The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (English) Paperback Book

Description: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem Originally published: New York: Doubleday, 2003. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A New York Times Book Review EDITORS CHOICE. From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn, comes the vividly told story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. In a neighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along with games of stoopball, Dylan has one friend, a black teenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. Through the knitting and unraveling of the boys friendship, Lethem creates an overwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race and class, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging, loyalty, and memory. "A tour de force.... Belongs to a venerable New York literary tradition that stretches back through Go Tell It on the Mountain, A Walker in the City, and Call it Sleep." --The New York Times Magazine"One of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year.... Lethem grabs and captures 1970s New York City, and he brings it to a story worth telling." --Time Back Cover The Fortress of Solitude is the story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. Its a neighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along with games of stoopball. In that world, Dylan has one friend, a black teenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. As Lethem follows the knitting and unraveling of their friendship, he creates an overwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race and class, superheroes, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging, loyalty, and memory. The Fortress of Solitude is the first great urban coming-of-age novel to appear in years. Author Biography JONATHAN LETHEM is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Dissident Gardens, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn; three short story collections; and two essay collections, including The Ecstasy of Influence, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Lethems work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among other publications. Table of Contents Introduction *Part I: Germanys Academic Foreign Policy Debate *The Question of Germanys Normalizing Ambitions * Germany-Still Not Review "Magnificent. . . . [A] massively ambitious, profoundly accomplished novel." – San Francisco Chronicle "Glorious, chaotic, raw. . . . One of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year. . . . Lethem grabs and captures 1970s New York City, and he brings to it a story worth telling." --Time"A tour de force . . . Belongs to a venerable New York literary tradition that stretches back through Go Tell it On the Mountain, A Walker in the City, and Call it Sleep." --The New York Times"The finest novel of the year, by far, and likely of the past five. . . . Better than a movie, better than a symphony, better than a play, and better than a painting, because it is all of them." –Austin Chronicle Review Quote "Magnificent. . . . [A] massively ambitious, profoundly accomplished novel." San Francisco Chronicle "Glorious, chaotic, raw. . . . One of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year. . . . Lethem grabs and captures 1970s New York City, and he brings to it a story worth telling." -- Time "A tour de force . . . Belongs to a venerable New York literary tradition that stretches back through Go Tell it On the Mountain , A Walker in the City , and Call it Sleep ." -- The New York Times "The finest novel of the year, by far, and likely of the past five. . . . Better than a movie, better than a symphony, better than a play, and better than a painting, because it is all of them." Austin Chronicle From the Trade Paperback edition. Description for Reading Group Guide NATIONAL BESTSELLER A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice "Magnificent. . . . A massively ambitious, profoundly accomplished novel." -- San Francisco Chronicle The introduction, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enliven your groups discussion of Jonathan Lethems acclaimed novel, The Fortress of Solitude . Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide 1. Why has Jonathan Lethem titled his novel The Fortress of Solitude ? Where does the phrase come from? In what ways is Dylan Ebdus a solitary child? In what ways does he live inside a fortress? 2. What does The Fortress of Solitude reveal about the dynamics of childhood friendships? What kind of friendship does Dylan have with Mingus Rude? With Arthur Lomb? Why does Dylan want so badly to be accepted by Mingus? 