okay, this is a quickie given that i should be in bed so that i may wake up in time for my 9:30 a.m. class tomorrow morning, or later in the day today.

i liked MB. i can't even really say why i liked it. i was interested in reading it because i'd read a few of the short stories in JL's MEN AND CARTOONS and i liked the subtle humor and plot twists in them.

when i started reading MB, it was exciting. it was a little surprising that it started out with the steakout and then it switched to Lionel's teenagehood. somewhere along the story, it got slow for me and i was reading it because i was forcing myself to read it, but at the same time i wasn't. like mary, i was more interested about the process that Lionel went through in finding Mina's killer than who the real killer was. and how can i forget? i was VERY interested in finding more about Jerry...at least i think that was mina's brother's name. see, when i tried reading this the second time around, i couldn't quite go through with it. i'm not sure why, but it just dragged.

anyway, another element that i loved was the use of Zen in the novel. i especially liked how Zen seemed to sort of ease Lionel.

something that i loved about MB was Lionel's word ticks. i really liked how a word would turn into another turn into another and then another, like those games you sometimes play where you start with one word and you have to change one letter at a time, forming a different word, until all the letters are completely different and you have a completely different word.

i really liked this book, but i'm not sure why. i'll come back later to address the questions above.

--a friend of mine who read MB felt like Lionel was faking his tourette's.--

ana | September 26, 2006 12:30 AM

I found this book really funny . . . laugh out loud funny. I guess it's because I really love words and word play. I loved the way Lionel would blurt out seeming non-sequeters, but if you really looked at them, you could see the connections. I think Letham's use of tourette's syndrome idiosyncracies was really brilliant. It enabled him to put a really unique spin on the detective novel.

You asked if anything really surprised me in the novel. The hookup with Kimmery surprised me, although I don't know why . . . it's pretty typical to have a "love interest" (if you will) in a detective novel. I guess maybe it was because of the way they met. She seemed so serious and intent on trying to do the zen thing that I guess I would have thought she was celebate.

It surprised me that it was Minna's brother who was running the zendo and had Minna killed. I guess I was expecting a connection to "Garden State Bricco and Stuckface" (Matricardi and Rockaforte) because they were such obvious "bad guys."

I think probably anyone who has spent any time on mass trasit in a city has encountered the "invisible man" you talked about. I guess I feel that people react (or should I say don't react) to that kind of behavior is because it makes us uncomfortable. It's "abnormal", so we don't want to acknowledge it. That's really kind of sad in a way, but that's what I think.

I never really felt the imposition of the author in the narrative. I agree that it was almost like an internal dialog at times. But remember the part where Lionel says he "relate(s) everything to my Tourette's"? He talks about how it creates a "meta-Tourettes" (I'm sorry, I can't find the page right now). That's what makes the character so rich I think, and thus raises the book to a higher level than the usual detective novel.

The detective story was not what I focused on as I read the book. In general I prefer books that are character driven to ones that are driven by plot or setting, etc., so I enjoyed this book tremendously because the characters were interesting. I cared what happened to Lionel. He was a sympathetic character. Minna was interesting at times too (I especially liked that part where Minna said he liked big-chested women because "a woman has to have a certain amount of muffling . . . otherwise, you're right up against her naked soul."

Kind of an interesting thing for a man like Minna to say. A man who completely made over his wife, if we believe what Julia says towards the end of the novel. If what she says is true, Minna doesn't seem like a man who would even consider a woman's naked soul.

You know how Minna (and all the other guys in the group) call him "freak show"? It's as if because Lionel acts strangely, they think he is stupid . . . and he's anything but. It is Lionel who solves the case of who killed Minna, and it's because he is the smartest of the guys from St. Vincent's.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the dialog between Lionel and the cop. I was reading that late at night in bed and laughing hard enough that I woke my husband up.

