{"id":1688,"date":"2010-10-12T23:48:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T23:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/11\/26\/993-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-08-27T08:20:55","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T08:20:55","slug":"men-and-cartoons-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/10\/12\/men-and-cartoons-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Men and Cartoons"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t intended to review this book –\u00a0Men and Cartoons: Stories by\u00a0Jonathan Lethem<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0– but then, like with so many other things,\u00a0I got thinking<\/a>. This was the first\u00a0thing<\/a>\u00a0I’d ever read by Lethem – surely there must be something unique about a person’s first introduction to an author? Surely there must be something unique about\u00a0my<\/i>\u00a0introduction to Lethem?<\/span><\/p>\n

But then, let’s not overstate things. Lethem does not redefine me. He is no\u00a0titan<\/a> threatening the world<\/a>\u00a0with his\u00a0words<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am reminded of\u00a0Pierre Menard<\/a>\u00a0who rewrote whole sections of\u00a0Don Quixote<\/a>\u00a0from scratch in the\u00a0twentieth century<\/a>. I am not proposing to rewrite\u00a0Men and Cartoons<\/i>\u00a0(after all, I do not believe that I could ever know if I had succeeded or if, rather, all I had completed was a facsimile). My train of thought here is no doubt\u00a0oblique<\/a>, but to me at least it makes sense: if Menard can become the sole author, can I not become the sole reader?<\/a>\u00a0What follows is a review of Lethem who is defined by his writings. What follows is a review of\u00a0Men and Cartoons<\/i>\u00a0as an explication of its author. What follows doesn’t achieve any of these aims, but the aims remain nonetheless as\u00a0intentions<\/a>. And so:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Walking on the beach I find a book without a cover and missing its first pages. The title is\u00a0Men and Cartoons<\/i>, or at least that is what it reads on the top of every even-numbered page. I cannot say whether it is the work of a single author or many writers since the title page is missing, and I cannot find any names outside the stories. I believe with all my heart that it is the work of a single author. It is the\u00a0easiest solution<\/a>. I have also considered the possibility that the author’s name appears in one of the stories, perhaps as a character, as the anagram of a fictional city, or as the solution to an equation hidden in the title.<\/p>\n

To date, I have discovered over a dozen riddles hidden between the stories, but I am yet to find any solutions. I expect that there is one answer<\/a>\u00a0that solves them all. The stories are listed below. (I find it preferable not to divide them by line breaks or full stops in the hope that when seen in combination a pattern may emerge):<\/p>\n

The Vision Access Fantasy The Spray Vivian Relf Planet Big Zero The Glasses The Dystopianist… Super Goat Man The National Anthem<\/i><\/p>\n

The stories all contain some sense of loss. I expect that to somehow be the key. I have tried to summarize<\/a>\u00a0the stories below. Perhaps there is still something that can be found.<\/p>\n

Only two stories involve cartoons, or at least, cartoon super-heroes:\u00a0The Vision<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Super Goat Man<\/i>. In the first of these, a boyhood associate who in his school days had claimed to be the (comic) superhero\u00a0The Vision<\/a>\u00a0is re-acquainted when he moves back to the old neighbourhood. There is some nagging need here that remains unmet. The protagonist wishes to know how such a boy can grow up. How does he meet his partner and get a job and make friends and appear normal? There is something voyeuristic about this that makes me sorry I cannot help him. The other story is about a strange hippy-esque Super Goat Man who is again met by a person first as a child, then as a young adult, and then finally as a mature adult. Here too there is something cold and lonely.<\/p>\n

If the lesson is in fact loss, then it is a lesson felt most acutely in\u00a0Vivian Relf<\/i>\u00a0and most literally in\u00a0The Spray<\/i>. A man meets the eponymous Vivian at a party, and while both recognize each other, neither can recall from where. They say their awkward goodbyes and go off to live their lives, bumping into each other at random. The tragedy is not the poignancy of the story. The tragedy is the self-awareness of the hero who can see his life to be poignant and yet finds himself helpless.\u00a0The Spray<\/i>\u00a0sees this lesson actualized as police officers use a spray that reveals (only temporarily) the existence of missing items following a house robbery.<\/p>\n

Most of the other the stories fit quite easily into the mould suggested by the above stories: a man grows up and is no longer a child and something\u00a0unnamed<\/a>\u00a0has been lost. An old friend comes to visit in\u00a0Planet Big Zero<\/i>,\u00a0The Dystopianist<\/i>\u00a0is a story about a writer who cannot live up to the imagined expectations of an old associate who also writes dystopian stories, and the final story –\u00a0The National Anthem<\/i>\u00a0– is a letter to a friend with whom one has written for years without meeting in person.<\/p>\n