3. The Fortress of Solitude is a realistic novel, except for one fantastic element: the magic ring that enables its wearer to fly and to become invisible. Why has Lethem included the ring in the story? What effect does it have on Dylan? How is the ring crucial to the plot of the novel? 4. When Mingus asks Dylan if "everything" is cool, Dylan thinks of his science teacher explaining that "the universe was reportedly exploding in slow motion, everything falling away from everything else at a fixed rate. It was a good enough explanation for now" [p. 118]. Why does Dylan think of this theory at this moment? How does it explain Dylans neighborhood and home life? 5. What effect do comic books, pop music, and other aspects of popular culture have on the characters in The Fortress of Solitude ? How is Dylans sense of self shaped by his fascination with comic book superheroes? 6. When he sees Doses tag on a sleeping homeless man, Abraham tells Dylan, "Maybe this is just a terrible place. Maybe in these streets right and wrong are confused, so you and your friends run insane like animals that would do this to a human person" [p. 141]. Is Abraham correct in his assessment? How does the Gowanus neighborhood affect those who grow up in it? 7. Abby tells Dylan, "Your childhood is some privileged sanctuary you live in all the time, instead of here with me" [p. 31617]. Why is Dylan so obsessed with understanding his childhood? How have his childhood experiences made it harder for him to connect with others? 8. As Dylan is attempting to rescue Mingus from prison, he thinks of the "ordinary angst" hed earned as a "grown-up Californian . . . an author of liner notes, an inadequate boyfriend," and asks himself: "How could I have thrown over these attainments for this chimera of rescue?" [p. 488]. Why does he take such risks to rescue Mingus? What are his real reasons for offering the ring to Robert Woolfolk? 9. In what ways is The Fortress of Solitude a satirical novel? How are Hollywood and private school education depicted in the novel? How does Lethem present the world of science fiction publishing? 10. Near the end of the novel, Abby tells Dylan, "I guess being enthralled with negritude still beats self-reflection every time" [p. 457]. Is it true that Dylan is obsessed with race? Does he use that obsession to avoid self-knowledge? What is he afraid to discover about himself? 11. When Dylan leaves Croft Vendle, he thinks: "He wasnt the father I never had. . . . Abraham was the father I never had, and Rachel was the mother I never had, and Gowanus or Boerum Hill was the home I never had, everything was only itself however many names it carried" [p. 506]. In what sense is it true that Dylan grew up without a mother or a father or a home? How have these absences affected him? 12. The Fortress of Solitude is a vivid evocation of a particular period and place, as seen through the eyes of Dylan Ebdus, and while the novel does not overtly make any large statements about race relations, what does it suggest about how blacks and whites see each other? What scenes particularly dramatize the tensions between blacks and whites in Brooklyn? 13. The Fortress of Solitude includes two self-contained chapters, "Liner Note" and "Prisonaires," which function almost as set pieces. Why has Lethem included these? How are they different from the rest of the narrative? What do they reveal about Dylan? 14. In interviews, Jonathan Lethem has described the novel as structured like a musical boxed set. In what ways is this novel reminiscent of a boxed set? Why might Lethem have chosen this structure? 15. Much of The Fortress of Solitude concerns the gentrification of Gowanus into Boerum Hill. How has the neighborhood changed when Dylan returns at the end of the novel? Has the neighborhood been genuinely improved or simply turned into another playground for the trendy? What does Dylan mean when he says: "A gentrification was the scar left by a dream, Utopia the show which always closed on opening night"? [p. 508] 16. At the end of the novel, Dylan thinks of his mother pushing him into nearly all-black public schools "which were becoming only rehearsals for prison. Her mistake was so beautiful, so stupid, so American" [p. 508]. Why does Dylan think it was a mistake for Rachel to send him to public school? What does Dylan mean when he calls that mistake beautiful, stupid, and American? Excerpt from Book FROM CHAPTER 7 ...It was entirely possible that one song could destroy your life. Yes, musical doom could fall on a lone human form and crush it like a bug. The song, that song , was sent from somewhere else to find you, to pick the scab of your whole existence. The song was your personal shitty fate, manifest as a throb of pop floating out of radios everywhere. At the very least the song was the soundtrack to your