(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Soon after opening CCLaP in the summer of 2007, one of the first books I had a chance to review was what at the time was Jonathan Lethem's latest, You Don't Love Me Yet; and as long-time readers remember, I found that book to be a nearly unreadable pile of horsesh-t, so bad in fact that it served as the inaugural entry of my old "Too Awful to Finish" essay series, a series I eventually shut down again because of it being just too damn mean. And that's when I started hearing from all of Lethem's fans, telling me that I should give this grad-student panty-moistener another chance, that I had simply picked the wrong book of his to start out with. "Read The Fortress of Solitude instead!" all these academes argued. "That's the good one! You'll like that! That's the one that got all the award nominations! You'll like that one!"

So this week I finally did, yet another older title I'm getting caught up with through new "Netflix for books" service BookSwim.com, which I'm in the middle of a courtesy two-month membership with, in exchange for doing a write-up about my experience here in mid-December. And it was at this point (in fact, about 50 pages in, the point when I angrily gave up on this book) that I realized that a little theory I've had about the arts for some time now seems to be coming more and more true with every new book I read, with every year I continue being a book critic: namely, academes don't know what the f-ck they're talking about, and in the process are completely wrecking the entire literary industry we all used to know and love. I mean, how else to explain these people's baffling love for this unmitigated piece of garbage, which much like Augusten Burroughs presents a ridiculously overwritten, pop-culture-laced memoir of 1970s Gen-X childhood, featuring excruciatingly precious slang-filled magic-realism dialogue and with insanely too much gravitas assigned to such plotless meanderings as kids watching bad television and eavesdropping on their intellectual parents' insultingly banal conversations?

And then I realized -- oh, right, of course, this is an early-2000s novel by a white academe about how much white people suck (specifically, the story of the "re-whitening" of Brooklyn starting in the late '70s, after the New York borough turning into an ethnic slum following World War Two, a process called "gentrification" that has by 2009 turned nearly the entire city into a Caucasian hipster fantasyland); and man, if there's one thing that's become an undeniable truism by now, it's that back in the '90s and early '00s, academes tended to automatically fall in love with preciously overwritten screeds by self-loathing white males about the horrors of their fellow Caucasians, with the same kind of burning passion that, say, dogs love licking their own f-cking balls.

F-CK YOU, SELF-LOATHING GRAD STUDENTS! Stop ruining the entire subject of literature for the rest of us by falsely trumpeting these unreadable pieces of horsesh-t by such preciously twee suck-ass fellow self-loathing academes! J-sus F-cking Chr-st, no godd-mn wonder that the general public has stopped reading novels anymore, when you all keep running around handing out awards to execrable f-cking turds like this! Please, PLEASE, for the love of GOD, no more worshipping of overwritten plotless Gen-X pop-culture-obsessed '70s-memoir drivel! PLEASE! STOP! I'M F-CKING BEGGING YOU! STOP! STOP! STOP!

Out of 10: 0.0

This book was amazing. I'm not even exaggerating, it was probably the best book I've ever read. Jonathan Lethem is really good at getting inside of peoples minds, and looking at their life on a larger scale. I love the character of Dylan Ebdus, an adult who has spent his whole life sad and obsessed with his childhood (really I'm just simplifying because it's a lot more interesting and complicated than that). I love the way Jonathan Lethem moves through time, which i can't explain without spoiling the book. I love how super powers don't ever become central to the book, as if they are little more than a cool toy Dylan played with as a child. Basically, this book is what I've wanted to read my whole life. I was disappointed by the ending though.

Phenomenal. A brilliant character study, with an engagingly intertwining story, and just a hint of magical realism. In fact the quotient of magical realism doesn't even become revealed as magical until towards the final quarter of the book. (Of course, I may be biased - I live near where the book takes place, so I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of places I know well, as they were in the 70s. When a scene takes place in the Walt Whitman Projects, and you can turn around and see this obscure over your shoulder - that has an effect.)

In brief: No. This book doesn't do it. At all. At any time. I grudgingly give Lethem credit for trying to write the "Great American Novel," but it comes off short and ends up being overtly pretentious. And I can't believe they still wheel this guy out at every literary event happening within 50 miles of Brooklyn. Stop! Please, stop!

I read this a couple years ago, and the main thing I remember about it is that the first half is incredible, while much of the second half is retarded. Maybe now that I myself am older and lamer like the character gets in the book, I'd be able to relate better, and it wouldn't bother me so much.... Anyway, I liked this book a lot. The majority of it's amazing, enough so to make up for the crummy bits, which probably aren't actually that crummy, but only seemed so by comparison.

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to write a story-of-young-Jewish-Brooklyn-boy-who-loves-comic-books-coming-of-age that I will love, and Jonathan Lethem obviousky gets up pretty frikkin' early, like way earlier than, say, Michael Chabon, or a lot of the other guys out there. Then again, I'm a sucker for the race card.

