Motherless Brooklyn

Rating:
Summary: Terrific!
Review: This is a wonderful book. The readers who found the storyline wanting are missing the point. This is what the lit. teachers call a "character study", a novel in which the most important element is the author's ability to create a believable, enduring character. After a long drought, I've found two fantastic character studies this year -- Brauner's Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf being the other -- and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND both of them. Both novelists show that an understanding of the human heart is the most important thing readers look for in a novel. Great novels!

Rating:
Summary: A New Hero
Review: If you're going to open up Lethem's most recent offering, Motherless Brooklyn, you'd better make sure you're comfortable. You're not going to be going anywhere for awhile. I can almost guarantee you'll read the first chapter at least twice in a row before moving on. The story itself is more reality based than many of Lethem's other works, but in no way is it any less original. Motherless Brooklyn revolves around a group of unofficial private detectives, quasi-tough guys who have been working together since they were fourteen when they were plucked out of a Brooklyn orphanage by a crime Lord wannabe. The main character, Lionel Essrog, has an unlikely affliction for a private detective: he suffers from Tourette's Syndrome. He is obsessed with words, numbers, touching, and often finds it difficult to control himself. I don't know if it's a natural progression of writing about someone with Tourette's or premeditated, just another stroke of Lethem's usual genius, but the entire novel is written with just the kind of snappy and bouncy rhythym that would please Lionel greatly. It teases you into re-reading sentences and taunts you into peeking at pages you shouldn't be peeking at yet. The action will make you bite your nails and the mystery will render you incapable of putting the book down, but the real beauty lies in Lethem's characterization. Each character is multi-faceted and so human you can see them. You will miss them you're finished. It's been awhile since I've added to my list of favorite literary figures, but I have a new hero now, and his name is Lionel Essrog.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Mystery
Review: It's just a really great read. It was very interesting to go through a mystery through the eyes of someone suffering from tourette's. Although, upon finishing the book, I really don't know if Lionel actually "suffered", it kinda helped him along. Anyway, get it. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: Ummmmm........
Review: I am sorry, but this isnt a "serious" piece of lit. This is another one of those stories that my grandfather gets into so much. There is no excitement, no story line that is different then the others. When you all find a book that "Oh my God" is different than the rest, give me a ring.

Rating:
Summary: Another View
Review: Sorry to disagree with all that hyper-praise, but this is just another run-of-the-mill detective story parroting Raymond Chandler, James Cain, Mickey Spillane and God knows who else. The Tourette business is just a gimmick, adding nothing to the plot. Hard to believe that this is classified as serious literature.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: While this book has many features with which to recommend it, the true beauty lies in the dichotomy between Lionel's interior world (the first person narrative) and his inability to communicate witht he world around him (the dialogue.) Letham writes wonderfully, and this book contains some of the most awe-inspiring sentences I've ever read. A real stunner for lovers of the written word (and crime fiction too.)

Rating:
Summary: Authentically bizarre
Review: Pleased to see Lethem's novel won the critic's circle award. Lethem's masterstroke is his narrator; Essrog is utterly believable. Often I wished hard he would just shut up and get on with solving the case, but there was no way I was going to stop reading. A very human reaction to a fictional character. Once you accept the Tourette's as part of the rhythm of the book it becomes a fascinating element of the character. As a former Brooklynite, I found Lethem's depiction of that area dead-on accurate (down to Rusty Staub and "half a fag") and beautifully realized without going over the top. Wonderful choice of words without overdoing it. Brooklyn becomes a main character with as valuable and intimate role in the story as any of the people. By the end I had a hard time believing Lethem was not a Brooklyn raised orphan with Tourette's. An entertaining, compelling and intelligent work. The defintion of excellent fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Five star story ... until I hit page 263
Review: Lethem did an excellent job with defining his characters and justifies the reason why the main character, Lionel Essrog, would risk his neck to find out who killed his friend, Frank Minna. Motherless Brooklyn was humorous and I found myself charmed by Essrog! The book was rich with information without weighing me down with too many unnecessary details (I've read stories that took an entire page to describe a run down building). The story read smoothly even when the narrator starts one of his "tics", I couldn't bring myself to skip any pages. The only faults with this book is that it starts off with a bang...continues giving off heat...and then lets me down with a wimper of an ending. From page 263, I grew bored with the so called climax as it lingered for quite a few pages and I wished that the situation didn't resolve in such a dull way. Nevertheless, 85% of the book was just too much fun to allow the last 48 pages to spoil it. I simply loved it!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Just adding to the general aproval that this book has garnered. I thought it brilliant and compelling. Though I wasn't particularly involved with the plot the quality of the writing and characterisation was sufficient to make it a "5" reqardless.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful but flawed
Review: There I was, reading happily along, totally enthralled by the history of the Minna Men, Lionel's fantastic verbal riffs, the mystery and sadness of Frank's death, Lionel's reaction to it, thinking: man, this book is an instant classic, when BAM! Enter Julia on page 99, and ppppfffft, the air went out of the story for me. She answers the door in a slip and stockings like a Chandler dame, complete with cigarette, gun and "dusty suitcase" full of lingerie. She's a stock character from Central Casting, an anachronistic cliche not worthy of the expectations Lethem has set up, the wonderful idiosyncrasies of Essrog, the individual, distinctive personalities of the male characters. We also leave behind the fantastic descriptions of Brooklyn, the strong sense of place that's part of the magic of the earlier part of the book -- it turns into a straight detective story and plays with genre conventions without adding much in the way of new archetypes or ideas -- the wildly original language continues, but that isn't enough, at least, not for me. Damn. The first 98 pages are BRILLIANT. Next time out, I hope Lethem sustains that level of inventive originality for an entire book.