Не си спомням друга книга, в която главният герой да има Синдром на Турет. Това е едно нетипично преживяване, свят на хаотична подреденост. Струва ми се, че Литъм се е справил доста успешно с представянето на света от една такава нестандартна за останалите хора точка.
При все това, "Убийство в Бруклин" не е точно моята книга. Тя определено дава на читателя едно класическо ноар преживяване, с всичките му гадни черни шегички, мрачна атмосфера и прочие (даже не е много сигурно дали в днешно време биха я издали, заради модерната политкоректност). "Туретският мозък" на Есрог обаче (както той самият се изразява) изключително натоварваше сетивата ми, че и своите си сетива, и това започна много да тежи някъде към средата на историята. Предизвика в мен умора и даже малко апатия към изхода от събитията. Може би ако случаят беше по-оплетен и нямаше толкова пътуване напред и назад из спомените, щеше да е в по-голям плюс.

Have you read Motherless Brooklyn yet? If not, what are you waiting for? I mean, sure, the idea of an orphaned private detective with Tourette's Syndrome sounded a little strange to me too, possibly even depressing, but as it turns out this novel is anything but depressing. It's hilarious! And exciting! The book begins with a car chase, which is exactly the sort of thing that seems like a terrible idea to me, but I was riveted and that feeling didn't let up. The aforementioned orphaned detective is one of the best characters I can ever remember encountering in any novel anywhere. I really want to read more of Jonathan Lethem's books now, but I don't see how even he could live up to the high bar he's set here. In any event, I'm happy I finally read this one now. Definitely in my top 3 for 2017 so far, and possibly in my top 10 novels of all time. Yay Motherless Brooklyn!

This book came out when I was at the height of my fascination with Tourette's Syndrome so that probably played a part in how much I loved it. As well as loving most things Brooklyn, orphan or neglected children as heroes, and, oh year, GREAT writing. I love ALL things Lethem (and not because he writes about Brooklyn but probably the other way around!).
This story of a feisty, resilient, greatly-buffeted boy growing up in (you guessed it) Brooklyn is ultimately a moving tribute to childhood and human resilience but more immediately an absolutely terrific witty insightful and often hilarious read.
I say a must-read for all! Anyone who doesn't love it should reread continuously until they've learned to!

Did I forget to mention it's also a mystery so mystery readers every (especially those with a taste for good writing) will also enjoy.

I really wanted to love this one. I really did. Highly acclaimed, an intriguing premise, not to mention that I have a very similar problem to the story's hero, Lionel. A unique hero with a serious case of Tourette's, he is trying to solve the mystery of his idol's murder. Frank Minna, who rescued young Lionel from Saint Vincent's Home For Boys, was the first to accept him for who he was & learned to love him, despite his problems. One of the last people to see him alive, Lionel feels a responsibility to solving the murder.

Along with Lionel, Tony, Gilbert, & Danny made The Minna Men, small-time errand boys for Frank, a small time mafia man. They work under the cover of a car service, called L & L. As Lionel continues his investigation, he finds it difficult to trust his fellow Minna Men. In fact he does not know who to trust at all. It seems that he is on his own. His personal investigation takes him outside of New York City for the first time, across the path of a large man whom he suspects is behind Minna's murder, & face to face to "The Clients" men even the great Frank Minna feared & refused to call by name.

With a fair amount of suspense, nice pacing, and some funny parts, this novel would have been another simple beach read. But the aspect that could have raised this novel to something great was the part about Tourette's. Instead, Lethem played this to the extreme, making it a hindrance rather than an asset. It reminds me of the impression The Catcher In The Rye left me with: A novel idea for an interesting, original hero, but executed ineptly. I am familiar with Tourette's & how sad it can be. I am familiar with how intrusive it can be. But when every other paragraph, every sentence of dialogue is infused with Tourettic yells? Well, that is a little more intrusive than I care for my reading to be. Furthermore, Lethem seems confused as to whether he wanted to be empathetic towards Lionel's Tourette's. We see how he can admirably execute his aims in life despite this problem, but, on the other hand, the name-calling seems a little excessive to me. There is no standing up for the name calling; no correction when he is treated unfairly. Laughing it away seems to be the solution, which I do not agree with so much.

