October 23-29, 2003

books

New York Stories

Two writers take on the big city in books that are all surface, no substance.

by Andrew Ervin

Every page of Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude bears the mark of Satan, or at least of his current earthly incarnation: Popular Culture. Ostensibly a meditation on race relations in Brooklyn (like we need another of those) it reads more like the literary equivalent of a cheesy ’70s costume party. The two main characters are named Dylan and Mingus. Get it? Mingus and Dylan. One’s black, one’s white. Real subtle. ’Mingus Rude was a scant four months older than Dylan Ebdus, but those four months hit the calendar such that Mingus was a grade ahead, had finished fifth grade in Manayunk, Pennsylvania.’ Somebody should tell Lethem that Manayunk is not part of the "Philadelphia suburbs" and hasn’t been since 1854 or so when the city annexed those beloved Schuylkill-side hills. A petty detail? Maybe. Yet this lapse is indicative of the author’s reliance on appearance over substance.

We're made to watch these boys navigate the twists and turns of growing up in broken families. Even if the Mingus clan does sound out the funk in dysfunctional, their goings-on feel like little more than excuses for Lethem to steer us to the next reference to a Richard Pryor movie or Bootsy Collins record. The cultural placeholders Lethem uses to mark the passage of time do make for a fun read, and when the story fast-forwards to the boys' adulthood it becomes clear how both have become enslaved to the vast media empire around them. But though the prose is often startling in its ability to evoke subtleties of emotional distance between Dylan and Mingus, those evocations never accumulate into something substantial. As a result, Lethem comes across as a rich man's Don DeLillo. He even invites a comparison to the Don's oeuvre by naming his first, 292-page section Underberg. Unlike in Underworld, another novel of recent history served with a man-sized helping of pop culture, the characters in Fortress of Solitude tend to inform the culture around them rather than vice versa. The novel feels less exhaustively researched than exhaustive.

Here’s the problem: Jonathan Lethem is a great fuckin’ writer. I hate to be hard on the man, but it’s frustrating to witness an author of his unquestionable abilities resort to repackaged, T.G.I. Friday’s-style pseudo-nostalgia. He has crafted yet another blindingly beautiful novel, but at some point I hope he learns that beauty isn’t always enough.

And Colson Whitehead? Don’t get me started. What happened to this guy?

There are few writers out there -- especially in my own age bracket -- of whom I can be called a fan, but Whitehead's first two novels kick ass. The Intuitionist and John Henry Days participate in, diverge from and most impressively contribute to several different African-American aesthetics, most notably those of Reed and Wright; they feel grounded in tradition but not bound to it, respectful without resorting to brown-nosing. These are novels that don't take any shit. But a sizable MacArthur genius grant only appears to have burdened Whitehead with the status of literature's Great Black Hope.

In The Colossus of New York, his first volume of nonfiction, Whitehead struggles to find meaning in the world around him, and like Lethem he does little more than gloss over any real experience of the city in favor of tapping into some perceived, pre-9/11 innocence. Thirteen short love letters, like "Central Park," "Coney Island" and "Rain," reflect the author’s personal experiences of New York City, and at times they achieve the level of prose poetry, such as in "Brooklyn Bridge": "Let’s pause a sec to be cowed by this magnificent skyline. So many arrogant edifices, it’s like walking into a jerk festival. Maybe you recognize it from posters and television. Looks like a movie set, a false front of industry." Despite the often lush language, this is as close as we get to the city under discussion; anyone could have written this book. Our lasting impression of The Colossus of New York, sadly, is no impression at all.

The Fortress of Solitude

By Jonathan Lethem Doubleday, 511 pp., $26

The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Parts

By Colson Whitehead Doubleday, 158 pp., $19.95