be in this world, but they do create many ways in which to think about relationship and how people become themselves in this generation. What do you think?
I think there is a lot of value in what Toibin says, Jane, but it is a analytical type of approach that you might undertake if you were reading this book for a class. I think we can learn a lot from it. But if the characters don't come alive for me and become "real," then I don't care much about the structure or the use of one character to set off another. I believe I can empathize with characters who are very different from me as well as those who are similar, but I will always "like" and "dislike" some of the characters in a book.Now that I've gotten that out of the way :-), I was very interested in the Bennie/Stephanie relationship. Bennie had such a horror of humiliation that he couldn't stand the thought that their "friends" looked down on him because of his ethnicity. He thought he got back at the husband of Stepahnie's good friend by sleeping with the friend. Well, that's one way to retaliate for humiliation, but it's also a good way to ruin your life. Stephanie was a likable character who had gone through some wild times with Bennie, but then matured and become a very solid wife. The way that Stephanie was drawn set off Bennie's betrayal very sharply. I don't think he grew in this story. Things just went downhill.
Sometimes very simple ideas are the most profound. Pauses. What would language or music be without the pause? It would be incoherent. In art, "negative space" is what allows the subject to be coherent. The pause, correctly used, builds tension, drama. I began to think of Egan's book as a series of actions with pauses around them. You could graph this book much the same way that Linc's dad graphed his rock'n roll pauses.
"I began to think of Egan's book as a series of actions with pauses around them."Very insightful, Sherry.
I understand pauses in writing and music, but can you please explain what "negative space" is in art?
Ann wrote: ""I began to think of Egan's book as a series of actions with pauses around them."Very insightful, Sherry.
I understand pauses in writing and music, but can you please explain what "negative sp..."
Ruth might be better able to describe it, but I'll give it a go. It's the space in a picture that is not the subject. Go here:
http://blog.graphient.com/2009/05/
That's basically it, Sherry. Pretend you're cutting out paper dolls. The doll is the positive, the paper that's left is the negative, and it's a shape just as much as the positive is a shape. Two shapes, dependent on each other.
Thanks Sherry and Ruth for very concrete examples.T.J, it's never to late to join the discussion when you finally get to it.
Ann wrote: I understand pauses in writing and music, but can you please explain what "negative space" is in art?"
I hadn’t thought of these in years. A drawing teacher piled stools and easels onto a table and had us draw the negative space around them. I took pictures of the ones I did & tried to figure out how to post them here but I can't remember how to do it. I posted them on facebook and I'll see if these links work.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
Janet wrote: "I hadn’t thought of these in years. A drawing teacher piled stools and easels on..."I used to give my drawing students the very same exercise, Janet. You did well.
In addition, I would have them fill in the negative space with watercolor or ink, using patterns or another drawing completely. They were usually some of the most successful drawings each semester.
I love this idea and the sketches that followed. Yes, I think the silences and the pauses are important right from the start. Thanks for posting, Ruth, Janet and Ann.
Here's a journal the author kept while The Invisible Circus was being previewed at Sundance. Many of the same themes that occur in Goon Squad are present here.http://www.slate.com/articles/arts_an...
My flower design instructor talks about negative space, often in the context that the air is free, and you can use the negative space as part of the design, and thus use fewer flowers, and create a bigger impact.
Ruth wrote: "Janet wrote: "I hadn’t thought of these in years. A drawing teacher piled stools and easels on..."I used to give my drawing students the very same exercise, Janet. You did well.
In addition, I ..."
Thanks, Ruth. Sorry I didn't have much input on the book itself but at least I was able to provide a little visual clarification about the phrase "negative space" for those who are unfamiliar with it.
Interesting to read everyone's thoughts on the pauses. In the powerpoint chapter, Sasha talks about how the pauses are where you think the song it going to end, but it doesn't (although it eventually must). Some of the characters' lives were this way -- they hit a downturn where it seems like that's it for them (Sasha in Naples, Bennie with the end of his marriage) but then a new chapter comes along in their lives. Whereas for characters like Rob the song really does end.One thing I loved about this book was that it delved into how multi-faceted people are. One aspect of this is that each character shows different sides to different people -- Lou is a creepy skirt chaser from one point of view, but Bennie sees him as a mentor, and Rolph looks up to him as a father. Another aspect is that most of the characters have some degree of a secret life, no matter how well others know them (Sasha's time in Naples, Bennie's anxieties that he doesn't share with his wife).
I also think it was interesting the way my impression of a character shifted when I was exposed to differing viewpoints of that character. Bennie seemed ridiculous from Sasha's point of view (eating gold, spraying Off in his armpits). Then from Rhea's point of view you could see his drive and talent. And when I could see things from Bennie's point of view, he was still somewhat ridiculous but I also had sympathy for his anxieties.
Good points, Greer, about the pauses in life and the way we see different facets of the characters in the different stories.Bennie really did seem ridiculous in that first story. Have you ever know anyone whose mind insisted on replaying something humiliating in their life? I went through a phase of that - although, thankfully, mine was nowhere near as humiliating as Bennie's behavior. :-)
I think that's why I could sympathize with Bennie after reading the chapter from his point of view -- we've all probably had the experience of playing a humiliating incident or incidents over in our minds...
Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
The Stranger's Child (other topics)Catch-22 (other topics)
This is the site. It adds characters as they occur chronologically in the book and shows connections between these characters. Just scroll on the page number and you can go to the beginning of the book,
http://www.filosophy.org/projects/goo..