I hate to say it, but given the way Letherm portrayed Lionel's Tourette's, I would have preferred the typical, everyday hero for the story...

What is it about Brooklyn? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Joe Pitt in Half the Blood of Brooklyn. Last Exit to Brooklyn. Not to mention a hundred different movies. Something there must spark the imagination, get at the essence of life.

Motherless Brooklyn is one of the most solidly crafted books I've read this year. Since it's the end of February that may not sound like much, so I'll throw in December and November of 2017 as well. Really, it was just so pleasant to trust in Lethem, with page after page doing fascinating things. I was distrustful at first, I admit; the protagonist has a serious case of Tourette's Syndrome whiched seemed like an Authorial Big Idea that could go awfully wrong. But it doesn't. It's handled with aplomb, with sensitivity, with humor; with an even hand that gives expression to the experience.

"My mouth won’t quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I’m reading aloud, my Adam’s apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone."

But a man with Tourette's is not really what this is about, not really. This is a homicide, a mystery which our protagonist, Lionel, feels compelled to solve. Since his teens, Lionel has worked as a small-time muscle for mentor and eventual friend Frank Minna. Lionel and Gerald are supposed to be back-up support for Frank at a meeting. Things go terribly wrong, and the relationships within Minna's Men become fragile and uncertain.

"Together [the streets] made a crisscrossed game board of Frank Minna’s alliances and enmities, and me and Gil Coney and the other Agency Men were the markers—like Monopoly pieces, I sometimes thought, tin automobiles or terriers (not top hats, surely)—to be moved around that game board. Here on the Upper East Side we were off our customary map, Automobile and Terrier in Candyland—or maybe in the study with Colonel Mustard."

Lionel is a likable hero, Tourette's and all, driven to explain and organize around him. He's an observant and humorous narrator, and if he is occasionally led around by his id, he's aware enough to understand it. Communication is, of course, a challenge for Lionel. I was afraid it would always be played for laughs, or worse yet, for pity, but Lethem has a nice balance between the internal thoughts and the external expression that allows for the occasional laughs with him instead of at him.

"My jaw worked, chewing the words back down, keeping silent. Gilbert’s hands gripped the wheel, mine drummed quietly in my lap, tiny hummingbird motions. This is what passed for cool around here."

I went in expecting a mystery, and Lethem delivers, certainly. But wrapped up in the mystery is a solid, thoughtful portrayal of man who was given the closest thing to family and companionship he ever knew by a low-level mobster. The mobster, in turn, gets much of his own portrayal, at least from Lionel's viewpoint. It ends up being a bit of a bromance, or a non-jerk example of the 'dick-fic' genre (see The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death). At one point, I realized with some surprised that I was reading a solid literary-fiction kind of book, with beautiful writing and human drama, wrapped up in a mystery.

"The ashtray on the counter was full of cigarette butts that had been in Minna’s fingers, the telephone log full of his handwriting from earlier in the day. The sandwich on top of the fridge wore his bite marks. We were all four of us an arrangement around a missing centerpiece, as incoherent as a verbless sentence."

Unlike mystery-thrillers, it isn't a particularly teeth-clenching, anxiety-producing kind of book (except, perhaps, on behalf of Lionel) that requires one to stay up late to read 'one more page.' Yet there's something quite solid about it, curious, moving, wry and intriguing that let me immerse myself whenever I picked it up. I feel like there's also solid re-read potential here. In fact, I think I will. Might even be worth adding to my own library. Reminds me of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, and that's high praise indeed. I'll have to check out The Fortress of Solitude, also by Letham, when I can handle some straight-up lit-fic.

Four and a half--EatmeBailey--tics, rounding up

Per total eu nu am fost prea încântată pentru că nu a fost genul meu. Pur și simplu nu am avut răbdarea de a-l urmări pe protagonist și nu am reușit să mă obișnuiesc cu toate manifestările bolii sale. Mi-au distras atenția de la tot și abia am reușit să mă bucur puțin de atmosfera din acea perioadă care mi-a părut redată foarte bine. În plus, a avut prea multă acțiune pe stradă între golani/mafioți pentru gustul meu. Dacă ar fi să asociez întreaga poveste cu ceva, m-aș duce cu gândul direct la filmul Poveste din Bronx, excepție făcând personajul principal atipic de aici. O lectură decentă și ușoară dacă descoperiți cum să treceți peste ticurile lui Lionel, doar că eu am simțit că se putea face mai mult cu un astfel de protagonist și nu am descoperit un motiv pentru care romanul ar fi valoros. Recenzia aici: https://bit.ly/3jnc4sY.