destruction, the theme . Your days reduced to a montage cut to its cowbell beat, inexorable doubled bass line and raunch vocal, a sort of chanted sneer, surrounded by groans of pleasure. The stutter and blurt of what--a tuba ? French horn? Rhythm guitar and trumpet, pitched to mockery. The singer might as well have held a gun to your head. How it could have been allowed to happen, how it could have been allowed on the radio ? That song ought to be illegal. It wasnt racist--youll never sort that one out, dont even start--so much as anti-you. Yes they were dancing, and singing, and movin to the groovin, and just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted-- Every time your sneakers met the street, the end of that summer, somebody was hurling it at your head, that song. Forget what happens when you start haunting the green-tiled halls of Intermediate School 293. September 7, 1976, the week Dylan Ebdus began seventh grade in the main building on Court Street and Butler, Wild Cherrys "Play That Funky Music" was the top song on the rhythm and blues charts. Fourteen days later it topped Billboards pop charts. Your miserys anthem, -number--one song in the nation. Sing it through gritted teeth: WHITE BOY! Lay down the boogie and play that funky music til you die. When Dylan Ebdus first spotted Arthur Lomb the other boy was feigning pain in the far corner of the schoolyard. At some distance Dylan heard the cries and turned from the entrance of the school to look. Catching sight of Arthur Lomb was like noticing the flight and fall of a bird across a distance of -leaf--blurred sky, that flicker at the corner of vision, the abrupt plummeting. Like the flying man too, something Dylan did and didnt wish to have noticed. It occurred at that moment of slippage after the bell had rung and the gym teachers who patrolled the yard had returned inside, ahead of the flood of students, so the yard became a lawless zone, that terrible sudden reframing of space which could happen anywhere, even inside the corridors of the school. Nevertheless it was a clumsy mistake for the boy now cringing on the ground to be caught so far from the yards entrance, a mistake Dylan felt he couldnt forgive. He wouldnt have forgiven it in himself. Arthur Lomb fell to his knees and clutched his chest and keened. His words were briefly audible across the depopulating yard. " I cant breathe! " Then, each syllable riding a sharp insuck of air, " I! " Pause. " Can t!" Pause. " Breathe !" Arthur Lomb was pretending asthma or some other weakness. It was an identifiable method: preemptive suffering. Nobody could do much with a kid who was already crying. Hed become useless, untillable soil. He had no spirit to crush and it was faintly disgusting, in poor taste. Anyway, this weirdly gasping kid might not know the rules and talk, tattle to some distant cloddish figure of authority what he imagined had been done to him. He might even be truly sick, fucked up, in pain, who knew? Your only option was to say dang, white boy, whats your problem ? I didnt even touch you . And move on. Dylan admired the strategy, feeling at once a cool quiver of recognition and a hot bolt of shame. He felt that he was seeing his double, his stand-in. It was at least true that any punishment Arthur Lomb endured was likely otherwise Dylans, or anyway that a gang of black kids couldnt knock Dylan to the pavement or put him in a yoke at the exact moment they were busy doing it to Arthur Lomb. From that point on Arthur Lombs reddish hair and hunched shoulders were easy to spot, though he and Dylan had different homerooms, and schedules which kept them from overlapping anywhere except the schoolyard at lunch hour. Arthur Lomb dressed in conspicuous striped polo shirts and wore soft brown shoes. His pants were often highwaters. Dylan once heard a couple of black girls serenading Arthur Lomb with a couplet he hadnt himself elicited since fourth grade, snapping their fingers and harmonizing high and low like a doo-wop group: the flood is over, the land is dry, so why do you wear your pants so high? Arthur Lomb carried an enormous and bright blue backpack, an additional blight. All his schoolbooks must be inside, or maybe a couple of stone tablets. The bag itself would have tugged Arthur Lomb to the ground if hed stood up straight. As it was the bag glowed as a target, begged to be jerked downward to crumple Arthur Lomb to the corridor floor to enact his shortness-of-breath routine. Dylan had seen it done five times already before he and Arthur Lomb ever spoke. Dylan had even heard kids chanting the song at Arthur Lomb as they slapped at his reddened neck or the top of his head while he squirmed on the floor. Play that fucking music, white boy! Stretching the last two words to a