Book reviews

   I would like to contrast two novels I’ve recently read, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and Old Town by Lin Zhe.   I think before I talk about what I take from the two novels and what I think it tells me about America and the world I should describe and review the two books.
   A Visit from the Good Squad has won all sorts of awards and has received accolades from the critics.   Being the old curmudgeon I am, I didn’t like it.  Why?  The book is mostly about characters associated with the music industry.  It spans the years from the eighties to the present.   One of my complaints is with the structure of the book.  To say that it jumps around in telling the story of these people is to put it mildly.   The action moves between the present and the past, morphs from one set of characters to another, and adds new characters at will.   Characters who fit one mold in scene A may fit a completely different one in scene B.  This makes it quite difficult to follow who’s who.   In fact, toward the end of the book there’s a scene that hinges on a man who remembers going to a girl’s apartment years ago.   I had trouble figuring out who he was talking about until I remembered a short scene early in the book that described the situation.   By then the characters had changed so much it was difficult to place them in the earlier scene.
   I know that in a novel the characters should change over time.   But the reader should feel the change taking place through the span of the story.   In the Goon Squad the changes take place abruptly.   The pretty, wild girl on page X is an unhappy wreck on page Y.   Wait a minute, how did that happen?   I didn’t see it coming.  
   My other complaint with the novel is that none of the characters moved me.   Again in a novel, or any story for that matter, you should have a reaction to the characters.   If you like a particular character or hate him, feel pity or sympathy or rage, the author had accomplished his or her goal.   Rhett Butler is a despicable character in many way, but you love him.   Scarlett is even worse, but you have sympathy for her.   I had none of those reactions in this book.  I took what the author said about the many characters at face value and that was it, even though many of the characters were despicable in their own way.
   The lives depicted in the book were dreadful for the most part.   People use each other, take drugs, divorce, cheat, lie.   No one seems to get along with or understand their children.   When you have money you are successful, when the money goes you are a failure.   Anything that gets money is legitimate, even supporting mass murderers.   When things go bad turn to drugs.   When things are good turn to drugs.   Sex is some sort of a contest.   Love had nothing to do with it.  
   Is America that depressing?   Maybe it is in the circles she’s describing.   Maybe it is, period.
   Now, to be fair, the writing is very good.    The story, if you can follow it, moves along at a nice clip.   The style reminded me of what you see in Wired or Rolling Stone.
   I have absolutely no idea where the title came from or what it has to do with the story.
   Old Town is in many ways a very similar book.   Since Old Town is about China in the last eighty years or so, the comparison may seem a stretch.   The similarities are quite prevalent however.   The books jumps between the past and the present, and from one period back to another in time.   There are a large number of characters who have ups and downs of fortune.   The book describes the periods before, during, and after the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.    Within a few pages you might have a character described as a baby, and teenager, and an adult, not necessarily in that order.   There are characters who turn to alcohol when things go well and also when things go poorly.  
   Unfortunately, the writing lacks the poetry that might have been present in the original version, because some of it is quite bad.   The book was an enormous hit in China and was made into a TV series that has broken all records from what I hear.
   I liked this book very much.  Why?   Well, for most of the reasons I did not like the Good Squad.   I did engage with the characters.   And I did seem them grow and change over time.    And I saw the point of the book, which I didn’t do in the other book.   Enormous change has taken place in China, and almost all of it for the better, however repressive the government.   But in all that change something  of China’s soul has been lost.
   And this is where the comparison of the two books tells me something of what is going on in our country.   In the Good Squad there is nothing lost, because there is nothing to loose.    There are many unhappy people in Old Town, but the possibility of being happy still exists and the characters believe that.   The Goons do not believe in the possibility of being happy, apart from the fact that more money might make you feel better.   Love will not, children will not, work will not.  
   Maybe we have lost far more of our soul than China has.