I finished both the Lethem and the Dick, which, somehow, is a phrase I've always wanted to write. I'm a Lethem expert now, of course, what with this novel (Fortress of Solitude, his short collection of essays, and that other novel I don't remember well (hi, I'm Harold Bloom!). FOS is very autobiographical. I glean this from his essays. it seems like he put the whole ding dong in, which is profligate. it's a vast pile of material with which he works, I mean comix and music scene and writing and growing up Brooklyn, and he shunted it all into one novel. I don't think he let the novel find itself, he kept steering it into these personal salients. 'keenly obsreved' is a phrase I am sure entered blurbs if not reviews of this book, and it is. but it's a clutter of expiations. it kinda drones on, sorry. there's an offstage fantasticness in which Dylan and Mingus (catchy names) become (alternately) a superhero named Aeroman, and can fly. this is handled low key, which is disappointing. the plot remains plangent in its directive toward novel ending. I write about this here because I discern an artistic attitude. I mean heck, Lethem credits Yaddo in the back of the book. which is to say, it was written on the conveyor belt. the mainstream in novels will take just about anything (unlike in poetry), any flipping of techniques and style, but the dead end is at the call of the next one. you get your Yaddo imperative, write up a storm, package it and send it off as job lot. it's not the writer community paradise I'm writing against, it's how the visit there becomes a hack into machinery. Lethem erred, 1st, in revealing his trick (in his essays), but too in shooting his wad. seems like he went thorough on all the close issues, crisply dealing with them. now what, and plenty so. at Yaddo or the like he can talk technique and theory and all the bells ringing to get the conversion down. his life, that is. by the end, Mingus' story was like Buddenbrooks (mucho depressing), Dylan's is wistrful whiny, and the hammer come down. it was all mapped out precise and Lethem rode it. you're probably not getting me here, but I see a large issue. as full and honest as the book is, I think Lethem dodged something. the plot was that rumbling noise you hear, getting closer and then, splat, it lands as a lump. urgent call to V Woolf. please.

as to Philip K Dick, gee, I wanna read more. I read A Scanner Darkly. there was only one other Dick novel available at my library, I have it in my possession now. ASD aint a great novel, nor great scifi (not the same thing), but I like his progression. he was a hack, no doubt avaricious and all that, but something pushed him into areas, I think. the book is a bunch of vignette's within a drug scene. most of the dialogue is stoner talk, ambling and odd. the plot doesn't really give much away. I like pointlessness in fiction. it's always a let down when you grok what the write's up to. Lethem assisted Dick's executor, was quite involved with Dick's work. FOS betrays little of the inspired influence of Dick. inspired as in keep the typewriter hot with your typing as you weird out. don't block the story's progress by thinking about it. let the characters make their own decisions. etc. I have no idea if this was a representaive Dick novel. it wasn't great, but I regard its tensile strength greater han FOS.