,,Lumea (mintea mea) este plină de oameni terni, oameni morți, terni morți. Sunt fantome care nici măcar nu-ți intră în casă, fiind prea ocupate să urle pe la ferestre. Sau, vorba lui Minna, cum îți așterni, așa dormi - e valabil , indiferent dacă accepți sau nu ideea, într-adevăr e valabil. Nu pot să mă simt vinovat chiar pentru oricine.''

"eat shit, dickyweed"

READ YOUR BOOKS BEFORE HOLLYWOOD DOES!

(now a major or minor film that nobody really enjoyed)

The only reason I give only 4 stars, is because I gave more than 3 times 5 stars this month. Fantasticfiction states "Lionel Essrog, a.k.a. the Human Freakshow, is a victim of Tourette's syndrome (an uncontrollable urge to shout out nonsense, touch every surface in reach and stroke people). Local tough guy hires Lionel and other boys and grooms them to become the Minna Men, a detective-agency-cum-limo service." But that's blatantly unfair to a clever, sensitive, funny, wonderful book. At the point where the protagonist car crashes on somebody trying to kill him on one side and then goes and crashes him on the other, saying that "only a compulsive person can understand this", it entered the pantheon of "books you must read because I say so".

Go read it. Chop-chop! Don't see the movie, it's crappy.

n  And the third time's indeed the charm!n
Read previously circa 2000 and again several years later. My first read, at least, was as an audiobook.

This is the tale of four punks and a hood
In Brooklyn, New York, tryin' to make good,
Mommyless orphanage, no Cub Scouts or den--
Instead, Mista Meanor made 'em his men.

Once they're abandoned, the center can't hold;
Our ticcy hero must be bold (or fold).

You follow the thread as the story unspools,
Learning who are the wise guys and who are the fools
And who, the financial wizards of Zen,
And how can our motherless boys become men.
In the midst of the noir and the middle of chaos,
Can the love and sacrifice yet be the stronger force?

Outbursts tics, outcome art, drawing both tears and laughter--
The Shakespeare of Tourette's: Lethem's the crafter!

Why did I burst into song? Motherless Brooklyn isn't considered poetry. Yet it finally occurred to me that's exactly what it is. The author may have studied up on Tourette's syndrome, but the only way he could have written those verbal tics is as though writing poetry.

Look at a sample of what he does with the guy's name alone--Lionel (rhymes with Vinyl) Essrog.

n  Viable Guessrog

Alibyebye Essmob
--Alibi hullabaloo gullible bellyflop smellafish....

Unreliable Chessgrub

Yessrog

Edgerog, 33, seeks Edge

Laughing Gassrog

Laugh-or-cry Edgelostn

Well, you had to be there!

n  Context is everything.n

Before, I gave the book a "3."

So, what changed? If the other reads were audio, that could be part of it. One part that, one part lying fallow, one part reading times three, and one part laughing out loud, lol. Throw in one part read for book club, just in case it was too-intense-to-read-alone. And finally figuring out after the reading was done that it's like a musical, the hero launching, genre as trampoline, not so much into music as into weird haiku-ish poetry and manic stand-up, words for drumbeats. Lemme entertain you.

Lionel Essrog is a mover and a talker, a word and a gesture, a detective and a fool. Lionel Essrog c'est moi.