Now please allow me to throw in a question. The title of the book . . . Motherless Brooklyn. I understand the Motherless part, since all the guys came from St Vincent's (and even how Minna's mother acted toward him). But why Motherless Brooklyn? Surely there is more reason for this than merely the setting of the book, and I'm not sure what that more is.

char | September 26, 2006 3:07 AM

i've finally found some time to sit here and write down some ideas:

--i expected MB to be funnier. i think that i became too engrossed with lionel and what was going on with him that some of the obvious humor went over my head, although i did think that the dialogue that Char mentions between lionel and the cop were funny. i wish there would've been more interaction between both of them. their conversations really drew me in.

--i think that anyone who rides public transportation (which i do a lot of) has witnessed the "invisible man." from my experience, i think that it's not that people ignore this person completely, well some really do. from my part, i tend to acknowledge this person. i don't ignore them. i just treat them like i would any other train rider--no need to look at them unless i were to address them for whatever reason. but i do think that in those times when we make this person invisible, it is because we feel that if we give them any attention, then we acknowledge that they aren't "normal" and that would be worse than if we completely ignored them.

ana | September 27, 2006 6:30 PM

lionel's tourette's didn't bother me. unlike the friend that i mentioned, i never felt that it was fake, but i did go into the book thinking that tourette's was much more intense than lionel. as far as hearing lethem's voice, i'm not sure. it's kinda hard to tell because lethem's stories range widely in terms to charaacters and stories.

lionel's hookup with kimmery was something to look forward to. i didn't expect her to be the kind of girl that she turned out to be, much less get back with her boyfriend at the end. kimmery had the same effect on lionel that zen did. at one point i thought that she would hop along with lionel and get involved in the investigation.

i wasn't surprised that jerry (?) had minna killed. i have to mention this, everytime jerry came up in the story, i kept having steven segal flashbacks! lol

other than lionel, i felt a lot of sympathy towards coney. i think that he was the only one that connected with and understood lionel.

oh, another point. it was interesting that the cop always treated lionel like a regular guy, like his tourette's was fake. i wonder why he thought that.

so...is edward norton playing lionel? i don't think he fits his description...and besides, i can't see norton in anything else other than fight club...he's typecast in my brain.

ana | September 27, 2006 6:40 PM

Very quickly...

I had nearly the same reaction as Ana during my second attempt at reading MB. The first time, I really enjoyed it. When I tried to reread it for this discussion, though, it dragged. Really dragged. And again like Ana, I didn't manage to finish it the second time. My suspicion is that it was new and interesting the first time. If the mystery had been more engrossing, I might have made it through the second read.

Char mentioned Lionel and Kimmery's hookup, which I thought was a surprise and also not a surprise. True, it's common to find a love interest in a detective story. But I didn't think Lionel would get any simply because of his Tourette's. Maybe that idea shows me to be a bigoted, shallow person, but I taught special ed last year and saw a lot of heartache for those kids. Then again, Kimmery's interest in Lionel wasn't surprising considering that she's all into the Zen thing. I'd expect someone like her to be attracted to things that are outside the norm.

The Lionel/Kimmery affair is a good example of one of the times I heard Lethem's voice in the book. When she reaches into his pants, she makes a comment about his size. Isn't that just like a man? In my experience, I've never been so overwhelmed by a lover's manliness that I felt compelled to say something about it. (Well, maybe one time, but I kept the shock to myself.) As a matter of fact, more than once I've had to say something like, "Your penis is fine," in order to provide reassurance and soothe feelings of inadequacy. Thank you, Lethem, for letting us know that your main character is hung like a crushed beer can.

