Ako postoji neko pravilo poluautobiografske književnosti, onda ono piscu nalaže da ostane vjeran atmosferi i osjećanjima koje pamti iz vremena o kome piše, a događaje i likove može po želji da dodaje, izostavlja i na razne načine mijenja. Tako postupajući, Džonatan Letem piše o izazovima odrastanja u razorenoj porodici, u zapuštenom, crnačko-portorikanskom Bruklinu koji će tek nekoliko decenija kasnije postati hipsterski Diznilend. Stripovi, muzika, nasilje, seks i droga su očekivane stanice na putu koji od djetinjstva vodi preko dječaštva do mladosti, ali glavni motiv knjige je prijateljstvo piščevog alter ega Dilana sa Mingusom, crnim dječakom iz komšiluka sa sličnom, a opet sasvim različitom životnom pričom. Njihove sudbine, odnos i povezanost tajnom jednog čarobnog prstena u knjizi pratimo od ranih sedamdesetih do devedeset i neke.

Knjiga je strukturalno, hronološki, pa i stilski, podijeljena na dva dijela, pri čemu se prvi, nešto duži, i meni mnogo draži, završava s krajem srednje škole i odlaskom Dilana na fakultet izvan Njujorka. Mislim da prednost koju dajem ovom dijelu romana nema veze samo s tim da su njujorške sedamdesete, sa svojim pankom, ranim hip-hopom i grafitima po podzemnoj željeznici, egzotičnije i zanimljivije od osamdesetih i devedesetih u Vermontu i Kaliforniji. Rekao bih da je Letem prvu polovinu knjige pisao sa mnogo više emocije, sa mnogo više srca. Uostalom, na jednom mjestu u knjizi Dilan kaže da je njegovo djetinjstvo jedini dio života u kome nije bio zaokupljen djetinjstvom. I to se u pisanju vidi. Očito, za Džonatana Letema formativne godine su one do osamnaeste.

Drugi dio knjige zapravo je nepotrebno produžen epilog. Umjesto da fokus stavi na rješavanje teško razumljivog simbola čarobnog prstena i snažan zaključak, Letem kompromituje svoju inače vrhunsku prozu razvlačeći priču u nekoliko pravaca, na sporedne likove i marginalne događaje, i dajući nepotrebna objašnjenja pomalo potcjenjuje čitaoca. Ipak, bez obzira na ove neubjedljive momente, The Fortress of Solitude je odličan roman i zajedno sa prošle godine pročitanim Motherless Brooklyn (manje ambicioznim, ali zato jezgrovitijim, možda i inteligentnije napisanim), Letema čini jednim od najzanimljivijih američkih pisaca na koje sam naišao u posljednjih par godina.

READ IF YOU LIKE...
• Explorations of gentrification
• 70s music
• Light magical realism

I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A powerful dive into the life of a white boy growing up in a Black Brooklyn neighborhood. Dylan Ebdus, one of the only white kids on his block, tries to live every day by the kid rules of the street. When Mingus Rude, son of a famous singer, moves in with his father, the friendship they develop end up changing Dylan's life.

This novel is literary fiction at its max -- complex sentences rich with allusions, jumping perspectives, and long, winding roads that obliquely insinuate what Lethem is trying to convey. Sometimes it felt over-the-top, too pretentious, but most of the time it captivated my attention. The richness with which Lethem painted a kid's hot summer in Brooklyn was unparalleled.

Racial tension is at the core of this novel and with it comes complication. There are some elements that I think Lethem wrote well and there are others that Lethem really only skimmed the surface by incorporating a vague sense of "white guilt" that doesn't get explored any further. Some of his Black characters are beautiful and complex. Others feel very stereotypical. Finally, I get the sense that the magical realism piece to this novel is supposed to represent something about racial difference, but it doesn't get enough time or development to make a profound impact.

But outside of the magical realism, everything and everyone in this novel felt very solid, very believable, very real. Brooklyn was unraveled before my eyes in all its colors, people, and communities. Gentrification has broken many of these communities, but I'm glad at least they've been preserved in books like this one.

I first read this book in 2004 when I was in my early 20s. Like Dylan Ebdus, I had an odd-hours campus radio show and was obsessed with music, comics, my own lust, and my own childhood. I loved Lethem's sentences, the flying ring, the profound and flawed friendships. I collected the Omega the Unknown comics at Star Clipper on Delmar in St. Louis as each issue came out. Fortress gave me permission to love genre and literary fiction equally.

Now, in my forties, I am a little older than Dylan at the end of the book. I am heartbroken at what a mawkish, self-obsessed, murderous Holden Caulfield he is.

I am most overcome by the book's extreme violence against Black men, especially when Dylan tries to help. Dylan reckons with so much of his emotional landscape: the parents he never had, his disintegrated relationship with his girlfriend, even his loss of Mingus. But he never once implicated himself (even a little) in Seniors' shooting, the violent injury of the crack dealer, or Robert's pointless death. Why? How can Robert die, and Dylan just drives away listening to Brian Eno? And did that haunt me in my 20s? I don't remember.

I will be wrestling with this for a while. I hope that's the point.

Now that I've read this book, I share Lethem's amazement that James Wood reviewed it without mentioning the magic ring. Though the ring vanishes for long stretches of time, it is pivotal at several junctures, especially during the final scene between protagonist Dylan Ebdus, whose story of growing up white in non-white Brooklyn during the '70s this is, and his best friend, Mingus Rude, son of a famous soul singer, tagger, and, eventually, claimed by crack and consigned to the prison system. This intentional oversight caused a minor dust-up between the two back in the early Noughties.

Lethem writes a great sentence, that much seems clear to me. Some of the Goodreads comments excoriating him--one even classes him with Updike, who, whatever his faults via-a-visit his female characters, had one of the great styles of the 20th-century, as an example of genuinely awful writing--leave me puzzled. When Dylan's archenemy, Robert Woolfolk, intimidates him into a "loan" of his bicycle, Dylan sees a neighbor, a grown-up, down the street. Possibly a savior? Lethem writes it like this:

Old Ramirez stood in front of his store and sipped a Manhattan Special and squinted at them from under his fisherman's hat. He was beyond appeal, watching them like television.

Such perfect use of simile here: not only can Dylan expect no help from neighbors whom he can clearly see, his impending humiliation will also function as entertainment, a channel endlessly diverting. Even if a reader is turned off by the switches between omniscience and first-person point of view, the shuffling among tenses, and the backward and forwards skips in time, it's a tall order to levy a charge of poor writing against someone who continually in this novel demonstrates an ear and eye for fresh language.