[DFY]∎ Read Lucky Alan And Other Stories Jonathan Lethem Books

Lucky Alan And Other Stories Jonathan Lethem Books

Download As PDF : Lucky Alan And Other Stories Jonathan Lethem Books

Lucky Alan And Other Stories Jonathan Lethem Books

Lethem is always worth a look. When he is good, he is very good. It's a rare short storiy collection that doesn't include a few lesser pieces, but that shouldn't rule against it. I bought two copies of this one; so there you go.


Tags : Amazon.com: Lucky Alan: And Other Stories (9780385539814): Jonathan Lethem: Books,Jonathan Lethem,Lucky Alan: And Other Stories,Doubleday,0385539819,Short stories, American,Short stories.,AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION,American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Fiction Magical Realism,Fiction Short Stories (single author),Fiction-Short Stories (single author),FictionLiterary,FictionMagical Realism,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Magical Realism,Short Stories (single author),Short stories,United States

Lucky Alan And Other Stories Jonathan Lethem Books Reviews

This short book contains nine stories of rather under 20 pages each. All are clever, and will probably delight anyone for whom an off-beat surreal sense of the absurd is the main criterion; there is a distinct whiff of Kafka. But there is little here for those of us to look to stories for a concise expression of the human condition. The one piece that came close to this was the last, about a man in a midlife crisis who goes with his wife and young twin daughters to SeaWorld; the title, "Pending Vegan," is typical of Lethem's cleverness, but the sense of feeling adrift in a changing world is painfully real. Also somewhat real is the opening title story, "Lucky Alan," about an out-of-work actor and a once-avant-garde theater director in Manhattan; again this sense of drifting, but the actual story touches these two only obliquely, being about a third character whom we never see.

In between these bookends come the other seven. "The King of Sentences," about a couple who read books only to extract the sentences they contain, has an absurd ending that perfectly skewers their piecemeal approach to reading, but says nothing about them as people. "Traveler Home" is a rather touching fable about a man who is brought a gift by wolves on a snowy night. "Procedure in Plain Air" features another man in midlife crisis, who gets roped into some very peculiar roadwork outside his local Starbucks. "Their Back Pages" is a kind of desert island story featuring characters from a disparate collection of comics

-- In first class, the Dingbat Clan. Father Theophobe Dingbat, mother Keener Dingbat, son Spark Dingbat, daughter Lisa Dingbat. In coach, Large Silly (a clown), Poacher Junebug (a hunter), C. Phelphs Northrup (a theater critic), Murkly Finger (a villain), Peter Rabbit (a rabbit), King Phnudge (King of the Phnudges), C'Krrran (a monster).

"The Porn Critic" features a clerk in a sex shop, who manages to catalog the entire merchandise while retaining his own innocence. "The Empty Room," as its name suggests, is about parents who insist on keeping one room in their new house entirely empty of furniture or other objects. This absurd device nonetheless actually manages to say something true about family dynamics, but it is followed by "The Dreaming Ear, the Salivating Jaw," whose surrealism I found totally incomprehensible.

Summary a lot of smart ideas, often about literature itself or other modern media. Some affecting sidelights on men of middle age on the sidewalks of life (but such an overworked subject). And perhaps three of four moments that sparked a glimmer of sympathetic recognition. But not enough for me. Clever, but no cigar.
While the author is most definitely a wordsmith, I only liked two of this collection of nine. The first story, the titular Lucky Alan examines a New York City bon vivant as he interacts with his neighbors and the narrator. The final story, Pending Vegan, deal with a man's devolution at a thankless family outing to Sea World. The remainder ranged from the truly painful King of Sentences and the distasteful Porn Critic. I found the writing a bit pretentious, underscoring how very smart and witty they were. the rest of the stories failed to inspire or excite. While not the worst anthology I've read, it was overall, a disappointment.
Like others, I generally liked the collection, though my reaction was mixed. The first story, "Lucky Alan," is very interesting. You really get into the first-person character's head, and his portrayal of Upper West Side NY is right on the money. I don't quite "get" part of the ending, but that's okay.

Another first-person story, "The Empty Room," in which a young man looks back on the strangeness and downward spiral of his parents (father especially) also is evocative of a life and a time and a place. It carries a whiff of unrealism, with the man's girlfriend a little more frank about sex, drugs and nudity than you'd find in all but the most outlandish person. But it's solid.

I really liked the one about a young man who's mistaken by his nerdy friends as the wild one, and how that goes awry. And the one about a father taking his kids to Sea World is memorable in its way, too; unlike many of the stories, it ends on a hopeful note.

A couple of stories are quite experimental. One has non-human characters who are speaking non-human words, but are living among humans. Because it's done in dispatches kind of like a diary, it works reasonably well because different people and non-people interact. Another story is all fragments and glimpses. There probably aren't a half-dozen sentences in that one that are more than four words.

The writing is elegant in these stories, and it changes with characters and from one story to another. There's humor, both regular and dark. And there are interesting, humorous observations, such as the father's feeling on the trip to Sea World that moving through the park is like being eaten, digested and excreted by a large sea animal. Same with the way the narrator of the first story describes how people treat each other in New York seeing each other and making a nodding gesture of familiarity, but only rarely getting to know each other, and then when they do get to know each other being the subject of gossip.

Overall, a good quick read, but with more than enough to make you read slowly and think.
Not recommended
Actually don't remember too much of it, but I remember it was enjoyable to read, so...
Pretentious, obnoxious, pointless, boring. Truly one of the worst books I've picked up in a long while. I rarely put down a book in the middle -- in this case, I stopped reading in the middle of one of the short stories. Lethem took "offbeat" and ran with it -- but without a map.
Although the collection has a few "throw-aways", the majority of the stories are pure Lethem genius. His vast knowledge of humanity here translates into many moving and heart-rending moments. Four stars only because of the two experimental stories. Five stars for the balance.
Lethem is always worth a look. When he is good, he is very good. It's a rare short storiy collection that doesn't include a few lesser pieces, but that shouldn't rule against it. I bought two copies of this one; so there you go.