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Title: Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0375703918 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: February, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17
Rating: 5
Summary: don't read my review- read the book
Comment: I hardly know what appealed to me most about "Girl in Landscape"- what I do know is that when I finished the last page, I wondered if I would ever again feel as powerfully moved by a novel. Lethem's alien world is an exciting, engaging setting. The Archbuilders themselves evoke laughs at some times; at others they seem deeply unknowable and therefore deeply frightening. One of the implications of the novel, however, seems to be that human nature can be infinitely more frightening than alien nature. Indeed, the object of Pella's tormented, adolescent affection, Efram Nugent, is a stormy, violent, iconoclastic man- but that mix is the source of his strange magnetism(who hasn't been drawn to the loner, the wild and untamed in the midst of the mindless herd?). The combination of disgust and attraction Pella holds toward Efram is pulled off convincingly- I was just as disgusted as she by his actions, but Lethem's skill is such that I never questioned her attraction.
"Girl in Landscape" works on many levels- as a frontier tale, a science fiction novel, a coming-of-age story... though like many others I found the ending unsatisfying, the book is well worth reading. I wanted to see the Archbuilder landscape with my own eyes and, in all honesty, to meet Efram, to fully undergo the power of his spell. The book is an exciting, moving read.
Rating: 2
Summary: Good Set-Up Frittered Away
Comment: Finished reading Jonathan Lethem's "Girl In Landscape" on Monday. Wanted to read his "As She Climbed Across The Table" book but settled for this one after repeated attempts to find that earlier work locally ended in failure. "Girl" started out nicely, with quick, wispy sketches of a family and a planet in crisis, but it soon became bogged down in rather conventional plotting. Lethem has a nice facility for limning the interactions between children, but his adults all seemed two-dimensional to me - like the grown-up characters who put in cameo appearances in a kiddie lit novel or (at worst) as the shrill musical voices of a Peanuts special. He does a good job of setting up his alien planet with intriguing ruins, gentle aliens who have a goofy way with words, and ghostly "house deer", but then he never really explores its possibilities. The sexual tensions of a girl going through puberty are touched upon too obliquely to provide insight, and the violent ending seems a starkly unoriginal importation from conventional fiction - an importation thrust into a world that cried out for something better and more imaginative. I had high hopes for this book, given the good things I'd heard about "As She Climbed Across The Table", but I finished it feeling cheated of what it could have been. What magic it did contain was, in the end, overshadowed by the lingering taste of unpleasant events and hopeless relationships. Maybe if the book hadn't both begun and ended with a pointless death. Maybe if Lethem hadn't thrown in yet another in the middle for good measure....
Rating: 5
Summary: Deep and Compelling
Comment: Jonathan Lethem has shown an amazing command of different genres, from the pulp "Gun, With Occasional Music" to the road trip "Amnesia Moon" to the twisted romance of "As She Climbed Across the Table." To call Lethem a Science Fiction Author is to do him a grave disservice by limiting the great scope of his small body of work.
"Girl with Landscape" is a of coming-of-age western set on a dreary planet with the ruins of an alien civilization. Pella Marsh, the central character, represents innocent youth, but also the strength of youth that most adults refuse to acknowledge.
The characters are all too real, especially in their bigotry and hatred, and the aliens are well-thought out, garnering are sympathy and occasionally our irritation and even disgust.
No lines are drawn clearly and no easy routes are taken in this novel. It's dreary and dark, but a brilliant work worth reading by anyone who likes good writing and a good story.
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Title: As She Climbed Across the Table (Vintage Contemporaries) by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0375700129 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0312858787 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0312862202 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: This Shape We're In by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0970335520 Publisher: McSweeney's Books Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0375724834 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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