Ένα αστυνομικό βιβλίο (δεν το λες λογοτεχνία) που περιγράφει "εκ των έσω" το σύνδρομο Τουρέ: ο ήρωας, ο αφηγητής, πάσχει από σύνδρομο Τουρέ και εμείς είμαστε μέσα στο μυαλό του, ακούμε τις σκέψεις του, ακούμε για ποιο λόγο αντιδράει (και μιλάει) καθοδηγούμενος από το σύνδρομό του.
Συνειδητοποιείς ότι άλλο να ξέρεις θεωρητικά περί τίνος πρόκειται κι άλλο να το διαβάζεις έτσι, από πρώτο χέρι...
Βρήκα εξαιρετικά πρωτότυπη την ιδέα του συγγραφέα, πολύ χρήσιμη-σχεδόν ευεργετική για τους ανθρώπους που έχουν Τουρέ, καθώς ανοίγει την περίεργη πραγματικότητά τους στον πολύ κόσμο.
Εξαιρετική δουλειά έκανε επίσης και ο μεταφραστής καθώς πρέπει να ήταν πολύ δύσκολο να βρει λέξεις με τις οποίες να εκφράσει τις περίεργες-σύνθετες-συνειρμικές λέξεις που βγαίνουν από το στόμα του ήρωα.

Είναι "ένα χρήσιμο βιβλίο", και ταυτόχρονα απόλαυση για κάθε λάτρη των αστυνομικών ιστοριών. Πολύ χάρηκα που βρέθηκε στο δρόμο μου.

Povestea unor puști luați din orfelinat de un mic mafiot și crescuți în spiritul afacerilor străzii. Acțiunea se petrece în momentul maturității lor, când au evoluat deja de la cărăuși, oameni buni la toate, șoferi de taxi către statutul oficial de detectivi ptr lumea ciudată a mafiei din Brooklyn. Șeful lor, cel căruia li se datorează aproape întreaga viață, este ucis și întreg romanul e o tentativă de a afla adevărul.

Rolul central îl are unul dintre puști, Lionel Essrog, bolnav de sindromul Tourette, ceea ce îl face ciudat și nefrecventabil în majoritatea situațiilor. Mintea și trupul lui sunt supuse tiraniei ticurilor nervoase, de la gesturi bruște și repetate până la cuvinte ciudate, făcute să rimeze absurd, presărate în orice discuție sau gând. Acest Lionel dă farmec poveștii și mintea și ticurile lui dau senzația unui roman noir, lent, dar grozav de picant în vocabular.

Povestea micilor mafioți prinși între interesele mari e un pretext pentru a vedea cum poate trăi și rezolva o poveste un individ cu sindromul Tourette. Inevitabil, romanul are un farmec aparte și Lionel e un personaj cu adevărat reușit.

I used to have a customer with Tourette’s. Back when I was a teenage supermarket teller, a million and a half years ago, she used to come through my line routinely. At the time, I didn’t reflect much on her condition other than that I assumed it must be tough for her occasionally, but how tough it really was I considered only in the vaguest sense, to the extent that I considered it at all. (Sorry, lady, but I was 17 and had a whole slew of 17 year-old thoughts to preoccupy myself with.) She seemed to handle it in stride, though, or least this was my impression of our brief bi-weekly interactions—I certainly don’t remember there being any social awkwardness. It probably helped, too, that she never made any apologies for her outbursts.

So it was interesting for me, with Motherless Brooklyn, to experience life through the first-person perspective of Lionel Essrog, a man with, not only Tourette’s, but also its oft-accompanying sidekick, obsessive-compulsive disorder. With the little foreknowledge I have of these syndromes, I’m not able to say whether the novel faithfully represents them, but I’d like to think it does. Aside from the neuropsychiatric issues, Essrog also has a fascinating character history. Inexplicably orphaned at a young age, he grows up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood and is recruited by a low-level Italian mobster whose eventual murder serves as the basis for the book’s detective-story plot. Essrog’s physical and verbal tics—which are conspicuously present throughout the investigation—do not impede the reader’s enjoyment of the novel, as his internal dialogue remains unhindered by the disorder (other than expressing an oncoming urge to shout or tap or straighten or poke), all of which I believe is consistent with the way Tourette’s presents in its sufferers. What’s more, Essrog’s tics almost endear the reader to him. I felt a kinship with the misunderstood, relatively lonely man who is driven by a misguided sense of loyalty in the search for his mentor’s killer.

Being at its core a mystery/crime thriller, Motherless Brooklyn at times falls prey to some of the clichés of the genre, but Lethem succeeds in transcending this label by writing with, I don’t know, heart or something. Essorg’s world, touched as it is by inner-city dealings and by mob activity, is still somewhat insular and claustrophobic. It’s his relationship to the elements of this tiny world, however, that drive his motivations and make this book among the more interesting crime novels I’ve read in a while.