La Fortaleza

70s, 80s, 90s. Ciencia ficción. Cómics: superhéroes. Brooklyn, NY. Adolescencia, amistad, paternidad, divorcio. Nombres como Dylan y Mingus, ah, y un magic ring. Diseño gráfico. Graffiti. Interracial. Música. Drogas. Literatura. Multirreferencialidad. Todo dentro de una de esas mal llamadas novelas autobiográficas, o semi-autobiográficas.
t¿Qué demonios se creen que es una novela? ¿Es necesario seguir marcando los libros con un género literario? Géneros que desde tiempos de Platón se sugerían debían ser caducos. Ante la incomprensión y la ignorancia. Frente a la corrupción de las mentes y la tergiversación de la Historia (sí, con H mayúscula, esa gran puta que es la historia y se va con el mejor postor). En esa endeble zona que llamamos por eufemismo «statu quo» no nos resta más que enarbolar la bandera de… ¿la bandera de qué? De nada. Un comentario más en el mar de comentarios que significa nuestra inútil lectura de las lecturas que un autor como Lethem puede hacer de su mundo.
t¿Me gustó o no el libro me preguntaría alguien, directamente? (Con mirada de cállate ya la boca y deja el palabreo vano de lado ya y comenta ya). Claro que me gustó. Me fascinó. Mejor aún: le entendí. Muy por encima del tiempo y de la ubicación geográfica, lingüística y cultural que me separan de alguien como Jonathan este es un librote, en el mejor sentido de la palabra.
tNo, no es una cima (ni una sima) de la literatura norteamericana del último cuarto del siglo XX de la costa noreste. No. Pero es un gran libro que vale la pena leer para todo aquel que se pueda sentir interesado por una interpretación de cualquiera de las etiquetas temáticas mencionadas en el primer párrafo. O, de plano, puede atraer a cualquiera que haya tenido infancia.
tEse sueño americano que es La Gran Novela Americana, y que representaría el «espíritu» de los Estados Unidos puede ser la meta a seguir de muchos autores. Hubo uno, uno de mis campeones, que no sé si por osadía o por vale madre o porque ese día andaba ebrio, tituló uno de sus libros así. En el caso de este libro de Lethem, meter todo dentro de un jarrito y saberlo acomodar queda como anillo al dedo. La narración realista, creíble y la conformación de unos personajes de carne y hueso sirven de plataforma para la fantasía. Como en las mejores novelas de Sci-Fi y Fantasy, Lethem aborda el mundo real y tangible como algo que está más allá de la comprensión simple de las cosas: hay más de un sentido en los acontecimientos. Parece mostrarnos que la ficción es un camino muy seguro a la hora de retratar el pasado inmerso en la memoria: quiero hablaros de mí sin mostrarme. Pero, para develarse es necesario descifrar un momento, una época, un antes y un después de ese pequeño Big Bang, de esa eclosión que significa «venir al mundo», de ahí el grueso, literal y figuradamente, de este libro. El alcance. La magnitud.
tAnte la desnudez no nos resta más que aceptarnos como somos. O, transformarnos, deformarnos, cyborgzarnos. O, escondernos, ocultarnos. El título hace referencia a esa «casa» de Superman, o su «oficina central», donde él podía ser él mismo sin tener que disfrazarse (aunque nunca se quitara de encima su traje). Esta «Fortaleza» debía ser contundente, debía tener la fuerza textual de conmover y de enganchar. El soundtrack del libro es buenísimo, como también lo son todas las referencias a las que alude página a página.

I wanted to like this book but i could'nt get into it , i got about as far as Dylan's frist starting school, it's something about Lethem's writing that just doesn't do anything to me. I tried twice to read Fortress of Solitude and both times it failed to engage me.

The writing is so stylized, and it gets in the way of the story. That might have been palatable if, after making my way past what felt like hundreds of unnecessary metaphors, I arrived upon a great story. Instead, I discovered a story lacking focus. Is this novel about anything? The narrative focus shifts from character to character, and around midway through the novel, the point of view shifts from third to first person. The transition to first person was the point at which I actually began to like the novel—the stylized writing seemed to be behind me, and the story became more focused around the central protagonist. Yet, around 50 pages from the end of the novel, an omniscient narrator is, yet again, providing a glimpse into another character's life. This novel was, to me, unsuccessful.

Onvan : The Fortress of Solitude - Nevisande : Jonathan Lethem - ISBN : 571219357 - ISBN13 : 9780571219353 - Dar 528 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2003

I feel like the ending really saved this book for me. I found the beginning interesting, but had a hard time working through the middle. The race relations in this story seemed very nebulous and conflicted; I may be reading too much into it, but it seemed like the author spoke through Dylan, who was continuously coping with or processing his childhood in a predominantly black neighborhood of Brooklyn. This was a process that never seemed to have a resolution, and I couldn't figure out if this was Lethem's attempt at puzzling out his own demons, or if he meant to send a certain message and just failed with me. Also, memo to Lethem--there is more to my neighborhood than the Brooklyn Detention Center, ok? I know it's tall, but you don't have to bring it up 50 times and ignore every other building surrounding it. Finally, I thought the superhero aspect was very weird until the end of the book. It had a much too gritty and realistic tone to also have the magical realism of the ring. It also invited comparisons (in my mind, at least) to the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which didn't help out this book any.

Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F9Gf...

