"Our language has no choice but to be self-conscious if it is to be conscious in the first place."

Hit and miss. Keen glances at paradoxes of art, artist, and audience, and at memory-nostalgia. Skimmed the last few sections as the voice and I grew weary, lacking focus or relevance to each other. ( )

Lethem states in the beginning that often readers get irritated by the self awareness of modern writing. The endless MFA analysing and theorizing about literature is why I didn't major in English lit. While a little navel gazing isn't out of place when reading, the whole "postmodernism" - analysis of analysis of analysis of uber self awareness - the insertion of the author's narcissistic tendencies into the book, if you will - makes me want to spork myself in the eye. Anyway, a couple of good things in here, pop culture riff, the used bookshop, the bit on plaigarism. As much as I like Lethem, this made me go, "Quit rambling and get *on with it". Lethem even mentions the king of observing self referential minutia - Klosterman. Except? Klosterman still makes it interesting, Lethem not so much. I know. I'm a philistine. Eh bien. Minor reference to my alma mater. Memo to Lethem: The Fluttering Duck isn't a "coffeehouse". It's a bar. ( )

I like books like this, the sort you might term 'lapidarium', or collected essays. However, I thought Lethem's to be a touch to hit-or-miss; some of his writing, especially on his early career as a clerk in a used books shop, is excellent - enthralling, even - but for somebody who has little interest in music journalism, a lot was skippable. ( )

Picked this up just to keep the high going after PKD's Exegesis but he had me with the first line of the first essay, "I came from dropping out; the only thing I knew at the start was to quit before they could fire me."

He's not afraid to leave the slapdash bad ones in here and address that, yes, sometimes there are bad ones and (even better) sometimes you have to leave them in there to fulfill a contractual agreement you signed before you knew better. Yes, sometimes we don't know better. It's brave and unpretentious.

His relationship to SF fandom is fascinating and it informs his appreciation of his fans now. I love it because he and I seem to be walking back and forth across this same bridge everyday.

He comes off as far more interesting here than in interviews.

Chronic City is the best novel written about the internet.



( )

I savored the pieces in this collection, my first exposure to Lethem's non-fiction. There are treasures here, especially the title essay, his profile of James Brown, and his interview with Bob Dylan. Good reads for sure! ( )