dozzura

Yeah, so I've decided that there's a genre that encompasses fiction occurring primarily in the city of Los Angeles. I'm not sure that I like it, I'm not even sure that the hollowness with which it rings is the hollow tone of LA or the sound of not very well realized fiction. I've been to LA a couple of times and each time I left, I left with the same sense that this book left me with. Like I'd awakened from some not very interesting dream in which I hung out with a whole bunch of unarticulated people for entirely too long. Maybe that's the point--or maybe it's just bad fiction, I don't know. But I don't really care to figure it out, and that's sort of the problem with the book. The other problem is that this is the second time I've read a love story (of sorts) involving (1) a mature older man and an adrift younger woman (2) in LA (3) written by an older man (4) in the voice of the younger girl (5) that ends in disillusionment. Steve Martin did it in Shopgirl and I hate to say it, especially because I think Lethem is fucking amazing, but I think Martin did it better. It's slight and entertaining but certainly not memorable. (3/5)

2022-11-14 16:33