Motherless Brooklyn

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In "Motherless Brooklyn," Jonathan Lethem melds several genres, among them the bildungsroman, psychological novel, literary parody--all in the occasionally transparent framework of a detective story. The most famous aspect of the book is its hero's Tourette syndrome (the influence of Oliver Sacks's work is quite apparent), but the neurological condition itself takes on a life of its own, simultaneously moving and comic--and an opportunity for Lethem to indulge in some freakishly inventive wordplay that owes as much to James Joyce as to Mad magazine and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.The opening scene is on a par with the best of pulp fiction. Eating White Castle sliders daintily arrayed in a row of six (a compulsive aspect of his neurosis), Lionel Essrog stakes out an Upper East Side Zen studio with his associate Gilbert Coney, with the two of them standing guard as their boss Frank Minna is inside, wired for sound and exchanging cryptic arguments with some unknown heavy. It's at this point that everything goes wrong, and the ensuing chase scene through Queens and murder in Brooklyn provide one of the novel's highlights.Lionel and Gilbert are just two of the four orphans hired (adopted, really) by Minna for a detective agency masquerading as a car service. (One of the recurrent gags is the group's supply of creative explanations to prospective customers for the lack of cars.) As a Minna Man, Lionel finds a father figure and a family where his Tourette's is not ignored but nevertheless accepted; Tony's pet name for him, "the free human freak show," serves more as a term of endearment than as a slur and indicates Minna's moderately disguised understanding that Lionel is the savviest of the bunch (Minna's estranged wife tells Lionel the reason Minna finds him useful is because everyone thought he was "stupid").It's the interplay of the characters and Lionel's bumbling entry into adulthood that provide most of the novel's interest. As for the noir-inspired plot: there's hardly a cliche that Lethem doesn't send up--Italian mobsters and an evil corporation, the intrusively clueless police officer and a traitorous colleague, a sequence of red-herring clues and an offstage murder. ("Have you ever felt, in the course of reading a detective novel, a guilty thrill of having a character murdered before he can step onto the page and burden you with his actual existence? Detective stories have too many characters anyway.")Yet the crime story itself never lives up the dizzying pursuit of the opening scene, and Lethem faces the difficulty of writing a parody of authors who themselves wrote masterful parodies (e.g., "The Thin Man," "The High Window"). Instead, the potboiler elements play shotgun both to Lethem's neurological-intellectual wordplay and to the emotional growth of his lead character. Lethem's novel has "too many characters anyway," and he resists the temptation to let the mystery gum up the works.That's not necessarily a bad thing--unless you're expecting an old-fashioned whodunit or keystone caper. But Lethem's novel is less a whodunit than a howdunit--or, in this case, how the author does it: creating an affecting protagonist whose tongue twitches with the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist.

I read this book because I saw the 2019 movie starring the super talented Edward Norton, Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Bobby Cannavale, Willem Dafoe … You get the idea, it’s an amazing cast! I love classic gumshoe detective stories. Additionally, Tourette’s Syndrome is not a typical characteristic of a lead actor in a Hollywood movie, particularly when that movie is not solely about that illness, but merely a defining feature of the main character.When I read the book, I was quite startled at the stark differences in the book and the movie. Lionel is a detective and an orphan who works for low-level, charismatic Frank Minna along with three other orphans from St. Vincent’s Home for Boys. Frank is murdered, and Frank’s widow skips town to unknown destinations quickly after Frank’s death. Lionel is set on solving Frank’s murder. That is where the story similarities end. (I am going to focus on the book from here.)The book was written in 1999 and is set in that present day. The book delves deeply into Lionel’s childhood, giving us deeper understanding of Lionel’s Tourette’s and compulsions. It also makes Lionel a more lonely and alienated man living in a society that does not understand him and consistently underestimates him.As the story unfolds, tension grows between Lionel and the other member’s of “Frank’s Boys”. Lionel doesn’t trust anyone but himself, and he sets about to solve this murder on his own. The investigation takes him throughout New York, and puts him in the position Frank shielded him from: interacting with people and exposing his tics.The story is well paced and exciting. Lionel is a whip-smart and engaging hero made sympathetic by the compulsions beyond his control. Readers feel his loneliness and isolation, which makes us eager to see him succeed in his quest, as though that victory will give him some relief from that solitude.I loved this story. I loved the characters, the tension and New York in the late 90s. It was not at all what I expected, but everything I wanted from a true detective novel.

Tre stelle solo perché l'ordine è arrivato in ritardo di un giorno. Per il resto il libro è in eccellente stato anche se usato. Sembra nuovo

This book took rather a long time to arrive and seems to have been borrowed from a public lending library. Apart from that I have started reding it and with I guess everything by Jonathan Letham you start having your sense or reality warped.

A fantastic detective story from the perspective of someone whose inability to control physical and verbal tics means he is under estimated. Lionel's verbal tics particularly provide a jazz like rif to the story. The story is both dramatic and humorous, I laughed out loud a few times. A worthy Gold Dagger winner

主人公は、トゥーレット症候群を患う孤児院出身の青年で、孤児院時代から繋がりのあるボスのもと、ブルックリンで、表向きは配車サービスを、実際には少々いかがわしい探偵業に従事している。そのボスが、主人公の目の前で拉致され、殺されてしまったことから、彼は独自に捜査に乗り出し、事件の秘密、ボスの過去の秘密に迫っていく。殺人事件はストーリーの最初の方に起こるが、その後は過去に遡り、主人公とボスの関係の説明にページが割かれるため、テンポが遅くじれったい。終盤では大きく話が展開し（日本人や座禅道場も出てくる）、結末も意外性があって面白いが、前半が丁寧に書かれている割には、事件解決の中心となる後半はかなり急いでいる感じで、サスペンスとしては何かバランスが悪く、物足りない。ところで、トゥーレット症候群では、本人の意思に関わらず、あらぬ言葉が次々に飛び出してしまうのだが、たびたび出てくるこういう状況を笑うわけにもいかず、読者はどう対応すればよいのか判断に苦しむ。英語は、スラングも多く、かなり難しい。

Scoperto ascoltando l'episodio del Tim Ferris Show con Edward Norton. Consiglio.