Some of the other stories put me at a loss:\u00a0Access Fantasy<\/i>\u00a0is a cyberpunk derivative with human beings that act as advertisers in exchange for access to society and\u00a0The Glasses<\/i>\u00a0tells of<\/a>\u00a0two optometrists dealing without prejudice with an obsessive-compulsive customer. I have of course wondered whether these outliers could serve as clues for the rest of the stories. I have wondered whether the point of these two stories is the very fact that their characters act without any grand purpose, quagmired instead in their own myopic plots.<\/p>\n

If<\/i>\u00a0that is truly relevant – if the entire book is an exercise in illustrating our obsessions with defining our own plots and themes and motifs – then this right here is an unintended exercise in irony. I live my life picking up imaginary books off imaginary beaches because I am looking for something I think I have lost.<\/p>\n

“Those promises we make to ourselves when we are younger, about how we mean to conduct our adult lives, can it be true we break every last one of them? All except for one, I suppose: the promise to judge ourselves by those standards, the promise to remember the child who would be so appalled by compromise, the child who would find jadedness wicked”<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

That final quote is strange isn’t it? It appears in the book Men and Cartoons: Stories by Jonathan Lethem. I know that for a fact. I have read that book and compared it carefully multiple times to the lines quoted above. I am convinced that they are the same. Still, doubt remains: how can I be sure it is the same sentence?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t intended to review this book –\u00a0Men and Cartoons: Stories by\u00a0Jonathan Lethem\u00a0– but then, like with so many other things,\u00a0I got thinking. This was the first\u00a0thing\u00a0I’d ever read by Lethem – surely there must be something unique about a person’s first introduction to an author? Surely there must be something unique about\u00a0my\u00a0introduction to Lethem? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,198,204],"tags":[248],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-1688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-book-review","category-everything2","tag-borges"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2586,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/09\/11\/near-death-experiences-and-dmt\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":0},"title":"Wednesday September 11, 2013","author":"Pala","date":"September 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There are quite a few things I'd like to write about now if I could. It's only a question of importance or priority. (I imagine a god creating a world with that attitude: In the beginning, God said, \"Lemme start with...\" - surely a better attitude than having a fill\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2880,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/08\/08\/writings-systems-an-introduction-to-their-linguistic-analysis-by-florian-coulmas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":1},"title":"Writings Systems – an introduction to their linguistic analysis by Florian Coulmas","author":"Pala","date":"August 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: The content below is what looks like the beginning of a collection of quotes and thoughts gathered from Florian Coulmas' [I] Writings Systems; an introduction to their linguistic analysis\"[II]. Chapter 1 Aristotle \"On Interpretation\" : Words spoken are symbols of affections or impressions of the soul; written words\u00a0are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2719,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/09\/16\/monday-september-16-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":2},"title":"Monday September 16, 2013","author":"Pala","date":"September 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: Although Shai refers to Kant in earlier essays, this is the\u00a0first where he is analysing Kant\u2019s writing and philosophical approach by analysing his \u201cProlegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science\u201d (definitely a mouthful, thus often referred to as Kant\u2019s Prolegomena).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":954,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/12\/12\/apology\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":3},"title":"Apology","author":"Pala","date":"December 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My motivation to express and communicate my thoughts on these things is curtailed on one side by an awareness of the immensity of my ignorance, and on the other side by my fear that I have no right to promote such substantial claims given my absent credentials. What follows is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1711,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/11\/12\/reflections-on-the-human-condition-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":4},"title":"Reflections on the Human Condition","author":"Pala","date":"November 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Three books collide in my mind and make me reflect on the human condition. Please\u00a0excuse\u00a0me. 1.\u00a0T.S. Eliot\u00a0wrote\u00a0that\u00a0April is the cruellest month\u00a0because it reminds us of renewal; once,\u00a0long ago, a\u00a0woman\u00a0asked the gods for immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth. She begs to die and the renewal of spring in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/10\/strike-zone-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":1688,"position":5},"title":"Strike Zone (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"January 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Strike Zone by Peter David the fifth novel in the TNG series. The plot involves the Kreel (who apparently are the most hated enemy of the Klingon due to their [thickly laid on] dishonourable nature) discovering an ancient stash of weapons, attacking the Klingon, etc., the Enterprise is called in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Strike Zone\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/strike_zone_cropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-re","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}