A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (2010)
Oh, how I wanted to like this book. Love it, even. I first ran across Egan’s name in the context of the dust-up over her comments about the genre known as “chick lit” after winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. As Deena Drewis pointed out in her article, Egan’s comments about the “banal and derivative” nature of a lot of so-called chick lit were honest, if a bit ungracious. Drewis ends her analysis by suggesting that Egan’s advice to emerging female writers to “shoot high and don’t cower” is exactly the sort of thing needed to reverse substantial gender inequities in the publishing world.
Much to my disappointment, I hated the novel itself. The characters were leaden, the plot conventional, the narrative techniques stale. I get that the intended effect of the multiple narrative voices and loosely interconnected characters is a comment on the simultaneously alienated and eerily interconnected nature of life in the postmodern, socially mediated era, but come on. This trick’s been done and to much better effect, in my opinion. There were moments when I found myself rooting for the characters--and for the story that was in there somewhere--but mostly I felt like I was reading someone’s rough draft for what could someday be a compelling novel.
I’m OK with not grasping the magic of this particular novel. I realize that it’s hard for a woman to speak critically--especially about other women--without sounding like a bitch. And that to create art you need seriousness of intent. But it’s bothersome when taking yourself too seriously gets in the way of creating meaningful art.
