A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD--Part I discussion (BEWARE--Here be spoilers)

[Goblinmonger]

So what do you think about Part I (through page 108)?

[Jim__]

1. From A to B.

One thing I learned in the first 100 pages of this book is that Jennifer Egan is quite a storyteller. But, after 100 pages of bouncing back and forth across space and through time, I'm not sure where she is headed.

We begin in NYC with Sasha stealing bits and pieces from people's lives and collecting them on tables in her apartment. Sasha whose father disappeared when she was 6. Sasha with stories of her old boss, Bennie Salazar, and a picture of a drowned college friend on her windowsill is on a date with Alex. Sasha and Alex and meaningless sex. Coz, the therapist, and stories of a screwdriver with an orange translucent handle gleaming like a lollipop. Bits and pieces, stolen glimpses from Sasha's life. She steals an I BELIEVE IN YOU note from Alex's wallet and then he's gone.

Then, New York again, but back in time, Sasha is still working for Bennie. Bennie who is putting gold flakes in his coffee in the belief that this will restore his sex drive. Bennie who is off to pick up his son and then to visit the Stop/Go sisters. Bennie who gets aroused listening to the Stop/Go sisters play real music, fuzzy music. But, the sisters must go. Film, photography and music are dead. Killed by digitization. Scribbled on the back of Bennie's parking ticket: kissing mother superior, incompetent, hairball, poppyseeds, on the can. Bennie drops his son at his old house where his old wife lives, then Sasha at her apartment where she parts with a "See. You. Tomorrow."

Off to San Francisco and high school and a first person narrator, the freckled Rhea. Rhea wants Bennie, brown Bennie who wants blond Alice who wants Scotty whose mother OD'd who wants Jocelyn whose father died from AIDS. But the 14 year old Jocelyn is with the fortyish Lou who has a son Jocelyn's age. Scotty finds solace with Alice. Rhea wonders when she'll be real. Alice has 2 younger sisters who go to private school and wear green uniforms. Bennie manages the Flaming Dildos and finally gets them a gig at Mabuhay Gardens and they all wind up at Lou's house. Rhea and Jocelyn wind up in bed with Lou and Rhea realizes that something is ending.

To Africa with Lou and 2 of his children, Charlie/Charlene and Rolph, and his twentyish girlfriend Mindy. Charlie, who is just beginning to awaken sexually and resents the beautiful Mindy, dances for the African drummers. Mindy flirts with the jeep driver, Albert, and he shoots a lioness. Mindy takes Rolph to his room and Albert tells her he is in room number 3 and later Rolph tells his father. Charlie and Rolph dance uninhibitedly together in a hotel ballroom watched by the binoculared bird-watchers, Mildred and Fiona. Then everything changes.

The anonymous narrator becomes prescient and tells us the future. Lou will marry Mindy, his third wife, and they'll have 2 children and then divorce. Charlie will run away to Mexico to live in a cult and she'll become addicted to drugs. Rolph will live with his father and Jocelyn and come to resent and stop talking to his father. At 28 Rolph shoots himself in his father's house. In the head. Charlie then becomes Charlene and goes to school and becomes a lawyer.

Next we're back in California, but time is moving forward now. Jocelyn and Rhea visit the dying Lou. Jocelyn is the narrator. She remembers the time she spent with Rolph in Lou's house. She has spent most of her life struggling with drug addiction and now lives with her mother. Rhea lives in Seattle and has 3 children. Jocelyn regrets wasting her life. Rhea seems content.

Back to New York, Scotty is the narrator. Scotty is divorced from Alice. Scotty has smudged vision from having spent a day staring into the sun. He works as a janitor and lives in a rundown apartment on 6th Street. He believes human beings are information processors, processors of x's and o's. He doesn't believe it makes any difference how you encounter those x's and o's; as long as you encounter them, you gain experience. Scotty has 2 fishing buddies, Sammy and Dave, and eats fish he catches in the East River. He visits Bennie and brings him a fish, an enormous striped bass. He wants to know how Bennie got from A to B. Why was Bennie successful and Scotty a failure? In the end, Scotty passes Bennie's business card along to a junkie couple, the male is a musician.

I don't know where the story goes from here. Twos and threes, gold and green, blond and brown, fuzziness and clarity, darkness and light, time and space and people, all seem to be, somehow, part of the story. I'm just not sure how.

[Goblinmonger]

2. Narrative Structure

I have not finished part A yet, but, like you, I'm not sure what to make of the narrative structure. I don't think it is all that confusing (read some Faulkner if you want confusing narrative structure), but I don't yet know why we need all these different perspectives. I am assuming that everything will come together.

That being said, she is a great writer. The prose is very compelling.

[Jim__]

3. Actually I enjoy her narrative style.

The story is easy to follow and the characters are likeable. The way she writes leads me to believe there is more to it than just the first level narrative. Rolph's concern about the fate of the lion cubs, Rhea's worry about when she'll become a real punk, Charlie's looking back through time at a moment in Rolph's life, all indicate a deep understanding of people and how they experience life.

I realize that my summary is a bit confusing. It really was meant to convey the number of threads I see in the story and how I was trying to track them all.

[Goblinmonger]

4. So, I dropped the ball and I apologize.

Life decided to be a pain in the butt. I'm able to move forward with this if people want at this time. Just looking for some feedback. How about we finish the Part I discussion this week until next Wednesday and then start Part II next Wednesday? Does that sound reasonable or just scrap it?

Again, my apologies.

[Jim__]

5. Either way is fine with me.

If other people want to discuss the book, then I would continue. If no one else wants to continue, I'm fine with dropping it.

[Goblinmonger]

6. Looks like you are the only interested party

So I will unpin this.

Jim_ if you want to chat about the book, let me know.