Reviewed by Patrick McAllaster
November 15, 2009
Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem, Doubleday
The What-Lethem envisions a Manhattan in a world that is probably a very close-by alternate universe; made up of neutered newspapers, a rampant tiger, constant snowfall, apartments inhabited by dogs, nesting eagles, perilous urban art installments–none of which strikes the ennui-steeped and pot-fogged characters as too terribly real or all that important.
The Players-An oddball coterie that might only exist in Manhattan, be it an alternate reality or the one we know. Chase Insteadman, the narrator, is a former child star living off residual checks, and pining for his astronaut girlfriend who is stranded in a listing space station trapped by Chinese space mines. Perkus Tooth is a deposed social/media/rock critic famous for “broadsides” slathered about town, now living by the grace of others and hacking out liner notes for obscure Criterion Collection releases. Richard Abneg, a blustery and bearded one-time radical now assimilated by the municipal army the billionaire mayor employs.
Read This!-Lethem, with Pynchonesque verve, leads his characters through a ridiculous world in which the only defense is to smoke pot, eat burgers, and bid on fantastic pottery. Littered with pop-culture references and salient dialogue, Chronic City is the perfect reflection of our digressive times.
Maybe not…-The story lacks any particular impact. To suggest that is part of the point, that we move on from Airborne Toxic Events, to rampant tigers, to dying astronauts, to cataclysmic weather, and so on with a bemused sigh doesn’t absolve the writer of any obligation to make us care about any of the characters–they are in such rarified air, doing precious little work (it seems) and yet manage to live and play in Manhattan–or put them in any real danger, be it physical or spiritual.
Well?-Chronic City is a spiritual successor to DeLillo’s White Noise. One that fails to sufficiently convey a sense of doom. The characters are not relatable and the milieu, for all it’s similarities, is too distant, too arch. One gets the feeling that because Chronic City is a story of Manhattan, it is a story for Manhattan.
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Patrick McAllaster is the Editor-In-Chief of Emprise Review
