Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I just spent the better part of two days reading this so I figure I should write something about it. I'd like to say I did that because it captured me completely, but the truth is I powered through it because of an assignment and because I'm not at work this week. Not that it didn't capture me and I'm glad I read it in such a consolidated period.

It's a very well written and quite sumptuous story cycle, the interconnections are laced through ever-so neatly down to a pair of pants I presume one character bought second-hand after another had given them to charity. Numerous lives are wound as threads through this tapestry, covering a good fifty or so years. It could be argued the last story ties up too many of those threads, but the resolution is still ambiguous and the way the characters come together is not convenient plot wrangling like a melodrama but a clever device, itself a metaphor for the interconnections and networks we create every day on social media.

I would have liked a little more playing with modality, not just the PowerPoint presentation and the blog-style interview piece. And it might have been nice if there were fewer doomed relationships and drug-ruined lives. Somehow the whole cycle became quite morose despite its more optimistic ending (in a ruined world where everything is still ruined). But that's part of the point too. The characters are cogs as much as individuals and the machine wears them out eventually.

Of course, as is plain in the book, the titular Goon Squad is time itself and its relentless march. Perhaps that makes the moroseness of the overall cycle inevitable too. But there are the pauses, the moments within the song that is an individual's life that we can grab, and there's always a chance for repeat refrain before the end.



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The Invisible Author - An Overblown and Somewhat Pompous Rant

I had some time to kill while near my local bookshop, so, like any sane person, I went in. I wasn't after anything but thought I'd see what H.G Wells they had. I didn't expect much, just the latest Penguin or Wordsworth edition of The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds tucked away in the Classics section, but there was always a chance of The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, which I'm considering buying in physical form. There was no trace of any mention of his name whatsoever. It had never occurred to me that there would be a bookshop without at least one title of his in stock.

This disappointment I could have borne if not for the second shock I received today. I went to the local library to pick up some reserved items, including two books on Mr Wells' life and work. The librarian, as she waited for the computer to catch up, looked over the covers then asked, in all seriousness, 'Who's he?' She had to repeat the question, I couldn't comprehend it. Who is H.G. Wells? You work among books every day and you ask who H.G. Wells is? I mentioned The Time Machine and got an 'Oh' of recognition, but nothing could erase the horror I felt inside.

I console myself that I now have the two books I sought, and, as a bonus, I picked up Terry Pratchett's The Illustrated Eric, (illustrated by Josh Kirby of course) in a good quality ex-libris hardcover for 20c.

On a side note, this year I'll be writing a thesis on H.G. Wells.

Thanks for letting me share my overreaction, I'll let you decide how far my tongue is planted in my cheek.

Keep dreaming!