An epic tale of gentrification and crushed hopes, The Fortress of Solitude is one of the densest books I've ever read, each page packed with lives and dreams and misery. It's depressing as fuck and crazy on so many levels, but for the sheer glow of its ambitiousness, it's a pleasure to read for anyone who's passionate about American literature and culture.

Jonathan Lethem's lyrical novel The Fortress of Solitude begins with a forceful act of imagination: Isabel Vendle's arbitrary conjuration of "Boerum Hill" from within the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, despite the absence of any natural elevation, using nothing more than lines drawn on a map.

The girls on wheels were the new thing, spotlit to start the show: white people were returning to Dean Street.
—p.4

That early sentence stopped me cold, at least for a moment. Gentrification isn't the villain here, though—that ugly word doesn't even appear in The Fortress of Solitude until page 51 (along with another, even uglier word), shortly before Mingus Rude (about whom more below) makes his own first appearance in Dylan Ebdus' life. Their Brooklyn neighborhood's changes are nothing more than background for the story Lethem really wants to tell, the photorealistic story (despite some fantastic elements) of two children in the 1970s—one white, one black—growing up together, and then growing apart.

Mingus Rude (and yes, he's named after Charles) is my age, just about—he was born in June 1963, and brought from Philadelphia to Brooklyn by his father, the soul singer Barrett Rude Junior. Mingus' mother is out of the picture—which creates an immediate bond between him and Dylan Ebdus, son of Abraham (and yes, Dylan's named after Bob too). Dylan's mom Rachel isn't dead, but she might as well be—she's gone off somewhere else, to a faraway planet from which only the occasional whimsical postcard can escape.

Invisible in a throng of invisible men{...}
—p.475

No superpowers are required. There's no actual faraway planet in The Fortress of Solitude, by the way, and no impregnable Fortress of Solitude either—the novel contains some science-fictional elements, true, but by the time Lethem introduces them, they almost feel like an intrusion into the real story. Lethem's novel is an extended investigation into childhood, into growing up in the 1970s—a classic bildungsroman. Two, actually. For even though Dylan is very much Lethem's viewpoint character, Dylan and Mingus, Mingus and Dylan... they're a team, despite their inescapable differences in age, outlook and, oh yeah, skin color.

You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all.
—p.259

This is true. A lot of The Fortress of Solitude rings true, actually, because it is true, even if fictionalized. I know—I went through a lot of the same shit Dylan does, myself, albeit on a much smaller scale, in a much smaller town where very little history has ever been made. (I was more like Arthur Lomb than Dylan Ebdus, though, truth be told—although that comparison won't mean much to you until you've read the book.)

The Fortress of Solitude is very much the story of a white boy growing up surrounded by—but still never really a part of—black America.

The Fortress of Solitude is also a very male story—here, too, Dylan's behavior towards women, and its outcome, are consistently recognizable and familiar:

Dylan feels despair rising. Fishnet tights do not a cultural vocabulary make. To the ironized, reference-peppered palaver which comprises Dylan's only easy mode of talk former prep-school girls have frequently proved deaf as cats.
—p.263

*

The Fortress of Solitude is divided into three parts (though it isn't otherwise anything like Gaul) (heh—those Latin classes in grade school were good for something after all):

Part 1 (The Underberg) ends Dylan's childhood with a single gunshot.

Part 2 (Liner Note) is an instrumental bridge, brief but essential, helping us transition just as Dylan does, from the East Coast to California, from a child telling himself stories to something more like an adult... still telling himself stories. Part 2 is the section of The Fortress of Solitude most explicitly about the music industry, but music itself—pop, rock, soul, funk, rap—pervades Lethem's novel from start to finish, lifting it up and filling it out. Lyrical... I used that word above. Those songs were everywhere—and there were no Bluetooth earbuds to hide them away from others. Lethem captures that omnipresent soundscape just as if—just maybe—he'd been there himself, listening.

Part 3 (Prisonaires) shifts (abruptly, I thought) to Dylan's first-person perspective, giving us direct confirmation of Dylan's thoughts, which are just about as self-absorbed as one could have guessed from the third-person narrative in Part 1:

There I learned that to find one's art is to kill time dead with one shot.
—p.406

Well, no—this is (like the name "Boerum Hill" itself) pretentious bullshit, though it does have a great beat—you could at least dance to it.

*

I read The Fortress of Solitude for the first time shortly after its release in 2003, long B.G. (Before Goodreads), and it immediately became a touchstone for me, a standard of comparison with other works of American literature. Back in 2015, for example, I said that Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue had originally reminded me of Fortress of Solitude, but that Lethem's Dissident Gardens was an even closer sibling.

Now that I've reread Fortress, though, I find myself shifting back to my original impression... both in its impact and its flaws, this earlier novel and Chabon's later one seem to fit together better.

But who in this day and age got answers to his questions?
—p.235

If you're looking for a happily-ever-after, fairy-tale (or, rather, comic-book) ending, look elsewhere. This novel provides fewer answers than questions, by far.

"The past is a foreign country," as L.P. Hartley famously said. The Fortress of Solitude is a better map to that country than most... and it's one I could have used while I was traveling through that remote and no longer accessible land.