groaning, derisive, Bugs--Bunnyesque whyyyyyyyboy ! There were just three other white kids in the school, all girls, with their own girl factors to work out. One shared Dylans homeroom, an Italian girl, black-haired and sullen and tiny, dwarfed by the girls all around them who exploded with hormonal authority. The black and Puerto Rican girls had risen to some other place where they were rightly furious at anything in view, jostling at one another and at the teachers in a rage of sex. However, their very size offered an approach: it was feasible to pass unseen below. Homeroom was a place for honing silence in a theater of noise and so the Italian girl and Dylan never spoke. As for Arthur Lomb, Dylan supposed he and the other boy had been kept apart intentionally by some unseen pitying intelligence, to avoid making both more conspicuous in their resemblance. This was a policy Dylan endorsed heartily, whether it existed outside of his own brain or not. Even at that remove, Arthur Lomb bore the mingled stink of Dylans oppression mixed with his own, so that it was hard to tell where one began and the other left off. Dylan wasnt in any hurry to get closer. Really, he wanted no part of Arthur Lomb. It was the library where they finally spoke. Dylan and Arthur Lombs two homerooms had been deposited there together for a period, the school librarian covering some unexplained absence of teachers for an afternoon, a blip in the routine nobody cared about anyway. Most kids sent to the library never arrived there, ended up outside the building instead, taking the word as a euphemism for class dismissed . So the I.S. 293 library was drab but peaceful, an eddy of calm. Below a poster advertising A Hero Aint Nothin But a Sandwich , a book the library didnt actually offer, Dylan placed himself against a wall and flipped open issue number two of the Marvel Comics adaptation of Logans Run . As the period ticked away glacially, Arthur Lomb buzzed him twice, squinting to see the title of the comic, then pursing lips in false concentration as he mimed browsing the half--empty shelves nearby, before stepping close enough for Dylan to hear him speak in an angry, clenched whisper. "That guy George Perez cant draw Farrah Fawcett to save his life." This was a startling allusion to several bodies of knowledge simultaneously. Dylan could only glare, his curiosity mingled with the certainty that he and Arthur Lomb were more objectionable, more unpardonable, together than apart. Up close Arthur Lomb had a blinky agitated quality to his features which made Dylan himself want to knock him down. His face seemed to reach for something, his features like a grasping hand. Dylan wondered if there might be a pair of glasses tucked in the background somewhere, perhaps in a side pocket of the monumental blue backpack. Dylan hurried the comic book into his binder. Hed bought it on Court Street at luchtime and debated allowing it to be seen inside the school, a breach of general good sense. It was a lousy comic, though, stiff with fidelity to the movie, and Dylan had decided he wouldnt care anymore than hed be surprised if it was taken away. This, a conversation with his homely double, wasnt the price hed expected to pay. But Arthur Lomb seemed to sense the dent hed made in Dylans attention and pressed on. He smirked again at the comic book where it had vanished into the binder. "Seen it?" "What?" " Logans Run ." Fuck you looking at ? Dylan wanted to shriek at Arthur Lomb, before it was too late, before Dylan succumbed to his loneliness and allowed himself to meet Arthur, the other white boy. "Not yet," Dylan said instead. "Farrah Fawcett is a fox ." Dylan didnt answer. He couldnt know, and was only chagrined that he even knew what Arthur Lomb was talking about. "Dont feel bad. I bought ten copies of Logans Run #1 ." Arthur Lomb spoke in a hurried whisper, showing some awareness of his surroundings, but compelled to spill what he had, to force Dylan know to him. "You have to buy number ones, its an investment. Ive got ten of Eternals , ten of 2001, ten of Omega , ten of Ragman , ten of Kobra . And all those Details ISBN0375724885 Author Jonathan Lethem Short Title FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE Pages 528 Language English ISBN-10 0375724885 ISBN-13 9780375724886 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2004 Residence Brooklyn, NY, US DOI 10.1604/9780375724886 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2004-08-24 NZ Release Date 2004-08-24 US Release Date 2004-08-24 UK Release Date 2004-08-24 Publisher Random House USA Inc Series Vintage Contemporaries Publication Date 2004-08-24 Imprint Random House Inc Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:43656091;

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