As for Char's question about the title, it was clear to me that Lionel and Frank (and probably also Lethem) have special feelings about Brooklyn. I had wanted to comment on it in my original post, but I ran out of time to write. Throughout the book, Lionel talks as if it were another character when he describes its neighborhoods and streets and denizens. I used to work in Brooklyn and have seen some of the things he mentions, but I wonder if someone who's never been there can relate.

marydell | September 27, 2006 10:11 PM

Oh, I almost forgot Ed Norton. Although there isn't a lot of information about the movie on IMDB yet, I had to mention it. He will be playing Lionel and it seems like MB is a pet project for him since he's doing everything except hold the camera. Did you see Primal Fear? I bet Norton will really bring Lionel to life.

marydell | September 27, 2006 10:17 PM

i didn't pay attention to that detail when Kimmery makes a comment about lionel's size. i agree, i think men are very self conscious about that, in the same manner that we are with our breasts and our butts.

i wasn't sure either about the meaning behind the Brooklyn. mary, your explanation is fine for me--fills my curiousity.

i was just looking over some of my notes and i realized that i only jotted down 4 since i started taking notes the second time around...you can imagine why i didn't have more than 4 notes...anyway, i jotted down the question, "is MB about a man with tourette's, emphasizing the tourette's, or is it about LIonel becoming someone of his own?" what that means, i'm not sure. but at the end of it, i continued with, "his tourette's serves as a catalyst." i think what i meant was that i felt like his tourette's was the catalyst that allowed lionel to become his own person for once.

i don't know if that makes any sense.

so what about the rama-lama-ding-dong?

ana | September 28, 2006 2:25 PM

I think the main thing about the book was Lionel coming into his own . . . becoming his own man. And what does that mean? I guess I think it means accepting oneself . . . shortcomings and all. And I think he did that by the end. Imagine growing up like that . . . you're an orphan (I could see myself doing what he did - calling people with his last name and then not saying anything - when I was a girl, if I had been an orphan). You have tourettes which calls everyone's attention to you (as a kid, that's the last thing I would have wanted). The people that are closest to you call you "freakshow". That's pretty tough. I wouldn't call this a "coming of age" story, but Lionel learning self acceptance was certainly a central theme, I think. And the tourette's syndrome was certainly a catalyst for that.

And the rama-lama-ding-dong? Did Julia continue her affair with Jerry after she married Minna? I don't know . . . that's what I thought it meant.

And it makes sense to me what you said, Mary, about Brookly being like another character in the novel. When I read that post, it rang true for me.

char | September 28, 2006 10:15 PM

Oh, and I forgot . . . Mary, I guess that was why it surprised me that Kimmery and Lionel hooked up. Like you, I guess I didn't think Lionel would "get any" because of his tourette's. Nobody took Lionel seriously for the greater part of this book, and that was also because of his tourette's. I don't think that was at all bigotted to say . . . I think it's realistic. It's sad . . . but realistic.

And you know how when they were together having sex, it calmed his tourette's? I saw something on tv once about a surgeon who had tourette's. He had constant physical tics . . . except when he was performing surgery. His level of concentration was so high when he was operating that he wouldn't tic, but as soon as he was done, he would start all the stuff like Lionel's shoulder touching, etc.

char | September 28, 2006 10:22 PM

I agree that the book is mainly about Lionel coming into his own, but I’m not convinced that his Tourette’s is the catalyst. Instead, I’m leaning more toward Frank’s murder. Frank is responsible for getting Lionel out of the orphanage’s library and for turning him into a Minna Man. Lionel’s Tourette’s helped since Frank liked having him around during meetings because of the way his tics unnerved the clients. It also helped by making everyone assume he was stupid. But, Frank was the one who made him part of a crew and it was Frank’s death that forced Lionel to become his own man.

“When the younger brother and the girl were away from the retreat center they’d refer to the older brother as ‘Rama-lama-ding-dong.’ Before too long they even began to call him that to his face” (p. 289). It’s a nickname and an insult. Early on, when Gerard mentions Frank losing control and missing her rama-lama-ding-dong, I think he was simply talking about himself in the third person and referring to the old insult since he knew Frank was about to be killed.

marydell | October 2, 2006 10:42 AM

okay, yea, that makes more sense that what i proposed, about the catalyst being frank.

ana | October 2, 2006 10:02 PM